Muscular, nude man sounds more natural to me. Can't explain why.

Thanks, yes I'm fine with that.

Just me and Sara Pirtle in front of the giant stethoscope at UNMC for #GreaterGoodGivingDay

My son Cole made this abomination for some reason. No idea if it's supposed to be from some show he saw or just out of his own twisted imagination. Creepy either way. Yes, those are hands and those other things are ribs. I couldn't be more proud.

Energy time I see the BlueSky logo, I think of the wonderful show The Big Door Prize on AppleTV. I hope they get a third season.

If OK Cola shows up, I think the store might actually be in a time warp.

Finally had a day where I didn't have to haul a couple of kiddos to different schools so I got to ride my new ebike to work. Of course it was 28 degrees at 7am when I left and about 33 when I headed home (about six miles each way). Invigorating. Very thankful for pedal assist. Omaha is NOT flat.

My cousin's first book. Funny, thought-provoking, unique story. A nice quick read.

Now I'm tired and likely won't post again for a while. Just wanted to get that off my chest. Doing what I can to make a better world for my kids.

differently. Trying to show that they should evaluate their choices on the basis of whether anyone could get hurt (physically or psychologically) and to choose in favor of what will help instead of harm people. The right would call it indoctrination (without any irony) but I call it being decent.

have now isn't normal and the hateful rhetoric on display everywhere now isn't how things should be. We are hopefully teaching and demonstrating to them through our actions how to evaluate what they see and hear on tv and social media. We're just doing our best while surrounded by those who think...

of the privilege they are born with as well (they are all white) and especially how others do not have the same privileges (yet). I am (hopefully) instilling them the ideas of helping where they can and when they get older, voting for those that will help everyone. They are seeing that what we...

My transformation took years because of my life experiences and my (invisible to me) privilege. I didn't feel privileged because I had never been privileged with money (to this day), but I have definitely benefited from this privilege throughout my life. I'm trying to make sure my boys are aware...

daily on their upbringing, trying to balance work, life and after-school activities as older parents (both in our 50s). But we're trying to instill in them our values of helping others, defending those who are being bullied and oppressed, and how to spot the lies spouted by politicians and pundits.

a young adult with a life experience on several different layers, giving her a much better perspective on how her choices in her personal life and at election time impact her ability to provide for herself, her wife and two boys. My wife and I also adopted a 4-boy sibling group and face challenges

an emotionally abused preteen who had been through about 20 different foster homes. She was a handful and we weren't always successful in our attempts to stabilize her life, but we tried hard. We had runaway experiences and juvenile court experiences which were not fun. But she grew up and is now...

I started paying a lot more attention to politics and elections, realizing that local and down-ballot races are a lot more important than I thought. That the results of these elections had a real impact on me and my family. My wife and I became foster parents and adopted our first placement,...

When i met my wonderful wife (who happens to be black) my perspectives had already started to shift and she helped solidify my newly held liberal thinking. Learning about her life experiences growing up in different parts of the country, the south, north and midwest gave me a wider view.

still hadn't made that shift to see things from others' perspectives. It would take another few years to start noticing things I should have seen much sooner. That a country's government does have a responsibility to its most vulnerable, not just the poor and unemployed/unhoused but other groups too

programs hadn't evolved that much and when the election rolled around, someone like Perot spoke to me. Looking back, I was really very naive and despite my "worldly view" still didn't understand much about how things really were for marginalized groups and folks who were truly suffering. My brain...

gave me a place to stay until I found my own place and I just worked and lived a very mediocre existence for a few years, never really understanding how my privilege played a big part in why I hadn't faced significant hardships in my life. Not knowing how fortunate I was, my thoughts about social...

would destroy the country if we didn't get it under control. When I got out of the Air Force after 5 years, I went back to my hometown and got a job, but found after about a year that I missed the bustle of larger city life and looked for a job in our state's largest city. The kindness of friends...

such as that the welfare state was real and if you didn't have a job for a long time, you were a drain on society and didn't want to work. Unemployment was a crutch and if these "safety nets" were cut, it would incentivise people to work. Also that our national debt was a huge problem and...

airmen who worked right along side me who I respected every bit as much as anyone else. More chipping away at these ideas that some people were not as worthy of value and respect as others. But some of my ingrained "values" weren't as easy to change. I was still very much a bootstraps thinker,...

the locals in these southeast Asian countries where I was stationed. But exposure to the local populations also started to show me that these biases weren't really based on anything I could see for myself. So my own thinking started to shift perspective. I met some nearly-out-of-the-closet...

that were very black and white. Democratic presidents were bad because they wanted to cut the military, so you had to vote R to save your job. They didn't come right out and say it, but that was the culture. Since this was the late 80s then gays were also bad and fair game for ridicule, as were...

The Air Force sent me around the world, starting with the Philippines, where I made lifelong memories and friends I would gain and lose throughout the years. The Air Force had its own kind of indoctrination that was in some ways very subtle and in others more overt. I was guided to think in terms...

I grew up in a liberal area of Nebraska, and by liberal I mean that folks including my dad liberally used the n word in daily conversation. I hadn't met any black people formally until I joined the Air Force at 18. My world opened up in basic training and I understood how bigoted my upbringing was.

I don't know who said it first, but I took the recommendation that when you see one, you can just say, "Hey, there's the Town Dipshit" and it really does make me feel better.