POSTED // May 23,2012 - The genesis of this column was a report of fixed-gear bikes—fixies—becoming the favored accessory of hip urbanites in Paris.

POSTED // Apr 18,2012 - I think a well-lived life needs at least one transformative moment. What I have in mind is the uncommon, the extraordinary, the act of will that distinguishes one life from others and is distinguishing in and of itself.

POSTED // Apr 11,2012 - For 15 years, I lived in a house in Massachusetts that was heated by a woodstove instead of a furnace.

POSTED // Apr 4,2012 - Richard Louv’s lecture keynoted a symposium called Exuberant Sustainability, sponsored by the University’s Office of Sustainability. So I was startled when the first words he spoke disparaged the noun “sustainability.” Louv said that the word has been watered down over the years to the point it suggests a kind of stasis.

POSTED // Mar 22,2012 - Kara Miller, a teacher at Babson College in Massachusetts, wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe describing students whose lack of preparation for college-level work was exacerbated by their laziness. &l

POSTED // Feb 22,2012 - While walking across an empty parking lot recently, I came across two pennies lying side by side.

POSTED // Dec 21,2011 - A few years ago, the Ghost of Christmas Present paid my family a surprise visit, just as it did to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ famous 19th-century novel.

POSTED // Dec 7,2011 - My wife has long disapproved of the hillside gallery at the Red Butte Garden concerts. Her years as an elementary school teacher have left her with an unwavering respect for rules. To her way of thinking, a rule is as inviolate as the multiplication tables her students struggled to memorize.

POSTED // Oct 26,2011 - Saturday. Midnight. A cannonade of thunder from Point of the Mountain. The “party car” is 1 of 13 police cars patrolling the city.

POSTED // Sep 28,2011 - Last summer, my friend Chad and I went fly-fishing on the Strawberry River two hours east of Salt Lake City.