Brown County Hiking Trip Day Two : Brown County State Park and the Trail of Tears

Day two of the fellas hiking trip started out grand. Woke at 6 am and had western omelettes, toast, and a couple mugs of cafe bustello Espresso roast. By 8:30 am we were on the road to Brown County State Park. It was only 5 minutes from the cabin, so in moments we were hitting […]

Just Sad Dreams Lately

I can tell I’m holding a lot of existential angst in me. It’s coming out in my dreams. Been a bit of a kaleidoscope of internal and external noise – real, imagined, metaphoric – echoing in my head and I haven’t quite let it out. You can tamp it down into a nice, small imagined […]

Is This Long Covid?(Or Am I Just Sad?)

I’ve been in a bit of a rut, lately. Ever since that bout of Covid a little over a month ago I just haven’t felt, well, normal. There are days when I feel okay. I started to go to the Y a week afterwards and got in two days before I tapped out. Just wasn’t […]

Mike

Written New Year’s Day, 2023 Yesterday I went to a funeral home and paid my respects to Mike. Mike was the father of one of my best and oldest friends, Tyson. It’s humbling and heavy at any funeral, but to be there for my best friend’s dad was a whole other level. Mike was 78 […]

Under The Weather…Getting Over The Hump

The concept of sick seems to have changed dramatically in the last two and a half years. Before Covid you could say you felt like shit and nobody would blink an eye at you. Coughing, sore throat, sniffles, maybe even a slight wheeze in your chest and it was “Oh, well I’ll stop at CVS […]

I’m Just Not Cool Anymore

I think there’s a pretty cool argument to make that I was, in fact, never cool. I wouldn’t put up a fight in that argument. But when you’re a dad and for almost two decades you -raise, nurture, intentionally play the clown for a laugh, build blanket forts in the living room, watch Disney cartoons […]

The Last Parade(and other musings, insights, and anxieties)

This past Saturday my wife and I attended the last local parade that we will feel obligated to attend because we have a child performing in it. It was the Pierceton Days parade, and our 17-year old was marching with the Warsaw High School Marching Band playing the school fight song(which sounds like a lot […]

48 Going On 49, The Inevitability Of Time, And Feeding The Creative Fire

It seems this creativity thing is still moving forward. Despite my best efforts to be lazy and leave my musical toys to collect dust this new music “thing” is progressing. I’m almost up to two full tapes of music, which in 4-track terms that’s two sides of two 45-minute cassettes. So I’ve got like 5 […]

“Life Can Be So Fair, Let It Go On And on…”

It started on some random Saturday night in December of 2004 watching Austin City Limits. Some band I’d never heard of called Spoon was on the stage playing songs I’d never heard. The band looked cool; swagger for miles and they seemed to know how to use the stage to their advantage. But as cool […]

Everything Reminds Me Of My Mortality And Other Fun Revelations

Monday night I noticed our 11-year old dog was starting to limp. I’d gotten home from work and he seemed his fine, his over-excited self yelling at me as soon as I walked through the door for his treat. This is what we do; this is our ritual. As soon as I get home he […]