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Josh Knox

Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇

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Just Joshin' #108 (Mother's Day)

1 Family Photo: Mother's Day My aunt hosted a Mother's Day luncheon over the weekend. Between aunts, uncles, cousins, my parents and sister it was also probably the closest thing there will ever be to Newsletter reader meet-and-greet. One reader suggested I use this space to explain more Portuguese words. The kids are growing up bilingual. It might be nice if the rest of the family had extra words to say to them (Hi Uncle Jim). My dad's studied Duolingo everyday since before the kids were...

about 23 hours ago • 5 min read

1 Family Photo: Woodwork Home Depot has Kids Workshops on the first Saturday of each month. While supplies last, each kid gets a kit with instructions to make a box, or a picture frame, or a mini-whiteboard, whatever the project of the month happens to be. First-time kids get an orange apron to wear while they build their kit. The kit includes a little pin representing that month's project. They get to tack the pins onto their aprons. This establishes some seniority—you can tell the...

8 days ago • 5 min read

1 Family Photo: Railroad Museum The other trip within our trip to Truckee was visiting the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, Nevada. Longtime newsletter readers will note visiting train museums is sort of our thing—we've visited train museums in San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Virginia City, and Tiradentes to name a few. Our house (and everywhere we stay) becomes train museum, eventually. Thanks to generous tips from newsletter readers, the Sacramento Railroad Museum and the Altoona...

15 days ago • 5 min read

1 Family Photo: Water Cycle The Discovery is a science museum in Reno. We celebrated Lawrence's birthday with a visit. The museum's biggest exhibit is a model of the Truckee River watershed and the water cycle, complete with "clouds" cut from stacks of pringles-shaped platforms towering 3-stories above the atrium. The clouds create an irregular jungle gym for "climbers of all ages". Lawrence loved the clouds—undeterred by their height—dragging me up and down the tiny crawlspaces they created....

22 days ago • 3 min read

1 Family Photo: Raccoon! We had a cabin visitor this week. A raccoon popped over and looked in on us. He didn't just pass by—he stopped, pulled on the sliding glass door to check if it would budge, peeped through to see what was happening inside. It felt like a zoo exhibit, but in reverse. I could hear the raccoon thinking: "LOOK AT THE ADORABLE HOOMANS! HOW SAD THEY'RE TRAPPED IN GLASS BOX. DON'T THEY WANT TO EXPLORE OUTSIDE?" The raccoon started at us. We stared at him. He wouldn't leave us...

29 days ago • 7 min read

1 Family Photo: Screens This week, we only stopped once on our seven-hour drive to Truckee. In travel-dad golf, that's shooting birdie on a par 3. [*insert joke about drivers*] The boys passed some of the time looking at their books, drawing on little pads, singing songs, and napping. Mostly though, they just gazed out their windows, occasionally asking questions about things we passed. I don't know if it makes any difference to life-outcomes (and I don't judge anyone else's parenting...

about 1 month ago • 4 min read

1 Family Photo: Suffering Jensen Huang (The Nvidia Guy) had some advice for Stanford students: "People with high expectations have low resilience. Unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you except—I hope suffering happens to you." He added, "Greatness isn't intelligence, greatness comes from character. And character isn't formed out of smart people, it's formed out of people who have suffered...I wish upon you ample doses of pain & suffering." -- A...

about 1 month ago • 5 min read

1 Family Photo: Disappointment The SLO Railroad Museum is only open on Saturdays. Calvin knows it is only open in Saturdays. His first question when he wakes up in the morning is often, "Is today a Saturday?" by which he really means "Is the train museum open today? Can we go to the train museum today?" He's often disappointed to find out today is in fact not a Saturday, or even a weekend. We sometimes still go to the train museum when it is closed. A couple weeks ago, due to a few wrong...

about 2 months ago • 4 min read

1 Family Photo: Endurance "I'm tired," said Calvin. "I know you're tired, but if you can still put one foot in front of the other then you can keep going. Don't worry about anything else. Don't worry about how far we've gone or have to go — let's just try to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Does that make sense?" "Yeah Dad," Responded Calvin. "But I'm still tired."—"Will you carry me?" And that's how our family walked/scootered/carried almost a fifth of the Bob Jones Trail. --- As...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

1 Family Photo: Humor Why did Joshua have no parents?Because he was the son of Nun. This joke is not funny. Its premise describes some sad orphan situation. Its punchline relies on bible trivia. It was also my favorite joke when I was 6. This is worse when I think about confused strangers assuming the setup was autobiographical. I'm lucky we didn't send kids to therapy back then. It reminds me of another piece of poorly constructed humor. In Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy in the Muslim...

2 months ago • 3 min read
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