There is something to be gained from every unhappy experience, even if we don't see it right away

Twenty-five years ago last night, I got maybe 90 minutes of sleep.

You may rightly question why there is a small space in my brain that stores this information. Please know I don't have a satisfactory answer for you.

But it's true that the night of September 29, 1996, was a restless one for me.

It was a Sunday evening, and the next day I was scheduled to start a new job as a plan document specialist at a firm called Self-Funded Plans, Inc. Basically, I wrote and edited health insurance documents.

I am now very good at being the new guy, having worked at a number of different organizations over the years. But at that point, I had almost no idea how to handle a new job.

For the previous eight years, since my first week in college, I had worked in the sports departments of daily newspapers: first as a sports agate clerk and later a staff writer for The News-Herald, then for a year with The Plain Dealer's Lake-Geauga Bureau, then back to The News-Herald for a five-year stay as a full-time sports writer.

And it was great. I loved almost every minute of it.

But as I've described before, it was never going to be a long-term gig for me. I thought it would be, but once Terry and I got married and started having kids, the nighttime hours and relatively low pay made for a bad combination when it came to raising a family.

So I saw the Self-Funded Plans job in the newspaper (OLD GUY ALERT), applied for it, and got it.

And I was so nervous.

To that point, I hadn't worked in a "real" office. Newsrooms look like real offices, but they're not. They're unique.

This was also a 9-to-5 job, which wasn't something I was at all used to.

I also didn't know if I would like it, which made me nervous.

All of these things came together to render me sleepless most of that evening. Midnight came and went, as did 1am, 2am, and 3am. I went out into the living room somewhere between 3 and 4 and still mostly couldn't sleep, but I strung together those 90 fitful minutes of rest on the couch before rising miserably at 6 o'clock.

It was a rough first day, both physically and mentally.

Ultimately, it wasn't a job I enjoyed very much. I spent most of my seven months there thinking I had made a big mistake leaving the comfort of newspapers and entering the world of health insurance.

But over time, it turned out to be a great move. From Self-Funded Plans I went to Advanstar and became the managing editor of Urology Times. It was largely my health care experience at Self-Funded that got me that position.

Then it was the combined health care experience at Self-Funded and Advanstar that helped me land my first PR position at The Cleveland Clinic. And that in turn led to a few very enjoyable and productive years at the prestigious Cleveland PR firm Dix & Eaton.

And so on. One position built on the next, and it has all landed me at a very happy, challenging, and frankly fun place in Goodyear.

All of which is to say that, as in many things, we have to force ourselves to consider the long term when we're unhappy in our current situation. Yes, you may need to make a change, but don't underestimate what you've learned from that miserable job or dead-end relationship.

Each of those experiences have made you you. And, if I may say it, you turned out pretty darn well.

Do you have a favorite year of your life?

I was a history major, and I often use the past to help better understand the present, but that's the full extent to which I look backwards.

Other than that, I'm very much a "live in the moment" kind of person.

Which is why, if you ask me what my favorite year is, I'll always say the one in which I'm living right now. And I mean that.

But if you really pinned me down and forced me to pick a year I especially enjoyed, the first one that pops into my head is 1987.

It was a good time all around. It spanned my junior and senior years of high school. It was the first full calendar year in which I dated Terry. It was a 12-month period in which I matured appreciably (which was probably related to the fact that I was dating Terry).

I also got my first speeding ticket that year, and I'm sure there were a few other missteps over those 365 days. But taken as a whole, 1987 was a solid time for me.

I would also nominate 1992 when we were married, and the years 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2006, as those were the years our kids were born.

Really, though, I have no room to complain about anything, so the reality is that any year in which I'm upright and breathing is a good one.

The number of pills I ingest each morning has shrunk over the years

(NOTE: This morning I had my first physical in a couple of years with a new primary care provider, whom I really liked. She added a fifth pill to my regimen, which is Lisinopril, kind of an "entry-level" blood pressure med given my family history of that condition and the fact that I came in at a not-terrible-but-not-ideal 140/72 today. Just to update what you'll see below, which was written a couple of weeks ago...)

About a decade ago, I blogged about my morning pill regimen. Back then, I was taking seven pills each day. Now that number is down to four.

The ones that have dropped off the list are the two fish oil capsules I used to pop seven days a week, and the generic Claritin tablet to help with my chronic congestion.

I got rid of the fish oil because I'm not aware of any studies that have shown a benefit to ingesting fish oil via capsule. The idea, as a person with a family history of heart disease, was to derive some sort of cardiovascular benefit. But from what I gather, it's more likely that benefit will come from regularly ingesting actual fish, rather than their extracted oils.

I don't eat a whole lot of fish. I like fish, mind you, but it's not a common dish in our house. Not sure how to get around that one.

As for the Claritin pill, I still get congested, but I find that I can rely on my longtime addiction to nasal mist to take care of it. It's not ideal, but it works, so I figured I didn't need to buy the pills anymore.

So what DO I take every day? Here's the rundown:

• A men's multivitamin: I chop it in two and take half in the morning and half in the afternoon/evening to aid with absorption. But here's the thing...I'm not sure there's any more proof of efficacy for a multivitamin than there is for fish oil. But my now-retired primary care physician always encouraged me to continue taking it, so I do. Today I have my first appointment with my new PC provider, so I'll have to ask her about this. (NOTE: She said to keep taking it. It's one of those it-can't-hurt-and-it-probably-helps kinds of things the scientific community is still working through.)
  
  
• A Vitamix D3 pill: Again, not sure what the clinical evidence suggests here, but I take a 2000 IU pill every day. This is what I said in my 2012 post on this subject: "Those of us who live in northern climates tend not to get enough sunlight, which means we don't get enough Vitamin D, which is apparently important for heart health. You'll notice 'heart health' is a recurring theme here. I had a father and sister both die from heart disease. Can't be too careful here." (NOTE: Amber, my primary care nurse practitioner referred to previously, said to definitely keep this one.)
  
  
• Two baby aspirin: Once again, do I know for sure this helps me in terms of cardiovascular health? I do not (I really should do a literature search on these things). But my doc never discouraged me from doing it, so every morning I happily take two orange-flavored chewable baby aspirin. Even if they don't ultimately help, they taste awesome, so there's that. (NOTE: Amber's take? See the multivitamin comment above.)

