Blogs
When I have spare time, I'll write in my blogs. Here's a list of them, along with the latest posts from each.
A Spanish Goodbye
October 12, 2026
Out the door at 5am. Dave’s flight was the first to leave, so we dropped him at departures and sent him on his way before returning the rental car. A couple of hugs, and he was off. And then there were two. A confusing maze of bad signs and roundabouts…
The Last Hurrah in Mallorca
October 7, 2026
Like every other morning, this one began with a crossfire of snoring accusations. With our flights home early tomorrow, the morning also featured a display of pre-flight anxiety from Dave, complete with second- and third-guessing his check-in, travel documents, flight notifications, packing, and baggage handling. While Matt stayed behind to…
Mallorca: Caves, Cava, and Germans
October 6, 2026
I woke up in the morning with my right nostril in full compliance. Our RedLevel hotel privileges entitled us to an extended breakfast menu, so I put together a lovely meal of eggs Benedict, an açaí bowl, and rooibos tea. The only thing weird about this hotel are the impossibly…
Gangs of New York
November 2, 2026
Scorsese sure does love his violence, but he’s also fascinated by obscure chapters of history told on an epic scale, especially when stories are driven by deeply held religious convictions or other belief systems. This is his wheelhouse. The violence isn’t just an assault on the eyes, but on the…
Marty Supreme
October 24, 2026
Another dark, gritty story with sketchy characters from Safdie. The plot meanders, but it’s kind of fun. In the end, it’s less a movie about table tennis than about a con man and escape artist, giving it something of a Catch Me If You Can vibe. An intriguing ensemble cast,…
The Mask
October 18, 2026
Pretty dumb, with childish humor that actually gets in Carrey’s way. The cartoonish visual effects and sound effects recall Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but without nearly the same originality, wit, or cleverness. Indeed, Chuck Russell hasn’t really made any other good movies, certainly not any comedies.
On Turning 50
September 22, 2026
Half a century. That’s the joke. On my 10th birthday, I was in Florida, likely celebrating at a bowling alley or go-kart track after a move from Houston to Boca Raton. I’d only enrolled at that school the year before, and I was a shy and self-conscious kid, which didn’t […]
The Doom of AI
September 21, 2026
When ChatGPT crept into my life in 2023, I raised an eyebrow. Was this a gimmicky tool, or was it real AI? I started working it into every facet of my life, from work to fun projects to my finances to legal help to planning trips. The more I used […]
A History of the Nyveen Family
April 24, 2026
The Nyveen family traces its origins to the northern Netherlands, in the provinces of Groningen and Drenthe, where both the name and the family itself appear to have taken shape in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The name was originally spelled Nijveen, and is composed of two older […]