• On Life and Love

    Beautiful Friends

    I was sitting last night, watching Andrea play with–then struggle with–Aundris, and I realized that they are beautiful. Everyone (myself included) has had so much to say about these two people and their lives and who’s in it and who’s not, but they are beautiful and they are people. Why haven’t we respected their sovereignty?

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage

    There’s a bit of everything in week’s internet cruising: The higher-education bubble (continued): Students are drowning in debt – How's this for ridiculous: student-loan debt now surpasses credit-card debt. Literary Agent – Traditional Versus Self-Publishing – Ted … – Amanda Hocking and Barry Eisler on their strategies of traditional- and self-publishing. 10 Tips on Growing Your Garden Without Growing Your Expenses – Given my gardening bug this year, this is a handy read. On Digital Identity, Technology Dependents, and Death – Much like the comprehensive backup solution I linked to so long ago, this is a great guide for getting started with digital identity management. 1Password is also great on…

  • On Life and Love

    2011 Gardening: The Start of Awesomeness

    This spring–and, admittedly, my impending marriage–brought out my green thumb. The prospect of moving this summer to an apartment that will probably have fewer windows makes me want more green in my house. Much to Greg and Chris’s amusement, I’m planting almost everything I get my hands on: a peach pit (planted before winter in the hopes of a spring sprout that hasn’t come), cilantro (from packaged seeds), basil (also from packaged seeds), tomatoes (packaged seeds), garlic cloves (unused in a risotto dinner), orange seeds (from a late-night snack), and a green onion (unused from a frittata meal) This is all in addition to my two trusty cacti (a saguaro…

  • On Life and Love

    Surprise Wedding Shower!

    I try not to be all weddingy at work, although I have a few close colleagues I geek with. (Drama-inducing colleagues, I’ll add. They think I should be super-stressed and overly-picky.) In fact, I’m not sure all my colleagues knew I was getting married at all until I mentioned it to one of the admins on the floor a couple of weeks ago. Regardless, two of my closest buddies snuck around behind my back–literally, one of them sits behind me–and crafted a wonderful party/shower that they dropped on me yesterday. The whole team showed up. There was both cheesecake and a tasty lemony cake. The whole thing was decked out…

  • On Life and Love

    Bogleheads’ Retirement Planning: Self-Employment Account Options

    A 401(k) for MacGregor? Muy awesome. I had no idea that there were traditional or Roth 401(k) options for the self-employed. I figured that Greg was due to be stuck with only IRAs, as well as a tangle of alphabet soup even I didn’t want to swim in: SEP-IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, Keoghs, spousal IRAs. This totally changes our game plan, even though we won’t hop to a 401(k) immediately.