Hello and welcome

I’m still puzzling over exactly what I’m going to put here long term, but I have some ideas to get rolling.  I figure even a scattershot approach will still serve a purpose.

For the most part it’s a way to reach out a bit to my far-flung family and friends, and give them a chance to check in on me now and again, see how I’m getting along, and say hello.

Preeta (my lovely wife, for any random passersby…) and I moved into our first house a few months ago — a tastefully renovated post office built in 1930 — and we’re figuring this whole “owning a house” thing out as we go along — so I can ask for advice and share discoveries.

We’ve jumped from living in academic environments for most of the rest of our lives to settling in the countryside about 40 minutes outside Limoges, so I’m collecting stories to share about that shift from all the different angles: negotiating rural French culture (meeting the neighbors and the cows), but also adventures of living in the middle of nowhere in France while working as a software architect for companies back in the US.

And Preeta’s first novel is coming out May 15th, which is enormously exciting, though I generally leave it to her to tell her own stories.  She’s, ah, pretty capable on that front.  At any rate, you can catch a glimpse of Evening Is the Whole Day at Amazon, though she’d prefer if you picked it up from your local small bookshop instead of buying online if possible.

What else?

Well, the “overthink backscatter” factor….  I take our dog Mrs. Bella Bang (Bella for short) for une promenade usually 3-4 times a day, and walking makes me think.  Sometimes it gets out of hand, and I end up with a mind teeming with strange ideas but no clue where we’ve walked or how long I’ve been gone.  The output of some of those walks may show up here.

Let me know what you think!