Personal Archive

Our street makes the national news

December 26, 2008 · Category: Current Events, Personal

Today's AP story "Storm blankets West with snow, ice glazes Midwest" includes a photo showing 17-year old Brandon Baxter plowing Thompson Street, in front of our house. The AP reporter who took this photo must've been standing more or less in our driveway when he composed the shot: Here is the part of the story that pertained to Nevada: Heavy snow and whiteout conditions in the Sierra Nevada on Thursday led authorities to intermittently shut down Interstate 80, the busy main link between northern Nevada and Northern California. The mountains around Lake Tahoe received about 2 feet of snow, bringing totals at ...

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Happy Holidays: The Song

December 25, 2008 · Category: Music, Objectivism, Personal

Happy holidays, everyone. The holidays can be an awkward time, sometimes, figuring out what to do for whom. But once in a while you see someone hit the ball so far out of the park, you remember why it's worth trying in the first place. On that note, Los Angeles composer Mike Shapiro just made my evening by sending out this little ditty, which he wrote himself, in lieu of sending cards. Somebody buy that boy an eggnog.

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New MacBook Pro on its way

October 14, 2008 · Category: Personal

This morning I ordered one of these, within minutes of its release. Single-slab aluminum construction, LED backlighting, solid-state drive. Should arrive next week. My first Mac.

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Dark Green 1999 Honda Accord – $7,000 OBO

June 20, 2008 · Category: Personal

I'm selling my car. Drives extremely smooth and I rather like it, but we're moving to Reno Carson City on July 1st and we only want to bring one of our cars with us. From my CraigsList ad: $7,000 -- or best offer. We're moving out of state and we need to sell this car (which has been our second car) by June 28th to avoid having to transport it! Dark metallic green. Custom rims with low-profile tires. 98K miles, sunroof, ice-cold A/C, auto transmission, auto locks, auto windows, CD player, tinted windows. Upholstery is in excellent condition. Very clean inside ...

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When we no longer need our illusions

May 25, 2008 · Category: Individualism, Intellectual, Personal

I had a dream recently where I went down a rabbit hole and found a people true to themselves. I wrote down the dream, and one day may share it here. In the interim, here's one passage that particularly intrigued me: The community itself was a conscious exercise in trueness. When someone stole, for example, no one got upset, least of all the person who had been stolen from. When the thief had what he needed, the experience of being a thief, he would return whatever had been stolen because he no longer needed it. And no ...

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Back from a great weekend in Los Angeles

May 20, 2008 · Category: Personal, Photos

I had a fantastic time in Los Angeles this past weekend. I spent Thursday and Friday nights with Kylae, collaborating on a delicious batch of chilaca bowls, decimating the Santa Monica stairs, and reflecting together on life, love, and how to make it through those rougher spells. Saturday afternoon, I drove to Belvedere Junior High School, where my grandfather, Walter Zabriskie, had been principal in the 1960s. His former students had asked if he could attend their reunion. And by virtue of the fact that he has lived to the age of ninety-eight, his answer could be "yes"! Even though Belvedere ...

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A Handy List of My All-time Favorite Movies

March 31, 2008 · Category: Personal, Reviews

I keep a running list, inside my PDA, of my all-time favorite movies. Tonight it occurred to me that, in addition to being immensely valuable to me for spiritual reasons, the list is also quite easy to share with friends and readers of Mudita Journal. Perhaps some of you would be interested. So I've put the list online, here. I expect to update the list from time to time, so I've added a link at the top of the right sidebar as well.

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Site Launch: Zoom Strategies

March 24, 2008 · Category: Personal, Web Development

After spending several years as cobbler's children, Kathy and I have recently updated our own web site for Zoom Strategies, to reflect our increasing focus on commercial web development. The new site includes an updated portfolio, team bios (including new team member Marshall Sontag), and testimonials from many of our happy clients: UPDATE: Two people have written to say they're having technical difficulties on the new site. We tested the site in the most popular web browsers for Mac and Windows, but the bugs aren't entirely surprising since we're pushing the envelope some with this design. In any case, if you encounter ...

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Dottie Casper, Tampa Bay’s Funniest Person

March 14, 2008 · Category: Humor, Personal

When I was a freshman in college, and still quite on fire over my discovery of Ayn Rand's novels, I remember cautiously bringing the subject up with my grandmother, during a phone conversation. "Lately I've really gotten into Ayn Rand's novels," I said. "Have you ever read them -- The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged?" I expected her to react, as most people seemed to do, with a kind of thinly-veiled condescension, perhaps saying she thinks she read them once but can't remember what they were about, or (much worse) something like "Yeah, I liked them in college too, but ...

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Off to the High Feather Ranch

February 29, 2008 · Category: Personal

Kathy's birthday is this weekend, and to celebrate the occasion we're heading off to the High Feather Ranch B&B, on the other side of the Sandia Mountains from Albuquerque. In general, we've decided to indulge in monthly trips to a B&B as part of our work/life/love schedule. Unfortunately, our weekend at the Hacienda Vargas last month really wasn't all that restful -- due to an uncomfortable bed and an alarm clock that was never turned off after after the previous guest had vacated. So we spent some time driving around and looking at New Mexico B&Bs that were likely to feel ...

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