Odds & Events

Travel

  • Spider Eyes

    Spider Eyes

    We went to Belize a couple springs back — Spring Break 2024, jungle half of the trip at Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge — and I learned something there that I cannot unlearn. It doesn’t bother me,…

Reviews

  • Updated My Travel Fit, Watch Out Portugal

    Updated My Travel Fit, Watch Out Portugal

    If you read my Portugal post, you know how this started. Jennifer had opinions about my travel wardrobe. The citizens of Lisbon had opinions about my travel wardrobe. I came home suitably chastened and with a…

Political

  • Activist, Deactivist, and the Fox Guarding the Henhouse

    Activist, Deactivist, and the Fox Guarding the Henhouse

    A new format: my unfiltered gut take on the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling and the partisan-gerrymandering racket, followed by a fact-check of every claim I made. Bias up top. The check at the bottom.

House & Home

  • This New Old House, Part 21: Post and Beam Kit Barn

    This New Old House, Part 21: Post and Beam Kit Barn

    From the moment we started planning the house, we knew there would eventually be a barn. Eventually being the operative word — we were already stretching to build the house, so the barn was going on…

Rants

  • Confessions of an Adult Toddler

    Confessions of an Adult Toddler

    My shoe philosophy has done a full lap. It started where everyone’s starts — slip-ons and Velcro, because I couldn’t tie laces yet — and it has now, decades later, returned to that exact spot. Different…

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All Posts

  • Activist, Deactivist, and the Fox Guarding the Henhouse

    Activist, Deactivist, and the Fox Guarding the Henhouse

    A new format: my unfiltered gut take on the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling and the partisan-gerrymandering racket, followed by a fact-check of every claim I made. Bias up top. The check at the bottom.

  • Confessions of an Adult Toddler

    Confessions of an Adult Toddler

    My shoe philosophy has done a full lap. It started where everyone’s starts — slip-ons and Velcro, because I couldn’t tie laces yet — and it has now, decades later, returned to that exact spot. Different shoes. Same logic. The…

  • The White Sole Argument I Lost to Myself

    The White Sole Argument I Lost to Myself

    For most of my adult life, white soles felt like a costume. Like I was dressing as a younger version of myself. The white-soled sneaker had a specific era for me — Air Force 1s, old Puma Clydes, that whole…

  • This New Old House Part 22: Porch Upgrade (That Happened to Coincide with Lockdown)

    This New Old House Part 22: Porch Upgrade (That Happened to Coincide with Lockdown)

    Our kit house came with about a dozen front-entry options. Most of them weren’t really porches at all — they were flush to the house, or very slightly recessed with some nice trim work. A couple had actual covered entryways,…

  • Spider Eyes

    Spider Eyes

    We went to Belize a couple springs back — Spring Break 2024, jungle half of the trip at Sleeping Giant Rainforest Lodge — and I learned something there that I cannot unlearn. It doesn’t bother me, exactly. But it has…

  • ProLife / ProChoice / ProReason?

    ProLife / ProChoice / ProReason?

    A federal appeals court just ordered the FDA to require in-person dispensing of mifepristone — the pill used in roughly 60% of abortions in this country — and it applied that ruling nationwide at the request of one state. Louisiana…

  • Gonna Party Like It’s 1999

    Gonna Party Like It’s 1999

    A new US party structure, by way of Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Nordics. Three things need to change if we want a country that actually moves instead of just performing motion for the cameras: The first two…

  • US Against Them : Enough is Enough

    US Against Them : Enough is Enough

    The third song in the Enough Is Enough campaign. It’s not red vs. blue. It’s about the people on top who need us fighting each other so we don’t notice them.

  • BrokeCon By Design: The Complete 25-Part Series

    BrokeCon By Design: The Complete 25-Part Series

    A 25-part series on how American life got rigged against the bottom 90% — system by system, with receipts.