Sometimes I wonder whether I should just give up the pills/supplements altogether and rely instead on a relatively healthy diet. And I do eat relatively healthy.

But if I did that, what would become of my trusty plastic pill case, which is segmented by days of the week and which I refill every Saturday morning? It would sit there empty and lonely. And I would hate for that to happen.

Recent encounters with wildlife

 

(1) The little guy pictured above was somewhere in the house when our cat Ginny caught him. This was unusual in that, when we’ve had mice a few times over the years, it has always been Charlie who tracked them down. But this time, Ginny was the one credited with the capture. Terry noticed the little fuzz ball hanging out of Ginny’s mouth and called me into the room. Ginny, acting on instinct, was very possessive of her catch and ran away when I tried to take the mouse from her. We eventually got her to drop it and I scooped him up and took him outside, where I presume he is now living more in fear of hawks and owls than house cats.

(2) I see a lot of deer on my early-morning walks, but recently I’ve had multiple encounters with a big old skunk. He hangs out in a wide patch of grass that I pass twice on my usual route. The way he moves suggests he is older, though that probably only means he is 3 or 4, given skunk life spans in the wild. Half the time he doesn’t even notice me, but when he does, he instantly becomes alert and raises his tail. I give him a very, very wide berth, and after a few tense seconds we both go on our way. I like to think we have a wary mutual respect, but I’m sure he knows he’s the one in control of the situation.

(3) Speaking of deer, we get them in our yard all the time, to the point that I usually don’t pay them much mind. But we had a huge buck walk across our property recently and I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of him. I don’t recall any of our local deer population ever getting that big. In my mind, the other deer call him “Moose,” though I suppose “Buck” is just as likely.

I now view the cold months here in Northeast Ohio as a personal challenge

Fall began earlier this week, but I've always felt it really coincides with the start of the school year.

By that definition, it has been fall in our city for more than a month. The deeper we get into September and October, the crisper the mornings become. Since May or so, almost all of my morning walks have been done in a t-shirt and shorts. Now the long-sleeve pullovers come out.

It would be one thing if it ended there, and if in a few months we were again enjoying warm mornings and even warmer afternoons.

But that pleasantly brisk 5:30am walk is just the beginning. For those of us on the shores of Lake Erie, there is a long period ahead of falling temperatures that won't bottom out until January/February, perpetually gray skies, and yes, snow and ice.

I never used to think much of the September-through-March slog. It just came and went and you got through it.

But man, I swear the older I get, the longer it seems. Those first signs of warmth in mid- to late March are always welcome, and they always feel like an ordeal we've come through together. But enduring the cold months gets just a bit tougher each year.

Of course, no matter where you live, there are climatic challenges. If it's not hurricanes it's tropical humidity (or both). Or much worse cold than we get here. Or unending rain.

Our weather issues probably aren't any more difficult to deal with than anyone else's. It's just...boy, I don't know how a six-month period can suddenly feel like it's years long, but it does.

Oh well, we'll live. Terry and I have talked about becoming snowbirds eventually, but for now, we grin and bear it.

OK, admittedly, I'm not grinning.

Microsoft OneNote is the tool that keeps my life from devolving into a puddle of chaos

If you work in any kind of office setting, you probably use or have used some of the Microsoft Office programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc. Those are the most widely utilized.

A level down in terms of popularity are Publisher, Visio, SharePoint, and maybe Lync. I imagine Bill Gates and Co. rake in billions just from these apps alone.

Also among that second tier (and teetering on the third tier for many) is a program I use every day, both professionally and personally: OneNote.

I have trouble describing to people unfamiliar with it just what OneNote is. I guess the easiest way to sum it up is that it's a place where I put lots and lots and lots of information and organize it in a way that makes it easy to find and easy to act upon.

Does that make sense? It probably doesn't do it justice.

Maybe it's easier if I give some practical examples:

• I have a system of notebooks, sections and pages within OneNote that cover every aspect of my job. I take notes in every meeting I have and store those in the appropriate areas. I can easily search all of OneNote later for keywords if I can't find a piece or data or a note I took.
  
  
• But it's not just words I put into the program. I also take photos of things people write on whiteboards or other visuals that will come in handy later, and then I store them in OneNote. And if I'm in a setting where it's easier for me to take handwritten notes than to type notes directly into my laptop, I'll snap a picture of those notes and, yes, store them in OneNote.
  
  
• I can draw my own graphics, notes, figures, highlights, etc. on the screen over my typed notes for emphasis, easier information finding, etc.
  
  
• I keep my weekly to-do lists, both for work and for home, within OneNote, which provides handy little checkboxes I can use as I complete tasks.

• If I think of a blog post idea on the fly, I either quickly type it into a page I have reserved for blog post ideas within OneNote, or I record a quick note to myself also to store on that page.
  
  
• I also put sound files and videos into all of my notebooks as needed.
  
  
• I share whole pages, meeting notes, etc. with coworkers.
  
  
• All of the stuff I cram into OneNote is synced across all of my devices, so I can easily pull up the most current versions on my laptop, phone, or tablet.
  

The barrier to OneNote entry for many people is the time they assume is needed to learn the program and set up their notebook structure. And to that I'm happy to say this program is truly really easy to use. You'll pick it up right away with only a little bit of online training and personal experimentation.

The thing to consider, though, is that when it comes to programs like OneNote and Evernote, I feel like you're either all in or all out. It's not an app you really dabble in if you want to benefit from it.

I'm all in when it comes to OneNote. The mental effort required to do that is not nearly as big as you think it is.

It's all a far cry from WordPerfect, which I used to use to print out weekly to-do lists on a dot-matrix printer via my old, green-screen IBM XT computer.

We've come quite a way since the late 1980s.

What I like and don't like about my new pair of reading glasses

I don't mean to keep harping on this, but with my eyes having recently made the decision that they're no longer going to work especially hard to read small print, I had to make a trip to CVS to get my first pair of readers.

This, mind you, happened in the same week I saw a gastroenterologist in preparation for my first colonoscopy. We in Team Scott (that is to say, me) are reeling a little when it comes to the age-related milestones.

