I didn't find out until yesterday that Ava challenged me to answer these questions in her initial post. I'd been kind of sad that no one had invited me to participate, so yeah, I'm a dunce. My apologies to Ava for taking so long.

Why Did You Make the Blog in the First Place?

I retired in 2020 and I spent most of 2021 and 2022 off the Internet and used very little technology. I went months without opening my computer and my phone usage was mostly doom-scrolling Reddit and never posting. To get out of that lethargy, I decided to go back to work at a low stress job at the university where my wife works. I spent my whole carer in IT, so I ended back in front of a computer and it eventually rekindled my interest in the tech I'd always loved. I started reading blogs again for the first time in five or six years. Through my reading, I discovered that Robb Knight had created a page where hundreds of people listed the apps they used in all areas of their lives. I really wanted to participate, but I didn't have a way to post anywhere. I did some looking around and decided to buy a domain for $1 and open an account at Micro.blog, just so I could make that single post and get featured on Robb's page.

Why Did You Choose Bearblog?

Choosing Bear Blog was 100% due to FOMO. I'd become Internet friends with several bloggers who moved to Bear and were singing its praises. I'd expanded my own blogging after a few months from just Micro.Blog to include Scribbles which hosted Living Out Loud and AppAddict. To make use of BearBlog, I transferred Living Out Loud in a marathon session of exporting and importing posts, so that I could join Robert and Jedda. It's funny that we are the very three people that Ava tagged in her original post

Have You Blogged on other Platforms Before?

Aside from Micro.blog and Scribbles, I also blogged at the late great Geo Cities back in the early days of the Internet. I used my own domain, wonderfulmonds.com, named after a minor league baseball player. In 2013, I blogged every one of the 156 days it took to thruhike the Appalachian Trail. That blog is still online at the Trail Journals website. Lefty and Hush's 2013 Appalachian Trail Journal : Part of Trail Journals' Backpacking and Hiking Journals

Do You Write Your Posts Directly in the Editor or in Another Software?

I never write directly in the editor at BearBlog or anywhere else. Almost all of my writing is done in Obsidian or in Drafts on my phone when I am traveling. I use a template in the editor to feature web mentions and for the header to write a meta_description and include a meta_image. I've tried hard over the years to preserve what I've written. I have documents I created in the late 90s on my computer along with the 800 or so posts I've written in the past year.

When Do You Feel Most Inspired to Write?

I usually want to write when I'm supposed to be doing something else. The whole ritual of sitting down at the computer, opening a new document and typing the title gives me a rush. I can write with the world going crazy around me. I like a good quiet early morning when it is still dark outside but I do my best writing later in the day when I have had time to chew on a few ideas. I write three posts a day, so writing is usually on my mind.

Do You Publish Immediately after Writing or Do You Let it Simmer a Bit as a Draft?

LOL - sometimes I don't even have the patience to proofread what I write. I don't use a system of drafts. What people read is what came out of head and onto my computer screen pretty much verbatim. Any rewriting is the "oh shit" variety when I spot typos in what I have already published or when some kind soul writes me and informs me of some egregious mistake.

Your Favorite post on Your Blog?

I wrote a piece in for September's IndieWeb Carnival on the last bottle of bourbon I drank. That was in 2008. I've been sober ever since after a long, long fight with addiction. When I published it, my oldest daughter who was obviously affected by all of that while growing up, sent me a simple "I love you" and it was meaningful in a deep and powerful way.

Any Future Plans for Your Blog? Maybe a Redesign, Changing the Tag System, Etc.?

Blog design is such a rabbit hole. I'm pretty happy with the way things look now, even though it's kind of bland and cookie cutter. I don't know CSS beyond what nice people give to me after I ask them a question. I tend to make small changes, usually leaning towards ease of use stuff for myself over time. I appreciate well-designed personal sites, but I'm more into writing than I am into colors, fonts and graphics.

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It's ironic that I've worked in schools for the majority of my adult life. Except for a year here and there, I didn't enjoy the 12 years I spent in public education. It could have something to do with attending 13 schools during that time. The years I liked happened because of special teachers, the kind who know how to engage kids and who treat them like the little humans they are.

It's been popular in the press and in political circles for many years to claim that public education is failing. Standardized test scores are treated like the holy grail in this data-driven age. State legislatures pass laws to do things like mandate that students be taught their multiplication tables, implying that they are not learning that already, when of course they are. In a nod to tradition, people who don't know how to send an email pass laws that force instruction in things like cursive writing while eliminating jobs for people who teach art, music or who work in the library.

Conservatives aren't the only ones who denigrate education, but they're the people who want to take money from the school budget and give to shady for-profit and poorly supervised charter schools. They also favor giving to religious schools teaching that man and dinosaurs walked the earth together. In many southern states, segregation academies get public money for their mostly white student body, while the public schools in the same area are underfunded. Take a look at the study from Pro Publica that I've linked to.

