Average 50+ white guy of mostly southern Italian heritage with a healthy dash of West African & Iranian. Husband, father, friend, community member. Smart enough to appreciate life, Wise enough to question it, Dumb enough to seek answers.
Christmas morn, likely the last year of the magic of Santa
12.25.22 Why do kids rush to grow up? Ok so, rhetorical. I get the idea of growing up, of wanting to find place in the world and experience what those older kids around us enjoy. But what I really don’t understand is the need to NOT believe in Santa and then find this almost cruel way to make sure and kill the spirit in kids of all ages around them. And what I really don’t get are the parents who refuse to try and keep the ‘deceit’ alive for just one more year. My wife and I have 21yr grown…
The benefits of exercise on mental health
11.18.22 Depression in men my age is real. Suicide in our demographic is also real. I suffer from the former and do not consider the latter. This post isn’t about that, but for anyone who is searching the internet, looking for answers, and is considering just what is wrong it’s important to know you are not alone. I’m also not one to help as I have no training and thus no right to try and explain depression. Is it situational sadness, literal depression or chemical imbalance that is leading you down a dark path, or something else? I’m here to…
Training to Run Fast Downhill at Bear Butte
10.30.22 Downhill Running Fast downhill running is something that no longer comes naturally to me. As I ‘ve gotten older I’ve found myself looking for the easier runs, less aggressive physical exertion on the ups and less risk on the downs. As for the downs, I’ve become increasingly more fearful of the thought of just how fast the ground can come up on me as I loose complete control of my decent. Lately, I’ve decided that I need to get stronger and fight the effects of age on my body as opposed to capitulating and accepting it. Yes, it hurts.…
His oppositional attitude is getting the best of him…
and me. I think I have some growing to do. 10.28.22 A quick daily take and observation of Nate and his ability to be the most argumentative child. It’s a Friday, a beautiful Friday. Typical fall in The Black Hills of South Dakota. Nate wanted to have a new friend over. This is the first time for this boy to come over and Nate was excited. We thought of things to do and had a plan. Knowing that Nate could be extremely negative and oppositional I mapped out the afternoon early in the day, on the way to school actually.…
There is always… always… an opportunity, even with oppositional children.
10.08.22. Everyday is a learning for me. The day today started hard. I mean really hard, and you know, looking back. I was the cause of it. Yesterday, yeah that was no field trip either, although it ended well. Id like to believe that the positive finish to last night was due to my effort and belief that it’s never too late to make the best of things. The last several days, perhaps weeks, have been a bit hard. There is a lot going on with my business, my mother and family. Yesterday should have been a fun afternoon and…
Scrambling boulders around Devil’s Tower with the boys
03.02.22 Every first Wednesday of the month during the school year Spearfish schools let out early for teach meetings. What’s a dad to do? We’ve got this free time, in the middle of the week, on a warm winter’s day. Devil’s Tower NM is only hour away, lets head over and do the short tower hike. With added diversions to climb & scramble boulders around the tower’s base. And of course a sunset trailside dinner on the west side as the sun sets. The great thing about places like this in early March is that tourists are virtually nonexistent and…
Get up and get started. How I trained myself to wake early.
01.10.22 I know it can be hard to wake up earlier. Especially if you are not used to getting out of bed at the same time each day. It’s all too easy to hit snooze and continue sleeping for another 5 minutes, or even 20! This leads to a late start where you’re beginning your day already behind schedule. Which in turn leads to stress, anxiety, and unhappiness. However, waking up early has many benefits that can lead towards a better life for all those who give it a chance! Read on below as I go into detail about how…
A disappointing shakedown run
08.29.21 More Of An Eye Opener Sometimes a 17 mile proofing run can be a primer for an upcoming marathon or it can be an eye opener that you just may not have put in the work. As I sit here writing, a few hours after finishing, I have to say that I don’t feel all that bad. So why the negative thoughts, and the realization that this will not be my year? The plan was to run from Iron Creek Lake outside of Spearfish SD back to my house close to city park. The run would take me down…
08.23.21
Party Anxiety but still being social. I don’t know that I have many friends, and definitely not of the TV sitcom variety, but who does? If you say you do, you’re either lying to yourself or me. So let’s acknowledge that no one is sitting around a bar or coffee shop, gets together every day for breakfast before work or hangs with all the residents of their apartment building. But maybe we would like to spend time with others rather than be alone. I get it and one tip I have as an introvert is to forgo any large event…
08.10.21
Long Climb For The Short Rip Kids can be hard, and Nate is no exception. In fact he can be more difficult than most. There always seems to be hardship before the joy. And when it’s hard, it’s often a challenge to see that joy that may come, it might only be fleeting or may never come at all. It’s like the long climb on a mountain bike. Suffering to get to the top might lead to a riotous decent but it doesn’t mean that you weren’t suffering to the top. It’s the same with Nate. There is joy in…
06.04.21
