A new school year is starting. Someone once told me the beginning of the school year was like a freight train. It is massive and has so much inertia that, when it comes by, you either have to jump on or get run over. I have actually come to see that analogy as being too …
So I have been thinking about Matthew Crawford’s assertion that, in the work of a mechanic, the bullshit quotient is low, “unless you’re dealing with Harley owners”. The vehicle either runs or it doesn’t. Similarly a carpenter can appeal to clear and unambiguous criteria. Anyone who questions their work can simply be told, “it’s plumb …
I woke up yesterday thinking about what I wanted to write. And today, same. Yesterday I stayed in bed for a while, enjoying being able to puzzle through ideas under the warm sheets, knowing it was -15F outside. Today, I didn’t lounge – even though it was even colder outside. I got out of …
We have snow on the ground again in Fargo. It seems like it came late this year, but mid-November is a fairly normal time for the first snowstorm of the season, historically. It only seems late because we have gotten early storms the past two or three years – which made our most notorious season …
My office door isn’t plumb. That bugs me. It isn’t far out. You can’t see it. Really, its only noticeable if there is weight on the coat hook on the back of the door. Because then it falls partially-closed. Not fully-closed mind you. Not even mostly closed. Just closed enough to look sloppy. If my …
Garage Monkeys. That is how Pirsig and Crawford describe them. Each writes about a different species: Pirsig about repair techs who lack arete and Crawford about the middle managers who stand between vehicle owners and vehicle repair techs. They are adjacent parts of the modern automotive service-shop organization and both offend something at my core. …