Jonathan Miller's Blog, page 17

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Dave Chappelle

At Dave Chappelle show at the Palace with Rebecca.

Great show…sitting in a sea of white people —each of whom is thinking “If Dave looks at me he will probably realize I am not as ‘white’ as the other white people around me.”

Until we look at each other in the audience. And realize Dave probably won’t think that.

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The lowlight, for me, of the Dave Chappelle performance last night.

It was during the warm-up.

The DJ was trying to get the audience going and pumped up to cheer on Dave taking the stag...

Saul Kaplan: Sometimes Disruption Has To Hit You Right In The Mouth

…..before you realize it can change the world.

As an innovation junkie and geek wannabe I’ve been paying attention to 3D printing and the exploding maker movement. When I say paying attention, I mean reading about it, watching hackers and hobbyists make stuff, and wondering if there is more to the technology than the brightly colored plastic tchotchkes cluttering my desk. 3D printing really hasn’t affected me yet. That is until I recently chipped a tooth and with the bothersome pea-sized chip...

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: A Bad Ass No More

There comes a moment in every man’s life when he has to admit that he is no longer a bad ass. Mine just came now.

I just got my very first flu shot ever at the age of 51. And I am already feeling a slight fever coming on.

And about 15 minutes after that moment of realizing you aren’t a bad ass anymore, you are forced to admit that you probably never were a bad ass in the first place. That moment just happened to me now, too. (Actually about 15 minutes after the first realization.)

While Googling...

John Y. Brown, III: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Younger days with my sisters and mom and dad. When everything was possible, days ran long and years seemed like an eternity. And Christmas was a monumental and defining event for how good a year it had been.

And Santa Claus was everything we wanted him to be –and was more real than family members we lived with. And chased around the yard between Santa’s visits.

P.S. This is a particularly poignant picture because tonight my sister Sandy told me this picture reminded her of how s...

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Tales from a Marriage

Some of the reasons I love my wife (and some of the reasons I thinks she loves me):

Last night Rebecca picked me up at the airport so we could eat dinner at our favorite restaurant nearby –and she got to the airport 15 minutes early and waited. But when I came outside from the baggage claim doors I couldn’t find her car anywhere and it was because Rebecca was parked and waiting for me instead at the “Departing Flights” level just outside Delta.

I went upstairs to the ticket counter level and fo...

Josh Bowen: Hormone Sabotage

One of the best books I have read on fitness and nutrition is entitled, “The 7 Principles of Fat Burning” by Eric Berg. This book documents how hormones truly affect our bodies and cause the resistance to lose body fat. It is a fascinating read that take the information that I will talk about today and expounds on it.

First things first, I am not an endocrinologist and I am not a registered dietitian. I like to think of myself as a problem solver, a MacGyver of sorts. Because in all reality th...

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: The parable of the Good Samaritan Shopper (the New International Modern Consumerism Version)

A Samaritan named John shopped long and hard one day at a large all-purpose consumer goods store. When he finished paying for his items he placed his several bags in a shopping cart because he remembered he had parked in the far back of the parking lot and was too lazy to personally carry the shopping bags that far all by himself.

The shopping cart made everything mucb easier and afterJohn had placed the shopping bags in his car he looked at the empty shopping cart and felt tired. John then lo...

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Ruining the Holidays

I would like to know who the asshole is who bought his true love all the things listed below one Christmas and then put in a song to brag about.

He makes all the rest of us look bad.

And the fact this song gets sung over and over this time each year only rubs it in.

I mean, come on! Even if we guys got all this for our true loves, where would you put it all? And don’t you think by January you would be bored and tired of almost all of them, except maybe the golden rings?

Besides, I am guessing by...

Erica and Matt Chua: Travel Guilt

When I decided to take a trip around the world with my husband I never thought that we would have a constant, often unwelcome third wheel: guilt. In my mind it is impossible to do third world travel and never feel even a twinge of guilt about the fact that your traveling in a place where your daily expenditure, even if you’re on a budget, is often equivalent to a month’s salary (or more) for the average resident of the country your visiting.

It is impossible to avoid history, politics, the mor...

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Hoop Dreams. The Kentucky NBA edition.

I have always had mixed feelings about Louisville (and Kentucky) being able to support an NBA franchise. I have wanted it to be true that we can support a professional basketball team– but understand from close up, from our ABA days, what a daunting reality that is.

Over the past 40 years my attitude has been a lukewarm, “Well, maybe we should try and see. If it doesn’t work, it is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried and never known for certain.”

But recently, and for no pa...