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Bar Prep and Wellness
I’ve dipped my toe into bar prep and will start fully on Monday. Preparing for the bar is a daunting task. It feels like the learning equivalent of sprinting a marathon. However, that doesn’t mean you get to ignore your own wellness. Working long hours is something that’s not going to go away with a…
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Law School Reflections
I started law school part-time four years ago while working full-time. My first year was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. My second year was on Zoom. My third year was masked. My final year was mostly normal again. During law school, I also quit my full-time job, and, with my wife, welcomed my first child,…
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Bitter Brew by William Knoedelseder
Of the 3 big, domestic beer brands, I’ll drink Miller first, then Coors, and, if for some reason no alternative exists, then Bud. Still, I’m always game for an interesting non-fiction story, so I gave William Knoedelseder’s Bitter Brew a chance. I was rewarded with a surprisingly tasty story.* I had no idea the family…
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Before Happiness by Shawn Achor
For a historian, I have some real chronology issues. I watched Better Call Saul before Breaking Bad. I watched season 2 of The Crown before season 1. I’ve only ever seen season 2 of Stranger Things. Basically, I’m a monster. So it didn’t phase me to read Shawn Achor’s Before Happiness, which was published after…
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Basketball (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano
The more you enjoy basketball, the more you will enjoy this book. The book picks up in 1980 (Larry Bird and Magic Johnson’s first year in the NBA) as the beginning of the modern NBA and runs through the 2016 finals. Each chapter is in a Question and Answer format where Serrano explores interesting topics…
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Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Contextualize was one of my go to words as an academic. I loved adding “context” to historical events and I loved reading authors who did the same. Outside of academia, there’s little use for the word. Sure people still add context, but no one ever said “Wow, Bob Costas contextualized that luge competition really well.”…
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Reflecting on My Job Search
I recently wrapped up my second non-academic job search. In some ways it was easier than the first because I had a solid nonprofit job on my resume, but relocating from Nebraska back to Michigan made the process a bit more interesting. The experience gave me a few insights, even if they’re relatively obvious in…
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Read all the books!
It was one of those New Years Resolutions that I probably wasn’t going to keep (like all the others made at the beginning of this year). Still, by the end of June, I finished my 50th book of the year. I recently completed my 51st book and one book over six weeks shows how slowly…
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Do Space Innovation Fellowship
The Do Space Innovation Fellowship was created to allow teachers, nonprofit workers, and librarians the space, time, and resources to create community learning projects for Omaha and beyond. I’m proud to say I coordinated the efforts to launch the first year of the fellowship. Though my move to Grand Rapids didn’t allow me to lead…
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What is Airtable?
The cliche would be to call Airtable Google sheets on steroids. I think that sells Airtable short. I’m a fan of Airtable because it’s flexible. I’ve used it for budgeting, keeping a database of clients, project management, and tracking applications. It’s also free and cloud-based which are positives in my book. Their templates, ranging from…