We’re visiting my mother and grandmother in northwest Arkansas. They are at an age and in a place where politics are discussed, religion is assumed and passion is reserved for the important things, such as the best variety of peach…
Band Jocks
This year we’re participating in an American summer tradition: The Drive Across The Country. Our route this year takes us from San Diego, California to Austin, Texas. Via Minneapolis. Illogical and inefficient–true, but it gives us the chance to see the kids…
iPhone 3.0 – An Untethered View
To all those I know who are Apple-onians (or is it Apple-ites?) – First, let me say that I think the iPhone is a very cool device. I may even end up with one. Soon. But before I drink the…
The Bandwidth Gap
One of the downsides of the insularity of the American culture and the self-enclosed European culture is its bounding effect on opportunity space thinking. One example that is easy to illustrate is in technology. People in the post-development societies of…
A Milestone. Or Not.
After 9/11, and especially after visiting ground zero, I had some strong personal reactions. I wrote some magazine columns and also wrote quite a bit about the issues and challenges surrounding the event in non-commercial venues. In addition to doing…
Mis-Invention
Legend has it that when Thomas Edison created his phonograph he conceived of it as a method to record and playback messages between individuals. Legend also has it that Alexander Graham Bell envisioned the telephone as a device useful for transmitting…
The Book Shelf
One of the traumas of moving to an eReader such as an Amazon Kindle is that you have no more books to display on your bookshelves. Bookshelves can be a trauma in their own right, as my friend Lee Wochner…
IPPY Awards
I couldn’t understand it, as soon as I started to thank my third grade teacher, I was applauded off the stage… It was a fun event, replete with interesting anthropological studies of authors, publicists and various posses and hangers-on. The food…
Fuso Update
Our Fuso is still in South America. We’ve had some issues with the American shipping company we contracted to ship the truck from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Long Beach, California. It has been a very challenging and stressful experience so far,…
How The World Works wins 2009 IPPY Silver Medal
How The World Works, one of the books I wrote last year, won a 2009 IPPY silver medal. There were 4,090 entrants for all categories in the awards. How The World Works tied for second place in its category, Juvenile-Teen-Young…