I was serving as a judge at a local startup competition. The judge on my left is one of the most accomplished executives I’ve ever run across. I’ve known this woman for a few decades (our spouses worked together). When Bella was first out of college, the two of them chatted on occasion. I can’t recall who or how that connection came to be, but each spoke highly and appreciatively of the othe ...
As we prepare to don our thinking caps for the coming holiday season, I thougth I'd share a few recent wins I've had on the gift-giving front. Perhaps it may help any with a blank space or two in their gifting spreadsheet this season (I mean, you do have a gifting spreadsheet, right?).
THE CHALLENGE
Many would agree that finding gifts, let alone inspired gifts, is one of the most chal...
My first-ever girlfriend was Anna Smith. She moved to Fort Collins from Nebraska in the middle of ninth grade. I had two classes with her, and we found it easy to talk with one another right away. I don't recall how long it was before our multi-hour phone calls began but each ended by one of our parents picking up another phone in the house and saying they thought we had talked long enough.
...
I have a friend, Justin, whose wife, Heather, wanted to write a book. Now, sure, lots of people want to write a book, but Heather wanted to so much that she actually did write a book. After writing it, she sent it to a load of publishers, all of which, in return, sent her their boilerplated rejection letter.
Justin wanted to help, but Justin has no experience with writing or publishing bo...
Marty recounted a story from when she was twelve to Tony and I. She went to a lake house with a cousin of hers. While there she and her cousin, who was also a super-cute girl, ran into some boys also visiting the area. One of the boys became very interested in Marty. In the retelling of the story Marty said the boys first and last name, a name she has remembered all of these years given the awkwar...
Before the start of his senior year, Tony decided he was going to produce a weekly "zine" that would aim to present stories the more conventional channels were missing. If you've never heard of a zine, it is simply a non-commercial magazine that is often homemade. His interest here emanates from a few sentiments, but one is he doesn't feel the school-sanctioned outlets are encouraged to present a ...
Below is one of my favorite book openings. I’m posting it now as it relates, albeit loosely, to Halloween (I know this is a June gallery entry—but it is being posted in October).
There are some who might think a book written about checklists was specifically (and only) written for me, and I was for-sure plenty geeked to put hands on it, but then to have it start with a memorable stor...
For a few reasons, my 5-part essay on aging, which was scheduled to be shared this week, is not finished. Apologies. This doesn’t mean there will be no new content this week, just not the content I originally said there would be. Instead of the essay, this will be just another week of standard posts.
As punishment, let me share this not-too-flattering-for-troy troyscript I’ve been sitting on for awhile now.
Family Scrapbook: Fall 2023 Leiden / Netherlands (2023)
For his Fall 2023 semester, Alex took advantage of a study-abroad program and spent the term in the Netherlands. Aside from him letting us know he successfully arrived at his destination, Leiden, we didn’t hear a whole lot from him for the first month. Then he sent an email saying that he had a problem—the university asked him if he would move out of his single room into a shared room so a new ...
I've eaten at Chick-fil-A maybe a dozen times, usually while traveling, which means I typically go to different places. Regardless of what part of the country I'm in, I'm always met with a smile at the counter, served in moments, given food that resembles the picture on the wall, and while I ate, was repeatedly asked if I wanted my sweet tea (!!!) refilled, also with a smile. And that is in the lo...
Anthony starts his senior year of high school this week. For college, presently, it is looking like he might be attending Mizzou to study Journalism. Given this interest Marty, Anfer and I visited the school on their summer visit day. It was a fun day that began at day-break when we had to set out on the two hour drive to the school. We enjoyed seeing the campus and hearing the various schools and...
I added a few of the books I read while at summer camp to What I’m Reading.
Had a nice mix this summer. I’m still wrapping up a few of them which will be added soon. But enjoyed my first two Harlan Coben reads, and the Silent Patient was crazy good. But as for memorable, it would have to be, once again, the work of Morgan Housel. So, so good. In demonstration, here’s a quote I didn’t include on the book overview—as it is I only shared a handful of my marked passages as there were so many.
Most young tree saplings spend their early decades under the shade of their mother’s canopy. Limited sunlight means they grow slowly. Slow growth leads to dense, hard wood. But something interesting happens if you plant a tree in an open field: free from the shade of bigger trees, the sapling gorges on sunlight and grows fast. Fast growth leads to soft, airy wood that never had time to densify. And soft, airy wood is a breeding ground for fungus and disease. “A tree that grows quickly rots quickly and therefore never has a chance to grow old,” forester Peter Wohlleben wrote. Haste makes waste.
In the late nineties Marta and I visited Fort Collins, Colorado where I grew up. While in town, I learned that a high school friend was also in visiting her parents. I reached out and she invited Marty and I to join her for a picnic in the foothills her family had planned. After pulling into her driveway and being introduced, her father and I had the following conversation.
Marta declared it the best summer ever. It was a pretty good one. Noting a few of the highlights for our records.
Anfer
Tony attended something called Boys State. It is an eight day experience where a few kids from just about every high school in the state attend. During the week they establish a complete community and government system (I think). Attendees are recommended via teacher referrals so it was a pretty high-caliber collection of young people. Anthony had a lot of fun. What he did not have was a lot of sleep. His first day back, he dropped his bags in the foyer, walked to his bedroom, and slept for fourteen hours.
Aleo
Alex was invited to help teach at a weeklong summer program at his university. There were two students from his Film School recommended by faculty. The experience ended up being significantly more challenging than he, or anyone else, expected it to be. Marty and I were both stunned at some some of the situations he found himself in. We were equally surprised by the grace in which he responded to each of them. This poise under duress is an ability he has repeatedly demonstrated in his young life.
