I presented papers and workshopped on humility and faith in Palm Springs, Denver, and Los Angeles, and I’m thick into an interdisciplinary Templeton grant on trust and faith. Glad to have a contract from Oxford University Press to write a book, with Dan McKaughan at Boston College, tentatively entitled Resilient Reliance: A Theory of Faith, and even more glad for a professional leave last Fall to start writing it while camping at Pearrygin Lake (Winthrop) and Roosevelt and Apache Lakes (Arizona), and while slumming it at Hotel Lucerna Mexicali (Mexico). I’m experimenting with a “flipped classroom” in Phil 202, Intermediate Logic, and a reading group style Phil 410, Theory of Knowledge II, focused on intellectual virtues.

Instead of returning to golf after recuperating from shoulder surgery, I picked up kayaking. Spent three weeks of late Summer on a road trip with the boys -- William and Peter, now sophomores at the UW -- and paddling Lake Powell (Arizona), Lake Nighthorse (Colorado), Jackson Lake (Wyoming), and Bowman Lake (Montana), and visiting some NPs and NRAs: Craters of the Moon, Bryce Canyon, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Glacier. Four concerts lifted my spirits: singing along twice with Brandi Carlile (once at the Gorge, and then at McMenamins), head-banging with Switchfoot at the last show of the Native Tongue tour, and humming to Handel’s Messiah at the Mount Baker Theatre. With the boys out of the house, I've enjoyed reacquainting myself with Frances, with whom I celebrated 30 years of marriage on Sept 19; we also celebrated my 60th birthday in the Tonto National Forest (Arizona). But most of all this year, I’m filled to overflowing with gladness to have Hud Hudson in my life. But then, are not we all?

This year I travelled to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with my son, William. I visited my parents in England twice (January and September). I spent ten days in Tacoma studying fiction at PLU. I travelled to Vancouver several times with Dan for Shakespeare (Bard on the Beach) and kayaking and to Phoenix for a few days in November for more kayaking, visiting the Grand Canyon, and visiting a cliff dweller site.

I wrote a philosophical short story, "The Eye of the Needle," that will be published in a collection by philosophers and science fiction writers -- including Hud Hudson and Ted Chiang. I published a short story, "Square Peg," in Five on the Fifth, that is the first scene of a novel I am working on by the same name.

It's been exciting to watch our sons flourish at the UW, William majoring in computer science and philosophy, and Peter in psychology and philosophy, and taking more steps to adulthood like working as a philosophy writing tutor, traveling to Costa Rica, living in an apartment and making "fabulous enchiladas".

I continue to work on philosophy, write fiction, enjoy my family. Life is good.

2019 was a year of travel for our family. Christine and Ben went to Israel, Christine and Zoe went to Washington D.C., and our entire family went to Mexico (see photo above); we also went camping in Wenatchee, hiking in Oregon, and vacationing in Hawaii. On the academic side, I gave a paper on metaphysical indeterminacy at Reed College, participated in an author-meets-critics session at the APA, and published a paper on theological fatalism in Nous. In my free time, I’ve enjoyed playing a lot of basketball, fantasy football, and various card games.

This year I discovered a patch of hemlock growing on the farm, and I got very sick, missing two weeks of class. Luckily, these events were unrelated: the sickness was due to the flu and the hemlock didn’t poison me. As Mike Judge might say, “Sometimes good things do happen to good people!”.

Many other things happened too. I celebrated my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary, my foster daughter’s graduation from high school, and the births of six kittens. I went to Summer Meltdown, a yearly music festival, and I continued to play guitar every day – something I’ve been doing about four years now. I also spent lots of time walking my four dogs. These walks are frequently joined by Mitzi and Annette, a 2-year-old cat and a 5-year-old human who were both born on the farm (at different times).

On the professional side of things I published two papers, both on humility as an epistemic and moral virtue. I also saw to completion a longstanding project when a book on curiosity, which I co-edited, finally came off the presses. And I took a course myself, this one on the use of technology in the classroom. Maybe most importantly, I taught a new senior seminar on open-mindedness. This is the sixth senior seminar I’ve taught in the 12 (!) years I’ve been at Western. Each seminar has been different, and they’ve all been on topics I’ve never taught before. I learn a great deal each time I teach these courses, not least from their many outstanding students. Thanks to all the former seminar students out there!