Somehow the right-wingers have convinced people that there are teacher's unions everywhere that care nothing about children and that exist only to extort money from the government. In my home state of North Carolina, a law exists that forbids any public employee from joining a union. There are no negotiated contracts. There is no right to strike. Teachers and every other school employee takes what the state decides they should have, or they go work somewhere else. Many teachers already have a second job. I've seen them waiting tables, behind cash registers and at the plasma center. Our legislators even abolished higher pay grades for advanced degrees, while simultaneously complaining about teacher quality.

Of course, there is a bell curve when it comes to the competence of teachers, just like there is a bell curve in every other profession. Most teachers care a great deal about what their students are learning. I've listened to many, many excited explanations of new ways to teach first-graders addition or high schoolers chemistry. You can see the real passion in so many teachers and the work they put into their lessons. I've seen plenty of them stay at school long after they could have left for the day, just so they could provide extra help to kids who are behind.

The US as a whole is doing pretty damn well for a country that supposedly has a failing educational system. These days I work in higher ed at a private university and I don't hear our professors complaining about unprepared students in their classes. As someone who works in IT, I can also tell you that these young people are learning tech skills somewhere because keeping them on the straight and narrow path and out of places where they shouldn't go is a full-time job.

Next time you hear someone start the old "our schools are failing" routine, stop them and probe a little deeper. The chances are that they've bought into the big lie.

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If you have any familiarity with 12 Steps groups or if you've seen movies like 28 Days or TV shows like The Wire, then you may be familiar with two of the steps that scare the hell out of newcomers. They are the 4th and 5th Steps of the recovery program first laid out in the 1930s and followed by millions since.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

I'm not a believer in a supernatural God, and I've been sober a long time, so don't let the seemingly religious references throw you off. The principals behinds performing these two practices are beneficial. Rather than trying to forget the past, it's better to face up to it. People doing this take the opportunity to look at their resentments and to see what part they may have played in them. Every so often they find that they don't have any responsibility, such as in cases of abuse. Frequently with their beefs with exes, old bosses or family members, they find they did have a part to play. Even just figuring out the why of our relationship issues is helpful. Typically it comes down to fear. We are afraid we are not going to get something we want, or we are afraid we are going to lose something we already have. The most common way to manifest fear is through anger.

After we've taken the time to take a good look at ourselves, comes the next step, where we ask someone, maybe a trusted friend but more typically a respected person in the recovering community to hear us admit, out loud the list of things we've done wrong, that we feel guilty about and the part we have played in all the important difficult relationships in our life.

The first time I did this, I did it with an old-timer named Pete on a weekday afternoon. I was 22, but definitely an alcoholic in need of recovery. I was so scared I was shaking but over the course of an hour or so I laid it all out. Pete laughed at many of my confessions, giving examples from his life where he'd done the same thing, sometimes to a greater degree than I ever had.All my life I'd felt different from other people, terminally unique they call it.I found out that day that I wasn't all that different from I guy I really respected.

Since then, I've had more than one opportunity to hear other people admit their garbage. At the end, I always ask them "What is your deepest darkest secret?" You can see them struggle to let go of that secret, but they always do. It's always a relief not to ever have to carry that around with you anymore.

We are as sick as our secrets. They foster feelings of shame and guilt. They make us feel different and unworthy. People pay a lot of money for therapy to have someone hear them out. That's OK. Whatever it takes. I've been luck over the past 38 years to have a community of people who have listened to me without judgment when I've needed to get stuff off my chest.

I do the very best I can be today to live a life where I can be honest with the people around me. I don't lie to my wife or my boss or my children or my parents. I'd rather tell them something they would rather not hear than carry around a bunch of emotional baggage that secrets cause. You don't have to an alcoholic or an addict to use the principles behind this way of living. People have used this philosophy to get relief from all kinds of destructive behavior from gambling, to over eating to compulsive sexual behavior and co-dependent relationships. There is hope for everyone.

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When I was in junior high school, my family frequently went to minor league baseball games at an old brick stadium in Gastonia, NC where we lived at the time. At that age, I lived and breathed the game, memorizing stats, collecting baseball cards and counting down the days until the game of the week came on television. As a promotion, the local team had a Hall of Fame player named Bob Feller appear one night to sign autographs and meet the fans.

Feller was the greatest pitcher of his era. He entered the major leagues when he was 17. Before he turned 21 he already had a 24-win season under his belt. He played the game from 1936-1956, with a four-year break to serve in the navy aboard the USS Alabama where he saw combat and rose to the rank of chief petty officer. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, receiving the highest percentage of votes than any player preceding him.