Anyway, I bought these glasses and they do their job, which is great. A quick rundown:

WHAT I LIKE

• They look good. At first I only saw colorful "fashion" readers on the rack, and I thought I was either going to have to buy a pair of leopard skin frames or walk away empty-handed. Thankfully, I turned around and saw another display of readers, many of which were made for middle-of-the-road suburban dads like me.
• They were easy to get used to. I figured it would take some period of adjustment before I really made full use of these glasses, but I had no problems from the outset. I mostly need them for reading actual print material, and even then only occasionally. So far they're doing exactly what they're supposed to.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

• The price. I got hornswoggled here. These are Foster Grant glasses, so I didn't really blink when I saw the $31 price tag. Only later when I got home and asked Terry how much she pays for her reading glasses did I find out that hers are usually $5 or $10 from Marc's. I should have checked into it before venturing out. On the plus side, they look really nice. Did I mention that?
• The fact that I need them at all. Allow me some period of whining during which I will complain about having to buy a pair of readers in the first place. I'll get over it in time. (In the interim, when did Apple decide to start using blurry text on the iPhone? Feels it just happened recently. I'm calling someone to register a protest...assuming I can see the numbers on my phone.)

I catch myself making this old guy face all the time

Increasingly I'll be in the middle of doing something, particularly something that requires me to concentrate, and I'll suddenly realize I'm making this less-than-flattering face.

It happens unconsciously. I have no idea I look this way for whole minutes at a time.

I always used to associate this face with old guys, particularly those who were baffled by some sort of new technology or an instruction manual written in badly translated English.

(This is assuming the guy is reading the instruction manual in the first place, which I know is a big leap.)

It horrifies me that I make this face, but I don't know how to keep myself from doing it. And really, when it comes to something like this, it's likely to happen more and more often as time goes on rather than just going away on its own.

The inevitable next step in my decline will be me offering everyone I meet a Werther's hard candy as they stare fascinated at my pants, which will be pulled up to my nipples.

As long as I'm not making The Face while I'm doing it, I think I can live with this scenario.

The Starbucks mobile ordering system does what it says it will do, and I think that's admirable

Every two weeks I visit my sister Deb's salon for a haircut and conversation.

I really don't need the haircut every two weeks, but I do look forward to the conversation, so the haircut is just an excuse.

I'm there every other Saturday morning, and invariably once she finishes shaping up what hair is left on my head, I walk over to the nearby Starbucks to grab a coffee.

Before I walk over, I fire up the Starbucks app on my phone and place my order online: Small blonde roast with a splash of heavy cream.

And it's there waiting for me every time. Every time, without fail. And not that it's a complicated order or anything, but they get also get the coffee/cream ratio right every time.

Now, before I talk about how impressive that system is to me, I realize you may have your own opinions about Starbucks, whether it's the quality of their coffee, the price of said coffee, or their corporate politics. And to that I would say:

• QUALITY: You may be right, but I have no standards when it comes to coffee, so I'll drink almost anything.
• PRICE: You are undoubtedly right there. Even if you're paying for "ambience" and "experience," it's still too much. Yet I continue to make regular purchases there because, well, because I don't really care.
• POLITICS: Speaking of don't care, it would be difficult for me to care less about what Starbucks advocates for when it comes to social and political issues. I'm just there for the coffee.

Now, you could argue that we should expect brands to deliver on their promises to us, and that when they do so it is no more than the price of gaining you and me as customers. And you're right.

Still, having spent part of my career in consumer goods, I can tell you that marketing and distribution for most products is way, way more complex than you think it is. And any company that, on a mass scale, can promise you a positive experience and consistently come through is to be commended.

Because many don't, you know. And here I'm thinking of cable companies. God bless them they try, but the number of technical issues they experience and customer complaints they absorb suggests to me that most operate their networks on essentially a wing and a prayer. They promise a positive experience and deliver it a shockingly low percentage of the time.

But not my friends at Starbucks. They make it easy to use their app, easy to place my order, and easy to pick it up. Maybe I shouldn't be blown away by this, but I am.

Happy birthday to my little girl from six states away

Melanie and her parents, 21 years ago today.

I've told you that my daughter Melanie, our youngest girl and second-youngest child overall, is spending six months in Orlando, Florida, as a Disney College Program participant. She operates rides at Disney's Blizzard Beach water park, sweats profusely in the Florida sun, and takes remote classes through Cleveland State University.

She is a very busy young woman.

She is also, as of today, 21 years old. Which I'm sure means she will take a sip of alcohol for the very first time in her life.

I choose to believe this is true.

Do you remember where you were or what you did on your 21st birthday? I was covering the Ohio high school state volleyball tournament in Dayton with my News-Herald co-worker Matt Kantz. I went through a drive-through beverage store to buy a six-pack of beer, mostly because I could.

The beer wasn't all that great, as I recall, but the fact that I could legally purchase it was very cool.

There are many things about adulthood that make you wish you were a kid again. But on balance, being a grown-up beats being a child, in my experience.

So here's hoping little Mel has the best of all possible 21st birthdays. If she does decide to have a beer today, I hope she doesn't also have to work a shift at the water park. Otherwise, her buzzed self may send an unsuspecting child down a water slide at the wrong time to his/her doom.

Happy birthday anyway, kid.

The three things I've told each of my kids the first time they got into the driver's seat

Our youngest child, Jack, recently got his temporary driver's permit. We have been down this road four times before, and each time, it has fallen to me to guide the kids through the early stages of the driver education process.

Considering the number of cars that have been totaled by our family, you could argue that perhaps I am not the world's greatest driving instructor. However, I stand by what I've told each of the kids the moment they've sat down behind the wheel and before they're allowed to drive even an inch:

(1) You could kill someone with this machine

Yeah, it's a little harsh, but you absolutely have to understand the power, responsibility and potential to change lives (your own and others) every time you're on the road. You're suddenly in charge of a ton or two of steel and glass that could maim or murder other human beings. I don't want you to be tight and nervous every time you drive, but I also want you to be constantly alert and aware of the consequences of not paying attention.

(2) Be patient...this takes a little time

Some people are just natural drivers and they understand the rules of the road and the nuances of maneuverability instinctively. Most of us, however, are not like that. There's a reason they want 50+ hours of on-the-road experience before you take your test. It takes that long even to start to feel truly comfortable and competent as a driver.

