I lost my mother on May 24th at 96 and although I started a blog post about her shortly before she passed away, I have not yet gone back to finish it. Most likely that represents some psychological process somewhere between denial and the “magical thinking” found in Joan Didion’s book thanks to CK’s recommendation [...]

Sam started High School yesterday….and far be it for me to say something trite like, it seems like only yesterday…but it does. And I can’t help but wonder, are we both ready for this? I know, I know its only high school; college will be where you will really have to let go.
Letting go? [...]

Matt Gossage, the Head of MICDS (Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School) announced last week that he was leaving to head the Cannon School in Concord, N.C. My youngest son is in the seventh grade at MICDS and has been at MICDS since the first grade; my hope is that he will remain [...]

It’s that time of year again….525,600 minutes to measure and another 525,600 minutes to resolve: New Year’s Resolution lists, the review of 2005’s list and the making of the 2006 list. Technorati is tracking resolutions by blog, by minute (looks like about a post per minute) and Dave Sifry’s Alerts explains how to tag them. [...]

The Weekend Journal has an article about yet another innovative way to join the blogosphere, spying on your children. Big Mother is Watching (available by subscription) tells of a mother (unfortunately working "outside the home" as a marketing consultant….giving marketing consultants and mothers a bad name) who caught her daughter behaving badly by monitoring her [...]

In thinking about this, I wondered about the difference between being considered passsionate about say, computers or being considerered obsessed with them. Or medicine, or whatever the narrowly defined highly technical interest might be. If the interest is “highly technical” maybe we say obsession. If the interest is not technical, such as a sport, maybe we say, passionate?

Sam started school this week and last night his homework included an assignment to list the characteristics that make America unique. Watching the selfless police and rescue workers who no doubt had to leave their own families and homes to assist others, the grim determination of those pushing shopping carts loaded with earthly pocessions, the doctors using canoes to bring in medical supplies, the homemade “help” signs made from who knows what, held up by rooftop survivors, the we are all in this together attitude and the every man for himself attitude of the looters…all that captured the American character. And of course, all the bloggers that urged us to donate and provided links to the Red Cross, Feed The Children, and links to links.

Are many blogs just like Cliff Notes? You don’t read the story, you read about the story…over and over and over again. I think bloggers should at least add a personal comment or two when they post a “new flash” quickly excerpted from someone else’s blog or the morning news…otherwise what’s the point?

Seth Godin discusses whether we can do better than settle for good enough…we are just programmed to accept good enough. Just ask Mom.