Reconnect…. or just disconnect. We hear it so often that it’s a cliche. But seriously, reconnect. Not for some podcast psych advice, not because your wife would like you to, but because you should. Do it for no damn reason. It’s not connecting if you are intentional about it. It’s just another fucking task. With no distractions, left to your own thoughts there is no where to go, no place to run from what’s in your own mind. I’m sitting here writing this a full day of isolation on trail and in an area with no mobile service what so…
05.19.21
Why is my 6yr old so fearful? The night should have gone the way the day had started. It was a beautiful day, before leaving for school with his mother my son and I discussed riding bikes to a local restaurant the coming evening. I should have been suspect when he replied with a smile, ‘sure’. I’ve had experience with him agreeing to do something that makes him uncomfortable and later reneging. He agrees with the knowledge that at 7:30 in the morning, evening is a long ways off. To a 6yr old it’s practically an eternity. I’m not sure…
05.14.21
I’m not listening, but you’re wrong Maybe I’m being nostalgic in thinking earlier in my life points of differentiation or differences of opinion were acceptable. I’m not talking about some feel good, all opinions matter bullshit. I’m simply talking about not outright rejection or calling into question the other’s intelligence and in political cases, being anti-American. Furthermore, I feel like in the past difference of opinion might not have been respected but was at least tolerated. The internet was supposed to open us to the vast opinions and knowledge of the world. Instead, it’s closed us off. Holed up in…
05.12.21
Why don’t we agree? Perception is something that I have a hard time understanding. How many times have you had someone retell a story involving you, where you have a fundamentally different recollection? Or worse, the person you are talking to are assigning intent and emotion to your actions. How much of that is on them, and how much might be you? That actually you are the one who is misremembering things, that maybe you actually did have those intentions? I think the personality of the person you are speaking with plays an important role in conflicting recollection. I just…
05.11.21
It’s not me, but I think it must be As a father I internalize my family’s problems, big or small. I make them my own, at times to the frustration of my son, who says I make it about me. Or to my wife who says I don’t listen I just want to fix everything. My daughter exclaims I just don’t get it when I try and help her, she might be the closest to accurate. My youngest thinks I can fix everything, figuratively and literally, he’s the furthest off from the truth.
05.03.21
At 54 most of my friend’s kids are fully functioning teens capable of taking care of themselves for extended periods, in college or grown and on their own. Their freedom is reminiscent of what I experienced in my 20s and early 30s, for me, it was before kids. Seeing that freedom, and with blind eye to my past carefree life, I become envious. I can remember with the news that my wife and I were having twins a family member almost gleefully telling us that our lives will never be the same. They weren’t foretelling the joys the kids would…
04.25.21
Feeling pretty content today. It’s early Sunday evening, and I’m sitting in my favorite lounge chair with my laptop and a beer, a raddler as it’s a spring kind of day. Taking a few minutes before lighting the BBQ to start dinner. There was nothing epic about the weekend. Even the choirs I did were really nothing more than tying up loose ends. I didn’t do anything extreme with any of the kids, didn’t go out with my wife and friends. But I closed out some things that needed doing and I even managed to get in a long ride…
04.22.21
How accurate is our perception of any given event? How accurate is someone else’s? People say there are three sides to a story; yours, theirs and the truth. On top of how we may remember something or perceive it what else do we too often do? Assume the intention of others. Like if you were ‘wronged’ by someone, did you hang a negative intention around their neck? Even for the simplest of things, the smallest of infractions? In the experiences of a day I cannot imagine not making assumptions, I think its just part of the process of making decisions.…
04.20.21
So, following up, how did it get to this? Almost 2 months with no posts? I started this blog as an idea that had been a long time coming. It would be an opportunity to get through the hard times we all face, rather than hide from fear and obligation I would take it head on. The best way to do that would be to write about it. I’d face my fears and potentially help someone by being honest about what was going on with me. The last several weeks haven’t been too good for me, and the sum of…
04.16.21
Wow. So it’s been almost two months since my last ‘almost daily’ post. That just might be pushing the ‘almost’ part a bit much. Something came into my life that would have been an interesting series of posts but it just didn’t feel right. To be honest, it took me down a path that was hard to face. And the constant indecision was a bit more than I felt like handling. The energy to share was just completely lost. I feared that it would never return. Well, I cleaned that up and I’m back.
02.23.31
I’ve had more feelings of insecurity of late. It could be a decision to run for city council again, my fifty-fourth birthday, concern over the future of my business after the ravages of Covid. Maybe it’s not knowing if I’ve done a good job raising my two oldest kids or how will I do with the youngest at six? Maybe it’s being scared that I’ll be found out to be the fraud I just might be. All that aside. I honestly think I’m finding myself faced with where did that time go and will the remaining years go as fast?