  • Crashed My Bike Trying to Avoid a Garter Snake, And Then My Dog Wanted In On The Action

    Crashed My Bike Trying to Avoid a Garter Snake, And Then My Dog Wanted In On The Action

    We live right next to the rail trail — our property literally borders it — so we end up using it a lot. I walk the dog there. I ride my bike. The section closest to us is the rough…

  • Do Unto Others: The Complete 5-Part Series

    Do Unto Others: The Complete 5-Part Series

    A 5-part series on transactional empathy, asymmetric hypocrisy, and what democracy requires that we’re no longer providing. Start here.

  • Divided We Fall: The Complete 10-Part Series

    Divided We Fall: The Complete 10-Part Series

    A 10-part series on the culture war as a business model — and what the data actually shows on the issues it sells you. Start here.

  • Passing the Buck: The Complete 15-Part Series

    Passing the Buck: The Complete 15-Part Series

    A 15-part series on how costs got shifted off corporations and government and onto individual workers — and what it would take to reverse it. Start here.

  • Vehicle Roof Philosophy

    Vehicle Roof Philosophy

    I Was Wrong About Moon Roofs

  • This New Old House, Part 21: Post and Beam Kit Barn

    This New Old House, Part 21: Post and Beam Kit Barn

    From the moment we started planning the house, we knew there would eventually be a barn. Eventually being the operative word — we were already stretching to build the house, so the barn was going on the someday list alongside…

  • Union Strong: The Only Thing Standing Between Us and the Bottom

    Union Strong: The Only Thing Standing Between Us and the Bottom

    I’m not a union guy in the way you might picture a union guy. I’ve complained about unions. I’ve worked around them because the budget demanded it. I’ve watched strong-arm tactics that embarrassed everyone involved. I’ve sat in a production…

  • My Wheel Philosophy That Became a Tire (Tyre) Philosophy

    My Wheel Philosophy That Became a Tire (Tyre) Philosophy

    I am a firm believer in snow tires and I think the fact that I have to say that out loud in 2025 is genuinely one of the more baffling things about living in the Northeast — like, we all…

  • The Upside Down

    The Upside Down

    We are living in the Stranger Things Upside Down. Same country, wrong version of it. I used to think Trump Derangement Syndrome existed on both sides. People so blinded by their feelings about one man that they couldn’t think straight.…

  • Youth Sports Is Broken (And I Helped Break It)

    Youth Sports Is Broken (And I Helped Break It)

    I’ll start with a confession: I was part of the problem. That’s not false modesty or a rhetorical device to soften what I’m about to say about the adults who turned our town’s recreational youth sports leagues into something unrecognizable.…

  • A Picture to Replace the Thousand Reminders

    A Picture to Replace the Thousand Reminders

    I have two kids. Twelve and almost fourteen. And look — I know that whatever they are, that’s mostly on me. You are what you’re exposed to, right? I get that. But some of this is just kid behavior. And…

  • Why I Started My Ecom Shop as an Accidental Designer

    Why I Started My Ecom Shop as an Accidental Designer

    It started, as most things do in my house, with baseball. My kids got into it around six years old — right past the T-ball phase where everyone’s just spinning in the outfield catching dandelions — and from there it…

  • Paris, September 2024: Tag Along Trip

    Paris, September 2024: Tag Along Trip

    My wife Jennifer had to go to Paris for work and she was kind enough to buy me a plane ticket so I could come with her. I’ve done this before — tagged along to Vietnam once, Kauai another time…

  • Aphantasia, Dyslexia, and ADHD: How I Made a Career in a Visual Industry Without a Functioning Mind’s Eye

    Aphantasia, Dyslexia, and ADHD: How I Made a Career in a Visual Industry Without a Functioning Mind’s Eye

    There I was on 87, Ubering one of my kids to a travel baseball tournament in New Jersey — kid in the back with headphones on, or asleep, which amounts to the same thing. Half-listening to NPR because it’s either…

  • PARTY OF ONE : ENOUGH IS ENOUGH SONG 3

    PARTY OF ONE : ENOUGH IS ENOUGH SONG 3

    Here’s something nobody in either party wants you to think about too hard: they cash the same checks. Not the same voters. Not the same rhetoric. Not the same culture war. But the same donors, the same bundlers, the same…

  • This New Old House, Part 20: Interior Doors, Trim, and Hardware

    This New Old House, Part 20: Interior Doors, Trim, and Hardware

    I wasn’t sure this post was needed. I thought we’d covered interior doors and trim somewhere — maybe with the windows, maybe with painting. Turns out we hadn’t. So here we are. This will be short. That’s what I always…

  • Why Have I Started to Smell Like A Frito Corn Chip?

