After yesterday’s heavy post, I’m going to write an easy one today. My wife hates when a television’s quality is so good, movies look… well, like they’re on a lighted set, even when the action is outdoors. To her, our 20-year-old 720p TV was perfect. It looked nice enough when we played DVDs, Blu-ray discs looked no better than the aforementioned DVDs and watching sports wasn’t great, but it wasn’t all that bad, either. It took hours to set up the Blu-ray player to work with that dinosaur of a TV, but I did get the two to work. Then my in-laws moved in. My wife and I don’t watch much TV, mainl ..read more

We found out last night the cancer treatment a friend went through didn’t go as planned. The prognosis was good early on, a 70% recovery rate, but the cancer moved from his upper body to his lower. It’s not good. We put on a happy face for him, though. We had a loud, fun time bowling the night away, but I don’t know how long these are going to last. The next rounds of treatment start soon. Cancer freaking sucks ..read more

After my position was terminated by the new controlling owner and her brother, way back in February, I told my wife I was trying to look at the gut punch as a positive. I likened it to being saved from a sinking ship. I added that it would be okay, and that for the foreseeable future I wasn’t going to put any shackles on what God could do. This, even though I felt my carefully planned out life crumbling before me… Two hours later, the crumbling stopped abruptly. The company that held our contract on our single biggest project hired me to oversee the company that had just let me go. In the word ..read more

This story would have been a lot less painful had I been looking for the exit before I ever really got started, but I had a really good vibe going into day three of my onboarding. So far, the team I was working with was outstanding. All that was left was to make sure I fit in… which I figured would be simple enough. Sadly, I’d already written most of this post before I realized I don’t want to place my job in jeopardy by divulging anything that might be sensitive. I can cut to the chase without giving away too many details, though… After a few texts back and forth with IT, I still managed to d ..read more

My wife and I were on the trainers last weekend, about three-miles into our normal trainer ride when we got the call from our daughter that she had a full pot of coffee spill on her at work, that she needed a change of loose-fitting clothes so she could go to the after-hours clinic at the suggestion of an off-duty firefighter who suggested she get checked out just in case. It wasn’t horrible, just one of those “out of an abundance of caution” type things. We hopped off the bikes, changed and headed straight out the door. I thought nothing of it till I got on the trainer again a couple of days ..read more

A humorous sidenote to our Thanksgiving festivities; our Lions got hammered by the hapless Green Bay Packers, Thursday. In reality, I have to take part of the blame because as my father-in-law and I sat down for the game, I said, “You know? This is the first year I can remember I wasn’t nervous about our chances in this game”. I guess that could be taken two ways. Technically. Other than that mess, our Thanksgiving festivities were amazing. We had a gourmet hamburger dinner, with all of the trimmings and just shy of half-pound burgers with 94/6 steak burger (we have it specially ground), home ..read more

I was a runner before I rode bikes for exercise, and before that I was into rollerblading quite a bit. In fact, since I began my recovery from addiction, there have only been a handful of years I wasn’t active in the last three decades. The impetus for this post is yet another article that’s come out touting the benefits of high-intensity workouts. The difference with this one is that the article hasn’t been entirely dumbed down to suggest walking can be counted in with what the study shows. Technically it can, but you’d have to be in the elite bunch of walk-racers to get there. The exercise i ..read more

My wife read me a resume that was posted on line, written with more bullshit buzzwords… I wish I could find it because I was actually laughing by the end. This kid was fully in charge of her buzzword use, but way over the top. As a project engineer (two steps, maybe three, below a Project Manager) and just a year or two out of college, all she demonstrated in that interview was a mastery of the AI lingity that would get her noticed by a recruiter who would try to pimp her out to the first company gullible enough to hire her because “she said all the right things” to get there. Now, I would be ..read more

Every time you get upset at something, ask yourself; if you were to die tomorrow, was it worth your time being angry? Robert Tew https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8206324-every-time-you-get-upset-at-something-ask-yourself-if Now, the key is to get to this realization before making yourself look like an ass. I’m still working on that second part. I’m close. Let’s call it a work in progress ..read more

My wife was diagnosed with a type of asthma… if she exerts herself too much in the cold, she can induce a cough that can last days. This is why we’re riding the trainers a lot these days. It’s simply too cold for my wife to enjoy a ride, knowing she’ll be coughing for a day or two after. This sets up Friday night’s ride. It was cold outside but there was a parade in downtown Lansing that buzzes right by the capitol building and the company my wife works for hosts a spot behind a float. This isn’t an all-hands-on-deck event, but it made sense for my wife to show, so we decided to take the tande ..read more