Spell “Silhouette”

When I was in high school, I competed with the academic challenge team known as Scholars’ Bowl. We traveled to other teams in the area to play in tournaments, and even participated in a PBS-televised tournament each year. Imagine Jeopardy!, but with teams.

Less Brown

As I’ve occasionally mentioned before, while in high school I played on the academic challenge team, called Scholars’ Bowl. It was pretty fun and generally one of the more positive memories from that time.

The Unexpected Party

For a few years (quite a few, actually, since post-graduate education can take the better part of a decade!) my brother was remotely working on a doctorate program offered by a college not too far from where I live in North Carolina. This was nice, since it meant that occasionally he would have to stop by in person and he would often spend the night at my place while doing so.

The Road to a Marriage, Part 3

I am slowly but surely working my way through the story of how I proposed to my wife. Last time I told about talking to her parents. But I had two more tasks to complete: I needed to buy a ring, and I needed to find a place to propose. This is the story of buying the ring.

The Replacement Computer

When I went off to college, I brought with me my computer that my parents bought me in high school. Since I was majoring in computer science, having a working and good computer was pretty important. It would have been a shame if something happened to it….

The Nerf War

When I was a kid, one of the most anticipated events put on by the church youth group I attended was the somewhat-annual Nerf War. The group would rent out a gymnasium, we would set up cardboard forts, and many dozens of kids would wage war all evening. We’d spend the night in the gym, sleeping in our forts, have breakfast the next morning, and be picked up by our parents some time afterward. I assume there was some sort of Bible lesson or attempt at meaningful discourse, but if so I certainly don’t recall that part.

The Added Drama Behind the Layoff

I previously told the story of how I was laid off after eight and a half years of working for NetApp, my first job out of college. There’s…a bit more to that story though.

The Layoff

While I was living in New Zealand, I was still working remotely for my employer back in the US as a contractor.

Pens

I’m about halfway to being a pen guy. Probably most pen guys don’t think they’re all the way to being a pen guy, so it’s possible I’m deluding myself. But let me explain.

The Hopeful Wizard

Someone recently commented on Reddit that while it’s easy to assume that Gandalf the White had some sort of prescience or foreknowledge of events, that was almost certainly not Tolkien’s intent while writing The Lord of the Rings.