I’ll be first to admit when I first encountered this name I read it as “Forty Niners”. Given it was while reading Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, I should’ve known better. I’ll chalk that up to the brain’s predictive processing and football season. The Friday Niters were not a football team, nor did […]
Just in time for the end of Oktoberfest, or just before the Oktoberfest beer goes on sale. As I draft this piece there is a selection of such beverages awaiting sampling in the refrigerator. Most, German or not, know of this two week holiday. Fewer understand the significance of beer to the German culture, and
It’s fitting this new era begins by discussing another. The 1789 Presidential Election ushered in a new order that would eventually give rise to one of the world’s great superpowers. It did not, however, look anything like the elections of today. The United States after the Revolutionary War It’s important to recall at the end
The Forgotten Candidates of the 1789 Presidential Election Read More »
As of 11:47AM on Saturday, June 28, 2025, I’m a Microsoft-Certified Power BI Analyst. Crickets. More crickets. I’m glad it’s over. Six months of coursework is plenty for a single subject. It’s the application I now look forward to. Before the certification exam it’d begun percolating into my daily responsibilities as a technology consultant. With
Yes, I’m still here. This has been the longest duration between newsletters since starting Becoming Polymathic. What necessitated it wasn’t lack of ideas or time, but a need to dedicate resources towards my second novel, Backward. It became apparent after my last piece on May 4th, despite my continued belief its first draft is significantly
The fall of 2014 was significant for a couple reasons. The first, I started my sophomore year of college. The second, I began drinking coffee. My roommate Collin worked at Babcock Dairy beginning at 5:00AM and he’d leave about two cups in the Mr. Coffee for when I’d need it around 9:00AM. I was, and
Perhaps its no surprise since turning 30 in December 2024, Becoming Polymathic’s pieces have been more reflective. This week will continue that trend as two more milestones were crossed since the last piece. The first was a long-due ending, the other intermediate but increasing in significance. Furthermore, the latter offers a partial answer to the
Cicero, IL is known for two things – Al Capone and the Hawthorne Works Factory. In the 1920’s, it became headquarters of the notorious Chicago Outfit. Simultaneously, the factory, operated by the prominent telecommunications manufacturer Western Electric, reached its peak capacity of 45,000 employees spread across 5 million square feet. For perspective, the Boeing Everett
This piece will be the 60th I’ve written for Becoming Polymathic. In of itself, that’s not significant. March 2025 also marks its 18 month anniversary. Again, insignificant in of itself. There’s been a gamete of topics covered in this time, a fact made especially clear as I return to old pieces and update them to
In 2024, 8.7 million people visited The Louvre. Furthermore, if you take Louvre Director Laurence des Cars’ word, 80% of them went solely to see the Mona Lisa. From that perspective, I was in the minority who couldn’t be bothered. Even at the end of January, the queue was tremendous. I steered to the right