Seattle always seemed like it was almost part of Alaska – or rather, that Anchorage was somehow a suburb of Seattle – when I was growing up. Everything shipped to Alaska came through Seattle, every trip to the Lower 48 went through Seattle, Alaskans followed Seattle’s pro sports teams – even one of the things […]

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I’m sure I’m getting the order wrong, but regardless of where I actually traveled first, Colorado has always been the most important state in the Lower 48 for our family, and I have many fond memories of visiting grandparents, my aunt and uncle, cousins, and family friends there over the years. This photo shows my […]

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I even have a balloon.I was looking through old photos last weekend (it seemed like a rainy weekend activity) and found this gem from my semester abroad in Cambridge my junior year in college. I think I was coerced into holding the balloon, which explains the odd face. Anyway, it’s perfect timing, as today is […]

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We had a super-brief trip to Seattle last weekend, with just enough time for a delicious brunch with Amanda, some wandering around the Saturday Market in Redmond, and a stateside wedding celebration for an old friend from high school Saturday night. Gavin and Heather got married in Korea last month, and three of his high […]

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R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People was released fifteen years ago today, October 6, 1992. Sometime in between the release of Out of Time in March of 1991 and the fall of 1992, I had become a massive R.E.M. fan, and Automatic was the first album of theirs that I was fully fanatical about and whose […]

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Summer has officially begun: the season of travel and concerts. Yesterday morning, we returned from a three-day weekend in Alaska, last night I went to the first outdoor concert of the season, Arcade Fire at the Greek Theater, and tonight, I leave for New York and then Massachusetts for my tenth reunion. Our weekend in […]

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Georges Remi, a.k.a. Hergé, the creator of Tintin. The U.S. is still not much of a Tintin consumer, which is fine by me, but it means there isn’t much going on in terms of celebration. I can’t be at the reading and slideshow in New York, […]

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Sometimes you find some amazing things while rummaging around in the basement. I’ve been home for the weekend visiting the folks, and in my ongoing attempt to get rid of some of the less important stuff in the many boxes of my things still in the basement, I came across this photo, from when I […]

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Two and a half days is somehow both a long time and a very short time to be somewhere. Aimee and I found this out this weekend, when we traveled to Alaska to enjoy our three-day weekend with my folks amidst the snow and cold and cozy warmth of home. We enjoyedsome entertainment from Alaska […]

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Fresh off a screening of Murder by Death as part of the Brattle’s Peter Sellers retrospective, I’m well aware of the duds in his career, in among the gems. But the Pink Panther series, for whatever reason, seems to have taken on an afterlife of its own, slowly deteriorating and becoming more absurd (in a […]

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Channel 2, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage, was always my favorite station growing up; I think it was mostly because it looked the best, crisp and clear compared to the soft, fuzzy look of ABC on Channel 13 and the weak static of Channel 11’s CBS. Tom Brokaw was my favorite of the Big Three […]

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Eight of the last ten years since moving east for college, George and his family have invited me to their home to celebrate Thanksgiving in the Poconos, since I wasn’t about to trek to Alaska for a four-day weekend a month before going home for Christmas. It’s time to move on, though, and this year, […]

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It’s been awhile, almost three weeks, and it’s a little hard to get back into the swing. There’s more doing, less contemplating while on vacation, and now that I’m back in Cambridge, it’s more of the same old day to day, leaving time to go on and on about things, like the “Kerry=Hero” graffiti which […]

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Fifteen years ago this month, I flew from Anchorage to Philadelphia, my first solo trip, I’m pretty sure, and was met by a college student in the airport with a sign that said CTY. I ended up spending three summers in Carlisle, PA, as a student, and two more in college as an RA, making […]

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I was looking at the Seattle Times online to read their take on the Yankees’ comeback victory over the Mariners yesterday, and was faced with a name from the past: Manresa Castle, in Port Townsend, Washington. My memory of the place is vague, and is wrapped up with memories of an abandoned fort nearby, but […]

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