When I got up this morning, I made a cursory, obligatory visit to Facebook before I went in the kitchen to get something to eat. I mean, it’s what you do in the 21st century: wake up, check your phone, hit the can, check Facebook, eat, clean up, head out the door. I first...
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I do it often enough, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but it seems at this time of year it always comes at me, amplified. For many, this season is a period for new starts, and I too feel some of this as December winds down and new calendars are poised to take their place...
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It was about three years ago this month that I somehow ended up sending a Facebook friend request to this guy named Derek on the East Coast. I’d like to say I remember the exact reason for the outreach, but I don’t recall what prompted it. What I do remember is, as a web...
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As a lifelong game fan and a strategy game collector, I had probably the weekend of my life this last weekend. It all started simply enough. I was wrapping up what I was doing at work at about 7 PM on Friday, and I thought I’d drop in on the games section of Craigslist....
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Whenever winter occasionally visits Albuquerque and dulls and bleaches the sky, I am regularly transported back to a few specific memories from my Chicago days. You know- those stills that get burned into our heads of particular moments, particular images. When I lived in the city, after my brief attempt at marriage failed, I...
Read more →It had started for me as a fantastic tribute to a hometown hero. Yesterday, on Sunday afternoon, Albuquerque threw a parade and then had a convocation on the city’s Civic Plaza to recognize Holly Holm, the seasoned Southpaw who gave invincible Ronda Rousey a shellacking in November’s UFC Bantamweight World Championship fight. Holly, as...
Read more →It’s early Friday morning and I am sitting at a corner table in a coffee shop near downtown. Peppy indie music floats down from the ceiling level speakers. Periodically, customers enter and exit the shop as the barista works through a line stacked two deep. It will get more busy as the sun rises...
Read more →Earlier this month, I saw a trailer for the movie “Spotlight”, and from the gritty, fast moving cuts in the commercial, I knew it looked like my kind of movie. I mean, Michael Keaton. How can you not like a film with Michael Keaton? And Mark Ruffalo? After playing an Olympic wrestler in “Foxcatcher”...
Read more →Last night, terrorists attacked 6 targets in Paris, including a restaurant, a concert hall, and a sports stadium, killing 128 (recognized so far) and wounding some 350 others. In the concert hall alone, the attackers stood on balconies and indiscriminately picked off 100 people below. The American metal band playing there somehow got out...
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A week ago or so, I was talking to a good friend about her dating life. She had been dating a great guy for the last 5 months or so, and then the picture incident happened, and everything changed. Basically, after being a couple for months, after the many times they had publicly exchanged...
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It’s the eve before my 47th birthday, and tonight was spent pretty nicely. A few weeks ago my sister invited me to go to a cardio boxing class she enjoys. I went to a first class three weeks ago, and I went again tonight, for a fifth time. I enjoy the classes for the...
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“And as a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few rebuffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once...
Read more →Tonight I just wanted to celebrate my brother Tim. In three days, Tim will finally board a plane and leave Albuquerque to head halfway around the world- back to his country, back to his family, back to his new life in Melbourne. Over the last three and some years, I’ve been lucky enough to...
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If you live in Albuquerque and ever find yourself with an open Saturday and a hankering for adventure, word has it there is plenty open...
Read more →I had to make this my song of the day today because I play this video over and over. These guys are just sick talented. The whole song is incredible, but mostly, the first soaring flare of “I’m at a payphone…” won’t get out of my head and just keeps calling me back over...
Read more →NOTE: Today’s post is a little graphic. Morgue thoughts ahead… Hop off here if a little fluids talk gets to you. Today during our usual afternoon chat at work, my boss Tim was telling me about a book he’s been reading that he’s enjoyed. Written by Iceland author Arnuldar Indridason, “Jar City” is a...
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