The Parents' Blessing from Our Daughter's Bat Mitzvah

The Parents’ Blessing from Our Daughter’s Bat Mitzvah

Our daughter was bat mitzvah’ed in December at Congregation Beth Am. The photo album (including photos from her excursion to make her own tallis). It was a lovely ceremony and a wonderful family celebration. The temple expected us to give a…

Announcing the "Gail Schlachter Financial Aid Directory Collection" at San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives

Announcing the “Gail Schlachter Financial Aid Directory Collection” at San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives

My mom Dr. Gail Schlachter published hundreds of books over several decades. Like a stereotypical librarian, she saved them all. Most were serial reference books, and most libraries routinely throw out older editions of such works when they buy a…

How I Celebrated My 50th Birthday

How I Celebrated My 50th Birthday

As I mentioned in March, I turned 50 this year. Rather than limit my “birthday” to a single day, I decided to enjoy a year-long celebration. Here’s everything I did: Travel I spent a day at Valley of Fire state…

How Reference Service Press Books Acknowledge My Mom's Career & Life (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)

How Reference Service Press Books Acknowledge My Mom’s Career & Life (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)

We sold my mom’s publishing business to AdmitHub in 2016. AdmitHub asked us for a foreword about mom that they could include in future book editions. Here’s what we sent them: ___ Dr. Gail Ann Schlachter was working as a…

How I’m Celebrating a Milestone Birthday (and How You Can Help)

I’m turning 50 in a few weeks, and I’ve been thinking how to celebrate the milestone. There are many online clickbait pages on the topic, most of which are either generic or insipid. I guess after so many years of life, I should…

Interview With 'All About Cats' Regarding the 'Find Kitty Nala' Book

Interview With ‘All About Cats’ Regarding the ‘Find Kitty Nala’ Book

A year ago, I did an interview about the Find Kitty Nala book for the website “All About Cats.” I intended to repost it here but the draft got buried. Today, I’m celebrating Caturday by exhuming this draft (better late…

Celebrating Our 20 Year Wedding Anniversary!

Celebrating Our 20 Year Wedding Anniversary!

Lisa and I recently celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Because the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous in 1997, our wedding isn’t documented online like it would be today. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to collect some key resources into a…

A Teenager’s View of the Seattle Vegetarian Scene (Guest Blog Post)

A Teenager’s View of the Seattle Vegetarian Scene (Guest Blog Post)

[Eric’s introduction: today I’m turning the blog over to my 13 year old son for his first-ever guest blog post] In October, my dad and I took a short trip to Seattle. I had never been to Seattle before, so…

Announcing the Publication of a New Book: "Find Kitty Nala"

Announcing the Publication of a New Book: “Find Kitty Nala”

In November 2013, we adopted a kitten we renamed Nala, though we often call her “Kitty” for simplicity and lack of creativity. She is both photogenic and a furball of personality, so we take a lot of photos of her….

PROJECT COMPLETE: I've Finished Selling My Mom's Real Estate Portfolio

PROJECT COMPLETE: I’ve Finished Selling My Mom’s Real Estate Portfolio

In addition to the emotional consequences, my mom’s death in April 2015 put a big workload onto my plate–including managing and liquidating her portfolio of 15 real estate properties. That has proven to be one of the most complicated and…