As I finished up my U.S. map puzzle, I got started on my second project, a drop-leaf Lego table. I’d seen tables before with baseplates as the surface, but I wanted something bigger than this IKEA hack and smaller than this dining room table extravaganza. I wanted it to have some Lego storage underneath, and […]

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While the main goal of my paternity leave was to bond with Lucy and help out with Grace, I also wanted to get a few projects done in the occasional downtime. Both were somewhat more complex woodworking projects than anything I’d done before, and both were essentially done from scratch, with all of the haphazard […]

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We’ve been waiting expectantly for our daughter’s arrival, which was predicted to be around November 8. On November 1, though, Aimee’s doctor told her that surprise, she’d be having the baby the next day. We headed to the hospital at 6:00 am, and just after noon, Lucy arrived with great fanfare and, thankfully, little drama. […]

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I’ve been going to Wilco shows since the ’90s, but I’ve never caught them three times in one year. Aimee and I enjoyed a perfect late summer evening at the Hollywood Bowl last night, for my third L.A. show of the year. We had some amazing seats for the final show of Wilco’s North American […]

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A couple of projects at work came together over the last few weeks that needed looking after in New York City, so I went for a few days last week. I had a chance to screen Showman with one of the film’s directors, Al Maysles, and also worked on packing up an animation collection. In […]

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Grace and I went on our first trip together without Mom, a long weekend in Anchorage with the grandparents. We had a great time, Grace did really well on the plane in both directions, and the weekend was a big success. Grace got to sit in Grandpa’s car, and I even got a chance to […]

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Before my trip to England and Wales gets too far into the rear view mirror, I’ll give a quick rundown of the highlights and some of the hundreds of photos I took. In a nutshell, it was a great, great trip. The Olympics were everything I had hoped for and more, the atmosphere in London […]

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The steady stream of UK trips slowed down after the bustle of the early aughts, and more than four years passed before Aimee and I returned, during the banner travel year of 2008. Friends were celebrating a 40th birthday in the Cotswolds at a big country house, and even though we’d already been to Hawaii […]

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My first trip to the UK with Aimee was a surprise, at least to her. We spent a few fun-packed days in London over New Year’s 2003/2004. The trip was the first in the Doubleperf Era, so you can read all about it here. It was a short trip, between December 31st and January 4th, […]

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2002 was a peak year for UK travel: for the first (and only) time in my life, I visited twice in one year. First, another spring break trip, this time as part of a trip with my buddy Josh to Iceland. We spent time in London and Edinburgh only, maximizing our time exploring these two […]

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Having had such a great time the year before, I decided to head back to the UK in 2000, taking advantage of cheap Virgin Airways tickets and another two-week spring break. Brent joined me from Seattle, and we rented a car (a Skoda, this time), and headed up to Scotland. The trip was a little […]

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After the intense and in-depth six months I spent in the UK in 1995, I was ready to return at the next opportunity. My chance arose when I went to Poland in the Spring of 1997 to do research for my thesis, on the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski. My flight took me through London, and […]

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When the opportunity to study abroad during my junior year at Amherst came up, I knew where I wanted to go. I was enjoying Amherst enough that I didn’t want to spend an entire year away, which was how the exchanges with Cambridge University proper worked, but I could study for a semester through a […]

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July is upon us, and Olympics fever is starting to build. I’ve been planning a trip to the UK for more than a year, and it’s hard to believe I leave two weeks from today. The seed for the trip was planted sometime last year when we met Neil and Melanie in Paris, and after […]

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Our quick trip to Portland last weekend had an itinerary that felt like a kid-friendly version of the New York Times travel column: ride the streetcar, find the fountains (like the one Grace, in her bee suit, is pondering above) and playgrounds, visit the kids’ section at Powell’s, and order something with avocado in it […]

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