[M]y iPhone died earlier this week. It went quickly, and painlessly. One minute, it was plugged in on my nightstand, bleating the gentle alarm in the Bedtime application. The next, it was dead. The screen went dim, then dark. The phone would no longer take a charge. This is my work phone, and I reported…

[I] have a hard time telling people what I do for a living. I dread the anticipation that results from knowing that at any moment, I’m going to get asked,  “What do you do?” The most recent incident took place a little over a week ago. I was sitting in the dentist chair, mouth open,…

[W]hen I lived in Los Angeles, there was an all-news radio station, KNX1070 “News Radio” that, despite its tag line, did not play “all news” all the time. There were breaks in the news for traffic and weather reports (“traffic and weather together!”). In the evenings the had the KNX Radio Drama Hour. I don’t…

[I] can’t seem to stand still! This is nothing new. I’ve noticed it before, and wondered about it, but it really began to seem ridiculous over the weekend. I took the Little Miss to her dance class on Saturday morning. The parents don’t go into the class. We drop off our kids and then pick…

[A]llow me a moment of writerly pride. A new anthology entitled Funny Horror edited by Alex Shvartsman is available today on Amazon from UFO Publishing. The anthology has stories by a slew of great writers. The anthology also contains a reprint of my one-and-only zombie story, “Meat and Greet.” The e-book is available on Amazon today. A physical…

[O]ver the weekend, we went to a book sale the kids’ school was having as fund-raiser. I’d never been to their book sale before, and was a little skeptical, but it turned out to be a good one. The book sale was set up in the Parish Hall, a large room, much larger than the…

[I] often day-dream about doing other jobs. I wonder how easy (or hard) it would be to learn to play the guitar, or make furniture, or repair clocks. I look at people doing things well and marvel at the time and commitment it must have taken to become so proficient. How did they do it?…

[T]here is space between meetings where I try to catch my breath. Sitting in an office in front of computer for most of the day, giving presentations, writing code, planning budgets, it can, from time-to-time force me to lose perspective. That’s when I look for those spaces between meetings. Sometimes it’s just seven minutes, sometimes…

[T]here is no better weather day than the first springlike day of the year. To my mind, four things have to come together: The sky must be clear and sunny. The sun must feel warm on your skin. The fragrance of blossoming trees and flowers must hang in the air. A certain quality of light…

[I] am a front-row sitter. Stop in at any large company meeting at my day job and you will find the front row of seats empty of bodies, save one: me. When I attend science fiction conventions and go to see a panel discussion, I am right there sitting in the front row. If I…

[T]here is something about being a writer that holds a mystique for people. At least, it does for the people who I am introduced to. At my day job, I am often introduced to others like this: “This is Jamie Rubin. He’s a project manager on the Application Delivery team. He’s also a writer.” The…

[Y]esterday, I wrote about the mathematics of reading. I considered the matter closed until I re-read my post and realized that there were a few questions left unanswered, and I wanted to address these. In the previous post, I asked, why do we focus so much on how many books we read? I suppose that…