In the beginning was the pit. Yesterday, I did something I hadn't done in a quarter century. To be entirely frank, that quarter century has gone so fast that I didn't realize how much I missed it. I moshed. It was the perfect 'dance' for Generation X; a simplistic jumping motion, bouncing into other flannel-covered, Birkenstock-wearing, holey-blue-jeaned grungers, like molecules under high heat and pressure. Moshing was wild abandonment to a moment of uncaring. The 90's were a time of transition, from the overly-synthesized 80's to the crunching, distorted guitars. The music reflected this t ..read more

I'm having reservations.  At the risk of sounding old-ish, technophobic, or even wallowing in grumpiness, I'm hesitant about embracing artificial intelligence. But it's not for any particular Hollywood reason: I have no reason to think humankind is about to be used as batteries, or that computers will take over the world, or AI will don a maroon, Spandex outfit and float off with the rest of the Avengers. I believe that AI's greatest threat to humanity is not in the destruction of civilization, but destruction of creativity. New technology like ChatGPT offers an incredible opportunity to ..read more

I have to admit it.  I suffer from a particularly strange form of covetousness about pens, writing tools, you know - sharp pencils are a source of fascination for me, and the mere thought of a fat ball point pen makes me shiver with delirious glee. Why, if I see someone has left a pen on a bench, or a seat in the park, maybe lying on the ground after it's dropped from their bag, I rarely will say, 'Excuse me, but I think you dropped this.' The chivalrous thing to do would be to pick up the pen, hold it like the holy grail in front of them, and await their over-the-top gratitude for return ..read more

Not long ago, I forgot my phone sitting on the counter at home. In general, I'm not particularly strapped to my phone, but when I got to work and realized that I was now without it, I experienced something odd. I know I'm supposed to write something like, I felt so free, or, Finally, I could focus on the tasks at hand, and yes, there was a semblance of that, but what else I felt was disturbing. I felt a sense of loss and something escaping me. As a Gen Xer, I should have been above it, but I wasn't. Suddenly, I recognized a deep sense of... Untethering.  It's a good word f ..read more

Once upon a time, a woman bought an estate with a large house, an expansive yard and a brooding forest in the acres beyond. The woman fell in love with the mansion, with arched porticos and terraced gardens along the side. After moving into the house, she entered the lawn to bask in the rays of the sun. Eventually, she approached the forest and found a hidden path with an old oak tree positioned beautifully in the middle. When she returned to the sanctuary of her house, she thought, 'I have finally made it in life. I have everything that I desire.' One morning, when the light was not yet fu ..read more

It's a definite Australianism (like 'G'day mate, Yeah - nah, or She'll be right, mate') to respond to the question, 'How'ya Goin'' by answering, "We're getting there." Usually, this response means that the person 'Getting There' is having a particularly difficult time but doesn't really want to talk about it, and the hearer of the response is to proclaim in a particularly cheerful way, "Good on ya." Because I'm not one for idle banter, not that I despise it, but I find it a thick veneer to cover up what we really need to talk about, I ask the question that many don't expect. "Where is ..read more

I was all set to write about the disappointing reality of attempting to remain positive with 3 EASY STEPS, but the truth is, everything crumbled again yesterday with the news of another school shooting in the U.S.  Those three words: Another School Shooting are the greatest symbol of a world gone mad. And yet, while Americans scramble to fight over political militarized zones, gun rights versus the eradication of things that kill people (the irony should not be lost on many other things that both sides conveniently ignore which kill people), much of the world looks on derisively.&nbs ..read more

It's just one of those things. A common occurrence, I guess. First a sniffle, then a slight cough, Can I take a deep breath? and you know what's coming. You're about to jab a plastic stick up your nostril, past your sinuses and scrape the inner lining of your brain.  A few mornings ago, I woke up with the symptoms listed above, and because I haven't had COVID yet (that I know of), I thought it had arrived. After dunking the plastic stick containing my grey matter into the little plastic tube, I squeezed it out and waited. Deep down, I had a feeling it wasn't COVID. I was right. My ..read more

Recently, my daughter Josephine, who is in her last year of studying Chemical Engineering, had the opportunity to do some internship work at a lead smelter. Part of working at the smelter is to learn the risks of working with (and in) a facility that deals in dangerous chemicals. Thus, Josephine had to learn about the effects of lead on the body and how to mitigate against these risks by policies and procedures. One of these obvious procedures is to cover up the entirety of her body so that no lead was absorbed into her skin. This meant that from head to toe, she wore a thick, orange jumpsuit ..read more

It's an amazing thing to be able to overhear how young people speak with and to each other.  In general, teenagers are in the throes of navigating space, personal and social, and finding order in a chaotic world. Often, their discussions reveal a desire for understanding - both their own, and how they can be understood. In our contemporary world, teenagers catch a lot of flack for all sorts of things, but are they really any different than any other generation? Aren't they trying to find their way in a world that is completely different than the one their parents inhabited? So they comm ..read more