The Life of Lou Ruppert

It was a beautiful day today, and I was glad to have five minutes of time to walk around outside and enjoy it. Both groups of crocuses were in bloom. The lighter ones were still going a week or more after their first bloom, and the darker ones around the birch stump were more vigorous [...]

Arabic was brutal today, and the teacher actually assigned more homework for the coming week than I struggled with last week. And you know what? I love it. Everyone needs a seemingly hopeless challenge to struggle against, and I’m lucky enough to have one that won’t impact me personally if I fail at it. But [...]

I took another half day today, but still ended up with only 60% of my Arabic homework done, none of my taxes, none of my yard work and none of my garden planning. There just aren’t enough hours in the day! No wonder computer assignments and construction projects never finish on time or within budget! [...]

It looks like I’ll need more like a week off! What was I thinking? I worked a half day today and then went home and started on the Arabic. I haven’t even gotten to the difficult parts yet! Just doing another set of basic exercises took most of my afternoon and evening. Rather than get [...]

There aren’t enough hours in my day for me to do everything. I’m going to be cashing in a vacation day this week, hopefully, in order to try to catch up. On the one hand, that’s kind of why they’re there, but on the other it feels like a payroll advance or similar hallmark of [...]

Between the Judith Miller book I just finished, Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan, and the Neil Strauss book I just started, I’m really impressed by how fragile and unpredictable the collapse of societies can be. Taleb talks about the city of Rome going from a city of over a million people to a city of only [...]

I prayed for more time this week, and ended up with more, but not in the way you might think. On Monday night, both members of my computer team were “no call no shows,” so I gained an hour or so to finish my Arabic homework, once I figured out they weren’t showing up. Today [...]

The crocuses bloomed today. I took a short walk around my yard when I got home from work today, but didn’t have much energy to do outdoor work, what with this cold I’m fighting. That’s why I don’t have a picture for you. I did come close to burning my house down today. I lit [...]

I’ve spent the night playing the same eight minute, eleven second Arabic TV clip over and over and over again. Listening is the hardest Arabic language skill for me other than reading out loud. I’ve put hours into this exercise over the course of two weeks, and have only half of the questions answered, and [...]

The kale sprouts are starting to get their true leaves. I ate a couple and they taste like kale, of course. The crocuses an old girlfriend and I planted in my front yard, before she got a house of her own, have come up, but haven’t blossomed yet. The catnip plants are starting to sprout [...]