Tag: Life

I always enjoyed my 24-minute stereo recording of walking through downtown Chicago. But now I really appreciate this recording of how Chicago used to sound before stay-at-home orders. Plus, after two months of not being downtown, I miss these everyday…

Check out the visitor we had on our porch windowsill. A baby bird! It was still drizzling outside, and I thought Amazon delivered a package, so I checked the front porch. Lo and behold outside on one of our windowsills…

Whip cream and Coca-Cola sounds pretty good, right? The quarantine trick is to not use a glass for the Coca-Cola. Just spray the whip cream directly into the can. Fitting the whip cream nozzle into an aluminum can is so…

The photo printing service Snapfish sent me an email saying that if I don’t order any prints, they will delete my photos. Which is completely fair. They shouldn’t have to host my photos if I’m not ordering any prints. To…

For 40 years, my twin brother and I didn’t know if we were fraternal or identical twins. We looked close enough to perhaps be identical. But we had enough differences between us that people could easily tell us apart. Whenever…

Whenever snow falls in April, it always is a bit of a surprise. We tend to think of April as a spring month. The temperatures start warming up. And then boom. Snow. Snow? Really? When there isn’t a global pandemic…

Lately everyone has been sharing creative projects to do at home. Usually they are cute like putting a teddy bear in your front window. But how about a quirky project? Photograph all the doorknobs in your residence. Ever pay attention…

People are setting teddy bears in their front window, so people can walk around on a #teddybearhunt making your neighborhood friendlier. Here’s our little purple bear. Put a bear in your window. More teddy bears people have put in their…

Google Photos is a lot of fun. Upload all your photos, and Google will use artificial intelligence to identify what’s in your photos. Since everyone has been talking about toilet paper for the past week, I searched for the in-demand…

What is time? Shortly before his death, Albert Einstein wrote: “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” What is the context of this quote? I accidentally came across a discussion about this quote…

What better thing to do when a pandemic virus is spreading than to go to a public place to vote? Despite COVID-19, I voted today! Everyone politely stood six feet apart in the line. With rubber gloves on my hands,…

My three-year-old daughter made a dance floor with our Picasso magnet tiles. Then she took all her Little People figures; and put them onto the dance floor. I love her creativity. “But wait!” I warned, “they are not practicing social…

“Pancake Robot” by Parry Gripp is such a fun song to memorize the lyrics. Anytime you have pancakes, you can bust out some lyrics from this song. Like this little verse: The pancake robot is coming to townHe’s mixing up…

When I’m grocery shopping, I like to see what product is in the very furthest corner of the store. Here is Mariano’s most remote product: THE EXTREME BEAN: Pickled Beans (Hot & Spicy) made by “Matt & Steve’s” That’s right,…

Spam text has to be one of most annoying forms of online communication. It feels like an invasion of privacy. HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER?! But today I got a spam message that was rather nice. Well, if you…

I almost xeroxed my socks yesterday, but then I thought that was going too far putting my foot on the copier. Perhaps I need a mannequin foot. If i had a mannequin foot… I would walk around with three feet.…

Most origami starts with a square sheet of paper. The corners of the square are integral to shapes and folding lines. Would it be possible to fold a ROUND sheet of paper into a SQUARE box? And not just any…

This is so cool of Spotify to do! A family mix. Last year, we signed up for the family plan on Spotify. When we were all on my plan, the love of Disney soundtracks by my three-year-old daughter was screwing…

This is a good replacement for a cell phone right? I’ve been carrying this clock around in my pocket all day. I love pulling it out to tell the time. Why have I been using this old school LCD clock?…

I have a long-standing goal of whenever I see a xerox machine in a public place, to scan my face. My wife and I did one on our honeymoon in France. The copy machine was tucked away in the back…

I’m thinking about giving up tweeting for one week, and instead write out all my thoughts and reactions on my blog. So far this year, I’ve been having a lot of fun blogging more. In the past decade when I…

I’m sorry everyone, I should be stuffing my Christmas cards into envelopes to get them mailed, but I’m writing a blog post instead! Soon I’ll publish a fun blog post about a wonderful (and relatively unknown) artist I discovered at…

Maybe instead of making new year resolutions, we should make a list of the things that prevent us from getting things done. Remove the obstacles. Take your current resolutions, and transform them into a new list of “don’t do this,…

Sometimes when I go errand shopping at Target, I’ll photograph the contents of my bag at the self checkout. It’s fun seeing the collection of the stuff you regularly pick up. Fun to me anyways. I should photograph the inside…

Do you have any resolutions for this new year? I don’t really specifically set out to find new resolutions at the start of the year. I much rather just start new habits any time of the year. But in effort…

Do you keep a daily diary? I have a couple questions for you: Length: Do you keep it really short? Or do you write longer form? Medium: Where do you write it? In a physical notebook? Or maybe online in…

What do you do with all the greeting cards you receive? Keep them in a pile and then eventually recycle them? Perhaps you keep a hand-selected group, storing them in a box. Or maybe you put the greeting cards on…

My work locker is stuffed with candy. Actually, it’s overflowing with candy. I take breaks throughout the day, and stand by my locker snacking on all sorts of candy. It’s my attempt to eat less candy at my desk. Today,…

What would a flag pole look like with 50 flags all at the same height? Outside my window fly 50 state flags in a plaza. I love looking at these flags. On a very windy day, I’m thinking about making…

Photographing with a kaleidoscope lens is so much fun. Recently I spent a work lunch shooting the feet of sculptures with a kaleidoscope lens. The whole time I spent focused on the kaleidoscope effect. My eyes and brain looked through…

Mailing birth announcements today reminds me how much I love mailing things to people. Today I have a whole stack of love to share! I love how the postal mail is like the internet. Today I dropped off letters to…