It's worth noting that 2008 was the first full calendar year in which I have been employed at the same full-time job for the entire year ( Read more... )

Sometimes I go to sleep and experience vivid hallucinations. I would not say that I have any "recurring dreams" - actually, I usually don't remember any dreams at all. But one common or repeated element that I remember from time to time in different dreams, is about running. I occasionally remember a dream in which I am running away from something ( Read more... )

Okay okay okay. I admit that I am a lexical conservative, a stick-in-the-mud, dyed-in-the-wool prescriptivist who hates neologisms pretty much instinctively. I'm still down with the idea that "hopefully" should only mean "in a hopeful manner" and not "it is to be hoped ( Read more... )

You know what they say: Once a Di-Phi critic and three-term English teacher, always a grammar fascist.

POUR vs PORE:

You do not "pour over" a document, unless you are pouring lighter fluid over it in a last-minute rush to destroy evidence. You pore over it, meaning to examine closely or carefullyENORMITY vs ENORMOUSNESS ( Read more... )

We're winding down our trip here, which has been excellent so far! We've been walking around the majestic mountains to see some breathtakingly exquisite fall color displays on the trees. Visiting with family. Soaking in hot springs. Wandering around Buddhist temples three or four times older than the United States that are still vibrantly active. ( Read more... )

Okay, I've slept and digested and now it's time to talk about another minor political issue that's been on my mind ( Read more... )

Sitting on the floor of my mother-in-law's living room in Gimcheon, South Korea, watching CNN project the winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, at the moment the polls close in California, in that historic moment, as they showed cheering crowds all over the world, I ate four mandarin oranges ( Read more... )

Well here we are in the airport waiting for a plane to come and take us away to Korea! When we return to the U.S. a new president will have been elected, Daylight Saving Time will have ended, and my brother-in-law will be a married man.

PLEASE remember to VOTE on November 4!

I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim ( Read more... )

It frustrates me to see my candidate ignoring opportunities to defend himself. Concrete example: McCain (twice) accuses Obama of being one of the pork-barrel earmark big spenders in Congress because he supported using federal funds for a planetarium in Chicago. Obama, of course, just ignored this and hoped it would go away. By saying that the ( Read more... )