Happy Easter, and I'm finished talking for a while

For my Christian friends, I hope that in addition to whatever chocolate and miscellaneous confectioneries you consume today, you also take a moment to remember the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is, as that most cliched of phrases has it, the reason for the season.

For all of my friends, just a note that this latest little spurt of blog posts is over and I'm going back to checking in every month or two for anyone who may be interested in reading.

Speaking of which, please know how much I appreciate the fact that you read this stuff at all. The comments (here, on Facebook, and verbally when we meet) are of great value to me. Even if we DID collectively violate Google Ads' solicitation policy together and cost me 15 or so CDs worth of classical music pleasure.

That still stings.

Talk to you soon!

I love Saturdays

Do you not love Saturdays? Are they just not the best day of the week?

I say they are. Or at least I say they're in the top two. Back in July 2013, I wrote a post in which I ranked the days of the week, and in that list I placed Saturday at #2, just behind Fridays. I may have changed my mind since then.

(NOTE: I really wrote an entire blog post ranking the days of the week? Apparently I did. I was seriously hurting for blog material by that point. You will note that, about three months later, I suspended the blog for what turned out to be nearly a year-and-a-half because I felt I didn't have anything interesting to say. You may counter by pointing out that this has never stopped me before...)

Saturdays are just all-around tremendous, especially Saturdays on which I'm free to do what I want without being burdened by any outside appointments or obligations.

Saturday always starts with me getting out of bed. That, I find, is an excellent way to start the day. Then I pee. You didn't need to know that, but I feel it's important. It's a good, satisfying pee because I spend it thinking about all of the cool stuff I'm going to get to do that day. When in fact I should probably be concentrating a bit more on my aim.

Anyway, after the pee, I go into the closet and put on my running clothes. I run every Saturday, rain or shine, cold or hot, windy or not. Usually 3 miles but sometimes 4 or 5.

After I get my running stuff on, I go into the kitchen and feed the cats. They're always happy to see me when I do this. I feel this is unfair, as I'm more than just a provider of kibble.

For example, I'm also a provider of water, which is what I do when I go into the basement and fill up their water bowls. After that, I scoop out their litter boxes, sweep up the general area, and then take the bag of disgusting cat waste outside to discard it. If it's a day in which the newspaper is delivered, I go and pick up the paper.

Then it's a glass of water, a quick session of dynamic stretching to warm up, and then I'm out the door to run.

(ANOTHER NOTE: We need to pick up the pace here. I'm stunned that you're still reading this.)

After the run comes a shower. And after the shower I step onto the scale so I can get a read on how my Weight Watchers meeting that morning will go. Did I gain anything? Did I lose anything? Did I stay the same? That first weigh-in will tell me how the official meeting weigh-in will go.

Anyway, I get dressed, I brush my teeth, I go to the Weight Watchers meeting, I come home, and I finally get to have breakfast. You guys, I love breakfast. Which is kind of surprising when you realize I have the same thing every day. Every day. It's always a half cup of cooked oats, a banana, and coffee with half and half.

But on Saturday it's just so good, because it's the first food I eat and I know I still have the whole day ahead of me. It's a glorious feeling.

After that the Saturdays vary. I may be taking Jack to his cross country practice. I may be taking a shopping trip to the market for greens and fruit, and maybe to CVS for various provisions I routinely buy there. I may be going to the library (you guys, I love the library).

I will almost certainly be working my way through a list of to-do's that I've sketched out the night before. To-do lists are a major part of my life, and some of my greatest satisfaction comes from completing them: CHECK! CHECK! CHECK! DONE! DONE! DONE! I AM A GOOD AND CONSCIENTIOUS PERSON!

There are always some sort of chores on the to-do list, from cleaning the bathroom to doing laundry to vacuuming to checking the car fluids and tire pressures to whatever else needs doing.

Saturday evenings are spent with Terry, the kids, or some combination thereof. We may see a movie. Maybe go out with relatives or friends. Or just stay in and watch TV. But it's almost always fun and I almost always love every minute of it.

Don't get me wrong, Sundays are a strong contender, and I can see why I placed Friday at the top of that days of the week list. But Saturdays? Man, you can't beat a good Saturday. I hope you enjoy yours!

One of my favorite jokes and, less importantly, why

A couple of years ago, an Oxford University study determined (don't ask me how) the 10 funniest jokes ever.

You can peruse the list for yourself. Inevitably, you'll chuckle at some and scratch your head at others. Not because you don't understand them, but because you'll be thinking, "Wait, THAT'S one of the 10 funniest jokes ever?"

Because humor is, as much as anything I can think of, a subjective endeavor. I know this because my wife and I often have what is commonly termed Incredibly Opposite Senses of Humor. Something will bring me to tears I laugh so hard, and she will look at me without the trace of a smile and shake her head, as she often does as she wistfully looks back on the day of our marriage and wonders how things could have gone so horribly wrong.

The point is, one man's gut-buster is another man's "Huh?"

