Summer camps in Covid times

I write this shortly after my nine-year-old has been dropped off at a summer day camp. Your reaction to that line will range from some variation of “Hey, that’s super!” to “What the hell are you thinking?” And as a parent in these pandemic days, I’m rolling up and down through the range of those…

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Monarchs are cool

Off and on for a couple of years, we’ve raised monarch butterflies from eggs to first flight. It’s really cool to see. There’s something satisfying and heartwarming about seeing a monarch that you raised from a tiny egg finally crawl out of its chrysalis, dry out its wings and fly away. We just got some…

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Fun with photos

A couple of Christmases back I received a little set of photo lenses that clip onto my cell phone, and while I haven’t used them a ton–a fisheye lens, while cool in its own wonky way, isn’t an everyday kind of photo accessory for me–a recent rainy day offered a great opportunity to give the…

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What I read this month

June was no less busy for the household than previous isolation months had been, and in some ways was even more busy. On top of the usual busyness of taking care of household, shopping and cooking duties (while ensuring that my wife had the time and space needed for all her online teaching, and my…

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What I’m reading

There may be no genre I enjoy as much, but can be so disappointed by, as science fiction. Any genre has its good and bad, of course, but I find the best science fiction of certain stripes really strikes a chord with me–Blade Runner is my favourite movie–while the worst of it is particularly bad….

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What I’m reading

I’d heard the name Josh Gondelman for years off and on, but particularly recently on various comedy podcasts I started seeking out as some levity to working in a news environment where I hear close to four hours of (almost entirely negative, often demoralizing) news a day. And lately I’ve heard his name more often,…

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New baked goods being had

If there’s one thing that this pandemic isolation has done, it’s made people want to bake. And I don’t mean just in a kind of idle way, but it seems people are baking their asses off. The first thing that went to the hording mobs, as we all know, was toilet paper. Don’t get me…

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