(3) There are no dumb questions

Ask me anything. It may seem like your friends already know this stuff, and you may feel stupid, but you should absolutely ask if you don't understand something about the rules of driving, road signs, which buttons and levers do what in your car, etc. Don't be embarrassed. ASK.

Jack knows the pressure is on him to become the first of our kids not to get into an accident within a couple of years of obtaining their license. I'm confident he can do it.

My early approach to parenting depended heavily on Barney and Pooh Bear videos

Elissa and Chloe, circa 1997

Back in the days when I worked nights and took care of Elissa all day, I had a go-to set of VHS tapes I would unashamedly use to distract her while I got stuff done.

This particular parenting technique is almost as old as television itself. You give the kid some Cheerios and a freshly filled sippy cup, sit them down in front of the TV, and let them happily watch something fun and age-appropriate while you fold laundry or whatever.

We had a wide range of videos we would show toddler Elissa, but the ones in heaviest rotation were undoubtedly Barney and Winnie the Pooh.

I know a lot of parents turn their noses up at Barney because...I don't know why? Because they think they and their kids are too cool for a goofy purple dinosaur? Eh, whatever. All I know is that goofy purple dinosaur did a whole lot to reinforce the lessons we were already teaching our kid about kindness, politeness, and putting the needs of others on par with or above your own.

God forbid, huh?

As for Pooh Bear, those videos were hilarious. There was a lot of adult humor in there that would make me laugh whenever I was able to pay some attention to the TV. Tigger alone is always worth the price of admission.

There were times I would feel guilty for pawning my parental responsibilities off on the VCR, but in retrospect, it was fine. There are certain things that must get done around the house, and sometimes you need electronic assistance in getting them done while simultaneously keeping your kid from wandering off and, say, tumbling down the basement steps.

Ultimately, all of our kids turned out OK. Maybe a tad neurotic like Pooh Bear himself, but really, who among us isn't?

I will never forget the feeling of moving into our first house

I was 22 years old and hadn't even graduated from college when I made my first mortgage payment.

It was March 1992 and Terry and I had just got the keys to our first house. We were going to be married that June, so I lived there by myself for a few months while finishing up my undergraduate degree at John Carroll and working my first full-time job at The News-Herald.

It was a hectic, heady period, and I still consider it to be one of the most exciting times I've experienced. For several weeks there, it was just life milestone after life milestone.

All of it was great, but nothing quite beats that first time we walked into the house when it had become ours. Houses belong to grown-ups, and suddenly this particular one belonged to us. We were little more than kids, yet we were responsible for everything that happened in and around 1913 East 300th Street.

That was admittedly a little scary, but the thrill of it far outweighed any dread.

Nearly 30 years later, we still have a mortgage. And we've moved on to another house where we've lived for 18 years. And of course we managed to fill up both houses with children, laughter, and memories.

And I'm still cutting the grass. Until I break down and hire someone to do it, I hope to be cutting the grass for years to come.

It's a life that began three decades ago in that beige house with the enclosed front porch and the (seemingly to us) big backyard.

What a ride it has been. What a ride it will be.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Our cats are lucky I love them

 

We have five cats, and I suppose I am more involved in their care and maintenance than anyone else in the family. It just sort of happened that way over the years, to the point that it's difficult to imagine doing anything other than feeding them and scooping out their litter boxes every day when I first wake up.

Contrary to popular belief when it comes to cats, they are all affectionate to one degree or another. They seem grateful for the easy life they live (at least as far as cats can be grateful), though there are times when they clearly take this as nothing more than their proper due.

I've generally been OK with that, but the three boys are trying my patience as they age.

The other night/morning, for instance, Charlie woke us up at 4:30am making a strange sound. Terry got out of bed and discovered he had a mouse in his mouth. I'm pretty sure the mouse was dead – that, or he was doing a bang-up job of playing dead – so I grabbed it in a paper towel, took it outside in the pouring rain, and flung it into the grass.

Then there's Fred, whose urinary tract issues are relatively under control, but only through daily effort on our part and not-inconsiderable investment in vet bills and prescription medicine. I've not cleaned up a puddle of Fred pee for a week or two, and I'm of course happy about that, but the total amount of his urine I have sopped up over the years would fill a large backyard swimming pool.

I apologize for the nauseating image, but it's true.

There are regular piles of nasty cat puke to clean up, some of which fall to me and others of which various family members (and here I'm thinking mainly of Terry) take on themselves to address.

Add to this Charlie's constant need to assert his alpha status by tormenting the other cats, plus the shedding, plus the cost of specialty food for Fred and regular food for the other four, plus the need to keep certain doors closed so that cats don't go in there and deposit a random biological substance on the floor, and...well, it's a lot.

Pet ownership done right is never easy, no matter what sort of animal you own. But the cats know all they have to do is present themselves to me for petting, and then loudly purr once I touch them, and all is forgiven.

I am an eternal sucker.

It’s never quite the same once they leave home

Four of our kids are in their 20s, but they’re at very different stages of their lives.

Elissa is 27 and has a thriving career as a marketer and a long-term partner in Mark.

Chloe is 24, married, and living in her first house with her husband Michael while pursuing her PhD.

Jared is 23 and less than four months from earning his undergraduate degree before embarking on a career in sports communications.

Melanie is less than a week shy of 21 and in the middle of a 5 1/2-month stay in Orlando as part of the Disney College Program.

The former two live on their own, while the latter two live with us (or at least Mel does when she’s not baking in the Florida sunshine operating a water slide at Blizzard Beach).

What they have in common, though, is that all of them have spent at least some period of time living away from home. And my observation is that once they do that, once they spend even a semester or so living at school or whatever, everything changes for good.

Yes, they may come back and live with you again, but the dynamic is forever altered. They suddenly feel much more on their way out, no matter how long they remain under your roof.

And that’s a good thing. Your job, from the moment they came into the world, was to help them eventually become responsible, productive, independent adults. If they’re close to doing that, then kudos to you, Mom and Dad. Ya done good.

That does not, however, mean we as parents are always thrilled with the idea. It was maybe 7 minutes ago that all of them were toddling around the house in diapers, a sippy cup in one hand and a stuffed Barney toy in the other.

