The Long Goodbye

I started working for Medtronic on September 27th, 1999. I was jumping from one orthopedic company to another. In the town I grew up in, if you didn’t go to college you either worked at Dalton Foundry, R.R. Donnelley & Sons(major printing company for years), or you lucked out and got in with one of […]

Labor Of Love

The true meaning of Labor Day weekend has nothing to do with not laboring because you do that crap all week long. No, laboring doing something you love is perfectly fine. Why? Because I say so, that’s why. For me, I started a Labor Day weekend tradition many Labor Days ago. Maybe in 2014 or […]

Spring Break

For most spring break is that time of year where you pack your bags, load the station wagon, and head down south to the dirty finger known as Florida. The family basks in solar rays, beach hangs, and poolside drinks alongside drunk coeds and the neighbors from home because half your hometown followed you to […]

Friday Night’s Alright For Videos

The concept is nearly non-existent nowadays, but there was a time when streaming your entertainment was merely a strange science fiction novella. A Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode. This was the same time when a satellite for television wasn’t some oversized frisbee you tacked onto the side of your house or on a four-foot […]

My Place Or Yours : The Art of the Sleepover

There’s a lot to reminisce about regarding one’s childhood. Holidays, family trips, Sunday visits from grandparents, the out-of-nowhere toy purchase, and a dozen other things I could mention. But the one thing I truly miss about growing up was the sleepover. That night when a pal stays over at your place and you get to […]

Halloween Is Over

Well another Halloween has came and went. Kids are waking up all over the country and counting their candied loot(if they didn’t already last night) and deciding if they want to use those Smarties and Milk Duds as bargaining chips for their younger sibling’s or daft neighborhood kid’s Fun Size Snickers or peanut M&Ms. This […]

Electric Guitar

These last couple of days I’ve really had the desire to play guitar. It’s a desire I had all the time since about the age of 12 til around a few years ago. I think about guitar everyday, but the time to slip away downstairs for an hour or so to plug in has dwindled. […]

Dead Malls Are My Youth’s Coffin

I recently found a pocket of solace and peace in “Dead Mall” videos on Youtube. A guy drives around the country(or maybe just the Midwest) and tours malls showing their architecture, getting into the history of the malls, and the current state of said mall. As you’d guess, the state of most of these malls […]

“trapped in the amber of the moment”

First day of school 2020. We’ve all been pretty much locked down since March of this year. College and high school spring breaks turned into extended breaks turned into indefinite isolation which morphed into 2019-2020 school year ends in your living room. Thanks, and God bless. It was not what we or anyone else had […]

Cosmic Terrors and Happy Meals

When I was little our family would occasionally drive west 2 1/2 hours to Chicago for a weekend event. Be it the Brookfield Zoo, a White Sox game, the Science and Industry Museum, or the Field Museum. These were isolated events because my dad wasn’t a fan of Chicago traffic, so it had to be […]