02.14.21
My youngest son is six. He’s always been on the defiant side, can be difficult and frustratingly stubborn. I wouldn’t say that fits are in his nature but a complete shutting down is not uncommon. Nor is the need to physically remove him from a situation because he will just refuse to do so on his own. It can be hard for me to understand what to do. His insistence can come from a negative place that I wish I could get my hands better around. Even things he eventually will like to do can start with a fight and…
02.11.21
“Why can’t I seem to catch up?” We ask that of ourselves a lot. When I go to bed, deciding that I’ve given it all I had for the day, and tomorrow we’ll get more done. When I lay in bed in the morning wide awake, not wanting to get up because the day looms and I don’t know where to start. When I do get up but follow down rabbit holes which yield no results. And carry the cycle for another day. I heard about the idea that we often don’t get tasks accomplished for the reason of feeling…
01.31.21
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning and I’ve run out of days where I can put off posting to my blog. The sad thing is that had I been writing over the last 10 days I think it would have been a benefit to guys who feel the same loss of control from time to time. I would have been good for me too. But instead, what I did do was brood, yell, drink, lay in bed and obsess on task driven gratification at work. The people around me suffered, I lost out on beautiful winter days to ride, ski and…
01.21.21
I had a hard day yesterday and what’s most troubling about is that it was caused by me and showed a flaw in who I am that I haven’t experiences in many years. When I was a young father I would often take the actions of my 7 yr old twins as an indication of their lack of respect for me. Everything was personally about them working against me. A slight directed my way, what ever you want to call it. Thing is, I didn’t know that is what I thought. I was just getting really mad as things built…
01.19.21
It’s been over a week since my last check in. I had never intended for there to ever be a a weeks gap much less nine days. I wouldn’t say that it’s a because I had nothing to say, in fact it might actually be the opposite. That and not knowing how to categorize and feeling overwhelmed with the other things on this site that still need to get done. Consider this a drop in to say high, more honest speak to come…. Oh and yes, the bio will get done.
01.14.21
Did you drink too much last night or are you getting old The former reason a for, perhaps, forgetting what your class schedule was for the day or what building your class was in. The latter, possibly a reason for why you can’t remember why you went into the kitchen or where your car keys are. Ok so you likely did drink too much in your youth and maybe that is the issue now… but what if it’s that sometimes we just forget? Getting old doesn’t mean intellectual insignificance, and can mean experiential intelligence that can only come from… getting…
01.10.21
I’ve felt buried the last few days. It’s like life is constantly piling up and the worst thing is trying to get through it. I’m trying to face my neglected responsibilities as well wrap up so many of the open items around the house. There are times I really hate the weekends. I realize that we need to accept small incremental steps to success, be it completing tasks or changing behavior in ourselves that is counterproductive. But at the same time, not going big and swinging for the fences is in direct conflict to the way my generation of men…
01.07.21
Distractions are everywhere. They offer me excuses for not taking the task that really needs to be completed. It can be a huge news event that gets too much attention, a friend who needs some support but is not asking for me to stop my day, a single glass in the sink that leads to the cleaning out of the cereal drawer… because life can not go on if my son started a new box of Honey Bunches of Oats without finished the last one. I may stack work projects in the evening, telling myself that this will give me…
01.04.21
It’s hard to get started on things you’ve fallen behind on. It’s overwhelming and how to prioritize problematic. Realizing how humbling a lack of completion can feel. I opted to start with the smallest almost inconsequential tasks first. In hopes that completion of these small tasks would place me on the path towards undertaking the larger challenges. Ultimately with the largest issue coming last, one that will result in conflict and confrontation… the one I fear, the one that is very easy to just put off all day until it’s past business hours and needs to go to tomorrow. The…
01.03.21
End of the holiday break. As the weather has been off it’s easy to feel disconnected to what you would typically expect on any given Sunday. I need to spend the early part of this year focusing on catching up to all the things it has been too easy to ignore. Burying my head has allowed many items that had they been handled as they arose, while challenging and time consuming, they would have been manageable. Now I find myself confronted with an overwhelming sense that no matter how hard I try, with the normal course of life, I will…
01.03.21
Saying Less I struggle with knowing when enough has been said. When my point is made and let the silence be. Allow my comments to settle in with the listener and not over explain. I’ve always felt that if I didn’t personally keep the interaction moving it would die and that would look bad for me. Most importantly, something which I never realized, is that saying too much is often the result of lack of preparedness. So I’ll leave it there are suggest you take a listen. https://omny.fm/shows/the-art-of-manliness/get-better-at-getting-to-the-point
01.02.21
My youngest son, Nate [6], has always been somewhat fearful. Slow to take on physical challenges and once accomplishing a goal refusing to go again for fear of getting hurt. Getting him out the door to ride his bike or ski with me can be quite the undertaking, but once he is out he does have fun. Even getting him to take a hike that may have a challenge can be tough. I’ve recently became aware that he may be hyper-sensitive. That wraps ups some of the issues we can have. And hopefully will give me a path towards a…
01.01.21
Well, this is it… Day One. It’s hard to consider this as the first of a daily post and not as the prologue to this site. But let’s get it started… I hate New Year’s Day. There is this required need to ‘reset’ sort of, looking forward to changes to make on what we may have convinced ourselves has been a good year even better. Or the happy social media posts about what a great year it’s been for this person or that. Now I will say that I do not fault them, in-fact, I’ve often complained that I don’t…