My absolute favorite joke from that scientifically proven list of 10 is this one:

A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later there's a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says, "What the hell was that all about?"

I first heard that joke, or some variation of it at least, many years ago. But it still makes me laugh even today. Why? Three reasons:

(1) The Unanswered Questions: Why was this snail coming to the guy's door? Why did the guy react by throwing the snail away? Did he realize the snail could talk, or no? What is so important that the snail spent three years of his life slithering back to the front door so he could get another chance to talk to the guy AND voice his displeasure? I love thinking about all of these things.

(2) The Swearing: Yes, I consider "what the hell" to be "swearing." This is because, as a general rule, I don't swear. I never really have much. Don't know why, just didn't. So it still has a bit of a scandalous comic effect on me when I hear it. And I love the idea of the indignant snail saying it.

(3) The Absurdity of It All: You either like Monty Python or you don't. There's no in between. Same with a hundred other comedians, actors, sketch groups, etc. I love, love, love Python, whose skits and movies always rested on some comically unreal premise. The whole situation with the snail having a valid reason to visit this guy's house is hilarious, even apart from the joke itself.

I may have over-analyzed that a little, but if nothing else, it gives you a sense of what makes this 47-year-old white American male laugh. It's a tad frightening, I know.

If I had to do it all over again...

Back in November 2015, I wrote about some things in my life I might have done differently if given the chance to go back. I'm not a person who has many regrets, but as Frank Sinatra once sang, I've had a few.

In addition to the ones I mentioned in that post of 17 months ago, I can think of a few others:

1. I should have taken piano lessons.
2. I would have learned to program in machine language on my Commodore 64 computer instead of just playing a series of pirated software games.
3. I would have lost weight after my senior season of football so that my last year of high school track wasn't such a..."disappointment" isn't the word, but 190-pound me simply couldn't long jump or run as fast as 170-pound me.
4. I would been a much better class officer, speaking of high school. (Apologies to Brian Fabo, who shouldered much of the load and rightly pointed out that I wasn't shouldering mine.)
5. I shouldn't have quit after one night of washing dishes at The Bright Spot restaurant in order to take a job at Wendy's that paid me a dime per hour more. (Hey, I was 16, had a girlfriend and needed the money. Those dimes really did count! But still...)
6. I should have treated college as something more than just an academic formality that had to be completed before I could become a sports writer and, of course, stay in the business for 40 years covering Cleveland professional teams until my retirement.
7. I wouldn't have been such a smart aleck from, oh, 6th grade through...well, now. Remind me to stop doing that.
8. I would have taken our dog Jesse for more walks. He was such a good boy.
9. I would have made sure my shorts (and their contents) were secure before sliding down that rope in 6th-grade gym class. Yikes.
10. I should have made a point of telling my coaches and teachers how much I learned from them and how much I appreciated them. The list is too long, but apologies to the likes of Mrs. Schwarzenberg, Mrs. Grabner, Mrs. Feltham, Miss Yeager, Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Crow, Mrs. Coil, Ms. Capasso, Mr. Kondrich, Mr. Duricy, Mr. Kendra, Mr. Ranallo, Mr. Mazer, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Bezjak, Madame Whitehorn, Mr. Elias, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Kowalski, and Coaches Benz, Magill, Knapp, Rosneck, Nackley, Smith, Wolfgram, Kowalski (again), D'Amore, and countless others I've neglected to mention. You were all wonderfully patient with me and incredibly influential in my life. Thank you.

I'm totally fine if you're not a hockey fan, but if you let me take you to a game, I bet you would be

There are two types of hockey fans (two types of fans of any sport, really):

(1) Those who love the game and are very, very concerned that you love it, too
(2) Those who love the game and couldn't care less whether you like it or not

I am of the latter tribe. It doesn't affect me in the least if your general attitude is "Hockey? Meh."

I happen to think hockey (ice hockey, as a point of clarification for my international friends) is a beautiful game. I know soccer has appropriated that title, "the beautiful game," but for my money, it should be attached to hockey.

It is a sport that combines speed, skill, and equal parts mental and physical toughness. It looks stunningly easy until you try lacing up the skates yourself. Once you do, you will be forever in awe of the men and women who play the game at the highest level, stopping and starting on a dime, skating to the point of exhaustion on every shift, handling a five-ounce rubber puck as if it were glued to their stick, and doing all of that while hitting (and being hit) at speeds upwards of 20 miles per hour or more.

It is not a sport for the faint of heart, and we're not just talking about the players. If you're going to watch hockey with any regularity, you will see blood. Oh yes, blood will be spilled. Sometimes it's an accidental high stick to the face. Or a fast-moving puck to the teeth. Or an elbow that hits just right and splits an eyebrow.

I'm not saying this happens every time a player steps onto the ice, or even every game. It doesn't. But it is an extremely physical game played by a breed of athlete whose grit and persistence often defies ready comprehension. The intensity with which these athletes play greatly increases the risk of sustaining physical damage.

