On this page, I’ve got an old-fashioned blog: posts that contain my thoughts, opinions, updates, photos, etc.
(If you don’t care about any of that and you’re here for the legal stuff, the Legal Writing page has the recent law-related posts.)
A Baseball Game
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. There are various reasons for that, some of which are in fact out of my control (e.g., obligations at work or for my family). But some of those are within my control. An example: having standards or expectations that are too high. If I have some vague expectation…
Getting Back to the Rhythm of Posting Regularly
The last post I put up was about three weeks ago. Why the delay? We came back from Ventura, where we were staying in July. We came back to the start of the school year for four of the kids: one at St. Mary’s High School, and three at Veritas Preparatory Academy. That start-of-the-school-year frenzy…
Farewell for now, Ventura
Today is the final day of the family’s extended stay in Ventura. I have a tire-pressure problem to address, and a trip to Best Buy to make, but other than that, the exit should not be a hassle. It’s been good to be in another place, a place that’s not our usual set of restaurants…
A Trip to Los Angeles
This past weekend, some of the family and I drove down from Ventura to Los Angeles. Drive Time: Gaffigan, David Perell, and Theme Time Radio Hour On the drive down to LA, we listened to Jim Gaffigan’s new album, The Skinny, and on the way home we listened to the Questions episode of Bob Dylan’s…
Austin Kleon on Books as Old Friends and Reading the Writer Who Unlocks Something in You
Austin Kleon wrote something about treating well-loved writers as old friends: While I am a great proponent of reading more than one book at a time and letting books talk to each other, I also believe that when you find a writer who unlocks something in you, you should spend as much time with them as you…
Some Thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s Inception & Tenet
In June, I went to see Inception in the theater with two of my kids. We had seen it before, and we had even seen it in the theater before. But for me, it’s a film that’s worth seeing on the big screen, and this viewing in June didn’t disappoint or disprove its big-screen worthiness.…
Become What You Are: Self-Development Lingo in Josef Pieper
Here is a passage from the philosopher Josef Pieper. When I first read it, I thought: this kind of talk could be found in American self-help or hippy New Age books or Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unfolding being. Situated between different states of realization. We are not yet what we already are. Here’s Pieper: For example,…
June 2025 CLE about the Trial de Novo under A.R.S. § 12-910
At the end of June 2025, I was on a panel at the Arizona State Bar Convention for a CLE about the effects of A.R.S. § 12-910 on appeals from administrative cases at the Registrar of Contractors. Specifically, we were talking about the trial de novo provision. Who was the “we” on the panel? The panel…
Understanding Trial De Novo in Arizona Law with Duncan v. Mack
Recently, I wrote about the Clout Construction memorandum decision, which is about the trial de novo available under A.R.S. § 12-910. That decision mentioned a case, Duncan v. Mack, in connection with the proposition that a trial de novo “should be tried in all manners as though the superior court were the court of original…
Investigate Your Ideas
About a month ago, I was waiting for my son’s flight at Sky Harbor Airport, and I was spending that time reading on Readwise a PDF that I don’t remember having collected but that I nevertheless enjoyed. The PDF is a chapter titled “Learning to Work” by Virginia Valian from an anthology called Working it…
Spanish Books Photographed for an Experiment on WordPress
I’m playing with WordPress on my computer and on my iPhone. For that experiment, I’m posting a photo of some Spanish books I bought yesterday at Barnes and Noble:
Pressing an Off Switch for a New View
Anything emananating that does not yet have a proper name is perceived at first as eccentric. That line is from my notes on David Whyte’s Three Sundays series back in May 2024. The word “eccentric” caught my attention, and so I started thinking of synonyms: weird, strange, “off.” Off is an interesting word. I think…
Sunday Morning View
My daughter’s project in progress:
Your Second Brain Shouldn’t Make You Feel Bad; Your Notes can Be a Conversation Partner.
Joan Westenberg wrote a post about deleting her second brain. I enjoyed it and much of what she said there rang true, to some extent, for me. And I am glad that she has found some sort of liberation and even joy in having deleted her notes. But I don’t want to delete mine, even…
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