14 Billion Miles Away

Yesterday I read the Voyager 1 probe is currently over 14 billion miles away from the Earth – traveling over 38,000 miles per hour. Somewhere out there in infinite blackness he marches on silently and stubbornly proclaiming to the void “I am here! Someone made me!” – His maker? Out of range. His instruments? Dead.…More

On Paterson and Poems

As an English teacher, I am about to commit heresy: I don’t really care for poetry. “BLASPHEMY!” you shout – and I understand if you react that way. How could I, a high school English teacher, a man who adores Dead Poets Society, not care for poetry? I’m honestly not really sure. Maybe it was…More

Five ways to improve The Bachelor-verse

When it comes to entertainment tastes, my wife and I rarely see eye to eye. But, we have bonded over exactly two things – murder documentaries and trashy dating shows. Between three seasons of The Bachelorette (beginning with the unprecedented Claire/Tayshia double season), a season of Bachelor in Paradise, and now into our second season…More

Gifts

Earlier this week, I made a massive mistake on the dad/husband front: I accidentally threw away some of my son’s birthday gifts. I could offer up a litany of excuses, like how the cardboard boxes full of gifts were in the same place in the garage that we usually put the empty cardboard boxes that…More

Pencil Shops, Convenience, and Holiness

Earlier this week, Caroline Weaver, the founder of CW Pencil Enterprise in Manhattan, announced that the shop would be closing its doors by the end of the year. If you’ve spent any time in the online stationery world, CW Pencils has been one of its pillars, devoted almost entirely to pencils and everything related to them. Many…More