Upon Reflection

I’ve loved vinyl since I bought my first Archies album. Okay, maybe when I first bought Black Sabbath’s self-titled first album. Granted in those days, I had a Realistic Clarinet II. It was a record player with two bookshelf speakers, which were made of one six inch paper cone each. I was a teen. I didn’t know any better. It lasted me until I left for the U.S. Navy. Realistic Clarinet II While…

The Coffee That Won the West

I found a new coffee. Well, it’s actually an old coffee. Very old. It’s the second oldest coffee in America after Folgers. What makes this coffee unique is that it was famous during the Old West. Up until the Civil War, coffee was sold green, meaning, you had to roast the beans yourself in a skillet, then grind it. Roasting on the trail was a hit or miss proposition, mostly miss, and you ended…

I can’t believe it’s been a year since I last posted here. I’ve probably lost followers and I’ve definitely gained weight. It’s like someone hit Factory Reset on my body and I ballooned to the size I was before I started running and exercising. Which is annoying and disheartening. You would think a Factory Reset would take me down to the 135 pounds I weighed when I graduated High School, not my…

Don’t call 9-1-1, call 1911

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on handguns and the guns people recommend for both beginners and for conceal carry. I’ve noticed there is a consensus that the historic 1911 should not be considered for either.

Original M1911 (top). Modified M1911A1, released in 1924 (bottom)

Why? There are several reasons and I list them below, dispelling each as a myth.

Many think it’s too “complicated” a…

Last night we returned tothe dealership and the used car salesman from Hell. My younger son and I arrived a little after 4:30pm.

We assumed we’d be in and out in no time. Just sign papers and be done. But noooo. We were in for another marathon session.

This one was mostly my fault. I had put a freeze on my credit (it’s cheaper than joining one of those credit monitoring places). And had to…

Is the Art of Haggling Dead?

My son starts his first job on Monday and needs transportation. Rather than having him borrow a car between us, his brother, and grandmother, we decided to get him a relatively cheap used car.

We looked in the usual used car apps and found a 2008 Jeep Patriot. Not a bad vehicle. One owner. Lots of bells and whistles. And the CarFax was clean, showing it was well-maintained. So we made an…

Let me catch everyone up to date. A lot has happened on the anti-depression front since I posted back in February.

I was taking Lexapro, but it had an unwanted side effect. Suffice to say, it was a Male problem.

I mentioned it to my doctor and he had a few suggestions, the least tasteful to me was Viagra. Sorry, I didn’t want to become a meme.

His second suggestion was take another…

Adventures in ADHD episode 519

I realized I need to change the cat litter. So that’s a fairly straightforward process for most people, I would imagine.

Not for me.

As I was going to go downstairs to change the cat litter, I noticed the kitchen garbage was overflowing. So, I pulled it out of the container and walked it outside to the garbage container behind the garage.

As I’m walking, I notice a whole lot of leaf debris around…

Guess my new interest

So, for those of you who have read my blog long time (Hey Joe, you love me long time?), know that because of my ADHD, I tend to gravitate toward new interests, quickly become a master, then burn out and find something new.

In the past, I’ve collected beer steins, collected swords (while also becoming somewhat of an expert on swords from different cultures, eras, and so on), guitars (playing and…

Musical Monday – It is raining

Well, it’s raining today. As the song goes, Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down. So I thought I’d post some songs about rain.

If rain affects you the way it does me, then these songs will be right up your deoressed rain-washed alley.

Let’s start with Uriah Heep and “Rain.”

Blowsight with “Days of Rain.” (Honestly never heard…

Adventures in ADHD episode 527

Made a cup of coffee, or rather, I should say, attempted to make a cup of coffee, while I was also preparing dinner. If you’re read even one episode of “Adventures in ADHD, you know something untoward is about to happen.

We have a Kuerig coffee maker and several of the refillable pods (not because I’m a super-treehugger, but mostly because I’m frugal; buying ground coffee by the bag is a helluva…

My youngest son had a Samsung Galaxy S8. He cracked the screen early on and even with insurance, it would have cost us a couple hundred to get it fixed or replaced or whatever it was. So we waited until he was close to being due for a replacement.

Went into the US Cellular store and he picked out a new Samsung Galaxy S10 in blue. We went through the whole process of purchasing, transfering data,…

St. Urho’s Day

A statue stands proud and tall, dressed in Finnish attire, holding a pitchfork, upon which is impaled a grasshopper. He is St. Urho, who like St. Patrick with the snakes, ran the grasshoppers out of Finland saving the wine harvest.

St. Urho Statue in Menahga, Minnesota

So why does the statue reside in Menahga, Minnesota? Because St. Urho was originally conceived by a department store worker in…

I might have already told this story so I apologize if you’ve heard it before. This journey to lose weight has been a long one. It started in 1998 or so, when my thyroid went kablooey and stopped functioning properly.

I guess, if I’m honest, it started shortly after I developed shin splints and couldn’t run any more, sometime in the late 1980s. I tried biking, but found it to be a poor…

A Friday Haiku

Don’t say “Be happy.”

Depression is not a mood

That I can switch off.

Week 1

I thought I’d do a follow-up to last week’s depressin post. I’ve been on a half-tab dose of my antidepressant for a week now. Today I started the full dose.

My doc said I shouldn’t expect to see any significant improvement for a few weeks, yet, I can tell you this much, I am already noticing a difference.

As a child, I hated Sundays. Mornings being the worst of it. There was nothing to do – back then all the stores were closed and the ones that did open, were only open from noon until 5pm.

The only thing on television was religious programming, like “Mass for Shut-ins.” No cartoons (except maybe Davy and Golliath, a puppet animation show put out by Lutherans, I believe) and a local show where a…

I made an interesting discovery. I’m a mouth breather.

No, not in the sense you’re thinking where I’m a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, ignorant trumpanzee. No. I mean when I exercise, I breathe through my mouth instead of my nose.

I only just realized that. Generally, I don’t think about how I’m breathing when I exercise, particularly running. I’m too focused on all the other mechanics to pay…