I lost about $18,000 this week, and gave myself a whole lot of extra work for which I’ll get paid nothing. And I regret none of it. Promises I do quality writing and editing work. I meet deadlines and never break promises. I suppose I do this to maintain my reputation. But as I think…
Waiting rooms suck. Think of every waiting room you’ve ever been in: doctor’s office, dentist’s office, motor vehicle department, car dealership, train station, bus station, airport — they’re all terrible. Every waiting room sends the same message: your time is worth less than something else. It might be the doctor’s time, the motor vehicle people’s…
One of the most creative things I do is to help authors select titles and subtitles for their books. While doing a book titling brainstorm yesterday, I asked the AI writing tool ChatGPT to come up with suggestions; it did a creditable job and generated some subtitle text we may end up using. But is…
I have a problem. I have too much talent. I’m good at math. I’m good at writing. I’m good at project management. I’m better at most of those things than the people I work with. (I’m not good at humility, as you may have noticed.) I took jobs that reinforced my arrogance. I had to…
I’ve spent a lot of time with some old people in a retirement community this week. What strikes me is that many elements of who they are were set long ago. It’s not that they can’t learn new things. Far from it. There is an enormous amount of learning going on here. They go to…
Wrong question. How can you not blog every day? What work did you do today? What did you learn from that? Surely you learned something. Is it something others could benefit from learning? What did you read today? Did you agree with it? Why? Did you disagree? How would you explain what was wrong about…
Every year at this time I consider the people to whom I owe the most gratitude. This is year it is healthcare workers: nurses, doctors, social workers, therapists, and even the reception and office staff. I’m grateful to all the people who helped deal with my father‘s cancer and the end of his life. The…
What, after nearly nine decades, is the measure of a man? What does he leave behind? 261 assorted cables, coax, RCA, lightning, USB 1.0, 2.0, and up 69.5 dongles 22 power cords 1.68 TB total on 43 thumb drives, 99.1% empty, capacities 32 MB and up 15 sets of earbuds and headphones 5 mice 109…
“How are you doing these days?” “Oh, I’m fine.” Liar. What was today like? Three hundred insults and injuries. The circuit breaker blew when you turned on the toaster. A twinge from your back. Looks like mice in the pantry again. The kid’s tantrum. Ugh, what a traffic jam. What’s that smell — is something…