My beloved and I recently celebrated our twenty-first wedding anniversary. After putting up with me for more than two decades I figured she deserved something special. I checked with the Nobel people to see if they had a category for endurance in a marriage. No luck. So an award was out. I checked the [...]

  I still wonder from time to time; what if I had become an international super-spy? Well, for one thing, it’s a good bet I’d drive something other than a mini-van. Spies get cool sports cars with exciting gadgets, leather upholstery and an exotic blond in the passenger seat. Dads get mini-vans with cup-holders, ground-up [...]

  My wife and I take two radically different approaches to gardening. She negotiates with Mother Nature, trying to find the perfect plants which blend with the environment. I engage in acts of malicious horticulture, using poisons and sharp implements to impose my will upon the earth. She’s all about free-form creativity and coaxing life [...]

  In our family we “do” Science Fair the same way other families “do” soccer…or gymnastics…or professional ice skating…or junior beauty pageants…or organized crime. We don’t so much “do” Science Fair as live it. Our Science Fair efforts are generally divided into four phases — Planning, Production, Panic, and Performance. Planning is easily the longest [...]