dan oshinsky dot com: A blog about stories, the work... and my mother.

Something changed in me this year. I know, because I was on the phone with a friend a few weeks ago. I was telling her about all the work I’m putting in with Stry and Very Quotatious and the fellowship, and she didn’t say anything. And then I saw her a few days later, and (…)

I have a friend who is studying to become a doctor. On test days, I’ll often get a text or an email from her, asking for a word of wisdom. She knows I’ve got a Delicious loaded with inspirational links and ideas, and I’ll dig through there and send her something. I love helping, and (…)

Today is my little brother’s 19th birthday. Exactly a year ago, I was thinking about how he’d just turned 18, and I wrote down this thought. I’m sharing it here on the Interwebs for the first time. Sam O turns 18 today. 18′s one of those unimportant important birthdays. He gets to do nothing special, (…)

I read this story last summer, and I didn’t fully understand it. I loved it, and I bookmarked it, and I read it a half-dozen times, but I didn’t really get it. It was about Bob Bradley, the former coach of the U.S. men’s soccer team. The story was by Luis Bueno, who used to (…)

Fast. It’s moving so damn fast. So many things to cross off the to-do list. So many things happening all at once. So many tasks. Knock one off, another one takes its place. Slow. It’s moving so damn slow. So much time between now and May, and May just won’t come. Why can’t it all (…)

Back on Aug. 1, 2010, I officially launched Stry. I was a month into my three-month stay in Biloxi. I wasn’t making any money, and I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen to me. That night, I wrote down this thought about my future. I’m sharing it here on the Interwebs for the (…)

It is 72 degrees in St. Louis today, and it is January. This, by itself, would be considered unusual, except that today, something even more unusual is happening: I am traveling on Amtrak. When I was a kid, living just outside Washington, D.C., I used to love traveling by train. I loved riding D.C.’s subway, (…)

Forbes ran a story on their website this week about Best Buy. The lead paragraph read: “Electronics retailer Best Buy is headed for the exits. I can’t say when exactly, but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years.” Then it went on to detail numerous problems with (…)

This is the time of the year when people start making bucket lists. You know what they are; I won’t ramble on here about mine. But what I would like to discuss is a sort of corollary to the bucket list. See: We have the bucket list, which looks long term. We have the to-do (…)

I am 24 years old, and I’m going through a period of transition in my life. It’s that time of the year when I start getting all thoughtful about where I am and where I’m going, and at this very moment, I’m stuck in Kansas City Int’l, waiting for a flight home. So I wanted (…)