After being laid off late Monday afternoon, I arrived home, jotted a short list of things I have wanted to do for months but could not find the time for, then stretched across my couch under a warm blanket and…

On a tenth grade history exam, I was asked to list four factors that led to the start of World War I. I remember writing, “The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand,” on the first blank line. It was one of the…