It is not uncommon, for instance, for a hockey player to suffer an injury that would immediately sideline an athlete from another sport, get stitched up, and be back on the ice only minutes later. It's part of the culture of the game: You must be there for your teammates. You must be available to take that next shift. You must.

In some sense, hockey is the most team-oriented of all sports. People often say they don't like the fights, but that's almost always because they don't understand the nature and the purpose of fighting. Fighting is done for the team. The players need referees to keep things fair, of course, but they largely police themselves by sticking up for teammates.

If you "take liberties" (a wonderfully Canadian phrase) with my star player, someone on my team is going to drop the gloves and expect you to answer for your dangerous play. Winning or losing the fight is almost secondary. The point is showing up, taking and demanding accountability, and defending teammates who may not be able to defend themselves.

While often the least skilled players on a team, hockey's "enforcers" are often also the most beloved. They do a job few others can or want to do.

And even if that all sounds like rationalization of barbaric behavior, you will note that fighting in hockey is being legislated out of the game relatively quickly. At some point there will be no more fighting, which many think will lead to a rash of injuries caused by players who no longer have to worry about whether they're making a careless hit or carrying their stick a bit too high.

In any case, there is nothing like a hockey game watched live and in person. I watch it on TV when I can because I'm a fan. But to really get it, in order to really appreciate it, you must be attend a game yourself. Sit close to the ice the first time or two if you want. I call the glass seats the "gateway drug" of hockey that introduces you to the speed, skill, passion and jarring impact of a game.

Those of us a bit more seasoned in the sport tend to sit farther back in order to watch the flow of play develop. But it doesn't matter really. Just get to an arena.

If you go with me, the only two things I will need to teach you are the concepts of "offsides" and "icing." If you get those, the rest is almost self-evident, from the penalties to the tactical execution.

Like I said, whether or not you allow yourself to become addicted to the drug of hockey is ultimately of no consequence to me. But I'm telling you, let someone experienced sit next to you at a game and, in most cases, you'll be hooked.

Happy birthday, Mom!

My mother turns 85 years old today. Every year I announce her age on social media without asking her if it's OK and without fear of retribution, because Mom is further away from getting a Facebook account than your typical Amish farmer is.

Mom could handle a computer just fine if she wanted to. I know this because she's smart. She either doesn't admit or doesn't know how smart she is, but that's because she's Mom and self-deprecation is what Mom does.

I remember when Mom was the single smartest human being I knew (and she still ranks right up there, though she has admittedly been surpassed by my wife, who over nearly 25 years of marriage I've come to find out knows at least a little bit about virtually everything...and I don't mean that sarcastically).

From birth until the age of 5 or so – and really quite a ways beyond that – my mom was my world. She was the person I was with most or all of every day. I don't know if it's because I was the baby of the family or whether I just had social issues or a little bit of both, but I was especially dependent on my mom for a long time. My only problem with starting kindergarten is that it took me away from Mom for hours at a time.

After awhile, of course, it was fine. By necessity, you learn eventually to untie yourself from mother's apron strings because, otherwise, a 47-year-old man living at home and hanging around his mom all day would be a little bit strange, wouldn't it? Or maybe "demented" is the word.

Anyway, no matter how old you get, your mom is still your mom and she deserves your time and respect. My respect she has. Lately what I haven't given her is my time.

I could give you the excuse that I work long hours, that I have a lot going on, that I'm not home most of the time, blah blah blah blah. But Mom lives all of 7 minutes away in the house where I grew up, and where she has lived for 54 years since the latter days of the Kennedy Administration.

Getting there for a 15-minute visit, or calling her most days of the week, isn't and shouldn't be that difficult. But sometimes I treat it like it is.

So note to self: More phone and face time with Mom. Do it.

In any event, happy birthday to Mom. I owe way, way more to her than I could possibly realize, and I hope she's around many more years for me to let everyone know exactly how old she is.

10 things I really should understand a lot better than I do

(1) Plumbing (or wiring, or heating and cooling, or virtually any other semi-complex system within my house)

(2) The economy

(3) Why airplanes don't just fall out of the sky. You can explain aerodynamics, air lift, wing shape and everything to me as much as you want. I still don't see why every jetliner I've ever been on was able to stay aloft for more than four seconds.

(4) How to read Shakespeare. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. But when I come up against "Against the which, a moiety competent / Was gaged by our king; which had return'd / To the inheritance of Fortinbras, / Had he been vanquisher," I pretty much dissolve into a puddle of ignorance.

(5) How a saxophone, an instrument I've played since 1979, actually works.

(6) Bridge, Hearts, Spades and about 47 other popular card games

(7) How a baby actually emerges from a woman. I've watched it happen live and in person several times. And yet I still think it was all done with mirrors or CGI or something. I know the size of a newborn baby. And I know the size of the orifice from which it supposedly passes. The two don't match up in any way at all. I don't care what geometry you use, THAT ain't fittin' through THAT. So I want to know how they actually do it.

(8) Why accents exist (I mean linguistic accents. Not, you know, rugs.)

(9) Cricket (Again, to clarify, the sport. Not the insect...though come to think of it, I know almost nothing about the bug, either.)

