I just returned from rainy Portland, Oregon, where I attended the annual American Society for Environmental History conference, four days of talks about pollution, wilderness, politics, urban development, business, theory, books...  Overall it was a good trip, though these things are more fun if you know other people there to hang out with.  I'm ( Read more... )

I haven't really talked with people, online or real-life, about Christmas presents this year. Since stinky_monky and I are saving up for the adoption in January, we will have to be stingy about sending out presents, and at the same time we do not expect people to buy us stuff. If you insist on giving, though, we will accept contributions to the adoption ( Read more... )

Over the last couple of weeks I feel like I've been coming out of a fog.  I'm not sure when the fog coalesced around me; it could be as far back as late 2007, around the time I passed my candidacy exams.  In the catharsis that came with passing those exams (which I think is the biggest hurdle in grad school; the dissertation is important but I don' ( Read more... )

I'm not really new to social networking sites like FaceSpace and suchlike, but I've encountered a new issue and maybe someone in the audience has some advice.  One of my Facebook "friends" de-friended me a few days ago.  I have no regular contact with this person and not much of a real-life relationship.  The only reason I care is that he is a ( Read more... )

The end of April seems to bring along a lot of birthdays. Some of these are late, some are early, and some are right on time.

Happy Birthday, Little Bro!

Happy Birthday, Cathy!

Happy Birthday, theeugene!

Happy Birthday, rdchino.livejournal.com!

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Now playing: The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
via FoxyTunes

My Friendster page lasted a couple of months.  I log in to my MySpace page every couple of months, but haven't updated anything in almost a year.  So obviously it's time to set up an account on yet another site!  As of two hours ago i'm on Facebook!  Maybe I'll keep up on it this time...

The ever-eloquent tim_wright has posted a lengthy commentary on California's Proposition 8 that says exactly what I've been wanting to say throughout this campaign, but better than I ever could.  I refuse to feel bad about that last part, though, because his former career as a journalist gives him an unfair advantage on this kind of thing.  He's a cheater, ( Read more... )

I downloaded a bunch of photos off of my camera tonight and realized just how far behind in posting I am.  There's stuff from L.A., a trip to a farm last weekend, a tour of one of Christopher Columbus's ships, a visit to a Mormon temple, and some random other stuff.  It's been a hectic few weeks.

For now, some shout-outs to important folks in ( Read more... )

Jeez, it's Friday already?!?  Time flies when you're, uh, doing whatever the hell I'm doing.

What am I doing?  Oh, right, taking pictures of hundreds and hundreds of documents in the hope that something will gel into a dissertation.  And driving to get to places where I can take pictures of useful documents.  And sometimes doing other stuff.  I'll ( Read more... )

Time to do some namedropping, just 'cause I should really post something.

Happy Birthday,
( Read more... )