    Why Have I Started to Smell Like A Frito Corn Chip?

    I’ve been noticing something for the past few weeks. I smell like Fritos. Not after eating Fritos. Not near Fritos. Just as a default condition of existing. I’ll be sitting somewhere, not doing anything corn-adjacent, and I’ll get this whiff…

  • Updated My Travel Fit, Watch Out Portugal

    Updated My Travel Fit, Watch Out Portugal

    If you read my Portugal post, you know how this started. Jennifer had opinions about my travel wardrobe. The citizens of Lisbon had opinions about my travel wardrobe. I came home suitably chastened and with a list of things to…

  • LIVING THE DREAM: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH SONG 2

    LIVING THE DREAM: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH SONG 2

    We say it like it’s a fact. Greatest country on earth. Number one. Living the dream. But when you actually look at the data — the rankings, the numbers, the verified receipts — the scoreboard tells a different story. Living…

  • Strait of Hormuz: The Board Game Edition

    Strait of Hormuz: The Board Game Edition

    Like most people, I’ve been watching this story with a mix of disbelief and exhaustion that is quickly becoming the default setting for following American foreign policy. I want to be upfront. I’m not a foreign policy expert. I don’t…

  • This New Old House, Part 19: Bathrooms

    This New Old House, Part 19: Bathrooms

    When we designed the bathrooms, we made one decision upfront that was purely forward-looking and, honestly, pretty smart: the first-floor powder room got a shower. The room next to it — which we were using as a playroom, game room,…

  • My Clothing Philosophy (Who Even Has One Of Those?)

    My Clothing Philosophy (Who Even Has One Of Those?)

    If you’ve been following my ongoing clothing saga — the chore coat search, the Red Wing chronicles, the light duty boot quest — you might have noticed that I have opinions. Strong ones. Possibly unreasonably strong ones for someone who…

  • The Navien NCB-240/110 Propane Combi Boiler — One Year In

    The Navien NCB-240/110 Propane Combi Boiler — One Year In

    Our Triangle Tube Prestige SOLO 110 finally gave up the ghost. Actually, “finally” is generous — it went out on its own schedule, which was, of course, the worst possible time. The short version: indirect water heater tank with an…

  • Drowning in It

    Drowning in It

    There’s a moment every four to five weeks that snaps me back to reality. I load up the car, drive to our local transfer station, hand Dan a coupon, and drop off a single 44-gallon bag of trash. One bag.…

  • The Peace President Needs to Fund His Wars Instead of our Health and Child Care. So Democrats Talk About Crayons?

    The Peace President Needs to Fund His Wars Instead of our Health and Child Care. So Democrats Talk About Crayons?

    Sort of an Opinion piece but not really, it’s just this country is batshit off the rails. You seriously could not make up how out of touch these people are. WTF Is Wrong With Us? No Seriously… Let me set…

  • This New Old House — Part 18: The Kitchen

    This New Old House — Part 18: The Kitchen

    Layout and Flooring The kitchen is where you spend most of your waking life in a house. Jennifer did the layout and it works — the flow is right, the dining area sits just off the kitchen where you can…

  • My GMO Concern Confusion (Until I Finally Looked It Up)

    My GMO Concern Confusion (Until I Finally Looked It Up)

    For years, I walked past products screaming NON-GMO! and thought… so what? I’ll be upfront: I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. I’m also an optimist — or maybe a pessimistic optimist? An optimistic pessimist? I’ve never quite nailed…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More Part 15: How We Get There

    Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More Part 15: How We Get There

    Part 15 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This is the final installment. The last fourteen installments have been an attempt to describe a structural problem. This one is supposed to…