And now, they’re a lot closer to their permanent departure than they are to their arrival.

Again, that’s good, but it makes me a little sad. A mixed blessing if ever there was one.

Jack, fortunately, is only 15, so we’ve got time there. But it’s time I now know will go by way, way, way too fast.

And, if I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, I’m bringing his flight from the nest closer to reality by teaching him the things you need to know to live on your own and be a grown-up.

Maybe just this one time I’ll slack off a little.

I'm in that stage of life when the musicians I admire are getting old

While my musical tastes have certainly broadened over the years, the artists at the top of my "Favorite Musicians" list have not.

One look at the most-played songs on my phone will quickly reveal that I am a hardcore fan of essentially three men: Sting, Colin Hay, and Billy Joel.

There are others in there I love, many of which are 80s bands that are still going (somewhat) strong like Duran Duran, The Fixx, and Huey Lewis and the News. And then there are my second-tier singer-songwriters, which include Jim Croce, James Taylor, Bruce Hornsby, David Francey, and so on.

But Messrs. Sting, Hay, and Joel are in the heaviest rotation and have been for decades now.

They are also, respectively, 69, 68, and 72 years old.

I am not sure how this happened.

Well, I know how it happened. Time moves on. We get old and so do those we admire, even if we think they shouldn't.

It recently occurred to me that there will someday very soon be a last Sting album and a last Colin Hay album. You could argue there has already been a last Billy Joel album, as he hasn't put out any new pop/rock material since 1993.

It has always been something of an event for me when one of those men released new work. In the pre-Internet days, I would consult a newspaper or maybe Rolling Stone to see when an album was due, and I would show up at a record store that day to buy it.

Then I would come home, pop it into my stereo (yes, a stereo) and listen intently while following the liner notes.

Now it's a little different. I still get excited when my guys have new material, but rather than me having to go out and get it, it just shows up on Apple Music. It's just...there, all of the sudden.

That doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music itself, of course, but it does take some of the pageantry away from the actual release.

Anyway, I try to appreciate new music from Stingo, Colin, and BJ more because I know they each have only so many more new songs in them. Sting has an album titled "The Bridge" coming out later this year, while Colin recently put out an excellent disc full of covers and has his own new music slated for release in the not-too-distant future.

I will savor every moment of it, knowing it won't be long before each of these guys will need a hearing aid just to listen to his own music.

When Mrs. Blog goes out of town

This is the spot on the couch where Terry would normally be as I write this post.

Every once in a while, my wife takes a well-deserved overnight trip. Like, for instance, a couple of weeks ago she drove to Cincinnati to see her friend Marianne and take in a Maroon 5 concert with Marianne and Marianne's sister and sister-in-law.

This is the part when you may expect me to say the house turns into a disaster when Terry is gone, but that's not the case at all. Honestly, everything looks pretty much the same when she comes home as when she left. We are not so dependent on her that life comes to some screeching halt.

But here's what does happen:

(1) We do not eat as well. I often bring up Terry's skill in the kitchen, in part so that I always remember how spoiled we are by it and never take it for granted. When she isn't here, we get by on leftovers and maybe one night of takeout.

(2) The house doesn't feel the same. I don't mean to sound too dramatic about this, but she brings an energy that just isn't there. I'm typing this on the Saturday morning after she left for Cincy, and everything is way too quiet. She should be in the living room right now sitting on the couch, watching TV, and drinking her coffee.

To that last point, I have obviously never experienced it, but I can somewhat understand how incredibly difficult it must be to lose your spouse, for whatever reason. Their presence creates a certain vibe to which you become accustomed, and even when they're gone on just a short weekend trip, there's something missing.

Yet I'm always happy when she leaves because I know she's going to have a fun time, and like I say, it's very much deserved. I hope she has an awesome concert experience tonight.

Let it be known, though, that when she makes one of her delicious meals, it's for me and not for Adam Levine. It's important to me that Adam knows this.

The top 5 things I do on my 42-minute morning commute

(1) Listen to audiobooks
I recently finished "A Short History of World War I" and "A Short History of World War II," which are a combined 27 CDs long. They make me wonder how exactly Professor James L. Stokesbury, the author, defined "short." Clearly it has never bothered me, though, as by my estimate it was (and this is no exaggeration) somewhere between the 25th and 30th time I've listened through these books in their entirety since I first started getting them out of the library in the mid-90s. Back then I would get them on cassette, so that gives you an idea of how ancient my tie to these works is.

(2) Chew gum
Wrigley's Peppermint Cobalt 5. I go through 2-3 sticks a day, which as bad habits go is probably pretty low on the scale of badness.

(3) Dodge the insane drivers of Interstate 271 and Ohio Route 8.
We have covered this before. The good thing is that I now know exactly how I'll die. I will inevitably be rear-ended by someone who feels I should be doing 85 MPH in the far right lane. It's just a matter of when.

(4) Think about my meeting schedule for the day
I am not the biggest fan of corporate meetings. My former colleague Debbie Thornsberry said I always had The Meeting Face during meetings, which shows that even with great effort we sometimes cannot hide our true feelings. I understand the necessity of getting together with co-workers, but I quickly found out there's a good reason employees have dubbed it The Goodyear Tire and Meeting Company.

(5) Constantly make sure I have my ID badge, my phone, and my lunch
I have been known to forget one or more of these things on a given work day, and it always creates a big hassle when I do. So I look around, feel my pockets, and just generally do everything to make sure I have these essential items with me. It causes way more stress than it should.

Kudos to you, Mr./Ms. Engineer Who First Thought of Cell Phone Flashlights

I get my money's worth from my smart phone, putting it to varied use throughout each and every day. It's an integral part of my existence.

But of all the apps loaded onto that phone, there is perhaps none more handy and none that I activate more often than the flashlight.

It's such a simple idea, really. Once phones started integrating cameras, they needed flashes for photographic lighting purposes. Why not allow users to turn that flash on for extended periods any time they needed to illuminate, say, a dark room?

There's nothing complex about the concept, but like so many things in life, its genius is in its simplicity.

I use that flashlight every morning when I'm up early and making my way around our bedroom as I get ready to exercise, dress for work, and generally just get my life in order. Since I'm always up before Terry, It helps me see what I'm doing without having to turn on the bedroom light.