(10) How to juggle, do a backflip, or whistle through my fingers. These are all physical acts that utterly escape me.

My theory of leadership: Get good people and get out of their way

I never set out, in either my career or my personal life, to be a leader. It just kind of happened that way.

At Vitamix, I head up a team of three very talented communications professionals. I inherited one and hired two, and I couldn't have been more fortunate with the mix of ability and dedication that resulted.

At home, of course, I'm theoretically the co-head of a household of seven people, though I recognize aptitude when I see it and leave many important executive decisions to Terry. My job, in those instances, is to support her. I'd like to think I do it well.

I'm also the president of the Wickliffe High School Girls Soccer Boosters. A more appropriate title would be "coordinator," because my role is largely to channel the vast energy and ideas that emanate from the three wonderful ladies who are my fellow officers.

What I have learned, in all of these situations, is that effective management starts with recognition of what you yourself do well and what you don't do well. I know my limitations. I know what I can and can't do, and I don't pretend that my talents extend any further than they actually do.

I will make suggestions and coach when I can, but if you ever find yourself reporting to me in any capacity, I promise you two things:

(1) I will not micromanage. I trust that you are a responsible adult and that you have the ability to do your job well. That's a given. I'm going to step aside and let you do that job. I expect you'll deliver fabulous results (or else I wouldn't have hired you) and keep me apprised of what's going on.

(2) I will go to bat for you every chance I get. One of my responsibilities is to take some of the slings and arrows for you. Some you'll know about, others you never will. And that's the way it should be. You don't need to be distracted by things that are beyond your control, or by people who may or may not understand what you do and how you do it. Let me run interference for you.

If I ever fail to do either of these things, or if I'm letting you down in some other aspect of our working relationship, I expect you will let me know.

And that about sums up my philosophy on leadership.

So far it has worked out. Check with me again in two decades when I'm thinking about retirement and I'll let you know the final result.

Occasionally sacrificing what you want to do for what you need to do: The hard part of adult life

One of my essential and ongoing dilemmas – just ask my wife, who has to hear me whine about it all the time – is that I want to run a marathon. It would be my second marathon. The first happened way back in 2001.

OK, you say, go run a marathon. Not so fast. Marathon training requires a lot of time, especially those long weekend runs. I don't have time. Or at least, the other choices I make in life create the circumstances in which I don't have time.

Because really, I DO have the time if I choose to create the time. But I have family commitments, chores, job-related obligations, etc. All of those take precedence over the quest for Marathon #2, as does that pesky little biological need for adequate sleep.

In reality, I choose not to have the time to train for a marathon. I also choose to go to church virtually every Sunday morning. I also choose to be married and raise a large-ish family.

These are all life decisions I've made that affect my allocation of resources. Those resources include time, money, and energy, both mental and physical.

Maybe someday, when the kids are a little older or maybe my professional and personal circumstances have changed for whatever reason, I'll have more time to do the things I've put off. But in the interim, this is the life I've chosen, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

If you're any older than 15 or so, you know what I'm talking about. It's interesting watching my daughter Elissa adjust to this most inescapable of grown-up realities as she settles into her first full-time job. She claims she's not very good at the adulting thing, as many people her age do, but I would say she's far ahead of most of her peers.

Whenever I get a little disappointed about not being able to do everything I want to do, I take stock of what those little personal sacrifices have done for me. I am blessed beyond measure, largely because of the way I've chosen to react to all of the gifts God has given me.

Sure, I can't just up and go on a weekend trip at the spur of the moment. But how important is that when compared with having a wonderful wife to whom I've been married for nearly 25 years? And children I love being around? And a job that provides us with so many material gifts countless others on this planet lack?

I have a car to drive, food to eat, a roof over my head, and a warm place to sleep every night. If you stop taking things like that for granted for just a second, and recognize how close to NOT having them you really are, suddenly the other stuff pales greatly in comparison.

I may or may not run that second marathon someday, but if I don't, it really is OK. That, I suppose, is at least one wise thing I've come to understand in my 47 years.

On healthy eating, food that tastes bad, and the Ultimate Trade-Off

By all accounts, I eat in a manner that most people would term "healthy."

Of course, as an American, it's not difficult to eat healthy compared with your countrymen. When you begin to understand what healthy eating really is, you quickly become appalled at what doctors call the Standard American Diet (and its appropriate acronym, "SAD").

We don't exactly eat in a way that promotes feeling good and longevity, folks. We just don't. And what's worse, our #1 export as a nation is our poor dietary habits. The Type-2 diabetes epidemic is becoming a global phenomenon, though I would guess we still lead the world in insulin shots per capita.

I ate that way for a long time. Not as much as some folks, but still not ideal from a medical standpoint. Then I started doing some reading and found out what our bodies truly need. And it ain't the chemical-filled "low-fat" stuff that was all the rage in the 90s and beyond. It's real food, as close to its natural state as possible.

