thisiswhatyoushalldo

1. What’s your “death missed me by seconds” story?

OK. Don’t judge too much. I was just a fourth grader. But on winter mornings, my pal Clancy and I would walk over this bridge, and as the school bus whizzed past, we would reach out with our gloved hands, touch the bus along its bodywork, and try to run down its full length. Eventually, we got into real trouble with that, as it was very icy and prone to slipping under the bus’s wheels. We were called into the principal’s office and met by our fathers, who read us the riot act.
As good little boys, we started using the pedestrian bridge next to the roadway bridge.

2. What is an underrated skill in this modern world?

The ability to sharpen knives and keep them sharp.

3. What will turn out to be this generation’s ‘oh shit, smoking causes cancer’ moment?

Either the addictive short-form video algorithms are addicting both children and adults, or limiting the cognitive development of society.

Or, GLP-1s. (Says the guy who has been on them for over ten years. )

4. What is the largest, least evil company in the world

Costco. Damn, fine people. And my company, Camping World. There is actually a line in the employee handbook that is the golden rule of the company
“Don’t be an asshole.”

5. Have you been watching the World Cup? Who is going to win?

France. That way I can say my new favorite word more often. MBappe!

1. What are your memories of the bicentennial, for all you oldsters?

In our little town, I was 12 years old and remember the town going all out. a big festival, a parade. My dad and a number of his friends all grew big fuzzy beards. Folks sewed their own colonial clothes and wore them around town. It was also Colorado’s 100th birthday, and the overlap of the two anniversaries turned into a big to-do.

2. What would the Founding Fathers think about where this nation we created has ended up today?

Jefferson and Madison, for certain, would be livid. Hamilton was a very progressive thinker as well. As an immigrant from the West Indies and of mixed race, he would be proud of the end of slavery but angry about the banking and health care systems of the present day. Jefferson was a pretty progressive libertarian as well and would be so frustrated with the hyper-regulated state. Madison would just be smacking his forehead at all the misinterpretations of the Constitution he authored.

3. What might this nation look like in another 50 years?

With the overconsumption of resources, big tech, AI, and the widespread numbing of the population’s intelligence, I think the future could be pretty bleak. The young folk need to put down the video game controllers and get involved.

4. Sure, Trump and the leaders today are terrible, but where did this all go wrong?

Reagan and New Gingrich. They are patients Zero.

5. What’s a good quote to consider this weekend during our country’s 250th anniversary?

“He [the King of Great Britain] has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.

– Thomas Jefferson, from that long thing he wrote that one time.

1. What’s the most unrealistic ‘everyday life’ habit portrayed in Hollywood movies?

I’ll with TV and the computer is always on, always loads the webpage quickly, and the thing you’re looking for or solving for is the first hit on the search page.

2. Which once-famous actor does no one talk about anymore?

Kevin Spacey

3. What is one food you’ll never get tired of eating?

Lasagne. My mom’s lasagne. Oh, my mom’s cooking

4. What is one discontinued snack you would do almost anything to get your hands on today?

Heyday bars from Nabisco. Long gone. Chocolate, caramel, peanuts. All in a candy bar-sized cookie.

5. What’s something that you thought was boring or sounded boring when you were younger but now feels like a total luxury?

A nighttime shower, then off to bed early, followed by a weekend day sleep-in.

Please place your caption in the comments.

Please place your caption in the comments.

1. What’s a place in the U.S. that you want to go but haven’t gotten to yet?

San Diego, La Jolla especially for some nice mellow beach time.

2. What’s a piece of life advice you have been given that you not only have never forgotten, but you share with those younger than you?

At work, keep your head down, do the work, and don’t complain. That will do more to build your brand than any other “hack” you can imagine to get the boss’s attention.

3. What is your favorite word?

Lugubrious.


4. What is your least favorite word?

Commentated. There is no worldly need for that word.

5. What’s the most useless piece of information you’ve memorized?

My childhood home phone number. Some version or other of that number has been stuck in my head since I was 6 years old.

1. What TV show or movie do you vividly remember from your childhood? What TV show or movie do you vividly remember from your childhood?

“Logan’s Run” is based on the hit movie and book. It is kind of in the “brilliant but canceled ” category of late 1970s -1980s cultural television.

2. What’s something older generations did casually that would shock Gen Z or Gen Alpha today?

Restaurants and airplanes had smoking and no-smoking sections, enforced by imaginary boundaries.

3. What album do you consider perfect?

Miles Davis – “Kind Of Blue.” Every note is just perfection.

4. What was the first “adult” movie (meaning not a rated G or PG-13, but rated R movie) you went to by yourself and not with your parents?

Hard to exactly recall, but probably “Porkies.”

5. What temperature do you usually sleep in?

As close to 66° as possible.