A seemingly obvious feature, yet brilliant in its effectiveness and ease of use.

I don't know if it was the first phone to include it, but Apple started offering flashlight functionality with the iPhone 4 back in 2010. Somewhere there is an Apple engineer to whom I hope the company gave a large wad of cash for suggesting the feature.

You, sir or ma'am, are almost literally the light of my life.

Even 20 years later, most of us have a 9/11 story

NOTE: The following post ran six years ago today. I was going to write something comparing the relative societal impacts of COVID and September 11th, but then I realized I have no idea what I'm talking about. So instead I hope you don't mind if I recycle this little missive. I do wonder, though, how we'll all look back on both events (if you want to call COVID an "event") 30 years from now. Time and memory do funny things...

Fourteen years ago today was one of the strangest 24-hour periods I've ever experienced (ANOTHER NOTE: Again, remember this post first appeared in 2015 when it had been only 14 years since 9/11.)

It was the day of the September 11th terrorist attacks, of course, and it was one of the few times in life when virtually nothing that happened would have surprised me.

I was working at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for Rehabilitation, and the first inkling my office-mate Heidi and I had that something might be wrong was when a nurse came running down the hall saying, "They bombed the Pentagon!"

That wasn't quite true, but close enough. First came news of the World Trade Center being hit, then being hit again, then a tower collapsing, then the other tower following suit. Then reports of a plane crashing into the Pentagon, which I recall it took a while to confirm.

Then came rumors that a plane may be headed for Cleveland. In truth, the plane flew over Cleveland and eventually crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

If you didn't experience it, you have to understand how all of these events happened one on top of the other. Bad news followed by bad news.

After a short time, we would have believed almost anything.

Offices in Downtown Cleveland closed in case the city really was being targeted (no one knew for sure), and I think they eventually shut down our hospital, too.

Rumors were that the price of gas might triple or worse, so my family and I waited in a long line at a local Shell station that evening to get gas in our minivan before the jump, which never actually occurred.

The entire U.S. air traffic system was shut down. No one could fly in and out of anywhere for a few days.

That night we attended a prayer service at our church. There was a lot of emotion but also a stoic courage in the eyes of fellow believers that I'll never forget. Jesus could have returned to earth and I wouldn't have been shocked.

Eventually life returned to something resembling normal, though it seemed to take weeks and weeks, and the world hasn't been quite the same to me since.

It was, I suppose, my generation's "Where Were You When JFK Was Shot?" moment.

I still say cross country is a delightfully crazy activity

It's Friday and it's September, which means Terry and I will be at a high school football game tonight. It's just what we do (and have done for years) on late-summer/early-fall Fridays, given our involvement with the Wickliffe Swing Band.

We also have a routine on Saturday mornings this time of year, and it involves driving to random schools and watching large groups of thin young people run 3.1 miles so quickly you're sure some of them are going to collapse.

Welcome to the insane world of cross country!

Four years ago when my son Jack first got into this sport, I immediately recognized that cross country runners are some of the toughest people on Earth. I still say this is true as Jack, a high school junior, participates in his fifth season as a "cross" runner.

Because that's what the cool kids call it: "cross." Not "cross country," just "cross."

These athletes run in all conditions: dry or wet, hot or cold, light or dark. They have been training all summer and continue to train throughout the season, so there's very little that deters them. They are machines.

And they take pride in their toughness, by the way, just as they should. You hear all the time how tough football players are, but few of them could endure a season of cross country training (and I say that as a former footballer).

The cross country family – which includes not only the runners themselves but also their parents and siblings – is a close-knit one. We cheer for our own kids and for each others' kids. We stand outside in those changing fall weather conditions and yell for everyone wearing our school colors.

Actually, we show support for any kid willing to subject himself or herself to the trials of long-distance running, regardless of which uniform they're wearing. They all deserve our encouragement.

For years we were a soccer household, as all of our kids played it and I coached it, but I'm so proud to have joined the cross community. Everyone there, kids and families alike, is lovably insane.

I tried (and failed) to make the transition to black coffee

I have been a regular coffee drinker for only about a decade. This surprises some people, who assume that those who work in newspaper newsrooms (as I did in the 80s and 90s) are caffeine addicts from their very early 20s.

For whatever reason, the coffee switch didn't flip for Terry and me until we turned 40. Prior to that, neither of us drank coffee or wine. But from then on, we became fans of both...she likes wine more than me, but the fact is that I'll drink it now, which wasn't the case when I was a young adult.

From the very first days when I developed my coffee habit, I have always drunk it with cream. More specifically, plain half and half. No flavoring or anything, just good old, solid-white, milkfat-laden half and half.

This routine has worked for years, though it has its drawbacks:

• It involves taking a small container of half and half to my Goodyear office every day, since the company does not currently offer complimentary creamer to associates.
• It doesn't always work when purchasing coffee from, say, gas stations, many of which only provide that nasty powdered creamer, the existence of which I don't even acknowledge.
• Over the course of a day in which I drink 4-5 cups of coffee, the calories and saturated fat in half and half add up.

That third point is crucial. As a Weight Watchers lifetimer, I have to count one point for every cup of coffee in which I pour my half and half (which is to say, every cup of coffee I drink). Black coffee is zero points.

It doesn't seem like much, but those 4-5 points are valuable. If I could find a way to eliminate them from my daily food budget, it would make room for an additional healthy snack or two in my lunchbox.

So I tried. One day a couple of weeks ago, I went cold turkey on half and half. I started drinking all of my coffee black.

And when I say "all of my coffee," I mean exactly one cup of it.

During my drive to work that morning, Terry texted me promising to buy a container of half and half that day, as we had run out of it.

"Actually, don't bother," I responded to her once I got into the office. "I'm going to experiment with black coffee."

Two hours later, I texted her the following: "Screw this. Get me the half and half!"

I just don't like the taste of black coffee. I want to. It smells great. But when it comes to actually drinking it, I have to add the creamer.

Let it be known, though, that for those two hours, I was a brave soldier. I jumped right into the world of black coffee, and then I jumped right back out again.

And honestly, my life is better for it.

The spousal good night kiss

Every night just after we turn out the lights, I kiss my wife. We have, as far as I can remember, always done this.

