growth

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LAMBEAU

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LAMBEAU

Flew into Green Bay for the college reunion weekend. Spent the night at the Kohler Lodge, just across the street from Lambeau Field. The view out my window was the iconic Packers' stadium. I spent time in their merch shop, which is as large as a Target. Bought a nice windproof vest that I could wear year-round if I still lived in the midwest. In the morning I ran laps around the stadium in the absence of nearby running trails. Lambeau Loops, I called them on Strava, taking a page from the venerated Lambeau Leap post-touchdown celebration.

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POD

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POD

I'm starting a podcast. It's time. Bloomberg is reporting this morning that "the business of history is booming," which is a far cry from a recent comment by a prominent publisher that "non-fiction is dead." It's also been noted that academic history is being replaced by a trend towards popular history, in which I may have played a small role. Now it's time to capitalize. Cool but scary.

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LISTEN CLOSE

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LISTEN CLOSE

I am twelve days into what I am euphemistically calling a "vacation." This is not a research trip or a short getaway, but a planned and prolonged two months of getting my mojo back. In the thirty-plus years of my writing career I've never taken downtime, always motivated by this debt or that mortgage payment. . . .

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THE BIG DANCE

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THE BIG DANCE

I won my bracket. . . . Thanks to an iffy last-minute foul — and a non-call — I win. As champion, our punishment is that the loser now has to chug a six-pack of the beer of my choosing. Our group numbers several grown men who have achieved considerable success in a wide variety of fields, [b]ut when it came time to select a penalty for losing the bracket, we all resorted to the residue of our college days.

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THE RINGS

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THE RINGS

I started this blog by writing a lengthy and mean-spirited rant about the cancer known as club soccer. . . . In the name of positivity, and with full realization that my mental health is affected by this ongoing frustration far more than those I ridiculed, I hit delete. . . . Surprisingly, all of this started as a warmhearted story about my own befuddlement.