Baya
Bella is working on starting a non-profit (more on that later). While getting things organized, she has been doing a lot of social media work so when she's ready to open the doors, she has a ready group of people to invite inside. The other day, while shopping, someone yelled at her from across a store, “Hey! Yo! Kindness girl!”. She got recognized in the wild! AND she got called Kindness-Girl! It is hard to know which of those two milestones made her beam more.
Marta
Marty and I took our first trip together without kids since having kids. And it was kinda great. The only bad thing to come of it was when I called my best friend, Bookpimp, to ask if it was ok for Marty to join me on this year’s visit, he replied, “The question is if Marty’s coming, why would we need you?”. In our travels, in addition to doing a record amount of kayaking (in her origami kayak), she did a few new things, namely trail bike riding (through a Michigan forest on dirt pack) and taking up tennis (she has even gotten a coach).
Troy
I’ve been going tent-camping in Michigan every July for the last ten years. Every year, I seemingly go a bit longer. For the last few years, I’ve gone for a month. This year was supposed to be five weeks, but an unexpected Secret Cajun Band concert caused me to delay my departure. When in Michigan I do a good bit of reading, play a lot of tennis, bike a lot of miles, and paddleboard just about every day (that's where I get my baths). Next year I will be adding snorkeling and open water swimming to the list of activities. This year I concluded my Michigan Julys are the summer camps I never got as a kid. I’ve been going to this same place for so long, I now know more people there (other summertime regulars as well as locals) than I do in my home’s neighborhood.
Those are the tippy-top highlights from the Marty-branded best summer ever.
Just another of life’s shots of esteem in an aging arm.
A family friend was in town. Marty has known him since high school. He was here because his mother had taken ill. When he told his mother he had to leave for a bit to visit some friends, she asked who he was seeing. He said, Marty Walter. His mother perked up and said, “Oh, Marty. She’s the one who was dating that very handsome boy, right?”
After Joe shared his mother’s comment with Marty and me, all three of us standing in the kitchen knew Joe’s reply to his mother was not, “Yeah, she ended up marrying that guy.” We all knew the handsome guy his mother was referring to. In fact, my Marta was on that handsome boy’s arm the night I first met her. And in retelling our origin story, I too might describe him as the handsome boy, so handsome in fact, if given the choice, I might have dated him.
Fortunately for me, that handsome boy was also not a funny boy. If he could have made Marty laugh and smile as deftly as I could, it might have been a fair fight.
As Abdi and I fretted about our potential of being rich parents with spoiled kids, we stumbled across a quote that has calmed our worries. I felt it related well to the Ski Bin #3 love language tale: "Spoiled children are born when you replace your presence with presents."
Thanks for being present AND giving us cool presents.
Love,
Bella
I have a feeling more of the learned and inspiring content may be soon coming from my three children, none of which can really be described as children anymore.
It feels like a minute since I've had the opportunity to share a good story, so let's make the first post-restoration entry about one of the more unusual things to happen to me since being away.
In 2021, I spent a week in my hometown, Fort Collins, Colorado. Midway through the week, I had to switch to a new Airbnb spot, so I found myself in a new neighborhood. I quickly noticed it was n...
Welcome to the revitalized DeArmitt dot com. Honestly, I cannot recall if this is the third, fourth, or even fifth time the site received an overhaul in its twenty four year existence. While I may not know how many times it has had an adjustment, something I can say with absolute confidence is the versatility of the initial design has been unexpectedly remarkable—doubly so given this is only the second website I ever made. That it has shouldered decades of change on both the technology AND consumption fronts is surprising.
Bookpimp's initial feedback after seeing the new design: "I like it. It still has all the DNA but mixed up with some of the chaff removed." Lean with some sheen was the goal. Happy to have landed at least near the mark.
A few things to note:
The new Home page includes a Past Post of the Day and a Publication Schedule! I’ve always felt bad about the erratic and uncertain nature of when new things would appear. I don’t ever want to let down people kind enough to support this site, let alone be a weekly letdown. So going forward, I will plan on scheduling updates so you don’t have to play the is-there-content-this-week guessing game.
All past content has been tagged, meaning over 2,600 items have been individually read and cataloged. That work was the most grueling part of the renovation, but given the varied content in this collection, it was a meaningful update that needed to happen. In all, that review took four months and happened in eleven states (Chronologically Mo, Ut, Wy, Co, Pa, Nj, Ct, Va, Wv, Ga, Nc).
All of the pages have been refined to make their presentation more digestible (e.g., larger fonts, better organization). I’m most pleased with the look of the TroyScripts.
The What I’m Reading page also saw a significant update. There is still a sizable amount of missing data there. I'm working on backfilling books, reviews, and quotes but did not want that to hold up the site release.
It is not ready yet, but the second region of the site has been dog-eared for a future site extension called Troy Notes. I’m not sure when that will come online, as it needs a healthy bit of design consideration.
I hope you enjoy the newly restored site. Since promoting it a few days ago, I have been sleeping better, knowing I no longer have the most dilapidated house on my virtual block.
Someone recently told me I lied to them. When I asked why they thought that they said I told them I was going to start posting more and then didn't, which made me a liar-face.
Yeah. So. Sorry bout that. She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't entirely right either.
The thing she, and none of you can see, is the fervent work happening on the dearmitt dot com restoration. I'm so excited to unveil it but there is so much work to do to reverse and correct the years of neglect. But please know that this work is underway, obsessively so, and you will soon be sailing down this branch of the internet highway again, with your arm out an open window and you singing, full-throat, to the valley girl soundtrack.
