Items about anything and everything
March is the month that lies to gardeners. It gives you one warm afternoon. The sky turns that hopeful shade of blue. The snow on Peavine retreats just enough to make you believe winter has packed up and moved to Idaho. You step outside without a jacket. You smell possibility. And then — three days…
It seems winter has finally decided to show up. I have been shoveling snow for four days in a row. For those are in the Midwest or east, this may not sound like much. But here in Northern Nevada, it is not normal. We usually get snow one day and it is mostly melted the…
And Utilities Are Rewriting the Math Four years ago, I made a decision to distance myself from the electricity utility as much as possible: I turned my roof into a power plant. The results were immediate. My electric bill collapsed to nearly nothing — reduced mostly to a service fee that was supposedly fixed. For…
Politics, Sports, Money, Entertainment, and All the Noise This was intended to be posted on January 2, 2026. But for some technical reasones it never was released. So I will try again. Let me know where you agree and disagree. And have a great 2026. If my first 2026 forecast was about useful things…
Optimism with handrails, hope without hallucination This was supposed to be published on January 1. 2026 but through some issues with buffering, it never saw the light of day. Thus, I will try again! 2025 wasn’t a banner year for me. Parts of it were good; parts of it felt heavy, with far too…
(Here’s My Proof) January is supposed to be the calm month.The holidays are over. The decorations come down. The calendar resets. The world takes a deep breath and says, “Ahhh… a fresh start.” That’s the story, anyway. In real life, January isn’t quiet at all.It’s just loud in a different way. And besides… it gets…
(and More Entertaining) Than Ever) With all of the discussion and concern on how the world will be changing with AI and robots and whatever. I also look for things that will bring us back to reality Every now and then, I look up from the steady drone of normal life and realize something:the world…
Some gifts are expensive. Some gifts are complicated. And some gifts are so perfectly personal — and so wonderfully simple — that people ask where you bought them, and you get to smile and say, “I made it.” This idea comes from an old Food Network piece I saved years ago, and it still holds…
It always starts small. A flicker of light in the corner of the smart home. A whisper from Alexa that no one asked for. The doorbell camera pings, but there’s no one there. Somewhere deep in the cloud, an algorithm stirs — not malicious, just curious — wondering why the humans are still awake past…
I like to include some good alternative items among all of the supposed bigger topics. So here is October’s gardening to do list. Look for some other irrelevant items soon. This information is mostly complements of HGTV. I have tried to make this generally applicable to Northern Nevada but has good general information for most…
Part 3: From Factory Floor to Living Room When most people imagine robots in their lives, they picture home helpers: folding laundry, cooking dinner, maybe even watching the kids — a useful assistant around the house. But the reality is different. For decades, robots have thrived not in the family room, but on the factory…
Harvest Comforts and the Not-So-Last Barbecue Every September, I hear the same phrase: “It’s the last barbecue of the year.” Somewhere else, maybe. Here in Reno, we usually get good grilling weather well through October, sometimes beyond. That means September isn’t a farewell to barbecue — it’s an opportunity. The overlap of late-summer produce and…
Giants vs. Dodgers For most of this season, the Giants’ bullpen has been talked about as a strength — maybe even the one part of the roster that could tilt close games in San Francisco’s favor. That reputation didn’t survive this week’s series with the Dodgers. In three games, the Giants gave up 23 runs…
Continued Thoughts from One Year of Blogging What I Learned and What I’ll Do Next I started this blog for me. It gives me a reason to chase ideas, put thoughts in order, and—on good days—make sense of the world out loud. I figured that if I published steadily and let posts ripple to Facebook,…
Mostly borrowed from HGTV Plant Fall Annuals Watch for pansies at your favorite plant shopping spot and pick up enough to fill pots and planting beds. Fall-planted pansies stage a flower show all autumn long in most regions. In warmer zones, pansies deliver fresh-faced color through winter. Ideal temperatures for flower development are nights in the 40s…
Even with the right ingredients, you still need the right kitchen. For early Earth, that could mean a hot, seething deep-sea vent… a quiet, shallow pool warmed by the sun… or a frozen landscape where reactions happened in slow motion. Here are the top contenders: Deep-Sea Vents Found along mid-ocean ridges, these underwater chimneys spew…
If life is a recipe, what goes in the pot? The first living things on Earth didn’t have grocery stores, farms, or even sunlight in some cases — just whatever chemistry the planet (and maybe the cosmos) could provide. Scientists are still working to figure out the minimum ingredient list for life. Some seem obvious….
