Category: Living

Sports by Joe WilcoxMar 28, 20085:17 pm

Skating Star

Today, my daughter skated in her first US Figure Skating competition, at the San Diego Ice Arena. San Diego Figure Skating Club sponsored the competition, Skate La Grande. She skated in Las Chicas Group D with nine other girls.

Credit goes to my wife, who made extra effort to get our daughter in the competition. Technically, our girl is still part of the Washington Figure Skating Club, which required extra paperwork and permissions for her to participate as a guest. There also was some concern her Washington affiliation might be a handicap in judging.

Society by Joe WilcoxMar 16, 20089:37 am

Let the Bears Eat Bear Stearns

I agree with Gretchen Morgenson, writing for the New York Times. The Fed shouldn’t bail out Bear Stearns. The fed crossed a line by keeping afloat a major architect of the housing debacle.

I wrote my first blog post about the housing bubble in August 2005, a year after deciding not to buy a home in the Washington, DC suburb of Bowie. It was already clear to me in summer 2004 that something akin to a repeat of the dot-com bubble was taking place in the housing market.

Had we bought in 2004, we would likely hold a mortgage that exceeds the house’s reduced value. We could never have moved to San Diego.

Food by Joe WilcoxMar 13, 20084:58 pm

Food Court Musical

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYZ6rbPU2M] Improv Everywhere brings music and mayhem to a Los Angeles shopping mall.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 25, 20087:19 pm

Wrong Number?

Today, we migrated from Maryland to California phone numbers. The process required what AT&T calls “relocation”, which meant closing one account and opening another. If you know me and can’t reach me, the number change […]

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 20, 20089:18 am

It’s Not Alaska, It’s an Adventure

Jean McDermott cracks me up. She’s got a wry, dry sense of humor. Maybe the humorless can’t survive Alaskan winters.

Today, Jean posted a picture of her freezer and, separately, commented on the weather: “A couple days ago we got 10 inches of snow in one night. People up here walked around just beaming. Finally! The bumps in the ski, snowmachine, mushing and skijore trails would finally be smoothed out. No more skidding around on dirt! Not only that, but it has warmed up to a positively balmy 20° ABOVE so everyone is having a bit of a respite from having to put on so much bleeding gear every time one goes outside!

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 1, 200811:26 pm

Best New Years Ever!

My family spent part of the day at Torrey Pines State Reserve. We walked the beach on a day where the temperature reached 21 degrees Celsius. Oh joy!

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 28, 200712:58 am

Environmental Question

I hear a whole lot of ruckus about global warming and carbon emissions spewed into the air. I have a question for the environmentalists—some of them extremists—pointing fingers of accusation: How much worse off is the planet because of you and your political maneuvering that ended US adoption of fission reactors in the 1970s?

Environmentalist FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about radioactive waste disposal was a major factor halting nuclear power plant construction in the United States. Meanwhile, many electrical facilities resorted to coal and, gasp, oil—fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide when burned.

Living by Joe WilcoxNov 22, 20077:17 pm

Thanks Isn’t Enough

Thirty years ago, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I knuckled down for a lonely holiday with the mainly foreign students on the University of Maine campus. I had no way home but was ready to tough out the long weekend with the other students.

With a difference: Many of my companions came from countries with no Thanksgiving. They didn’t have the memory of family and feast for this particular holiday. I was a freshman, too. Some of the guys planned to hang out in the computer center and play keyboard games and read the print-out action on teletypes. I would join them.

Food by Joe WilcoxNov 12, 20078:13 pm

Tommy’s Chili Burgers

Yesterday, we drove up to Los Angeles for an exciting peace event, where my daughter sang with the local church choir. Earlier today, my buddy Andy took us to Tommy’s, which he described as “an […]

Events by Joe WilcoxNov 1, 200711:07 pm

Our First Halloween in San Diego

Little more than two weeks on the West Coast, we celebrated All Hallow’s Day. It was no Scary Perry, but my daughter had fun trick-or-treating with her church friends. She poses in her candy corn […]

Living by Joe WilcoxOct 25, 20075:54 pm

I’m in San Diego!

There is no way to succinctly describe the last couple weeks. So I won’t. We arrived in San Diego on the evening of Oct. 15. My father-in-law had stocked some food, plastic dishes, and two […]

Living by Joe WilcoxOct 2, 20077:55 pm

Long May You Run

I continue to mourn our two rabbits, which went to a new home on Sunday. We can’t take either of them with us to California. 🙁 I’ve been thinking about Daisy and her romps around the backyard; how happy she would be. For some reason, I find Neil Young’s “Long May You Run” coming to mind when I think of the bunny.

My basement office is a desolate place now, and the backyard is a field of dread. Something about the rabbits—and their simple tranquility—represents a lifestyle lived in this house. Their departure has taken away part of our home. I loathe coming down into the basement to work now. I count the remaining days to our departure. We can’t leave this place soon enough.