Category: Family and Friends
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Fructose malabsorption: the latest milestone on an epic digestive health odyssey
[Update (August 2016): Since writing this post in 2011 about an odyssey that began in 2009, our hypothesis that Amy has fructose malabsorption has been disconfirmed. I hope the information in this post will still be of use to those who have similar hypotheses, or confirmed diagnoses. Amy still suffers from periodic episodes of extremely…
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Jonah Lehrer’s Metacognitive Guide to College
Jonah Lehrer, the 27 year old author of How We Decide, gave the Opening Days convocation keynote at Willamete University last Friday. After being introduced by Willamette president M. Lee Pelton as “a humanist disguised as a neuroscientist”, Lehrer offered a fun and fascinating whirlwind tour of neuroscience, psychology and sociology, in the context of…
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A warm welcome at Willamette University Opening Days
We brought our daughter down to Willamette University this week and enjoyed a warm welcome during their Opening Days orientation program. I had written about our short tour of small colleges in the Pacific Northwest last March, which included Willamette and several other schools she was considering. Meg eventually applied to and was admitted to…
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Stuff-Centered Sociality: Commerce, Conversations and Conservation at a Garage Sale
Items on display at a garage sale provide myriad conversation contexts for buyers and sellers alike. Amy and I host or participate in a garage sale (or a tag sale as they're known back east) every few years, but it wasn't until this past weekend that I was struck by the way these events –…
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Certified Cancer-free: Celebrating Amy’s 5th Anniversary
Amy had her final post-treatment check-up at Cascade Cancer Center yesterday, and I am happy to report that she has been discharged as a patient there, 5 days shy of 5 years since she was initially diagnosed with cancer. Although she continues to experience some side effects from the treatment, according to her doctors, Dr.…
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Giving thanks for my ‘speed dial friends’
I am grateful for all of my circles of family and friends, offline and online, but on this day of Thanksgiving, I want to express my special appreciation for a small subset that I often call my speed dial friends: the set of my closest friends whose phone numbers I have programmed into the single-digit…
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Contradictory ridges, self and Self
Continuing with the themes of poetry, inspiration and great friends, another great friend, Dan Oestreich, bought me a book of William Stafford‘s poetry, “The Way It Is“, a few years ago – one of many ways he helped me navigate a dark time filled with shadows.The other night, I picked up the book – which…
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Direction, by Len Silverston
The following poem was composed by my great friend, Len Silverston, a spiritual teacher and database guru. I am posting it here with his kind permission … and can't help thinking "When the reader is ready, the poet appears". Direction (Where I go, matters less than where I come from)by Kensho Len Silverston It matters…
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Jackson Browne: a cool, crisp concert at the Chateau
We saw Jackson Browne in concert at Chateau Ste. Michelle last night. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and his fellow musicians gave a crisp, clean performance of many familiar songs on an unseasonably cool evening at the winery. Of all the concerts I've seen at the winery – nearly all of which are…
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A short tour of small colleges in the Pacific Northwest
My wife, 17-year-old daughter and I toured four colleges in Oregon during her mid-winter break: Reed College, Lewis & Clark College, Linfield College and Willamette University. I wanted to record a few impressions of the different places while the experience is relatively fresh, and decided to post them here, in case they are of use…