Recent Posts

• The messiness of civic life and showing up May 06
  It’s too easy to feel befuddled and think that civic advocacy should be left to the “professionals,” but the truth is that civic life should be participatory, emergent, and messy.
• Endless expanse May 01
  The thing about being among the mountains is that your gaze is constantly drawn upwards.
• Media Diet: April 2025 Apr 28
  A quick look at the movies, television shows, and books that have captured my attention over the past month.
• When someone cuts down a tree, somebody else has to plant a new one Apr 02
  This is what is keeping me afloat as we cope with a political and social environment that is so bent on destruction of what we hold dear: that one day, we will have the chance to restore, and to build again, and build better. And it’s that thought, that aspiration to create things that will help people and build community and make lives better, that I carry with me through all the tumult we have now.
• Media Diet: February and March 2025 Mar 28
  A quick look at the movies, television shows, and books that have captured my attention over the past month.
• Setting up a new WiFi system Mar 27
  I set up a new mesh WiFi system today at home.
• Things I learned these past few months Mar 25
  A quick roundup of a few of the things I learned over the past few months.
• A few nice things Mar 20
  A few snippets from the week gone by involving ice cream, birdsong, bubbles; Nowruz, and a whole lot more.
• Walk-and-talk Mar 13
  A walking meeting is not just a way for me to accumulate more steps in my pedometer. It's also a way for me to experience the content of the meeting with new context, to literally ground myself and surround myself with life.
• What is your work? Mar 13
  When was the last time you asked yourself about the work? What is your work now?
• A bit of anger, a bit of sadness, a bit of wondering where this is all going Mar 07
  As part of the recent tumult in US politics, Trump/Musk/DOGE recently laid off all the staff at 18F, essentially shuttering the agency and with it destroying years of digital experience in government.
• Letter to city council of London, Ontario to stop using X (formerly Twitter) for official city communication Feb 28
  I am writing city council to request that the City of London stop using X (formerly Twitter) as a method of distribution for official city communication.
• Forty-three Feb 26
  February is the cruelest month, but it is also filled with kindness.
• James Feb 21
  What Everett’s _James_ does is give interiority to a character that has nuance, that has a family, that has aspirations, that knows how to navigate the world and isn’t just along for the ride. He is in control of his narrative, and is able to articulate his story to us without intermediary.
• On the precarious situation of the civil service Feb 16
  I recently read an interesting look at how the stable, impartial civil service was created, and how it was different from the partial, ever-changing system of government workers before it—and how it’s slowly being dismantled by the Trump administration.
• The crazy thing about babies Feb 15
  I’ve read quite a few great things about parenting over the last few years since becoming a father, but this short paragraph made me tear up a little.
• Life in weeks Feb 14
  It’s so easy for a week to fly by without really feeling like we’ve fully lived it. If we only have four thousand of them, there’s an important impetus to live each one with intention.
• Water slide Feb 04
  It had been almost 30 years since I last went on a water slide.
• Recommitting to handwriting Feb 04
  I don’t write in cursive anymore. I still do a ton of writing by hand—postcards and letters and even notes from work and life—but I inevitably write in block letters because they are easier and more comfortable, and mostly because I have fallen out of practice writing in cursive and don’t really know how to do it well anymore.
• Media Diet: January 2025 Jan 29
  A quick look at the movies, television shows, and books that have captured my attention over the past month.

 
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