At the park that night, after he finished signing all the programs and talking to the fans, instead of leaving and going back to his hotel, he surprised me by going into the box seats to stay and watch the game. He was sitting all by himself and I just couldn't help myself. Even though I didn't have a ticket for that section, I went down there anyway and asked him if I could sit with him. He told me that I absolutely could. I talked his ear off. When I mentioned that I knew he was in the Navy, he really became animated, Despite all the accolades he'd gotten for his athletic career, he seemed to be more proud of being a sailor than for anything else. As the game progressed, he commented on the players and their skills, always complementing them. He was just a gem of a human being.

Defining someone as a hero is a curious practice when you think about it. The term gets used loosely. I usually consider a hero to be someone who has displayed some sort of bravery or overcome serious obstacles. In some cases, heroes are people who have gone above and beyond to help other people. There are many musicians, actors, and athletes whose talent I really admire, but I don't consider them to be heroic for that. In some cases, though, the people in the entertainment business have done other things that make them someone to look up to.

Pete Seeger worked to end segregation and performed for striking workers all over the country. When he was brought before Congress and accused of being a communist, he refused to name names when asked about the activities of others, unlike Ronald Reagan who squealed on his fellow actors.

Robin Williams made secret visits to hospitals to visit and entertain children, and was well known for using his connections to help other people. An avid cyclist, he once went out to help a stranger who had a flat on his bike in front of Williams home. When the problem turned out to be more complicated than that, Williams went and got one of his bikes and just gave it to the guy. I don't know if any of that rises to the level of heroism, but he was sure a nice person.

Other than Bob Feller, I haven't had many run-ins with celebrities. Maybe the closes I came was getting a call from Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran who wrote a book called Born on the Fourth pf July about his post-war experiences. Tom Cruise played him in the movie by the same name. Kovic, who was 100% a hero for numerous reasons, called me to encourage me in the work I was doing to organize veterans and military families in the early days of the Iraq War. I was blown away by his kindness.

We're all entitled to consider anyone we want as a hero. Just choose wisely and put some though into it.

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I actually have quite a few days that are very close to perfect. I don't need to win the lottery or be gifted a new car to achieve perfection. All I want is a day filled with things that are already my favorites and I am a happy man.

My perfect day starts early, like 4:30 am. Easing downstairs in a silent house to turn on a single lamp for a little soft lighting before dawn is OK with me. I'll ease into the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee. The first one of the day is always the best. While I drink it, I'll catch up with my personal email and social media. On a perfect day, i'll have messages from a few Internet friends, and definitely have some new pictures of some of my grandkids in my messages. Wonder Woman generally wakes up in a good mood and I'm always happy to see her make her way to the living room where we do most of our hanging out.

She will have a cop of coffee and a small glass of juice or half a banana before she goes for her run. It will be a short one and when she gets back and grabs a shower, we will go to the diner at the end of the street where we are regulars. The waitresses all know us and haven't offered us menus in years. I'll take yet another picture of my wife from across the table. That's part of the ritual. I have a couple hundred from inside that very restaurant.

When we get back home, we will hang out together. She reads or watches something on her iPad. I've got three blog posts to write, so I'll start working on them. After I finish the first one, I'll probably set my computer down for a few minutes and grab a quick nap. We will forage for something to eat in a couple of hours. By then, I will have heard from one or more of the kids or maybe my Mom. I love my family dearly and staying in touch means a lot to me.

After lunch would be a good time to see the three closest grandchildren. It doesn't take much to make them happy. Just a trip to Dairy Queen or going for a walk at the park is enough to satisfy them. The kids are great huggers, both to say hello and goodbye. That makes me happy.

When we get home, Wonder Woman and I will probably watch a movie, which we do in our spare bedroom, reclined on the bed where she rests her head on my chest so I can kiss the top of her head every couple of minutes or so. She will generally watch anything I pick out. I keep a running list and I just pick whatever sounds good at the moment.

Tonight we had a perfect day conversation that went like this:

Lou: You know what would be awesome?
WW: What?
Lou: If you order us some pizza!
WW: That would be awesome!

I don't have to cook AND I get pizza. That's perfect.

After dinner, I'll finish my daily blogging, stopping to watch the videos she plays for me on her iPad from the other end of the couch. Her favorite genre are videos making fun of men for doing typical man things. Tonight it was a guy who answered multiple trivia questions in a row but could not remember the text his wife sent him just hours before with a grocery request that included a picture of what she needed.

We will go to bed early on the perfect day, because unless we are driving back from a trip, we always go to bed early. My preferred ritual is to read blog posts in my RSS reader until I can't keep my eyes open. I sleep pretty good. I have a lot of perfect days.

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