Blog

12:53pm
Saint Paul

There’s nothing like a deadline to get yourself moving.

Last week I received a copy of “Creative Ambush,” a book to spark creativity that I purchased in early August.

2:17pm Wednesday
Saint Paul

How “common” is “common sense?”

First, let’s define it. Wikipedia says,

“Common sense is ‘knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument.’”

So, it’s knowledge that is mostly universal, and mostly believed without questioning it.

So I ask you, is the following Einstein quote common sense?

11:51am
Saint Paul

When our kids were younger, we gave the meals fun names.

Pasta with tomatoe sauce and cottage cheese was Elsa and Ana Dinner.

Fish with rice and peas? Moana.

We had a few others too.

The hardest part was remembering what the names meant!

These names worked to persuade our kids to eat “adult” food, sure.

But naming anything—giving it an epithet—makes it more real.

9:58am
Saint Paul

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Like… the very first thing?

After a night of sleep, your morning brain produces alpha waves.

Alpha waves create a state of mental relaxation and alertness.

And because you’re relaxed… your critical, self-defensive mental guard isn’t up.

Meaning any information you feed your brain during an alpha state gets much more easily accepted by your subconscious.

10:38 am
Elsewhere in Saint Paul, Minnesota

BOOM.

And like that, my neighborhood just lost power.

I was avoiding work… ordering books from a German website that I can’t read…and now my work feels urgent… but no electricity.

8:12am
Saint Paul

Degas caused a public uproar when he showed his “Jockeys Before the Race” (completed in 1879—back when art was important).

He was known for his impressionist paintings of ballerinas and jockeys on horses.

But this painting wasn’t so much a horse as it was… a pole. With a horse behind it.

It was considered “ugly.”