Be it ever so humble . . . We returned home late in the day on Tuesday, October 29. Typical of extended trips, we needed a vacation following our vacation. (Admittedly, mine was a “working vacation”, a phrase as oxymoronic as “vacations with children”. In truth, hanging out in Italy with your wife and 40 great people, eating like a pig and attending operas all over the map cannot possibly be construed as REAL work. So a “working vacation” it was.) Anyway, given the physical consequences of intercontinental travel, a day or two of time zone reacclimation would have been sweet. But this was not to be, so on Wednesday, my new wife Nanci (who is a pediatrician) headed off to her office to see patients and then to the hospital to check on the newborns while I steeled myself for The Great Courses’ first professor web-chat, which occurred from 4PM-6PM Pacific time on Wednesday afternoon. I was given a tutorial earlier in the day when a young woman from The Great Courses named Michelle walked me through the process over the phone and on the computer. I presume she is a young woman because only the young can explain […]