I haven't written a blog post in about eight months. There are lots of reasons. I have a bunch of stuff to talk about, but I'm going to write about all that's happened, which is why I have not been writing on here. Over Christmas break a year ago, we (five close...

It's been a long school year: the snowstorms, snow days, and all the normal upheaval that accompanies higher ed. (If you have no clue what that means, you should read Julie Schumacher's The Shakespeare Requirement. It's hilarious and over-the-top sarcastically, but it...

You + Blue | BlueCrossMN Due to pressure, I'm posting the link here to the story Blue Cross and Blue Shield made about six of us senior athletes in Minnesota. Here it is. Scroll down to "Better With Age" and there we are. My story is the first one in the program....

Poem (I always loved John Updike; here is a delightful Christmas poem he wrote) A Sound Heard Early on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity By John Updike Issue no. 155 (Summer 2000) from a special edition of the Paris Review Redux The thump of the newspaper on the porch...

In response to my last post about "Do what you are doing," I have thought in the last twenty-four hours how cell phones have all so often kept us from doing what we are doing. How many young people have you seen at a table together, all looking at their phones? How...

Sometime during my senior year of high school, I listened to a motivational speaker named Clayton Barbeau. He came to our church in Huxley, Iowa, and I remember being enthralled with what he had to say. At the time, I was entirely, utterly dedicated to being as...