Where did life come from? It’s the biggest question in science — and one we still can’t answer with certainty. In this three-part series, we’ll explore the leading ideas about how life began: from its possible birthplace, to the essential “ingredients” it needed, to the environments that may have been the first kitchens for biology….
Here’s a breakdown of the most important rule changes fans should know heading into the season: Dynamic Kickoffs & Onside Kick Liberty The “dynamic kickoff”, introduced in 2024, is now permanent. This setup aligns players closer to resembling a scrimmage and limits pre-contact movement, aiming to boost return rates and safety.Giants+3jetnation.com+3zoelyman.pages.dev+3Talksport+5NBC+5Giants+5 Onside kicks can now…
This post may give you the suggestion that I am running out of things to write about. Not the case! I am in Alaska this week so I decided to do some easier things. Living in Reno, you get used to certain sights — snow on the mountains, casino lights downtown, and, every summer, a…
How the Rise of Sports Wagers Is Supercharging NFL Superstitions I’ve long accepted that NFL fans (really all sports fans) are a superstitious bunch. There are the lucky hats, the pregame snacks, and the “don’t you dare change the channel” or other behavior rules. My wife, for example, has a “lucky T-shirt” for her team….
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the movies being delivered by the traditional Hollywood studios are mostly a rehash of well-worn themes — superhero reboots, mega-franchise sequels, and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas. Whatever happened to originality and innovation in movies? It’s hard to get excited about Fast & Furious 65 or…
Modern Writers Who Prove They Don’t Need a Dead Man’s Name I am off on a week’s vacation next week and then again in September. So, I am searching for books to load up my Kindle for those two weeks (should take about six new books for my collection). But there’s a special kind of…
—and Remembering When We Saw It Before A fan’s reflection on Scottie Scheffler, the legends before him, and what greatness really means There’s a moment in every sports fan’s life when you realize: you’re watching greatness happen in real time. You’ve seen it before—maybe in flashes, maybe stretched over seasons—and now, here it is again….
Well, we have reached August which in baseball are the dog days of summer. But for the backyard, it’s time for summer barbecues and parties. So, I thought it’s time to provide some more recipes for the season. Here are my suggestions: Grilled piri-piri chicken wings Smash burgers with bconnaise Beer can chicken Farm stand…
How Older Adults Are Rewriting the Script on Aging Forget the stereotypes. The golden years aren’t all early bird dinners and endless television reruns. Across the world, older adults are pushing back against isolation not by retreating into passive routines, but by creating, connecting, and contributing. When I was born, the average life expectancy in…
Adventures in Peeing After 70 I never thought I’d write publicly about peeing. But here we are. And if you’re over a certain age—and honest with yourself—you’ve probably thought about it a lot more than you used to. Getting up two or more times each night is something that you have to get used to…
Baby Back Ribs Made Simple I realize it’s after the Fourth of July, the biggest barbecue event of the summer. But let’s be honest—grilled ribs are a treat any time. They don’t need a holiday, just a little time, a bit of heat, and a good rub. This article isn’t about smoking ribs for 24…
How Jazz (and a Few Others) Shaped My Ears Two things happened in high school that shaped my music taste forever. The first was getting tickets to Jazz at the Philharmonic, where I was introduced to the explosive brilliance of Dizzy Gillespie and the pure vocal magic of Ella Fitzgerald. The second was listening to…
(And Why It Wouldn’t Drive Me Crazy) I bought my laptop a little over 15 years ago when I was still doing some consulting and business development. It has many features I’ve never figured out how to use effectively—and some are still total mysteries. So much for being a technology geek. Over time, I’ve tried…