  • Angry Old Extremely Religious Christian White Man Yelling from His Porch Syndrome

    Angry Old Extremely Religious Christian White Man Yelling from His Porch Syndrome

    What finally broke my brain was the sequence. The Epstein files dropped. The same movement that built itself on QAnon, on “protect the children,” on Democrats running pedophile rings out of pizza basements — the moral foundation that supposedly separated…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More Part 14: What We Could Have Instead

    Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More Part 14: What We Could Have Instead

    Part 14 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The previous thirteen installments have been an attempt to describe the structure of cost-shifting in American economic life and to trace how that…

  • Are We About to Come Full Circle on Who We Trust?

    Are We About to Come Full Circle on Who We Trust?

    I was driving to yet another baseball tournament Saturday morning, half-awake, NPR on in the background, when a story about AI disinformation in the Iran conflict completely hijacked my brain for the next forty-five minutes. The segment was trying to…

  • This New Old House — Part 17: Exterior, Siding, Roofing & Trim

    This New Old House — Part 17: Exterior, Siding, Roofing & Trim

    Siding By the time we got to the exterior, the siding decision came down to two options in the Connor package: cedar or HardiePlank. Jennifer would have preferred the cedar — she always gravitates toward natural wood — but once…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 13: How We Got Here

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 13: How We Got Here

    Part 13 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The structural picture this series has been building was assembled over roughly fifty years, through a sequence of policy changes that, taken individually,…

  • Is the Iran War America’s Biggest Self-Own of Self-Owns?

    Is the Iran War America’s Biggest Self-Own of Self-Owns?

    Three and a half weeks in. Twenty-four days of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, oil at $112 a barrel, thirteen American soldiers dead, the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, and the administration now scrambling to lift sanctions on the…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 12: The Bipartisan Consensus

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 12: The Bipartisan Consensus

    Part 12 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The previous installment looked at where the money goes. This one looks at why the political system has not redirected it, which is…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 11: Who Profits?

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 11: Who Profits?

    Part 11 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The ten installments before this one traced where the money goes — the categories where household spending has grown, the mechanisms by which…

  • WTF Is Up With MTG?

    WTF Is Up With MTG?

    Something happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene and I’m still not sure how to file it. Six months ago she was the most reliably deranged member of Congress. She’d stalked a teenage school shooting survivor through the Capitol on video. She’d…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 10: The Compound Effect

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 10: The Compound Effect

    Part 10 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This series has spent nine installments going category by category through the structural changes that have shifted costs from corporate balance sheets onto…

  • What’s Wrong With the Democrats. What’s Wrong With the Republicans. It Doesn’t Matter.

    What’s Wrong With the Democrats. What’s Wrong With the Republicans. It Doesn’t Matter.

    Neither One Will Deliver for You. Let me start with something that should be obvious but somehow never gets said out loud. Neither party won the last election. The other party just lost it more. That distinction sounds like splitting…

  • How an Angry Old MacDonald Became a Protest Song

    How an Angry Old MacDonald Became a Protest Song

    It started with a question: What is actually wrong with this country, and why do we seem so far apart? The division felt real. The anger felt real. But when you actually looked at the polling data, something didn’t add…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 9: Death, Taxes, and Everything In Between

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 9: Death, Taxes, and Everything In Between

    Part 9 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This installment is about all the other fees: the ones below the line on the bills I have already written about, the surcharges…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 8: Insurance

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 8: Insurance

    Part 8 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. On the morning of December 4, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed on a sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 7: Phone and Internet

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 7: Phone and Internet

    Part 7 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This installment is about phone and internet service, which has become the cleanest example in modern American life of what happens when a…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 6: Food Monopolies

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 6: Food Monopolies

    Part 6 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This series has been working its way through the categories of household spending where the cost has been quietly shifted away from corporate…

  • The Metric System Makes Sense to Everyone

    The Metric System Makes Sense to Everyone

    When I was a kid, we started learning the metric system in school. There was an actual plan. America was going to join the rest of the world and switch from the imperial system — the one built on the…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 5: The Auto Trap

