Category Archives: The JBE

Another Year and a Bunch of Books

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Nothing says “Happy New Year,” looking out with hope and expectation towards a brand-spanking-new calendar of virgin reading territory than my end-of-the-year book wrap. It’s become a JBE blogging tradition.

In past years, I’ve summarized the previous 12 months and the books I’ve read. This year, I’m opting to hit the highlights rather than reviewing every single book simply, because in 2014, I ended up reading 65 66 books! (You can see the complete list, here.)

This year-end synopsis offers me a chance to reflect back over the previous 12 months of reading. I also get to take note of the books I enjoyed and found benefit in reading, and offer a few of the ones that were disappointing. Keep in mind that reading and what I like to read is highly subjective.

I don’t begin my reading year with any grand plan. However, I do set a goal to end the year on the plus side of 30 books. Having done this now for more than 15 years (with many of these coming pre-blogging), it’s not unreasonable to expect to read 3-4 books per month. In fact, that’s generally been my output at the end of the year when the numbers have been tallied. Continue reading →

Picture Talk

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Pages & Pints Outline

Pages & Pints Outline

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this one might be worth 750, or so.

It’s my talk given at Friday’s Pages & Pints at Lewiston Public Library, in a photo. Well, technically not my talk, since flip charts suck as an audio platform, but an outline of my 30-minute blast on Moxie, beer, and a few thoughts on the craft of writing (and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft). Continue reading →

If 6 Was 9

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Most mornings, I’m up and at my laptop working at 5:00 am. Being a notoriously light sleeper, I find the best time to work for me, and when my energy is at its peak, is between then and around 2:00 or 3:00 pm. So, in order to leverage my strengths, that’s how I usually structure my days, at least when I don’t have outside responsibilities or appointments that prevent me from doing so. That’s how I roll as a free agent.

When I’m working, I enjoy listening to music, usually on headphones or through ear buds. It’s a habit I’ve developed so I don’t disturb Miss Mary when she’s down below, working in her office area, before she’s out and about making sales calls.

My music sources of choice are usually radio stations (rather than music services like Pandora, although I’m not averse to Pandora) that also stream their content. One of my favorites is WMBR, which is the MIT campus radio station. I think I’ve come to appreciate WMBR more than prior defaults like WFMU and KEXP, is that their early morning Breakfast of Champions and Late Risers Club slots during the weekday provide a mix of punk, post-punk, and current indie pop and rock that jives with my eclectic tastes and the desire to stay as current with the rock genre as I can now that I’m post-50 and no longer young.

The Jimi Hendrix-Hamburg, Germany, 1967.

The Jimi Hendrix-Hamburg, Germany, 1967.

Continue reading →

Posting Time Again

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It just occurred to me that it’s Tuesday and I’m supposed to have a post up—well, in a technical sense, I still have slightly less than six hours to get it up before Tuesday’s done gone.

In some ways, Sunday’s food review/post about Slab was really my Tuesday post, two days early. But, just in case somebody’s keeping score, I’m staying true to my Tuesday/Friday posting schedule.

I’ve actually been chasing a story since late last week that’s due to hit the streets on Friday. It’s got some investigative elements, and it’s one I’m feeling really good about, getting it sourced and written, and turned in on a tight deadline. I also appreciate a new editor who took a chance that I could deliver it. More details to follow on that one. Continue reading →

Scripting Your Life

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Is it possible to script your own life? Can you put things into play that lead to the outcomes you desire?

When I used to do workforce development, which involved training and preparing individuals for employment, I was amazed by how many of our trainees’ lives were out of control. Poor choices in men, past employment decisions that marred resumes, the permanent altering of aspects of their bodies, and criminal histories, all severely limited many in the choice of work we could train them for. There are reasons why some jobs pay $9/hour, while others pay $20.

Setting off in a certain direction 10 years ago, I had a global sense of where I wanted to go. My primary goal at the time was leaving the place where I was working—at Moscow Mutual—embarking on a life of writing. Looking back on 2004 from my current vantage point, I am amazed by how few of the specifics I had figured out at that moment in time in respect to reaching this point on the timeline of my life—for instance, I had no clue about what a gap analysis was. Continue reading →

Your Bumper Stickers Won’t Save You

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As much as I’d like to sit home and blog, life sometimes intervenes. This morning, it was getting out of the house at 5:30 for my twice-weekly swim. I have a spring triathlon on the horizon. I woke up an hour earlier intending to bang out something for the sake of making my Tuesday blogging deadline, but as soon as I opened my laptop and tried logging on, I realized that I had no Internet connection–I’m not sure why.

I was also unclear about what to write about.

Lately, the things that I find important are either things I’ve written about before (reinvention, writing, fitness), or things I no longer find appealing (politics). Granted, there’s no shortage of things to write about relative to the latter, but more and more, I don’t find politics bringing forth any new solutions to some of the pressing issues of our time. In fact, the politician that many people imbued with so much hope has become very much like the leaders that came before him. Of course that never stops Americans from wearing their binary ideology on their sleeves, or the back bumpers of their cars.

Your bumper stickers won't save you.

Your bumper stickers won’t save you.

So here I sit, drinking corporate coffee and accessing an available Wi-Fi connection, blogging a few thoughts and ideas that crossed my mind while making my way up and down my pool lane this morning. Continue reading →

Yelping It Up

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Back when I had a BlackBerry, the first app I loaded after Dictionary.com, was Yelp. It’s been my go-to app ever since.

When Miss Mary and I hit the road for two weeks to catch up with Mark Baumer on his walk across America during July of 2010, Yelp never steered us wrong on food or lodging. Nineteen states and 4,600 road tripping miles is a good test of any apps mettle–Yelp passed with flying colors.

Yelp keeps your beer cold.

Yelp keeps your beer cold.

I’m still amazed by how many people I talk with who don’t know about Yelp. Come on people; get with the program!! Continue reading →

Fridays Are For Music

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The JBE loves music. Aspects of the JBE brand are embedded with and influenced by many DIY aspects inherent in music from both the punk and post-punk eras of rock music history.

I still listen to “what’s new” via streaming audio, most often, KEXP, based in Seattle, WMBR (based at MIT), especially Saturday’s James Dean Death Car Experience, and WFMU, one of America’s last free-form radio stations, what’s become an oddity in this age of corporate media consolidation. Continue reading →

Shifting Gears

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I grew up during the heyday of classic rock. Of course, when I was coming up, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles–none of them were sidled with that banner–this would come later, when Boomers had to find a way to commodify music just like everything else they touched.

Rock and roll, once thought of as dangerous, and/or overtly sexual, was sanitized and now, these classic tunes have become nothing more than a sound score for the latest luxury sedan commercial, or to sell some other hideous household consumer item. Continue reading →