Blog
Asking questions can lead you to new places. Writing helps bring you to answers. And more questions.
Here, I’ve collected writings on a number of topics. Sometimes they’ve been published elsewhere, and other times they’re just for this blog.
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A few weeks ago, I went with my wife and some friends to Minneola State Park to go snowshoeing. Unfortunately, all of the snowshoes had been reserved days earlier by people who know how things work here in Mankato. So we drove through the bison range instead. We didn’t see anything, except a boulder that…
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 43 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the…
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Many of you are wondering: What’s the Figys’s first married Christmas like? And if you’re not, you feel too awkward about walking out now. It’s like you showed up to the wrong class on syllabus day, but already claimed a great seat and asked a question about the midterm—so, why not take Anthro 245? So…
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Holy Cross stories, pt. 1: Flat12 Bierwerks
From the pinnacle of Highland Park you can see a lot. It’s the second highest point in Indianapolis, so Chase Tower and the downtown skyline are highly visible. But so are the 136-foot Holy Cross bell tower, a fence with three Rottweiler statues, a development of brand new $300,000 to $500,000 homes, a one-acre urban…
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How I became a morning person
My alarm clock is useless. At least, the electronic one I have to plug in and reset if the power goes out. But now, I don’t even need my phone alarm. I became a morning person. Granted, it helps that my cats want their breakfast earlier and earlier. Herman—the orange devil, as his friends call…
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Review: The Decemberists – What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
I wrote a review of The Decemberists’ new album for It’s All Dead! Stephanie read it and told me I write reviews like Rory Gilmore, referring of course to the episode in which Rory prints a scathing writeup of a ballet performance at Yale and in the end learns a valuable lesson. But you, of course,…
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The word of 2014: Work
“Can you imagine not working?” my dad asked me yesterday. We’d just loaded hand tools, power tools back into my dad’s van, with its hardly latching doors and cracked windshield. We were driving away from the job, a home in great disrepair. Not a glamorous, forty-some thousand dollar kitchen remodel, but it was work. “Well,”…
James Figy 