My diet is not perfect. I'll be the first to admit that. These days I don't eat as much protein as I should, and I've not been able to give blood in a while because my iron levels are always too low (though interestingly, I feel like I have a lot of energy most days). I also eat way, way too much fruit. It fills me up, and there can be a lot of sugar in fruit, though as I understand it, it's a natural sugar that's metabolized differently from the added sugar that permeates everything at the grocery store.

But as I try to evolve my eating patterns, I think I'm definitely getting better. There's improvement, which is good.

Here for example is absolutely everything I ate yesterday (Friday, March 31st):

BREAKFAST: 

* 1 cup oatmeal (1/2 cup plain oats, 1/2 cup water...I honestly love how it tastes, though I know many people would say it's incredibly bland)

* 1 banana

* 1 cup coffee with 16-18g of half and half

SNACKS (eaten throughout the day...I snack a lot):

* 3 more bananas

* 4 apples

* 1 grapefruit

* 1 carrot

* 1 ounce walnuts

* 1 packet Chicken of the Sea pink salmon

* 1 cup plain Greek yogurt (yes, I eat it and like it plain)

* 1 whole-wheat mini bagel
* 1 Weight Watchers cheese stick

* 3 more cups of coffee prepared just like the one I had at breakfast above

LUNCH:

* 1 greens salad (even mixture of spinach and kale) with a combo olive oil/red wine vinegar dressing

DINNER:

* 2 ounces bran flakes with a cup of almond milk (NOTE: This is a very, very light dinner for me. I usually eat more than this, but Terry is out of town and the kids ordered pizza that I didn't want to wait for. So cereal it was!)

This was about how I ate every day last week, and I lost 1.4 pounds (I also jogged four days, which is important to note). That's a good, sensible weight loss, and I didn't feel especially hungry at any part of the day.

Should I have eaten more whole grains and protein? Yes. But that's just one day. It's a snapshot. I get more of those things on other days.

Every day I try to get my share of healthy fats, which generally consists of nuts, the olive oil on my salad, and any fish I can scrounge up when it's available. I try to get whole grains (i.e., not white bread or white rice), I try to get vegetables (though generally not enough), I have no problem meeting my fruit quota, and I'll eat lean meats when we do have meat.

I read all kinds of books and articles about healthy eating, and I know the areas in which I'm lacking. You can suggest anything and I'll probably be aware that I should be eating it. But this is my general approach, and medically it seems to work in terms of my blood pressure, blood sugar, etc. All of those important numbers the doctor always talks to you about.

Many people will say that this type of food isn't enjoyable for them, and that they would rather have fewer but fun years vs. more but bland-eating years. And I offer up no judgment on that whatsoever. It is, in the end, what I call "The Ultimate Trade-Off."

You have to ask yourself: What do I want? What are my goals? What makes me feel best? And while we all know the "right" answer to that question in terms of health and wellness, the real "right" answer varies for each of us.

It may be that you want to eat steak every day for the rest of your life, and if you die early, so be it. And I completely respect that. I am not the Food Police for anyone but myself. What I want out of life and what you want out of life may differ, but neither of our approaches is inherently better than the other.

In the end, as I said in yesterday's weight loss post, we all have to make our own decisions. The key is being truly comfortable with the one you make and living with it. If you can do that, then you've got a big part of this whole "life" thing figured out.

Some thoughts on weight, health and BMI

Every once in a while, I come on here and talk a bit about my personal weight loss (and gain, and loss, and gain, and loss, etc.) journey, in the hopes that it will be somewhat interesting to you and that you'll at least read past the headline.

This is one of those days.

I went to my Weight Watchers meeting last Saturday and got back to within two pounds of my goal as a Lifetime Member, which means I don't have to pay to come to meetings and to access the E-Tools on my iPhone that allow me to look up the point values of various foods, track my eating and activity, etc. It's a nice little incentive to stay at or around your goal weight: Eat too much and you end up paying.

My weight losses have always been followed by weight gains. It's a reality that many, many people face, and that I may face for the rest of my life, I don't know. But looking back over just the last nine years, I've had significant weight losses at the following times and gained much or all of the weight back each time:

2008: Lost about 30 pounds, gained it all back by 2010

2011: Lost 15 pounds or so, gained it all back by 2012

2013: Lost something like 45 pounds, gained 25 of it back by early 2016

2016: Lost that 25 I had gained back PLUS 25 more. Yes, a 50-pound swing, though that took me down into the mid-160s by last fall and, honestly, as much as it pains me to say this, that was just too much.

2017: By the early part of this year, I had gained 25 of the pounds back again, and now I'm starting to lose it again.

I weighed in at 186.4 this morning (Saturday, April 1st), a figure that would surprise many people just looking at me. I don't look like I weigh 186 pounds, though I will say that much of it is in my legs. I've told you before that we Tennants carry a lot of weight in our thick English-German calf and thigh muscles.

Still, I really don't think I'm quite yet at a medically ideal weight. What that weight should be, though, constantly baffles me. It's not 165, but it's also not 185.

