Category: Uncategorized
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Christmas in Hawaii 2023 (dedicated to “Mommy and the Troops”)
I wouldn’t call spending Christmas in Honolulu a tradition for us, exactly, but it is certainly lovely when the calendar for the 4 of us align and make it possible. And so it was thisyear, when we spent 11 glorious days in paradise, enjoying the sun, ocean, and surf. The theme for this year’s stay…
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Rainbows and Shave Ice (plus Lawyers, Guns & Money!)
We returned earlier this month from a fabulous vacation in Hawaii! Highlights include: — Visits from all of our children: Jade could only stay for a week but managed to spend a dinner explaining her research in combinatorics (which was summarized by us mere mortals as “counting triangles”). Yinan stayed for 2 weeks, and Jim…
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Three Galas and a Photo Op
We are fond of galas, especially ones where we (or our hosts) have our own tables and, therefore, we can chat with our friends (or make new ones). We are less fond of photo ops, but they can sometimes be entertaining, generally for reasons other than the actual photo op itself. April/May have been a…
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Summer 2022
The summer was a whirlwind, and I have not enough space to bore everyone with our activities. Highlights include the following: A joint birthday celebration at the Inn at Little Washington Jade’s master’s degree (in theoretical computer science) graduation ceremony at Stanford. She is now at Georgia Tech getting her PhD in combinatorics (or theoretical…
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Spring Break 2022
Our last spring break together as a family was in March (yes, this entry is a bit late). We really have no grounds for complaint, however. For several years, the college spring break for Jade coincided with the high school spring break for Marcus, and so we eked out a couple more years of spring…
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Christmas 2020
In an act of foolhardiness, we decided to go to Hawaii for Christmas. This was foolhardy for several reasons: first, Hawaii has imposed some stringent covid testing requirements in order to be permitted to come; second, there were no non-stop flights to Honolulu due to the lack of flights, which added another wild card to…
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Graduation Celebration – Pandemic Style
We had a high school senior last year, and graduation in June happened virtually, as it did for so many others. The school did its best by having the high school administrative team personally deliver our son’s diploma and by putting on a lovely virtual graduation. But we were determined to have some kind of…
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Halloween Week Festivities at Sidwell Friends School
Our son goes to a private high school in Washington, DC where the academics are excellent, the kids are (mostly) affluent, and the pressure can sometimes be intense. This is especially true during the last week of October when the seniors have Early Action college applications due (November 1 is the actual due date).Marcus (on…
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Hawaii: July 2019 version
By now, there isn’t much more that I can say about this little bit of paradise than I haven’t already said. So let me just mention the highlights of this trip, which include the following: Continuing our 4th of July tradition of spending it with Dianne, John, Benjamin and Isabelle (this time in Honolulu) Getting…
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Book review: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff My rating: 4 of 5 stars The authors set up the book with 3 Great Untruths that they think are endangering future generations. These Great Untruths are (i) what doesn’t kill you makes…