Is snow in October a sign of the Apocalypse?

If so, much preferred to locust swarm, but still an annoying inconvenience.

I get more excited at birthday parties than my kids

I had a great time playing with a four-year-old this evening.

All you have to do is look them in the eyes and listen, and make a surprised face after everything they say, and the world is a great place.

Hanging out with adults is vastly overrated.

Important things I learned at social media conference today

Brands are starting to measure success not simply by impressions but by expressions...

It's important to reach not just users but influencers...

I wonder how many rock'n'roll songs I could list that consist solely of a person's name...

The new key metrics are reach, frequency, and interaction...

Peggy Sue...Maybelline...Long Tall Sally...Donna...

Michelle...Shari...Dawn...Layla...Lola...

Suzie Q...Rhiannon...Roseanna...Gloria...Jenny (867-5309)...

Sometimes I get the nagging suspicion that I have a limited attention span.

Portal gun update

Samuel stayed up until 1am on Friday and Saturday nights--and is still up at 11pm tonight--working on his portal gun.

He shaved down and shaped the Styrofoam shell, which he'll cover with paper mache, Bondo, and white paint. He also painted the barrel black, and added the central lighting core, which he built out of a clear acrylic plunger handle surrounded by a clear plastic tube. He'll light it with 22 tiny LED lights--11 orange, 11 blue.

He hopes to finish it in time for his Monster Mash party at school on Wednesday.

Buddy Holly's apartment is for sale!!

Man, if I had any money I would be psychotically dangerous.

I'm reading a book about Buddy Holly, and it mentioned that he and his wife Maria lived at 11 Fifth Avenue, apartment 4H, from the fall of 1958 through early 1959, when Buddy was killed in a plane crash while on tour. He recorded several songs here on an old Ampex tape recorder, which have been released in various forms over the years.


So like any normal person would do, I Googled "11 Fifth Avenue 4H" to see what would come up, and--holy crap--it's for sale!

Here's the listing from Brown Harris Stevens. It doesn't mention Buddy Holly, or even that it's apartment 4H. (It came up on a multiple listings site, StreetEasy, as 4H.)


I feel like I need to run out and alert someone. Everyone else in the Tarpley household is strangely uninterested. Doesn't anyone else find this completely cool??

This is like when I told my dermatologist how cool it was that her office was located in the building where Bill Haley and the Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954, and she looked at me like I was insane.

My declining physical prowess

At age 28, when I was still competing in amateur wrestling, I could run three 5-minute miles in a row. For context, that means I could've kept pace with the leaders of the NYC Marathon for three miles before dropping out, exhausted, while they continued on at the same pace for an additional 23 miles. Still, it's faster than most people ever run, and I was proud of that.

By age 38 I could still run three 6-minute miles in a row--or one 5-minute mile, but only if I didn't have to walk the following day. My feeling was, that's still pretty good for an old person, and I was happy with that.

Now, at age 48, I have achilles tendonitis, hamstrings and calves that pull if I move too suddenly, and the first five minutes of every run are spent mumbling, "Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch" until the adrenaline kicks in.

So I'm almost giddy to report that I ran three miles at 6:27 pace last week, and a 5:57 mile yesterday. Frankly, it doesn't even seem all that fast when I'm doing it, but it's like driving an old sports car at 65 mph--you know it probably could go faster, but why tempt fate?

By my calculations, in ten years I will be writing a blog entry saying how excited I am to have run a 7-minute mile. That will be perfectly fine with me.

Ethanism

"They should make a soup called Cannibal's Soup and the noodles would be shaped like people."