"April is the cruellest month, ..."
Nearly every year on April 1, I re-read T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” It’s one of my favorite poems, and while I pay homage to it by quoting and requoting lines from it in conversation year-round, I also like to sit down and read it through periodically. The opening line, quoted above, is of course why I choose April 1 for this pleasure. (Also, April is National Poetry Month, so there’s another reason, though not the one that drives me.)
Do you have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day? I’ve always been at least a bit conflicted about it. I’m all for love, and showing people that you love them, but celebrating a single day when that’s expected is problematic for me in a couple of ways:
Rather than celebrate Valentine’s Day, I’d prefer to fill the world with random acts of kindness every day of the year—kindness both toward the people we love and toward total strangers. Here are some ideas: Continue reading
Seth Godin recently wrote of the importance of owning responsibility for your mistakes and sharing credit for successes. He focused on use of the pronouns “I”, “you” and “we,” and when each is most appropriate. Example: Instead of saying “I” when announcing a success, he suggests using “we.” Continue reading
A portion of the book stack that awaits me next to my bed.
I just finished reading a marvelous book of essays about Chicago and Chicagoans, Neil Steinberg’s You Were Never in Chicago, recommended by a friend. It was educational, engaging, and made me think a lot about what makes Chicago unique and what makes someone a Chicagoan. It also left me further behind in my planned/desired reading than I was when I started it. Continue reading
The happy little snowman I walked past in my ‘hood a couple of weeks ago.
Snowmageddon hit the East Coast this week, and judging from my social media feed I think at least a few people took the opportunity to immerse themselves in books they’d not previously found time for.
I live in the Midwest, and we saw only an inch or so of accumulated snow throughout the entire week, which is nearly nothing by our standards. We also saw the end of a cold snap, with temperatures rising from the single digits, which even we consider cold, to the upper 20s, which in January constitutes a virtual heat wave. We took advantage of this very moderate weather by getting our dogs out for longer walks, which makes both them and everyone around them happier.
Despite the moderate weather, I still found myself immersed in books throughout much of the week and weekend: reading, thinking and talking books. Continue reading
![By AlphaZeta (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.kkish.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Magnifying_glass_icon_mgx1.svg_.png){kind=icon}
Image by AlphaZeta (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
This nifty infographic is far from new, but still has in it a whole lot of Google tips that many people don’t know. Things like: how to search Google for a specific type of file; how to limit your search to a specific website; and how to search for a word only in titles.