It's a nice thing to do, but there are at least three obstacles that make it more difficult than it should be:

(1) Because it's dark, I can't see exactly where Terry is. So more often than not, as I'm trying to get my bearings, my groping hand slides along her face in a way that must be less than comfortable for her.

(2) It's not like I have to travel half a mile to get to her, but we have a king-size bed, so there is some effort required to move over to her side. And, you know, I'm pretty tired by that point in the day.

(3) In those times when we execute the good night kiss with the lights still on, she makes this puckering face that causes me to burst out laughing every time. She does it because she knows I think it's funny, but it does tend to suck out whatever minute element of romance may have been in the air when two extremely tired people in their early 50s are getting ready to settle down for the night.

Still, we manage to pull it off every night. Assuming I don't injure her (or myself from laughing at The Pucker), we intend to keep the streak going.

Please, please, please make sure you back up your home computer

We recently upgraded our personal computer. By my estimate, it now runs about a gajillion times faster than it did before.

That's great, but the big takeaway from the process for me was not "get yourself some fancy new hardware." It was the importance of maintaining a regular back-up schedule for your files.

We have so much valuable stuff on our desktop computer, from photos to financial information, that I don't even want to think about the consequences of losing it.

Still, for a day or so, we feared a good chunk of our stuff had gone to that great cyberspace trash bin in the sky. It was nerve-wracking.

We were working with local computer expert Tommy Otwell, a native Georgian who now lives in Wickliffe and knows more about hardware and software than I could ever possibly hope to learn.

Tommy rebuilds and sells computers and plays tech doctor for those in need. His rates are very low (to the point that I'm worried the man isn't making any money off of this), but he clearly knows his stuff inside and out.

I saw that Tommy was selling refurbished desktops and reached out to him about buying one. He looked at our current system specs and determined he could make our existing computer feel like new with only a few changes.

And, just as advertised, the system was screaming fast when he brought it back to us. It really was like having a new computer.

However, our precious and oft-used documents folder was missing dozens of subfolders and hundreds of files that had been there previously. These were files we used all of the time. I honestly panicked.

Thankfully, though, without getting into too much detail, Tommy recovered everything for us. It was a case of all's well that ends well when dealing with an old mechanical hard drive that was getting ready to fail.

Tommy rightfully scolded me for the fact that the most recent back-up I had of our documents was a year old. I thought I had done one more recently, but apparently not.

On Tommy's advice, I purchased a subscription to Carbonite, a service that automatically backs up your files on a regular basis and stores them on the mysterious Internet "cloud." Should something happen to our computer at any point, a very recent version of our stuff will be out there, just waiting to be restored.

I promised Tommy I would regularly check to ensure Carbonite is doing its job. I also promised him I would, every few months, use a can of compressed air to blow out the dust and cat hair that had accumulated in and around the CPU.

Seriously, you could have knitted a sweater with the stuff that was trapped in the cooling fan.

The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that your computer serves you well. Make sure you return the favor by treating it to some much-needed maintenance every once in a while.

"Dad, you're an orphan now"

That's my father holding newborn Jared, August 1998.

We share what could be described as a dark sense of humor in my family.

There are many examples of this, but one of the funniest happened last summer on the day my mother passed away.

That sounds terrible, but it's true. When we got word that she was gone, there were the initial tears and hugs and sharing of memories. And then my daughter Chloe informed me that, as of that moment, I was officially an orphan.

I laughed at that. Hard. Something about the use of the old-fashioned word "orphan" juxtaposed with the situation just made it funny.

That, I guess, is how we sometimes deal with painful realities: We turn them into somewhat-less-than-polite jokes.

I bring this up because today would have been my dad's 92nd birthday. I inherited my sense of humor largely from him, and I think he would have found the orphan comment funny.

When someone would ask him whether a certain person had died, he would almost always reply, "Well, I hope so, or else they played a hell of a joke on her when they buried her."

If asked how someone died, he would invariably tilt his head to one side, close his eyes, and say, "Like this."

I'm busting up just thinking about it.

Dad has been gone for nearly 22 years, but his legacy of inappropriate remarks and ill-timed humor lives on in his children and grandchildren.

He would be proud to know that.

A man's STILL got to know his limitations

(NOTE: This post was published five years ago today on September 5, 2016. I went back to it to see if it all still holds true. The answer is yes, except that, as recently pointed out, I don't do long tedious car rides as well as I used to. Other than that, these are still a few of the items on my long list of weaknesses and flaws...though to my credit, I fully embrace them all.)

Harry Callahan was right. Here are mine:

• If you're giving me directions, do not refer to points on the compass unless I'm traveling on a well-marked interstate. Otherwise, you're better off telling me something like, "Now when you get to the Dairy Queen that kind of looks like the Mos Eisley spaceport in 'Star Wars,' you're gonna want to take a left. You'll know you've gone too far if you come to the billboard for Swanson TV dinners." Those reference points I can relate to much better than north, south, east or west.

• Does the job involve hammering and/or basic operation of a screwdriver? Fine, I can do it. Are power tools and/or measuring in the mix? In that case, please see my wife.

• Cutting the grass? Yes, I'm a virtuoso. Landscaping of any sort? Yeahhhh, let's call a professional.

• I can sing the melody. I cannot sing harmony. I long ago accepted this fact.

• Athletically speaking, I'm all about running and jumping. Once you start throwing hand-eye coordination into the mix, you're going to want to pick someone else for your team...unless we're talking about hitting a slow-pitched softball, in which case I'm probably still your guy.

• Writing? Yes. Editing? Absolutely. Grammar question? Most likely. Drawing and/or general design? Next, please.

• Would you like me to dance? Fine, but the music must be limited to an 80s power ballad for which homecoming-type, rock-back-and-forth slow dancing is acceptable. There is no foxtrotting and/or Lambada-ing coming from this guy, let me tell you.

• I'm very good at tedious, long-distance car trips. I can be in that driver's seat for 12 hours and still be raring to go. But if at the end of the trip you ask me to parallel park on a busy street, I will melt right before your eyes. Really, my body will turn to liquid and I will enter another state of being that prevents me from even attempting to wedge the vehicle into that tiny space. A similar phenomenon occurs if you ask me to drive a stick-shift.