"Hey, Scott, here's a thought: How about splitting the difference and stopping at 175?"

Yes, yes, you're probably right. It's just that I have a hang-up about being in the "overweight" or "obese" section of the Body Mass Index (BMI) charts.

People attack the BMI scale all the time, claiming it's unrealistic. But I think that's because most people don't understand exactly what BMI is.

BMI is not a set of numbers designed to make you feel like a fat slob. As I understand it, it's simply a table based on straight actuarial data. It's telling you, in essence, "Look, you do what you want. We're just saying that people under this particular weight for your height tend to die early a lot less often than people who are over that weight. That's it. That's all we're saying. It may seem like an unrealistic number to you, but the stats are the stats."

Yes, I know that people who are especially muscular get thrown unfairly into the overweight/obese category on the BMI chart. I understand it's not perfect. I'm just saying its purpose is really only to show you how likely you are to suffer an early death based on your height and weight. There are, and always will be, exceptions.

Of course, there are many things that contribute to being "healthy," and maintaining a proper weight is just one of them. But it's an important one, to be sure. For my height (5-9 1/2), I don't enter the "normal" weight zone on the BMI chart unless I'm under 172 pounds. My 186 weigh-in this morning puts me at about 27.1 (under 25 is healthy/normal). A 27.1 BMI is classified as "overweight."

Do with that information what you will. We all have to make our own decisions. I'm just having a hard time balancing the medical "hey, you're in good shape" with the subjective "hey, you look too gaunt" from family and friends.

The more important question I should be asking myself is how I'm going to go about maintaining that true goal weight once I get there. And I'm looking into that now. A different maintenance philosophy and a whole lot of prayer seem to be the preferred strategy.

One key thing for me, as Terry told me countless times as I refused to listen, is that I need to show up at weekly Weight Watchers meetings. I just have to. They keep me accountable and motivated. When I stop going, I gain weight. It's a simple pattern, not hard to recognize, yet time and again I try to do it on my own. Dumb.

OK, I've written more than I should have on this. I wanted to talk about healthy eating apart from weight, but you know what? I'll do that in tomorrow's post. I really need to go grab an apple (and not a Twinkie) right now.

OK, so apparently cheaters DON'T prosper

Remember the whole thing where I asked you to click on the ads in my blog so I could make a few bucks? And how I even thanked you for doing it after my Google Ads account balance shot up?

I included this line at the end of that thank-you post when it suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing may not have been entirely ethical: "You don't think the Google AdSense people will read this and take away my cash, citing some obscure rule about soliciting ad clicks or something, do you? Maybe we should just keep this between ourselves..."

Well, guess what! (You already know where this is going.) I received the following note of reprimand from the Google Ads people:

Hello, 

We recently detected invalid activity in your AdSense account. As a result, we’ve temporarily suspended your account for 30 days. During this time, no ads will be served on your sites. 

Why was my account suspended?We found instances of one or more users clicking repeatedly on your AdSense ads which is prohibited by the AdSense Program Policies. Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Publishers may not ask others to refresh or click their ads. This includes asking for users to support your site, offering rewards to users for viewing ads or performing searches and promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior. Additionally, clicking your own ads, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software are also prohibited.

The note was actually much longer, but the gist of it was:

• We know what you did, smart a**.
• There's a rule against that to which you clearly agreed, but you never even bothered to read it, did you?
• Your account is suspended for 30 days, which means no ads will appear on your blog AND we're going to withhold the payment to which you were otherwise entitled AND we're probably going to refund all of the revenue you've recently generated to the affected advertisers.
• And there's nothing you can do about it. Nyah nyah nyah!

Yes, the earnings that pushed me over that magical $100 payment threshold are probably going to be rescinded. That's $40 in income gone in a flash, and there's no doubt I deserve it.

So yeah, I screwed up. I should have read the fine print a bit more closely and realized (as a marketing professional myself) that solicited clicks aren't of any use to advertisers.

I guess, then, my request to you is to stop clicking on the ads unless you're really, genuinely interested in something. I appreciate everyone chipping in with a few clicks, but them's the rules, you know?

I guess we'll put that classical CD buying binge on hold for a bit...

What we did right with each of our kids - Part V - Jack

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

At the ripe old age of 11, my son Jack is still a work in progress. You can of course argue that ALL of us are works in progress, but what I mean is that, compared with my older kids, he's still fairly malleable in terms of how he sees the world and the values he absorbs from us, his parents.

Jack busts me up. I don't know if it's because he's so naturally funny (he really is) or if it's just because he's kid #5 and Terry and I are, in general, more laid back and relaxed in our approach to raising him vs. our older children.

I actually like to think we've been pretty laid back with all of the kids, since my wife and I are essentially laid back people. Maybe too laid back in some ways, though we've been trying to focus only on the positive in these "what we did right with each of our kids" posts, so I'll stay away from that.