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 5: The Auto Trap

    Part 5 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The first four installments traced cost shifts inside relatively well-defined transactions — wages versus productivity, employer-to-worker benefit transfers, overdraft fees, credit card interest.…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less. Part 4: Credit Cards

    Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less. Part 4: Credit Cards

    Part 4 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. Part 3 looked at the overdraft side of consumer banking. This one looks at the other side of the same relationship — the…

  • How MTV Killed the Video Star (And Cable/Network Greed Finished the Job)

    How MTV Killed the Video Star (And Cable/Network Greed Finished the Job)

    I’m not a media analyst. Smarter people than me — like Evan Shapiro, who you should follow on LinkedIn — dissect this industry for a living. But I spent years working inside broadcast television, and I’ve been chewing on this…

  • This New Old House, Part 16: Chim Chimney, Chim Chimney, Chim Chim Cherooh-Noo

    This New Old House, Part 16: Chim Chimney, Chim Chimney, Chim Chim Cherooh-Noo

    Some mistakes cost money. Some cost time. The chimney cost both, repeatedly, for years. If you’ve been following along, you know that this build had its share of “we didn’t know what we didn’t know” moments. The windows. The spray…

  • Dress to Impress (Who, Exactly? The Fine People of Portugal Obviously.)

    Dress to Impress (Who, Exactly? The Fine People of Portugal Obviously.)

    We just got back from Portugal and it was fantastic. Lisbon, Porto, the hills, the pastéis de nata, the Super Bock — loved all of it. I dress for the weather. I dress for the walking. I dress to stay…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 3: Banking Fees

    Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 3: Banking Fees

    Part 3 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. In Parts 1 and 2 I walked through the picture: the math on a typical American household has tightened over fifty years even…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 2: The Baseline Shift

    Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 2: The Baseline Shift

    Part 2 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. In Part 1 I walked through the math on one specific case — a nurse making $77,000 a year, doing everything right, with…

  • This New Old House Part 15: Flooring – Wide Plank Heart Pine Dreams vs. Reality

    This New Old House Part 15: Flooring – Wide Plank Heart Pine Dreams vs. Reality

    After painting came flooring. And I had a very specific vision: wide plank flooring with exposed face nails, just like colonial homes from the 1700s. Old growth wood with character. Reclaimed if possible. The authentic historical look. The Connor Homes…

  • The Telo MT1, Almost — And the Truck I Actually Want

    The Telo MT1, Almost — And the Truck I Actually Want

    The setup, briefly: we have a 2016 Audi Allroad my wife loves, somewhere past 100,000 miles and probably pushing 125k by the time we replace it. Comfortable, capable, hauls everything. The brief for its replacement is simple — she wants…

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 1: The Impossible Math

    Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 1: The Impossible Math

    Part 1 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. A few years ago I started keeping a list. It began with a conversation at the field after one of Henry’s games. A…

  • This New Old House Part 14: Painting – Or: Why I Hope I Never Have to Use a Paint Sprayer Again

    This New Old House Part 14: Painting – Or: Why I Hope I Never Have to Use a Paint Sprayer Again

    After drywall came painting. And by “painting,” I mean painting literally everything in the entire house. Every wall. Every ceiling. Every piece of trim. Every window interior. Every door. All 27-28 of them. Both sides. Jennifer and I decided to…

  • Americans Agree on Almost Everything—We Just Don’t Realize It

    Americans Agree on Almost Everything—We Just Don’t Realize It

    I scroll Instagram mostly because I have to. Crooked Number lives there and you can’t sell baseball mom shirts to an empty room, so I spend more time on it than I’d choose. Which means most of what I see…

  • How I ignored a broken well tank for two years

    How I ignored a broken well tank for two years

    January 9, 2026 Looking back, I think the well tank bladder had been broken since at least summer 2024. It might have been failing for a year or two before that. What I was noticing: the water pressure would drop…

  • Rainy February in Portugal with Two Kids (13 & 12)

    Rainy February in Portugal with Two Kids (13 & 12)

