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Showing posts from December, 2022

10 for 2022: How Did I Do?

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All right, we've reached the end of another trip around the sun so naturally, I have to scroll back through my posts to the beginning of the year to see what my goals were when this year started and now it's time to go back through and see how I did. So, let's find out: just how did I do? 1. End the year under 200 lbs Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha... nope. On the plus side, I didn't head in the wrong direction (at least not too much. But, expect to see some variation of this for 2023. 2. Get another tattoo. Nope. I have a design picked out and ready to go, I just have to go and do it! 3. Complete a 200-day Duolingo streak Success! Not only did I get a 200-day streak, but I hit a 365-day streak and haven't looked back! 4. Goodreads Goal for 2022: 25 books!   Success! Going to increase my total to 35 for 2023 and see how I do. 5. Get back to Intermittent Fasting and do it consistently and correctly for the year! Yeah... nope. Working on some other weight loss options now

Squawk Box: Andor/Borgen: Power and Glory

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I'm just going to come right out and say it: Andor is the best Star Wars show to date. Hands down. It should also serve as a challenge to anyone playing around in that universe to up their game because this is a show that demonstrates the full potential of what Star Wars could actually be if the powers that be wanted it. (And if they don't, one hopes they're looking at this show and re-evaluating a lot of their thinking about the franchise.) Andor tells the story of Cassian Andor, which is a character we met first in Rogue One. In Rogue One, he's a spy for the Rebel Alliance and deeply committed to the cause, but the show starts five years before, where we meet a very different Cassian. This Cassian, (still played by Diego Luna, reprising his role from the movie) is a bit of a ne'er do well, cynical and searching for his sister. We find out that he and his sister were separated when their planet Kenari was destroyed in a botched imperial mining project. While se

My City Council Application

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. --Wayne Gretzky I rolled into Iowa City along with my parents on a blisteringly hot day in August of 1987. They unloaded some stuff from the moving truck into our then-house on Glendale Court and then we went out to eat at Mazzio's Pizza now long since departed from its location at the corner of First Avenue and Lower Muscatine Road. With a brief three-year absence for a sojourn to graduate school up in Minnesota, I've lived here more or less my entire life. I got a job here. I purchased a house here. I have a family that's growing up here and going to school here. I am deeply embedded in this community.  I graduated from Iowa City High School in 2001. I graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in Political Science in 2006, following it up with an MA in Political Science from Minnesota State University-Mankato. As a state-certified 911 Dispatcher, I have a unique, bird's eye view of the challenges facing the unhous

Bookshot #160: Return Of A King

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William Dalrymple is fast becoming one of my favorite historians- not just of South Asia, but full stop. His writing is immersive, his research impeccable and his books always have connective tissue with some aspect of present-day politics. If you want to look at the original progenitors of untrammeled corporate power, read The Anarchy , his history of the rise of the East India Company. If you want a deep dive into Britain's first round of misadventures in Afghanistan, there's no better book to turn to than Return Of A King. Culturally, the British disaster in Afghanistan- driven largely by the 19th Century preoccupation with Russian shenanigans that we now know as The Great Game, emanates more than people think it does. Dr. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame served in Afghanistan (both in the original and in a case of 'history not repeating itself, but very often rhyming' in the excellent Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman updates as well- though granted, it was a diffe