Uncategorized Archives - Hal Phillips

What’s a Design Nerd to Think, “When Nines Don’t Match”?

Hal Phillips — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:44:14 +0000

[Ed. This piece appeared 25 years ago in a magazine called TravelGolf Maine founded by a fellow named Park Morrison. It didn’t last long (1998-2001) and, sadly, Park passed away last year, in 2023. I’m including the story here because surely it never made it online — and because it appeared, in print, under a […]

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Thanksgiving in China: Two Stories Behind the Story

Hal Phillips — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:29:14 +0000

It’s been a decade since this piece was published in the print edition of LINKS Magazine, under an original headline that played on the “China Syndrome” trope. I recently ran across it online. So I’ve shared it here, 10 years down the road. Almost immediately upon publication of this feature, President Xi Jinping started calling out […]

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Hal Phillips: More good guys with guns? No thanks

Hal Phillips — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 16:14:00 +0000

[Ed. The column below ran in the Lewiston Sun Journal on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, three days after 18 were killed during a mass shooting across the river from my home, in Lewiston. Online version linked here. Because it resides behind a paywall, the content is reproduced here.] We’re fine. That’s what I’ve been texting […]

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Draft Kings Rule: Nuggets are the NBA’s top talent evaluators. And it’s not close.

Hal Phillips — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 21:07:45 +0000

In hailing the all-world talents of Nikola Jokic, now an NBA champion and the most influential Serb since Gavrilo Princip, let’s also recognize that this cornerstone figure was taken #41 in the 2014 NBA Draft. He was chosen after Doug McDermott, whom the Nuggets took that year at #11. They are two of 20 Nugget […]

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Celtics Warriors 2022: Redeeming an NBA Final That Never Was…

Hal Phillips — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 02:02:36 +0000

[Ed. It’s rare for the brain trust here at halphillips.net to yield the floor. It’s rare for anyone to request such a thing, frankly. But Stephen McDermott Myers isn’t just anyone. He is my former Wesleyan University soccer teammate and the man who helped edit by 2022 book, Generation Zero: Founding Fathers, Hidden Histories and […]

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Maine Pop-up Restaurants take the Food-Truck Ethos Indoors

Hal Phillips — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 18:20:43 +0000

LEWISTON, Maine (March 23, 2022) — Before moving to Lewiston-Auburn (my wife Sharon and I officially arrived here Sept. 1, 2021) we’d already heard tell of El Pocho’s Mexican Grill. Those of us who reside in the Union’s most white-bread state have long endured an acute Mexican-food-related problem: not enough Mexicans. Or Central Americans. The situation […]

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Sitting Down with False Shepherds, over Seven Farm-to-Table Courses

Hal Phillips — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 16:37:07 +0000

My wife and I recently found ourselves at loose ends for the July 4 holiday. We’d been meaning to visit Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. Upon cursory investigation, Google Maps revealed the most accessible, southern tip of this region — where the mighty St. Lawrence River meets the North Atlantic — requires a 12-hour drive from south/central […]

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Chasing the Double-Double: Fast Food Adventures from HKG to LAX and Points North

Hal Phillips — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 15:30:58 +0000

[Feb. 17, 2022] The trip had been months in the making but this fast food advenutre began, for me — this Great Father-Son Sampling of West Coast golf, fast food and prospective institutions of higher learning — on the outdoor deck at Trafalgar, a British-themed pub perched high above the heart of Hong Kong’s Central […]

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A Letter to My Realtor — on the Occasion of Putting My Rural Home & Community on the Market

Hal Phillips — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 14:22:22 +0000

[Ed. — In April 2021, before we put our New Gloucester home formally up for sale, and moved to the nearby community of Lewiston-Auburn, our realtor, Shawn Boulet of Green Tree Realty, asked me to get him some info on the town of New Gloucester and its school system. This is potentially influential information potential […]

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Dress Code Switch: Golf Hoodies find an Unlikely, On-Course Embrace

Hal Phillips — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 13:41:35 +0000

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (Nov. 8, 2021) — Nearly two months post Ryder Cup, I’m still waiting on broad public acknowledgement of the striking sea change we witnessed at Whistling Straits. No, not the fourth U.S. victory since 1993. I’m talking about the addition of golf hoodies to the official American team kit. The advent of this […]

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