21 February 2010

One Lucky Penguin

I suspect that many of you have seen this before, but it’s new to me. I drove out to Custom Box Service the other day, where Nick and Jeff just had to show me this animal intelligence video.
What happens if you’re a penguin being chased by a pod of killer whales? How do you escape? [...]

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18 February 2010

It’s Not Easy Being a Man

For a long long time I’ve wanted to be be able to support my artistic friends by commissioning them to do art specifically for me. I’ve had this dream ever since I saw some of Nory’s work from the Art Institute of Seattle back in the mid 1990s. I’ve never had the guts — or [...]

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13 February 2010

Dairy Goat Journal

I subscribe to several magazines about homesteading and self-sufficiency. While it’s true that Kris and I don’t live on a homestead, we both like the idea of doing stuff for ourselves. (One of us is better at it than the other, as you all know. I’ll admit: I’m more dreamer than doer.)
Because I subscribe [...]

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12 February 2010

On the Verge of Inbox Zero

Alright folks. I’ve nearly done it. After years of being buried in e-mail, I’m down to just 39 messages left to process before my inbox is empty. Not bad, eh? Over the past two weeks, I’ve managed to archive hundreds of old messages, delete hundreds of others, and actually reply to a couple of hundred [...]

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11 February 2010

Roths Hate Doctors

I’m not sure why, but my family has a history of avoiding doctors. When I was a boy, I remember that my mother hobbled around on a sprained (broken?) ankle for days (weeks?) before going to get it checked out. When I was a freshman in college, I broke a finger while playing touch football, [...]

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10 February 2010

A Conk on the Head

Seven years ago, I spent about two weeks living in utter agony from the pain of “frozen shoulder”, or adhesive capsulitis. The condition came on suddenly, and for more than ten days, it felt like somebody was digging a dagger into my left shoulder even when it moved a tiny bit. It was during this [...]

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5 February 2010

The Orangutan and the Hound

Now that I plan to write more at Foldedspace in the future, one topic I’ll expore over and over is animal intelligence. As many of you know, I’ve long been fascinated by animals and their cognitive powers. Though I don’t think they have human intelligence, I think they’re much much smarter than most people give [...]

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2 February 2010

Food Rules

Tonight I read Michael Pollan’s latest book, Food Rules which is a short list of 64 guidelines for eating right. These are based on the findings in his last book, In Defense of Food, the thesis of which was:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan’s food rules build on these three main points to create [...]

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1 February 2010

Learning to Loaf

One of the things that sucks about being productive is that I no longer know how to relax. Once, not so long ago, I was the Master of Slack. If there was work to be avoided, I avoided it. I preferred to relax — and I was good at it.
Now, though, the opposite is true. [...]

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30 January 2010

Taking the Long Way

Now that I’m finished with the bulk of the work on Your Money: The Missing Manual, I finally have time to do stuff again, to live life. Last night I went bowling with the MNF group. This morning, for the first time since late September, I took a stroll through the neighborhood.
“Hey,” Kris said as [...]

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