Conor Grennan's Blog, page 8

The Mentor I Can’t Escape

I heard once that kids benefit from shoving dirt in their mouths and I sure hope that’s true, because if it is my fifteen month old daughter is going to have the immune system of a Viking. I also read that kids who live with dogs (though hopefully not only with dogs) have stronger immune [...]

San Diego Fair: Yep, we can fry that

Here’s what you learn at the San Diego County Fair: You can fry anything. I’m not talking about the normal stuff, like hotdogs and chicken and whathaveyou. I’m not even talking about the “Did you hear that they are now frying…” stuff, like Twinkies and sticks of butter. (Sticks of butter!) No, no that stuff. [...]

The Great Cross Country Move (Or: Our dog may be too fat for LA)

As you pack up your life to move, you seem to have time for nothing else but inventory management. Your house smells of nothing but cardboard and packing tape, and you wonder why you’ve been using a knife to cut cheese for the past couple of years when you apparently had a whole set of [...]

Me and Shamu

If I could write a letter to Shamu, I'd first check in just to make sure he was doing okay. (Actually, first I'd make sure I was talking to the right Shamu. There seem to be, like, five of them.) I'd want to know how he was doing because he sure seemed happy, and he [...]

You and Simon Cowell

I want to watch American Idol. I really do. Not because I love the show, but because it is something that my wife and I bond over, and it's either that or The Bachelor. And The Bachelor, which falls somewhere between crack and cocaine on the addictive scale, is kind of depressing. Even the winners [...]

Resolution-Free New Year

I'm calling this a resolution-free new year, and I'm saying it loudly because I feel proud that I'm bucking the trend. (I'm a Trend-Bucker! Look out, Trends! You're about to be Bucked!) But that's not exactly true. I did make one, I'm just sort of embarrassed about it. Here it is: I resolved to not [...]

Self-Evaluation

Back when I was in college, I knew what my life would be like. I would work in political consulting – I was, and remain, a complete political junkie – in Washington DC. Things went off track almost immediately. My grades kind of sucked at Virginia, so right after graduation, I decided to move to [...]

On the Fear of Blogging

I'm not blind, you know, so I know very well that there are folks out there who are posting blogs three or four times per week. And don't think that doesn't make me feel terribly inadequate, when the most I can manage is maybe a blog posting every, oh, three decades or so. What does [...]

Christmas with Mini-Conor

I don't remember Christmas when I was two and a half years old, but I have to believe that watching my son Finn, who – alas – looks very much like a small version of myself, is something like watching myself around this time of year. Finn, like as I once did, spends a lot [...]

Calgary: Loonies and Leaders

I was in my hotel at the University of Calgary, asking the man at the reception desk to change a Canadian ten dollar bill for a five and five singles. "Of course!" he said happily, because in Canada everything is said happily, even when it's twenty below outside. He opened the cash register, and a [...]