So to wrap up the series, here are five things Terry and I may have actually done right when it comes to little Jack:

(1) We're letting him try a new family sport: cross country. Like everyone in the family at one point or another has done, Jack plays soccer. Like three of his siblings before him, he has done this since he was a kindergartner. But over the last couple of months he has started distance running through the Wickliffe Junior Olympics program, and it's obvious we've stumbled upon something for which he has talent and from which he derives enjoyment. Bingo. I have no idea what his sporting future holds, but I have a feeling that soccer and cross country will have a hard time co-existing in his life, and that he will eventually (maybe very soon) have to pick one or the other.

(2) We got him swimming lessons when he was a baby. A toddler, really, but still, he was much younger than any of the other kids were when they learned to swim. I think Terry started taking him to lessons when he was 2. I'm amazed at how well kids that age can do in the water, especially since I'm not exactly a fish myself. That was a good call.

(3) We exposed him to electronics fairly early. Like most in his generation, Jack is a technological native. He was proficient in all types of hardware and software from an early age. And while he often spends too much time on various devices, he at least has a sense that there's such a thing as "too much time on devices." He'll learn to balance it all out as he gets older.

(4) We taught him to be affectionate. This may be just Jack's personality, but to this day he still hugs us and tells us he loves us every day. I'll be interested to see how much of that goes away as he hits his teen years, but right now he has no problem showing the world he loves his mom and dad. It's sweet.

(5) We taught him to lose. Now understand, when he was really, really little, I would arrange it so that Jack would win most games of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. You don't want to crush their dreams quite that early. But for the most part, when we play a family game and Jack wins, he wins on his own. There's a lot of losing in life, and I don't say that in an Eeyore, whoa-is-us manner. It's just the way things are. The sooner you learn that, and the sooner you learn to deal with it, even if it's just a seemingly unimportant card or board game, the better.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part IV - Melanie

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My daughter Melanie is 16 years old and right on the verge of getting her driver's license. This does not scare me at all, in part because I've been through this before with three other kids, and in part because it's just so convenient having a child who can drive herself places.

But part of me will always think of Melanie as the four-year-old version of herself. She had this great little haircut that just screamed "CUTE!" And in fact everything she did and everything she said screamed "CUTE!" I love the current Melanie, but as parents do, I will always keep a piece of Little Tiny Melanie in my heart.

There is, incidentally, some variation in her name within our household. She is officially "Melanie," but I usually call her "Mel." And when she was a baby, Terry and I took to calling her "Melanie Moo," which somehow eventually morphed into "Schmoo." I don't know why.

Anyway, sticking with our theme this week, I'm here to tell you five things we did right with this particular child, so here they are:

(1) We let her be the baby of the family for a while. I used to think this was kind of a bad thing. Mel was the baby for so long before Jack showed up that she was treated like the baby for a long time after she had grown out of that role. Her siblings did a lot of things for her and we didn't push her especially hard. But now that I see her maturing into such a bright, goal-driven young woman, I realize we didn't do her any permanent harm. Let little kids be little kids for a while, I guess is the moral here.

(2) We're not forcing her to be in band just because everyone else in the family is/was in band. At this point it's iffy whether Mel, who quit band after her freshman year, will return to it next year as a junior. There's a part of me that wants her to, since I was a bando, my wife was a bando, and so were Elissa, Chloe and Jared. And Jack currently plays the trumpet. But if it's not something she particularly enjoys (and I don't think it is), why force it? She can make her own decision here, as far as I'm concerned.

(3) We let her go to concerts from a fairly young age. For whatever reason, I didn't go to my first rock/pop concert until I was 18 years old (February 1988, Sting, Cleveland Public Hall...what a show). Mel has been going to concerts since her very early teens. Live music is a fun and exciting experience, and going with just her friends teaches her to navigate large venues and downtown streets. Not bad things to know.

(4) We let her have a boyfriend. All three of my girls have what you might call long-term boyfriends, and I like all three of them. They're good guys, which I think is because my girls have good heads on their shoulders and can make wise decisions when it comes to dating. I've never understood the "you're not dating until your xx years old" rule some moms and dads impose, but then again, I don't claim to be the perfect parent. I just think my girls are learning the basics of healthy relationships by being allowed to engage in their own while still young adults.

(5) We forced her to share a room with her sister Chloe. This isn't really a hardship, since Chloe lives at the University of Akron most of the time. But you know, it's not going to kill you to learn to compromise and share a living space with someone else from time to time. Now if we can just teach Mel not to leave moldy food, unwashed clothes and various papers all over her floor, we would be getting somewhere...

What we did right with each of our kids - Part III - Jared

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My son Jared, now 18, was as tall as me when he was 12 or 13 years old. This isn't saying much as I'm of exceedingly average height (5-9½, thank you very much), but now that he has topped out at around 6-1, "tall" is one of his defining characteristics.

There are many people taller than Jared, of course, but for our family, he's a giant.

Speaking of which – true story – one time when was about 10, he was playing soccer and one of the players on the opposing team urged his teammates to "cover the giant," referring to Jared. Every once in a while, Terry or I will exclaim, "Cover the giant!" And the other one will chuckle appreciatively.

