The nagging question this blog may never answer is why people like us are entertained by the thoughts of others (you’re reading the thoughts of another BTW, so don’t feel too bad that I generalized you… just make sure you enjoy it!). It occurred to me today just how absurd a time in history we’re currently living through. Little more than 20 years ago people would have laughed at the idea that anyone could (and should) post their personal thoughts and opinions online for the world to see. And not only that, but the world is actually interested… Crazy   I’m just as guilty of wasting ..read more

 “Did he just bite you?” “Yeah. He bit my ankle.” I got ready to kick Yappy the rat-dog if he went for a second taste. “Oh, no he didn’t. He just pretends.” “No, he bit me.” I turned and walked out the door, frowning. I don’t know about you, but many of my conversations with dog owners end with me wanting to cock my head to the side like a confused puppy. I like my dog enough (barely), but I’m far from a fanatic. If the focus of this story was the little ankle biter, I’d go on, but there’s definitely more meat in other places (even though it was a pretty fat dog). The conversation ..read more

Participants were asked to rate their organization’s safety culture with choices ranging from “Excellent” to “Abysmal.” As you might expect, most of the answers rated in the middle. But on both sides of the spectrum, at least a few were willing to put step up and claim they worked for an outlier.  The sceptic in me was tempted to automatically dismiss the “Excellent” votes, but instead of questioning them I spoke to the people working for the “Abysmal” organizations. And by saying that I’m intentionally not separating abysmal safety from abysmal company. I’ve never seen or been a p ..read more

When I was a kid, one of the perks of visiting my Grandparents was the fact they had cable. When my brother and I would stay with them, that meant we got to watch all kinds of things we couldn’t with pull out of the by extending our tv’s rabbit ears with foil and standing in the one perfect spot in the corner of our living room. It was mostly a treat (unless my Grandpa was sleeping… uh, “watching” a Dodger’s game in his chair). Except for the time we watched “Kingdom of the Spiders” when I was five, Saturday nights were the most fun. Tradition was we would watch whatever made-for-tv mov ..read more

Spoiler alert: I'm the idiot in this story... I have to admit I’ve been pretty delinquent with posts lately. With so much happening day to day in the world that it’s easy to blink and realize it’s been weeks since the last time you did something “normal.” That thought popped into my head a few days ago when I passed a man driving a tractor on my way home. He was cutting grass near the edge of road and stirring up quite a bit of dust. As you might imagine, dust is annoying, and not fun to breathe. BUT… My first thought when I caught a glimpse of the dust mask he was wearing was: “What a ..read more

Algorithms are weird Yet, it seems we live our lives by them. No matter the application, we’re glued to devices that interpret us and feed us the data they think we want. I’m not going to claim I know much more about any of it than that, but I wonder sometimes what my “feed” would look like If I had chosen to drink Starbucks this morning, or if I hadn’t messaged Abby Ferri about bone conduction headphones (thanks for that). I have to believe there’s a whole world (maybe even more than one) that I never see. One might assume that because I write safety and health articles ..read more

Any time I teach an orientation or introduction course (in any subject) I tell my airplane story. To be fair, that’s actually inaccurate. Because it’s not my story. It’s my mentor Nick’s story (you can get the full, unedited version in my book). He died in 2016 and I think of it as a way to keep his memory alive. The long and short of it is that we have to focus on things within our direct control. In my experience, both personally and observationally, though, people are terrible at that. It is far easier to get wrapped up in what everyone else is doing. The preverbal “THEY.” “THEY” are a p ..read more

Here’s a friendly note for anyone in the home-buying market: Simply enjoying “Fixer-Upper” on tv does not automatically turn you into a creative, home-renovation superhero. I’ll even take it a step further and issue a warning to any spouses out there in the midst of looking who are presently fighting the temptation to say “It’s just paint, honey” or “new carpet isn’t that big of a deal.” Don’t do it! Your wife (or husband) will remind you about it until you die… possibly at their hands… while you sleep. If you’re not yet convinced, let me explain what else will happen if you choose no ..read more

I recently connected with my 3rd-grade teacher on FaceBook. It was a welcome dive back into the original reason most of us got into social media in the first place. Now even the most judicious of us can’t help but continue down the rabbit hole of lost personality our online obsessions perpetuate. The constant evolution of tech these days is both scary and inspiring. For me, that connection conjured up two memories. The first was birds. My 3rd grade teacher loved birds. So… we learned about birds. A lot about birds. Enough about that. Listen to the latest safety news if you’re more int ..read more

It’s an understatement to say things are uncertain these days. No matter what we think or believe about what’s happening in the world, it’s certainly affecting us. If only because some of you have resorted to using blue shop towels to wipe because toilet paper is now a rare commodity. We’ve never lived through anything like this in our lifetimes.  The Green Day song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” was stuck in my head this morning when I woke up. It made me chuckle because there probably isn’t a better theme for my life right now. But I don’t have the time to sleep until next week ..read more