This post is especially meaningful for me and I hope you'll find meaning from it as well.

It starts with a poem by Antonio Machado who was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98:

“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea."

Now, I don't know what that poem means to you, but for me, I get the sense that our life journey is not written or set in stone. In fact, I believe it is created by the choices we make and literally the steps we take throughout the journey. "The road is made by walking".

Some may say that the soul knows the journey but that knowledge is hidden unless perhaps we have an awakening or experience an event where we can see the other side of the veil between the...

Yesterday, Dec 11, was my birthday.

It comes around the same date every year.

There's no stopping it!

The other day I saw a Visa commercial during a football game. It showed a boy receiving his first Buffalo Bills jersey on the first day (Day 1) as a fan of the team. This is the synopsis of the commercial:

A little boy's NFL fan journey starts when his mother buys him a Buffalo Bills jersey. During a lifetime as a fan, through all the wins and the loses, he eventually grows up, gets married and shares his love of the Buffalo Bills with his entire family... including, eventually, his granddaughter. Every step of the way as an NFL fan, his VISA was everywhere he wanted to be. 

So each momentous occasion in the commercial has a 'Day #' associated with it.

Day 1 - gets the jersey

Day 2 - at the game

Day 3290 - buys a jersey for his girl friend (leap of time)

Day 3291- gives the jersey to girl friend

Day 4879 - proposes to girl friend (another leap)

You get the idea.

Day 16,795 -...

No, no, NO.

I'm not describing my height or disposition.

Okay, so being 5 feet 7 inches tall is slightly under the national average of 5 feet 9 inches for a man. And, I have moments, okay, lots of moments of being a sunny disposition kinda guy.  

This very short (and sweet) post is to wish everyone a heartfelt holiday season and beyond.

There it is.

That's a wrap.

Until next time.

Actually, I'm taking an eeny meeny miny break today.

Glenn

What's all the fuss about anyway?

With each passing year I'm more and more inclined to visit with my mom and sister (if she doesn't have plans) for Thanksgiving and then stay home during the December holidays. What's not to appreciate with a morning walk with the dogs, followed by breakfast, a nice toasty fire in the wood stove, good food in the oven, or Chinese take out (inside joke), holiday-themed movies, and of course, popcorn!

Over the years when I was raising two children with my first wife we would visit with her two sisters and their families throughout the year. Each sister hosted a holiday: Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas with a little Hannukah sprinkled in for me. Meals were an extravaganza with all the trimmings depending upon the holiday.

Now that I think about it, we ALWAYS HAD BLACK OLIVES with every holiday meal. Was it a family tradition or was there something special about those fleshy orbs of fruit?

Botanically speaking, olives are technically fruits because...

As I sat down to write this post my fingers typed the title before I could think about what I wanted to write about.

Magic.

Since I was raised on rock-n-roll starting in the late 50's, yes that's the 1950's, I was wondering how many songs were written with the same title. I knew a couple of versions, firstly thinking of the Alan Parson's Project, and then to my surprise after searching on the web of the digital domain, I saw a long list of music with the same title and by a variety of artists. 

Wow, this old music aficionado learned something new toady! The first song was actually written in 1917 by Written by Percy Wenrich and Howard Johnson shortly after WWI. Even more surprising are the number of songs that I saw: 30 or more. I'm willing to bet some share the same lyrics and music with different styles based on the artist. Didn't stop to listen to any of them though. I leave that up to you.

This post is actually about how we live our lives going forward. There seems to be a...

I'm writing this post on Wednesday morning Nov 6 long after reading about the election results from the previous night and early morning.

First, let's back up to the night of Nov 5. Ashara and I stayed away from all news sources and social media. Instead we watched an episode of The Lincoln Lawyer with Manuel Garcia-Rulfo playing Mickey Haller who is a defense lawyer based in Los Angeles. Really good writing, acting, and producing! Next we watched an episode of Monk played by Tony Shalhoub, a former San Francisco police detective who helps his former partner and police captain in each episode. It's quirky, funny, and has the right amount of pathos to keep us engaged with the show.

We basically didn't want to know what was happening with THE ELECTION. We were already feeling stressed, our own, and from half the population of the world.

It ain't easy being an EMPATH!

I avoided looking at email before meditating this morning (Nov 6) even though intuitively I knew who won. Hell, we all...

Do you crave knowledge?

Are you fascinated by the latest article about anything new?

Can't get enough of Merriam-Webster online dictionary?

Maybe you're a lifelong learner like me!

Recently I had a fun and engaging session with Daelyn Larche-Sigman who is a coaching colleague and a friend of ours. She helped me review and understand my strengths based on the CliftonStrengths assessment I took earlier this year. The report is known as "Your CliftonStrengths® 34 Results".

Extremely informative!

My #9 strength is 'Learner' which is part of the Strategic Thinker category. These are some of the qualities of the Learner:

• You have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites you.
• You love to learn, and you intuitively know how you learn best. Your natural ability to pick up
  and absorb information quickly and to challenge yourself to continually learn more keeps
  you on the cutting edge.
• Respect your desire to learn....

Oh my, what a subject!

We could go many places with this post.

Like, why were they so ______________? [You get to fill in the blank]

ZaZ! (Don't ask)

Today we're gonna explore the meaning of your family of origin surname. Could be your father's surname or your mother's maiden name or both.

Wondering why or how I decided on the subject?

A short story to explain: on my way into the garage of the office building this morning one of my colleagues drove in just ahead of me. Let's call him Aaron because that's his name. I'll withhold his surname as a courtesy and out of respect for his privacy. As I nodded 'hello' I wondered what his family's origin was, like, where in Europe did his family originate?

So, after getting setup at my desk (work station) I asked the oracle, otherwise known as Google, this question: what is the origin of the name ____________ [Aaron's surname).

The bots went to work and in a nanosecond the information was returned. OK, that was fascinating and fun to learn...

Hello from Colorful Colorado.

It's really a thing! Google 'welcome to colorful Colorado sign pictures' and you'll see lots of pictures of signs along the highways and byways at the borders of Colorado. I added one below as an example.

What's all the hubbub, Jed?

Well, this time of year many flat landers, a dubious term for people who don't live in the Rocky Mountains, us included, spend every weekend driving up to the mountains to see the aspen change color from green to shades of red, orange, and gold. From late September to late October the colors are CRAZY BEAUTIFUL.

Ashara, our three dogs and I went to southwest Colorado last Wednesday. We drove close to eight hours to Cortez where we stayed through Friday. On Thursday we drove northeast to catch the colors between Cortez and Telluride. We were greeted with breath-taking, eye-popping, and soul-satisfying COLORADO in all it's glory. The artist in me embraced the heart throbbing scenery. 

We stopped in the small town of Rico...

The post for this week is about an article that I recently contributed to.

Actually, I was invited to contribute to an online mag titled Bold Journey which contains stories by people who have overcome problems or dilemmas in their lives and have chosen to share those stories to help more people. As written on the About Bold Journey page: one of the best ways to deal with [those] challenges is to learn from the stories and experiences of others. 

After reading some of the stories that were published I opted to contribute answers to a series of questions that became my story in the magazine. I hope you enjoy my story and read more stories from other contributors in the Building Blocks of Success: Confidence and Self Esteem section.

On another note my wife, our three dogs and I are on a 3-day mini vacation in the southwest corner of Colorado (Cortez) with a day trip to Telluride and the surrounding area to see the colors of autumn in the San Juan mountains. It's absolutely...