Real Joe

On vacation till July 5.

On vacation till July 5.

On vacation till July 5.

The website/tool I added for others to post comments about any weblog entry quit functioning a week or so ago and its creator recommended finding somthing else.

I’m now trying something called Quick Topic, and have set up a multiple topic area for Real Joe on their site. All weblog entries now link to this page. I have three topics thus far: one for the month of June, another for Nov-May (I’m doubtful there’d be much commentary on old stuff, but just in case), and a third to discuss the Quick Topic tool itself.

I like it thus far. It’s simple to set up, it’s free, and there’s no advertising. Plus, you can “subscribe” to a topic so that you can receive email or a digest when anything new is posted to it.

So I dare you to try it.

Newsblog: The May/June issue of Utne Reader has an interesting piece about quality of life. The introduction to it is titled Reimagining the Good Life: There’s more to life than the pursuit of private splendor and the meat of the piece is: A Quality-of-life Checklist to help sort out what really matters in your world.

When I read it the first time, I had a strong sense of gratitude, both about the town of Northfield where I live, and the nearby Twin Cities’ metro area. I have most of these things in my life by living where I do. I made a note to include something about these articles in my weblog.

After a glorious thundershower yesterday afternoon and a tasty dinner of brats and turkey burgers, my wife and daughter and I leisurely strolled downtown Northfield to listen to the live music at The Contented Cow. I was in a trance of appreciation. As we approached the Riverview Patio at the back of the Cow, there stood Utne Reader editor Jay Walljasper, the author of those Quality of Life articles, along with his wife Julie Ristau, new co-publisher of the magazine, and their young son. They’d been bicycling on a nearby bike trail and stopped for dinner and a stroll. Now there’s a coincidence of significant proportion.

Julie said she’d been thinking about contacting me since her responsibilities include Cafe Utne, my baby, as she wanted some history on all that’s happened. And when I gave Jay my one-liner on Real Joe (“an irreverent Oprah for guys”), his eyes seem to light up and we made plans to get together so I can fill him in. Who knows what might develop.

At my Inner Circle meeting yesterday, Norm reminded me of something I said four years ago when I first met him at one of the first meetings of the Twin Cities’ Fast Company of Friends that we organized. He asked me why I wasn’t an entrepreneur. I told him I thought of myself as one, even though I’d been an employee for 99% of my adult working life… but that I didn’t want to work that hard.

Now that I’ve been on my own for nearly two years, is there any going back? I don’t know. There are definite costs to the past couple of years, apart from the financial: I’ve been a lot less social. I’ve been far less involved in the community. And I’ve cut way back on many of my favorite leisure activities: camping, bicycling, snowboarding, motorcycling.

And yet I persist, in part because I believe in what I’m trying to do, that I believe in this as my vocation. So even though I’m giving up stuff — sacrificing — I don’t really feel bad about it, like I’ve been deprived, or that I’m missing out. And I don’t think I’ve gone overboard, i.e., I don’t think I’ve been sacrificing my relationships with immediate family members (except maybe when Robbie gets upset with our finances). And I’ve not been sacrificing my health. I could be wrong about all this, of course, but all I can do is stay alert to what I might learn.

NewsBlog: Higher Power bust

A woman who fell victim to a freak accident was saved from serious injury by her padded, liquid-curved bra. “When I got up to put my clothes on, I almost didn’t wear the bra. But a higher power told me to put it on.”

If this lady had gone to a bar instead and ended up shacking up with some guy for a one-night stand resulting in a pregnancy, she probably would reframe her morning inspiration as “the devil made me do it” instead of “a higher power told me to do it.” Those kind of prayers are often two sides of the same coin for some people.

We’ve decided to bump our son’s gift of a cruise on the Rhine River till next summer instead of going at the end of August. It’s just too risky, not knowing how bad Robbie’s tinnitus will be. It really could make the trip more of an ordeal for her.

We’re both relieved, as the planning was becoming anxiety-producing instead of exciting. Now we can take our time to learn more about the places we’re going, and maybe even figure out how to extend our stay… and spend a whole year savoring.

A guy here in Northfield who reads my Joe to Gos wrote back about my Memorial Day weblog entry and invited me and another guy to watch one or more war movies at his house. Last night, we watched Gallipoli.

This time, I was struck by the comraderie that was all part of the chain of events leading up to the actual trench warfare scenes. The friendships, the glamor, the glory, the romance, the anticipatory excitement – a masterful seduction of young men. I can see how I would’ve gotten caught up in it had I been around during that time. But I don’t think I would’ve been capable of the “mindless personal courage” required, once the time came to charge the machine gunners… at least, not with my current pyschological makeup.

That phrase jumped out at me when I read this opinion piece in Time mag a couple weeks ago: Greatest Generation Or Unluckiest? The hoopla for the men who fought WW II cheapens what they accomplished, by Richard Schickel.

“The Greatest Generation? The superlative has the odor of heedless publicity. They were, surely, the Unluckiest Generation, emerging from Depression into total war without a break. They were, equally, the most dutiful generation. They may have lacked any sophisticated understanding of why they fought. But they stood when they were told to, advanced when they were ordered to and died because, at the time, they were the right age for the killing fields. They were basically democracy’s profoundly human champions and, yes, victims. As a beneficiary of their exertions, I’d somehow rather remember them in their griping imperfection than as the subjects of a fatuous slogan.”

NewsBlog: There’s a new book out titled “Quarterlife Crisis: Navigating the Personal and Professional Challenges of Life in Your Twenties” by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner. Here’s an excerpt.

I wonder if any of my three twenty-something sons find it relevant to their lives. I guess I’ll ask.