For many years, Jared was my Man Child. He looked older than he really was up until high school, at which point he looked like someone who was exactly where they should be. Now, as high school winds down for him, he looks to me like someone trying to figure out where he belongs next.

Which is perfect. That's what you should be doing when you're 18.

Here are five things I'd like to think Jared's mother and I did right for him:

(1) We let him be who he is. Jared is a quiet guy. He talks to people now more than he used to, but he is still widely known as The Quiet Tennant. And that's fine. Jared is who he is, and any attempt to make him seem more outgoing would have been disingenuous and ultimately unfair. (By the way, he and I have always talked a lot. If you know Jared only in passing, you might be surprised to learn he is one of the funniest people I know. He has a dry sense of humor that just kills me.)

(2) We encouraged him to kick a football. In the grand scheme of things, the three years Jared spent as a kicker for the Wickliffe High School football team may seem unimportant. And yes, he will undoubtedly do far more important things in his life. But the experience of putting on the shoulder pads and playing under the lights every Friday night was one he'll never forget, I'm sure. He got there largely on his own. No one sought him out to kick. As a freshman, he asked the coach what he needed to do to become a kicker. He found out where he needed to be and when, and he showed up. He found what he needed to learn, and he learned it. All on his own. No kicking coach or anything, just Jared. Let's hear it for personal initiative.

(3) We let him destroy our garage with hockey pucks. OK, we did't let him do this, but to Terry's credit, she has kept herself from killing Jared for putting a variety of dents in our garage door and gouges in our garage walls. Jared never played organized hockey, but I played living room and driveway hockey with him when he was a lot younger, and to this day his love of the sport continues to grow. When I think back to my own sports experiences with my dad, most of the memories revolve around attending Indians games and watching Friday night boxing matches together. I hope that one day for Jared, one of his memories of his dad will be watching, playing and talking about hockey. It's our thing, as is a shared love for Cleveland sports.

(4) We told him what he should do and watched when he chose to ignore our advice. The older he gets, the more The Boy seems to follow our teaching (sometimes grudgingly). But over the years, he has more than once gone his own direction, often with less-than-desirable results. I'll say it again: There is value in screwing up. Let it happen.

(5) We taught him he is loved. Jared is not an outwardly affectionate guy. He will occasionally hug his mother, but it's not an everyday thing. Still, in everything he has done, and in every decision he has made, we tried to make it clear that we loved him no matter what. I think he gets that concept in his head for now. Someday he'll understand it in his heart, too.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part II - Chloe

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My 20-year-old daughter Chloe wants to be a doctor. A pediatrician, to be specific, and of course she's doing it by first getting a degree in biomedical engineering. This makes some sense, I suppose, but it's just like Chloe to go at the whole thing just a bit differently from most people.

For Chloe herself is a bit different from most people. Always has been. It is one of the many things to love about her.

Allowing her individuality to flourish is probably one thing we did right for her. Here are five others:

(1) We allowed her to be an interesting person. As Chloe was going out the door to head for work just now, I told her I was going to write a post about her, and I gave her the topic. She suggested that letting her be an interesting person should be on this list. Actually, she just said, "I'm an interesting person." And I said, "Does that mean we actually helped you become interesting? Or did we just stand by and let it happen?" And all she said as she ran out to her car was, "Good point." I'm not even sure what the point is. But I guess you could say we never quashed any of her eccentricities. Chloe is Chloe. If you love her like we do, great. If you don't, she doesn't have much use for you.

(2) I introduced her to soccer when she was 6 years old. Technically, she introduced me to soccer. I had been coaching my kids in t-ball and baseball for a couple of years when Chloe the kindergartner informed me she wanted to play soccer. So I went to City Hall to sign her up, and through a chain of events that still confuses me to this day, I ended up as her coach, as well (another story for another time). Chloe played nonstop all the way through her senior year of high school, capping her career by being named Most Valuable Player on her team that season. Soccer proved to be an outlet for her both physically and mentally, as she learned what it means to truly work for something and strive to improve every day.

(3) I let her choose the baritone horn on "Meet the Instrument Night" when she was in 4th grade. Chloe's choice to be a low brass player serves her well even to this day, as she has played the sousaphone in the University of Akron marching band the last two years. Terry, however, started accompanying us to these Meet the Instrument Nights after that because she was afraid I was going to steer all of our kids toward weird musical choices.

(4) We got out of her way. I said in a blog post on Chloe's birthday a year or two ago that the best thing when you're dealing with extremely bright and talented kids is to just let them go. That doesn't mean you should disengage from their lives completely, but understand that you aren't (and shouldn't be) driving the train. You're just the conductor, man, and you'd better hang on for the ride.

(5) We taught her to play cribbage. Have you ever played cribbage? That's a fun game. Sailors on submarines have played it for years. It's a good mix of strategy, skill and a little luck (much like life itself). Teach your kids to play cribbage. And if you don't know how, I will take you to Starbucks and have you playing like a champ in less than 15 minutes while we sip overpriced coffee (on me).