b.rox

It may not look like much, but this is the start of my Mardi Gras costume:

I wish I had some idea what I was doing.

Xy’s been feeling poorly lately. She has a cold, which as usual turned into a sinus infection, which as usual causes recurrent migraines. She’s also had her first real period in a year or more. (She’s on some crazy birth control medication that is supposed to make her have a period every three months, [...]

My right knee, which I twisted in December, is getting better every day. I had been favoring it, limping, and generally trying to stay off of it. Seems that was the wrong approach, as my sister pointed out to me. It just got stiffer and weaker. So I’ve been trying to walk normally, and [...]

I found this on the bike path at the Jeff Davis overpass:

I’m not sure what animal it belonged to.

The girls across the street came over to our house and, with a little help from Xy, they made necklaces for their mom, who died last week.

The one Willanita is wearing in this picture says “RIP Danita.”

I’ve learned a few things about Whole Foods. Apparently their cramped and idiosyncratic little store in Mid-City is very much a thing of the past. Apparently their newer stores are all big box WalMart-like monstrosities. I’ve never set foot in one, but I’ve heard stories.
And I just got this via e-mail:
Hello. As many of you [...]

The only heat in our bathroom comes from this old electric heater:

When it gets cold, this thing just turns on all by itself. Something wrong with the rheostat, I guess. The door to the bathroom is blackened on the inside from being up against the hot coils. By strategic positioning of a magazine rack, we’ve [...]

The girls across the street don’t live with their parents. Dad’s in jail, and the girls are being raised by their paternal grandmother. I don’t really know Mom’s story. Her name’s Danita. She lives in the Calliope, a housing project not too far from here. She comes around occasionally.
But I should use the past tense. [...]

Kelly Kuglitsch (nee Slinkman) and her lovely husband Paul visited New Orleans for a wedding. We shared a nice meal at Pascal’s Manale, but Kelly couldn’t have any raw oysters, because — surprise — she’s pregnant!
But Mary Hardy isn’t, anymore.

I purchased a General Electric Longlife Plus 3-Way Soft White 100 Energy Saving Bulb a couple weeks ago from the local hardware store. A sticker on the package says it’s guaranteed for eight years; the fine print specifies 10,000 hours. The bulb cost $15.79. Wow, that’s a lot. But the package also claims it will [...]

I posted a set of photos from the Jazz Funeral for Democracy.

Xy assigned her students to write a short essay reflecting on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. One student turned in a neatly typewritten sheet. He claimed he wrote it himself, but the fact mere fact that it was neatly typewritten was enough to tip Xy off. Turns out it was the very [...]

Tonight I helped Donika, one of the girls who lives across the street, with her math homework. Normally Xy does this, but the subject was triangles, and Xy’s not confident of her geometry skillz. I’ve always found geometry easier than arithmetic and a hell of a lot more interesting.
I was intrigued by the fact [...]

David and I were discussing an NPR story about untranslatable words this morning, and it reminded me of two words from Norden that I hadn’t thought about for a while: the Finnish word sisu and the Swedish word lagom. They’re both reputed to be untranslatable, so you’ll pardon me for not explaining what they mean. [...]

The reason I hate winter is days like these. It’s cold. I’m cold. I gather that it dipped down to freezing for an hour or two last night. But that’s the temperature outside — what about the temperature inside? In my home office, as I type this, it’s 63 degrees. And that’s with the heat [...]

My birthday. 38 is the first number I’ve hit that sounds old to me. And given my game knee, which doesn’t feel any better after two days of rest, I’m feeling kind of old too.
Today is also Martin Luther King Junior Day, but of course MLK was born on January 15th, not the 17th. You [...]

If Austin is so cool, then how come Whole Foods (which is based in Austin) is pulling out of my neighborhood? That’s not cool!

Xy & I went to Sean & Dawn’s wedding. (Sean is Xy’s partner teacher, and they have a great working relationship. I’m grateful to him even though I hardly know him personally.) I love weddings, and this was a great one, and interesting in a number of respects.
The ceremony was held at St. Peter Claver [...]

I sent the following query to Computer Chronicles via the contact form on their website:

I am trying to research the question of the first television show broadcast on the Internet. I have found a number of references indicating Computer Chronicles went online in 1995. Is any more information available regarding this event? In particular, I [...]

A massive cold front is sweeping across the nation, bringing storms with it. This morning, it hit New Orleans.
I’m glad I’m not riding my bike in that mess.