Cleaning up Had someone stop by and ask who they should see to get their office area vacuumed more often. I went out on Amazon and bought some cheap (but good $80 vacuum cleaners). Nothing at all wrong with taking a few minutes to vacuum your area at the end of the day, or when…
T -66 Days: Food geography
Some foods you never forget, and will always be associated with a specific place and time. Here is my list. To qualify, I must have actually lived there, and eaten it many times. Most can still be found, some are gone forever: Kansas City, Missouri… BBQ (of course!), so much of it, everywhere. LeMars, Iowa……
T -67 Days: Martin Manley
Martin Manley turned 60 years old on August 15th, 2013 Do you know the story of Martin Manley? Self proclaimed smartest person in Missouri (he had the test results). Prolific writer… thousands and thousands of articles published. Blogger. Famous sports statistician. If you are a long time Kansas City Royals or Chiefs fan, you have…
T -68 Days; Tax Calculator
I fully expect not to make money from writing in the first three years… maybe more… maybe ever. But still, I’m fully committed and my wife is fully supportive. The good news is we won’t starve, just need to budget much more than we ever have before. So I have been planning, estimating, recalculating everything….
T -69 Days: Kites and houses
The plan is to be in Michigan permanently by May 1st. The hope is to be able to move there in mid-April and just return to Iowa for my last few work days. My wife’s line in the sand is Saturday, May 19th. I have heard about the Great Lakes Kite Festival in Grand Haven a…
T -70 Days: Stop screwing around
Honest question. Do you love what you do? If the answer isn’t a resounding, knee-jerk, “Yes! I live for this shit,” then I encourage you to seriously consider doing something about it. That may sound extreme, but seriously, in 100 years you and everyone you know are going to be dead and your great-grandkids aren’t…
T -71 Days: Leadership against all odds
I actually work with some pretty cool people. One of them has presented me with book after book on servant leadership, building team culture and the impact of positivity in the workplace. I have been fortunate enough to have previous exposure to the concepts, and have lived them in a couple previous organizations. It takes…
T -72 Days: Muskegon Luge
Last night my daughter posted Snapchat videos from the Muskegon Michigan winter sports complex. She was having great fun ice skating among the trees. Two acres of ice skating… hockey rink, speed skating, family rink, and a 1/4 mile ice skating trail. Add cross-country skiing and snowshoeing thru the dunes and you have a great…
T -73 Days: Quitting your day job
For Christmas my wife gave me a Nintendo Switch and Zelda… a fascinating, deep game for the system. It will be a nice diversion on rainy or snowy days in Michigan, but for now I have barely scratched the surface of this game world. While searching for a good overview video for pointers, I came…
T -74 Days: The pawn
It matters little to the pawn….. … on which square he rests…… …………………………..when taken Gone is gone. Dead is dead. Does the pawn scream when removed from the chessboard? Would the players notice? The pawn, existing, waiting, doing as ordered, propelled forward by the invisible hand of the player, until… the inevitable. “But I am…