“For our mother Flora Park in loving memory.” So read, approximately, a small plaque on the backrest of a bench in the SF arboretum. “Aaw,” I thought, “How nice that she was loved.” And then, “How sad that they lost
Death beneath the surface
Life as the meaning of life?
It took a couple of years, but I think I figured out a meaning of life, sufficient for my own. It is: live life and then make way for other life. I only started wondering about life’s meaning in earnest
Missed connections (thinking about my dad)
My dad and I sit in the same spot, on a terrace in front of a tiny cottage he and my mom built in Croatia, looking out at sunset after sunset. Only I sit here after his death, and he,
Old Wrinkly and the Internet
In the “How to Train Your Dragon” children’s book series, the hero, Hiccup, consults his grandfather, “Old Wrinkly,” when he encounters a problem, such as his friend getting sick with a mysterious illness, or not knowing the function of the
Other people’s gardens
San Marino was my first serious relationship with a neighborhood of gardens. I fell in love just as soon as I stumbled upon it, soon after I started college. Across California Blvd. from my Caltech undergrad dorm the flat street
Recharge: a month of doing little
After working at Facebook for 5 years, I was eligible for a month’s “recharge” leave (thanks Facebook!). I opted to spend it in Croatia, with my mom. Spending September in Croatia has eluded me for a long time. And when
The tyranny of resale value
Last weekend I repainted some flowers on my ’91 Honda Civic, Miss Daisy. I’d done this first about 15 years ago, when the car was worth almost nothing, and now again when she is still worth nothing. But she’s worth
Why I left my academic job
[spoiler alert:] It was a two-body problem/opportunity. But many people have asked me about it and so I thought I’d pitch in my 2 cents about academia vs. industry (which will hopefully not be too biased since really I like
The Zoom of Life
You know when you’re looking up a place on Google Maps? And you accidentally swipe the trackpad or the mouse slips or something, and then #@&*, you’re suddenly looking at a whole continent? And whereas the zoomed-in map showed clear
Remain seated, with your seatbelts fastened and … watch ads
As the indignities of air travel pile on, I had come to view the little ‘personal entertainment device’ embedded in the seat in front of me as a welcome, optional, escape. But on a recent Delta SFO->JFK trip and back,