    We had to go to Portugal in early February for Jennifer’s AIMA residency appointment, which is the kind of thing you don’t get to schedule. They tell you the date, you show up. We figured if we had to be…

  • The heat pump job I gave the wrong company

    The heat pump job I gave the wrong company

    March-April 2025 If you read my previous post about the emergency boiler replacement, you know that Company PPH didn’t exactly shine during that crisis, while Company NCS stepped up and saved Thanksgiving. You also know that I felt guilty about…

  • When the boiler died the Sunday before Thanksgiving

    When the boiler died the Sunday before Thanksgiving

    November 2024 Our Triangle Tube Prestige Solo 110 boiler had been breaking down occasionally, and each service call was costing a minimum of $1,200. I got so frustrated with service companies that I learned to fix minor issues myself. But…

  • This New Old House Part 13: Drywall – The Most Boring Post (But There Are Lessons)

    This New Old House Part 13: Drywall – The Most Boring Post (But There Are Lessons)

    After spray foam insulation, plumbing disasters, HVAC complications, and window decisions I’d come to regret for the next fifteen years, we finally got to something relatively straightforward: drywall. It went fine. Which, in this build, was its own kind of…

  • Do Unto Others Part 5: What This Means for Democracy

    Do Unto Others Part 5: What This Means for Democracy

    Part 5 of Do Unto Others, a 5-part series. Read the complete series → This is the last installment of the series, and I want to do something I have been putting off for the previous four pieces — actually…

  • Do Unto Others Part 4: Flooding the Zone

    Do Unto Others Part 4: Flooding the Zone

    Part 4 of Do Unto Others, a 5-part series. Read the complete series → In 2018, Steve Bannon gave an interview to Michael Lewis. It was during Trump’s first State of the Union, and Lewis was writing for Bloomberg. Asked…

  • Do Unto Others Part 3: Both Sides Are Hypocrites

    Do Unto Others Part 3: Both Sides Are Hypocrites

    Part 3 of Do Unto Others, a 5-part series. Read the complete series → Last installment I said I’d take up the question you hear at every Little League snack bar and every Thanksgiving table the second you start documenting…

  • This New Old House Part 12: Insulation and Air Sealing – When Tight Isn’t Right (Or Is It?)

    This New Old House Part 12: Insulation and Air Sealing – When Tight Isn’t Right (Or Is It?)

    When we decided to build our Connor Homes kit house, we had visions of a super-efficient, modern home wrapped in the latest insulation technology. We’d read all about spray foam, tight building envelopes, and energy efficiency. We were going to…

  • Do Unto Others Part 2: “My Own Morality”

    Do Unto Others Part 2: “My Own Morality”

    Part 2 of Do Unto Others, a 5-part series. Read the complete series → In the New York Times interview published January 8, 2026, Trump was asked whether anything constrained his power on the global stage. He answered: “Yeah, there…

  • Term Limits: I Was For Them Until I Wasn’t

    Term Limits: I Was For Them Until I Wasn’t

    Honest opener: I used to think term limits were obviously a good idea. Get rid of the lifers, drain the swamp, fresh blood, problem solved. It polls at 87% support for a reason — pretty much everybody across the political…

  • Vote FOR Something: An Honest Look at Voting Reform

    Vote FOR Something: An Honest Look at Voting Reform

    The last time I felt good about a vote I cast for president, I was probably in college and the candidate was probably losing. Every election since has been damage control. I’m not voting for somebody, I’m voting against the…

  • Do Unto Others Part 1: When Empathy Becomes Transactional

    Do Unto Others Part 1: When Empathy Becomes Transactional

    Part 1 of Do Unto Others, a 5-part series. Read the complete series → The way I’d planned to start this was with a list of names. Then I tried it and it read like an indictment, which isn’t what…

  • This New Old House Part 11: Windows – The Decision Where More Mistakes Were Made.

    This New Old House Part 11: Windows – The Decision Where More Mistakes Were Made.

    If you spend a fortune making your house air-tight with spray foam insulation, and then punch 27-29 holes in it and fill them with cheap windows, you’ve basically defeated the entire purpose of the exercise. This is the story of…