Category: Uncategorized

  • ODDS and ENDS: Proof of Workouts, Sitting Still, and Goodbye Playlists/Hello Albums

    ODDS and ENDS: Proof of Workouts, Sitting Still, and Goodbye Playlists/Hello Albums

    (And Sunday always come too late…)

    Four people in a car driving through a forest with vibrant fall colors, all cheering and smiling
    A happy group enjoys a fun autumn drive surrounded by colorful fall foliage.

    My kid doesn’t believe that I do exercises. She knows I go to the gym, as she’s seen me do it. What she doesn’t believe is that, while she’s at school, I doo push-ups, sit-ups, and squats at home. She wants my wife, her mother, to take pictures or shoot a video of me working out at home. I don’t know how to feel about my child doubting me on this matter. Is she saying that I would lie about this? Or is she saying that there has been no progress in my size, so I must be lying? Or is she just making fun of me?

    We rented a place in Vermont over Memorial Day weekend, and we all had a good time. One thing that I noticed about myself was that I had a very difficult time just sitting still, being quiet, and not moving. The whole family has been under a great deal of stress this Spring, with jobs and school, and life in general, so the break was needed. But, with my inability to just be calm of twenty minutes, I started to wonder if I have burned myself out, and started to get use to feeling edgy all the time; as if stress is my default state, and I need to constantly engage in something.

    See, when we were driving back to New York City from Vermont over Memorial Day, we got stuck in some pretty bad traffic around Albany, and we started getting bored with our playlists. So, the wife asked what album did I want to listen to. The first thing that popped into my head was “Achtung Baby” which she put on, and it still holds up as a great album. Then the wife suggested “Ten” which was awesome to listen to as well. The kid wanted to listen to “Guts” which we all enjoyed. When we made it home, we decided that for this summer, for all of our road trips, we are only going to listen to albums. I had forgotten how much fun it was to road trip and go from album to album. Not since the days that I had a cd player in my car, had I done this.

  • Busy Day (Writing on My Phone)

    It would be easy to say that the day got ahead of me, but that would be incorrect. Today was a financial planning day with the wife, and I had a feeling it would take up most of my time… and I was correct in that estimation.

    We have a kid that we’ll need to send to college, most likely, and we need to come up with a plan to pay for it all.

    So if anyone out there is feeling charitable, please feel free to drop me a line, and let me know how much you would like to donate. We’re looking at $34,000 a year, so any amount of donations would help.

  • Gone Fishin’

    Enjoy Your Weekend!

    Wooden sign reading 'Gone Fishin'' with cartoon fish and fishing rod by lake and dock
    A colorful ‘Gone Fishin” sign hangs near a tranquil lakeside scene
  • Not Today, Media! (Unedited)

    I didn’t mean to, but I sort of didn’t look at the news today. I will say “sort of” because I did watch the local morning news to see what the weather would be like for the kid as she got dressed for school, and I did read one op-ed as I was doing laundry…

    But outside of that…

    And it felt pretty good. It felt good not know what was going on today in the world. I mean, I know the Knicks won yesterday.

    I wanted to stay off social media as well, but that is a harder egg to crack. I know I should do a detox, as a couple of friends of mine have done that from time to time. They all say it did them good, but then they all return to social media.

    What I will fully admit is that since Pandemic, I have horrible habits when it comes to my phone, and even watching tv. I am ashamed to admit how much YouTube I have started watching at night before bed. It’s not that these habits eat up all of my time; its that these habits have diminished my attention span, and have also become my go to action when I feel bored or if I have time to kill.

    You know what this feels like? When I used to smoke. Smoking used to fill up the dead time in my day. If I had an extra ten minutes; why not smoke? If I’m board; smoke. So, IO know I am not being dramatic when I say the social media is an addiction. I have an addiction.