Susan G Komen 3-Day Walks This Summer

By | June 1, 2023

I will be participating in the 2023 Susan G Komen Denver and Chicago “3-Day” walks. They’re 60 mile walks that take place over three days. Each walker is required to raise $2300 per city in order to take part. (This is my 15th year walking.) The Denver walk is August 25-27. The Chicago walk is September 8-10. (I… Read More »

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Lived Experience

By | December 18, 2022

Two random thoughts that popped into my head today at almost the same time: 1) I have never had to sleep in a bathtub. In movies and sitcoms this sort of thing seems to happen all the time; you have one more person than you have beds and couches and next thing you know the person whose house… Read More »

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Farewell and goodbye, sister

By | October 15, 2022

I always feel as though I should start every blog entry with “I know hardly anyone will read this and it’ll probably come across as self-indulgent navel-lint-picking, but I’m posting it ANYWAY.” So, that said, if you’re still reading this, I apologize in advance for what will probably be a real downer of an entry. My sister Elizabeth… Read More »

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Green Black Walnuts

By | October 5, 2022

When I was a kid growing up in the mountains of Virginia, there was a large black walnut tree directly behind our house, close enough that on windy days you would hear thump! thump! thump! as green walnuts dropped from the tree and onto the flat roof of our house, especially over the room I slept in. Dozens… Read More »

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Death of a kitty

By | September 27, 2022

The post below is not ‘new news’ — it’s something I’ve been meaning to post since early July. It may be ‘new to you’ or it may be something you already know about via Facebook or elsewhere. Our cat, Marie, passed away on July 6, 2022 after a lengthy battle with cancer. If you have actually been following… Read More »

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Updates That No One Will Actually Read, Part 1

By | September 26, 2022

There is nothing more futile than the maintainer of a personal blog that no one ever read in the first place suddenly deciding that it’s time to post a bunch of catch-up entries. But anyway… The last thing I posted here was a furious rant aimed at Google for taking my smartphone for warranty repair (the screen was… Read More »

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Google warranty repair flat-out lost my phone three weeks ago and refuses to do anything about it

By | June 7, 2022

Three and a half weeks ago the screen on my Google Pixel 5a phone conked out — I could call my phone and it would ring and I could even get in my car and make calls using my car’s dash screen and my previously paired phone, but no matter what, the screen stayed black. After lengthy calls… Read More »

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“I Could Feel His Hand On My Shoulder…” and All That

By | May 18, 2022

I had a thought this morning: Let’s say that I happened to wind up in an active shooter/hostage situation of some kind and somehow managed to tackle and disarm the gunman. Unfortunately, in this hypothetical scenario, I do get shot multiple times and wind up clinging to life in the ICU. I am a white male who attends… Read More »

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Anniversary

By | May 18, 2022

Today is the 24th anniversary of my starting my current job at what was then called IDX Systems Corporation — a software firm specializing in healthcare information systems, including radiology, hospital and large practice revenue cycle, scheduling, clinical data management, etcetera, etcetera. The firm was purchased by GE in 2005 and made part of GE Healthcare (mostly because… Read More »

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Unpleasant Flashbacks: Bad Employers Edition

By | May 6, 2022

  I had a random flashback just now to an unpleasant memory. From late 1995 to May of 1998, I worked for a franchised computer software training firm in the Triangle region of North Carolina (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill). We offered the kind of instructor-led classroom instruction that you sent your office staff to in order to learn how to… Read More »

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