Phil’s best friend in college was Jack. Jack Daniels that is. He would take Jack everywhere with him, in a natty little hip flask that Jack Daniels included in their holiday gift pack during Phil’s freshman year. By junior year,…
Yesterday, I was sent to prison. Not by the judicial system, but by the Aleph Institute, a phenomenal organization that looks after the spiritual and physical needs of a number of isolated populations, most notably: the incarcerated, the military, and…
Becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest-level Boy Scout, is much like stamp collecting, except that you have to do specific tasks to collect those stamps, or merit badges as they are called in Eagle-speak. There are over a hundred different…
Rush hour used to be from 7:30-9:30AM and 4-6PM, but that rush hour is a relic of a time when Apple was a thing you ate, Google was a very big number, Amazon was a river, and mail was something…
Did I ever tell you about the time I was kidnapped by a group of radical turkeys? It was definitely one of the crazier times of my life, and something I generally avoid talking about because I’m still suffering from…
There is a man whose name I won’t tell you, who has a dog, whose name I will tell you. It’s Piney. Piney was named that because his “Mommy” had a dream that she would have dog named Piney. Piney…
If you ever get a ride in my car, you might notice a collection of empty water bottles sitting quietly in the front passenger footwell. They have no more purpose to me, and I would throw them out in gas…
This week was Bli Ayin Hara, my oldest son’s birthday. When looking back at Shabbos emails from years gone by, I found this one, and while it’s a bit dated, I thought it was really nice, so we’re doing a…
Let’s start with a number: 38,055,354,510,682, also known as, thirty eight trillion, fifty five billion, and change. I’m sure many of you recognize this number as the total US National Debt. But I’m sure none of you know what that…
The historical information in this essay is mostly culled from Bill Bryson’s book on human anatomy and physiology, The Body. For most of human history, scratching your arm on a rusty nail could be a death sentence. The scratch wasn’t the…