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
A year of being a self-published pest
The first self(?)-published author I can recall foisting his book upon me was my 9th grade French teacher. He told the class he had written a book, praised it at length, and instructed us to order it. Shortly thereafter he
Caltrans district 4 bike survey maps
Earlier this year Caltrans conducted a survey, where you could drop “pins” on a map and specify examples of good bike infrastructure, where there are barriers to biking, and where new or improved bike routes are desired (all this on
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
On running and not running
Runners — in many ways I have to grudgingly admire them. When I roll in to work, they are already there, hair damp, crunching on some granola, having woken up at some ungodly hour to go for a run. More
The unquantified self
It was a sunny Saturday morning in Phoenix, AZ, when I found my friend sitting in a lounge chair outside, working with a spreadsheet, while his daughters played nearby. “Sorry you have to work on a Saturday,” I said, mildly
My trouble with physics
[The following are my embellished recollections of things that happened about 20 years ago, and as such may not resemble reality… much.] “The trouble with physics”, a book about the questionable validity of and investment in string theory, did not
What to expect when you’re expecting and you don’t particularly like kids
I come from a not-very-reproductive family: no siblings, no cousins. As a kid, to hang out with kids, I had to try, and I didn’t try too hard. As a teenager, I babysat twice. The first time didn’t really count,
Stories told to a 4-year old boy who likes to listen to stories
The little prince and the magic naptime book There once was a little prince who went to royal preschool. After every royal lunch at royal preschool, all the princes and princesses were supposed to take a royal nap. However, the