From the category archives:

Creative Life

Magic of Youth

by Dave Atkins on March 18, 2012

in Creative Life,Local to Boston,Parenting

Four-leaf clovers are not so incredibly rare, but they sure are hard to find. Probably a few years ago now, I started to pay attention a bit more and I remembered how, as kids, we would sit on the ground and search for four-leaf clovers. Somebody always found one and at the time, I didn’t [...]

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Art of Perception

by Dave Atkins on February 7, 2012

in Creative Life

David Brooks recent book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, started me thinking again. I downloaded it to my Kindle to read on a recent cross-country flight. I had forgotten who David Brooks was–then remembered his other annoying book, Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got [...]

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I got a job and this blog died. We moved and I really had no compelling reason to keep updating http://westwoodblog.org either. My life is pretty full but I do miss expressing myself and creating something here. Partly, I’m also in transition. As we adjusted to a new rhythm of job, home, schools, etc. I dialed back [...]

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Several years ago, we discovered the First Church and Parish in Dedham. When we first attended, we were concerned that although the people were welcoming and the community was obviously strong, we weren’t sure if there was a critical mass of young families like us. We wanted our kids to be a part of a [...]

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New York City Daytrip

by Dave Atkins on August 28, 2010

in Creative Life,Essay,Urbanism,Work/Life

I’m not sure what starting me thinking about New York City again, but yesterday, somewhat impulsively–but with a little planning–I decided to visit. By myself. Cheaply. Without a concrete plan, I did a lot and spent just a little over $100. I’ve been to NYC about half a dozen times. As a freshman at MIT, [...]

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Career Arc

by Dave Atkins on August 3, 2010

in Advice to Unemployed,Creative Life,Essay,Work/Life

My career is a search for opportunities to use my talents to help make a difference in people’s lives. My resume does not adequately make that connection. Much of what I enjoy writing involves connecting the dots between related but nonlinear ideas, so today I apply that to my own story: I began with an [...]

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Yesterday, Patch (the hyper local news publisher funded by America Online) launched a Westwood, Massachusetts site–the 11th town so far in Massachusetts. I met the editor and am impressed that they are making an effort to cover the news in this town of 15,000–potentially filling the void left when the Daily News Transcript stopped being [...]

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The Accidental Vegetarian

by Dave Atkins on June 24, 2010

in Creative Life,Sustainable Living

Meat is overrated. After several weeks since I ate meat as part of my diet, I’m not really missing it. So I guess I am coming out as a vegetarian. It’s no big deal. But it wasn’t something I decided, planned, or forced myself to do. It just happened. My family started thinking more critically [...]

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Westwood Community Access Television is using a simple, but powerful combination of old and new media technology to jumpstart their efforts to bring public access TV to Westwood, Massachusetts. While the administrative and technical details for taking control of local origination programming are still underway, we are using Ustream to livecast from our minimalist control [...]

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The iPhone 4 is out and while mobile and tech gadget gurus will analyze its features, this 2-minute video describing the “Facetime” feature deserves the Oscar. The video pulls all the right heartstrings and makes the case for why you just have to buy your grandparents one of these NOW. From the Apple website: People [...]

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