• I will sit spellbound for an hour listening to Mahler. I will not do the same for Merle Haggard. I'm also ready on a moment's notice for an all-day session of M*A*S*H* binge-watching, but I cannot abide more than seven consecutive minutes of almost any CBS sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory" excepted.

• Roller coaster? Sure, I'll come along if you'd like. Spinny ride? Sure, I'll puke on you if that's what you're looking for.

• I max out at roughly one beer or one glass of wine. Beyond that there's trouble. As for hard liquor, my preferred maximum there would be zero.

I continue to believe the vast majority of people try to do the right thing the vast majority of the time

I was thinking back to last summer when my mom and my mother-in-law passed away within 18 days of each other.

It was a pretty rough time, particularly coming as it all did in the midst of COVID, which prevented traditional viewings and funeral services.

I have a lot of memories from the summer of 2020, but one of the most vivid is the way family and friends jumped into action to help us. This mainly took the form of food, which as I've said before is one of the best things you can provide when someone is dealing with the loss of a loved one.

We received mounds and mounds of food. Some of it came in the form of heaping platters dropped off at the house, while some came from gift cards that were given to us. Either way, it was so greatly appreciated and reflected overwhelming generosity on the part of many people.

Now that we know what it's like to be on the other side of this equation, Terry and I tend to be more thoughtful (and hopefully more generous) than maybe we were before in these situations.

I had the opportunity to help recently when one of my new co-workers, Emily, underwent a thyroid procedure that had a somewhat lengthy recovery period. Emily has a husband and two young boys, and we all knew the last thing she needed post-surgery was to worry about how her family was going to eat every day.

So a meal train was organized in the office, and as far as I know, every single slot for many weeks was quickly filled by volunteers. Given what I had learned from my own experience, I jumped in right away to contribute a Grub Hub card, which (believe me) is going to go over much better than had I attempted to cook them something.

Anyway, the whole experience confirmed my belief that most people are essentially decent. None of us is perfect, and we all fall short of where we ideally should be. But I contend that almost everyone you encounter is trying their best under differing circumstances to be a good person.

And I always find that heartening.

My eyes have suddenly (and very rudely) betrayed me

A few months ago I posted about the fact that I still, in my early 50s, had no need for reading glasses.

I tried to say it humbly, but honestly, I think I was bragging a little.

Enter karma, stage left...

Since mid-summer or so, I've noticed that small text on my phone and computer screen is blurry and difficult to read. It wasn't blurry in the spring, and now it is.

I always assumed my eyes would age very gradually, but it feels like they went directly on the visual spectrum from "Eagle Eye" to "Blind as a Bat." And there's no denying the fact that I could now really use a few pairs of reading glasses.

I've already given in and adjusted the default text size on my iPhone, which felt a bit like an unwelcome milestone. It was a lot like my transition from running to walking: I did it, but I did it grudgingly.

Apart from Jesus and actor Paul Rudd, Father Time is undefeated in his dealings with humankind. It may take longer with some of us than others, but the fact is, we will all succumb eventually.

This admittedly is a very minor inconvenience in the grand scheme, and I'm blessed to have good health in just about all of my other physical processes. After I finish this post, I will search online for one of those inspirational memes that helps us remember to count our blessings.

Not that I'll be able to read it, but I'm sure this laptop has a text magnification button.

I shouldn’t be as impressed by our Roomba vacuum and Braava mop as I am

We recently bought two robots.

Well, actually, what we bought are the Roomba autonomous vacuum and Braava robotic mop made by a company called iRobot. You either have one of these or you’ve at least seen how they work, so unlike me, you’re probably not especially fascinated by them.

But I’m smitten. I know it isn’t exactly cutting-edge technology, but all you have to do is tap a button on your phone and instantly this machine, whose sole purpose in life is to keep your floors clean, springs into action.

That’s a Jetsons-style miracle, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not sure we as a society appreciate these sorts of things nearly as much as we should.

We of course have named both devices. The Roomba (which has taken on a male persona in our house) is called “Dustin Bieber,” while the Braava (a female, for whatever reason) is “Moptimus Prime.”

I’ll admit to being especially proud of having come up with Moptimus Prime.

I’m surprised by what a good job these things do on our floors. And shoutout to whatever team of engineers designed the algorithms that allow Dustin and Moptimus to map out our first floor and maneuver deftly around almost any obstacle.

Our cats react to the robotic cleaning crew in different ways. Ginny, for example, is extremely interested in both Dustin and Moptimus and tries to sniff them whenever they’re active. Fred, by contrast, is terrified of them. He cannot get far enough away once they start moving around.

My dream is that one of the cats eventually works up the courage to jump onto Dustin or Moptimus and ride it around the house. In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy our sparkling, space-age-clean floors.

The excitement of finding out who your teacher was going to be

When I attended Mapledale Elementary School back in the Bronze Age, we engaged in a particular early-September ritual that now brings back fond memories.

Mapledale was a K-6 school, and while in the later grades you started moving from room to room for different subjects, you still had one main teacher. Finding out who that teacher was going to be was exciting and even a little nerve-wracking.

The way this information was conveyed was that someone (I’m assuming the school secretary) would type up the class lists and literally tape them onto the windows at the front entrance. That would unleash a steady stream of kids on bikes who would pedal up to the school to find out to whom their education for the coming year had been entrusted.

I don’t remember doing this to learn that Mrs. Janes was my kindergarten teacher, but I vividly remember heading up to the school (it was just at the end of my street) to find out I had Mrs. Lucci for 1st grade, Mrs. Schwarzenberg for 2nd and 6th, Mr. Blauch for 3rd, and Mrs. Grabner for 4th and 5th.

Nowadays, at least here in Wickliffe, the process is a little different. You receive a packet of forms in the mail each August that includes a note from your teacher, and that's how you find out who she/he is. 

Even though we don’t have kids in elementary (or even middle) school anymore, I always enjoy reading the posts on the “We Love Wickliffe” Facebook page from parents asking “Who else’s child has Mrs. X?” It brings back great memories.

I don’t know that either the old or the new method is better, but I do miss that moment of excitement when you scanned those paper class lists and found your name. It meant school was right around the corner, and at least you knew something of what was in store for you.