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Civility
I have the opportunity to travel to a faraway place for work. I go there a lot. When I land there, I arrive in a city of 25 million people. It is a big city. I have been there 10 times so far. I have spent about 2-3 months of my life in this city.…
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The Cathedral of Rouen
I had a 12th grade English teacher, who loved Shakespeare. He tried to introduce us to all things Shakespeare. At the time, all that I could handle was the Cliff Notes version. So I didn’t absorb very much. But one thing that I do remember, is that he highlighted the role of Shakespeare’s Fool. (This…
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Financial Literacy
When Theresa and I moved in together in 1988, we had almost nothing. Theresa owned her car, and had a bank account. I did not have a car, and my “account” was a negative number. My net worth started with a negative. We rented an apartment, and we had almost nothing in it. We had…
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Mother Nature
When I was in school, I remember learning about Weather. We did experiments on condensation, precipitation, and evaporation. None of it made an impact. Today, I am looking out my window, and the snow is starting. This is supposed to be a big one. Some forecasters are even capitalizing it: a Big One. There are…
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Is this thing on?
Where do I start? How about with my life list. Several years ago, a colleague suggested that I create a life list (now known as a “bucket list”, thanks to a movie of the same name). My colleague suggested that if I created a life list, I would put goals onto paper, and make them…
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Essayists
When I was young, I read a collection of essays by Robert Benchley. He was an essayist popular in the 1940s-1950s, and my father had a copy of some of his essays. It was the first time I read something in that format, and I was struck by the idea that someone could write a…