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PORTLAND FREEZE WORSE THAN SEATTLE?

The Portland Freeze that didn’t happen came when I moved to NW Portland. My apartment building was a busy place to live for students and professionals. The pretty lady who sold text books always looked like she just stepped out of Vogue. She was in a class of her own. And chilly. Hey Patricia. But […]

VALIDATED LIFE? GET YOUR TICKET STAMPED EARLY

A validated life, like a validated parking garage ticket, means freedom. Except the validated parking ticket is more direct. Put the card in the slot, the bar rises, you drive away. What constitutes a validated life that raises the bar to escape the couch you’ve been parked on?

MALE BONDING WITH FRAGILE EGOS

Male bonding isn’t about two guys becoming Blood Brothers. Let’s leave the knives out of it. No cuts and pressing wounds together with intense eye contact needed here. What is needed, though, is an element of trust. Not ‘trust’ with money or wives involved, but that other trust: Trust in doing what’s right. Lose that […]

HEART SCIENCE FOR THE NON-SCIENTIST

Heart science arrives sooner or later. The good news is you will be told you have the heart of someone twenty years younger than you. The bad news is you might be told you the heart of someone twenty years older than you. If you max out on bacon every meal, with eggs cooked in […]

BLOG TOOLS: HOW TO ORGANIZE TIME AND SPACE

Blog tools help writers get where they’re going, and as any writer will tell you, they are going to fill up a page. Sometimes it’s a long, long, loooooong haul to fill up one page, then another, then another. Look at a stack of printer paper some time and imagine filling them all. From the […]

HEALTH ADVICE STARTS WITH TRUSTING THE SOURCE

When health advice comes from questionable characters, is it really advice to follow? It’s not health advice when it comes from people with agendas, people courting voters, or people seeking some kind of personal affirmation. If Reverend Bob decides Sunday is the day to go off on the congregation about covid masks, covid vaccines, and […]

SELF ESTEEM, THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF TRUST

Self esteem is more than a shot in the arm, more than getting pumped up. If you’re good and you know it, how do you show it? Is there a secret, because you know self esteem when it walks in the door. Do you really need to show you’ve ‘Got It?’

TRUST BOOMERS EVEN IF NO ONE ELSE DOES. HERE’S WHY:

When there’s no one else to trust, trust boomers. What have you got to lose? ‘Mid-century modern‘ is such a design craze, what’s more mid-century than baby boomers. We’ve done the things that nostalgia looks back on, listened to classic rock the first time around, and made it out in one piece. What more could […]

EXPERIENCE + KNOWLEDGE = TRUST, (if trust matters)

Who hopes the person collecting checks has enough experience to know what to do? I trust the automatic teller at my bank. I put a check in a pneumatic tube, push send, and a face comes on the screen, a face I automatically trust. If the bank trusts them, I trust them, even though we’re […]

REALITY vs STAGED: TRUST YOUR JUDGEMENT MORE THAN THE DREAM

Who hasn’t had reality bite them on the butt when they see a new place and say, “I thought it would be different.” It’s a companion piece to, “This doesn’t look like I imagined.” Not to leave out, “I’m still glad to be here.” When I visited Versailles I had expectations, which were fueled by […]