I have a tick story.  My daughter lives in Northern Wisconsin. And they have many, many more ticks there than we have here. And so, when she came to visit a few years ago, she was brushing her dogs --  she has three Border Collies -- and she was brushing her dogs on my living room floor, and she found two ticks on them, obviously brought from Wisconsin. So, at the time, I had a garbage disposal in my kitchen sink, and she dropped them into the garbage disposal and turned it on for a moment and thought they were taken care of. Well, later, I don't remember if it was later that day or if it was even the next day, she had gone somewhere, and I was doing something at the kitchen sink. And here on the edge of the sink was a tick. And it's like, “Oh, my gosh! Where did that come from?” And then I remembered her dropping those two down the drain. And, obviously the garbage disposal had not taken care of them. So I picked it up, and I flushed it.  Okay. So, at that point, I wonder where the other one is. And I looked around and sure enough, the other one was on the floor. It had already climbed down -- climbed out the drain, climbed up the sink, climbed across the cupboard, climbed down the cupboard, and was on the floor. And I was horrified. So I picked that one up and I took it into the bathroom and flushed it also. So they are, they’re persistent and they, you have to be positive that you kill them when you see them.  My second tick story, was, took place in Staples, just, I think it was just last year. And there was another lady who was being helped to by a Staples employee. And I was waiting to ask the employee a question also. And she had her back to me, and on her back, on her shirt, on the outside of her shirt, was a tick, slowly crawling up her back, and I was like, “Gasp!” And, I said to -- I interrupted them, and I said to them, I said, I said to the lady, I said, “You have a tick on your back.” And she's like, “Oh dear, you know I must have gotten it out in…

Tell us about something that seemed like a major threat earlier in life, but turned out to be pretty irrelevant. Needles. Oh my gosh, was I afraid of needles. When I was younger. I was one of those types of kids that like when my parents told me I was gonna get a flu shot, I would be obsessing over it all day, like I would not sleep the night before, I would be freaking out at school. I would be thinking all day, "I'm getting a flu shot. I'm getting a flu shot. I'm getting a flu shot. Oh my gosh, I'm getting a flu shot." Would get home, immediately lock myself in my room. Like refuse to get out of the car. I actually jumped out of a moving car one time to try to avoid getting a flu shot. Lock myself in the bathroom at the doctor’s, kick and scream and like attack the doctors. Not that I like wanted to hurt the doctors but more like this was an involuntary action because I was just so afraid of needles. Having to get held down, until I was probably like 16, I had these issues. But I'm very proud of myself and how far I've come over the past three years where I can ki- -- like, I'm still like very afraid of it, but I don't have that crazy reaction anymore. And, you know, that's just a reminder that even if stuff like that kind of controls your life, that fear, that you can overcome it. If you work at it and just tell yourself like, "You can do it, you can get through this."

As a kid, I was very afraid of trains and train tracks. And I can remember in -- being in the car -- when we would drive over train tracks, I would -- I could feel the anxiety welling up in my chest and go -- and being so scared we were gonna, like, hit a train. Or when the train would come by and you'd have to stop at the gate, and the loudness of the train whistle and the train, would be so scary to me. And I would have to plug my ears. I'd be, like, humming so I couldn't hear it. But, I conquered that fear because I had a friend. Well, he was -- I guess he was a friend, but he was also, like, a big crush of mine in high school. This kid and I went -- we were hanging out at night, and I thought, maybe someday --  I was hoping we would be a couple. And we’re hanging out, and just -- in the middle of the night and stuff. And we went for a walk, and he took me to the train track. And I was like, “I am too scared. I am not going anywhere near that train track.”  And he was like, “It's fine. It's fine. It's nothing to be scared of.” And he's like, “You just don't have -- just don't walk on the track. You can stand next to it as it goes by. It's fine. And you're not going to get hit.”  And, I was like, “No, no, no. That's too scary. We have to get away. We have to get away.” And then a train, you could hear in the distance, was coming.  And he's like, “Nope, stay here. Stay here. We're not leaving.”  And so, he stood, like, pretty near the train track and then, I stood a little ways away and watched him. And the train came by and, like, it blew his hair back, and he just, like, closed his eyes and put his hands out and was, like feeling the wind of the train go by. And he just looked like he was having the greatest moment of his life. And I saw him do that, and I moved a little bit closer and I felt the wind, too. And then, I was like, “Hey, this isn't so bad. This…

That was a crazy, fun time. I was at the House of Blues watching the home team, and it was packed. I have never been so smushed. You know, you see all those YouTube videos about people dying with like, stampedes, and – 100%, like 100%, because it's like uncomfortably tight and yet, like you're like, "Well, I'm not gonna leave. I paid for this concert." You know? And like, and even then if I wanted to, how would I? And then at one point, someone -- they had to stop the show ‘cause someone was puking. And then of course people were moshing, you know, which -- the definition of moshing is like, it's like -- okay, so you're tightly packed. And you're -- Midwest Kindness, right? You barely jump -- like, kind of -- because you're, you're shoulder-to-shoulder front and back. So you're touching the people around you. Like, your elbows are kind of touching a little bit, like, right? Like, someone's kind of like, knocking into your back. And you're trying to kind of dance, but you're like, "Ope, sorry, ope, sorry, ope, sorry." If you raise your hand, you got to make sure you don't bonk them on the head. Well, then, the opposite with moshing is that you just full blown shove the person, okay? But they're in a crowd. So it's like a domino, but it's like a three-dimensional domino, and it's like, hitting all the people. And so then, they shove back, and then enough people will be shoving and like, enjoying being bounced around like a ping pong ball that like, they will like, kind of make a circle of like, the area of influence. And then like, some people will intentionally be in this like, circular shoving. So there's that all happening, and I'm not a fan of that because I think where the mosh goes wrong is that people get mad, people get frustrated, people are getting, again, hurt, people are getting their foot stepped on. They're trying to dance, they’re trying to listen to the band, but they can't because they now have to be alert to the being shoved, you know? Being shoved, being punched in the face. And that's the biggest thing is that the person being shoved around or being smashed into or getting -- you're now falling into the people behind you, and you're falling…

I have a child now. She's almost two and I finally feel empowered enough to pull out stuff from my childhood, thinking she won't like, completely destroy it right away. And the first things I went for is these three plush, like, stuffed cats that I have. So, one of them is a little Christmas-themed cat. He's like a little black cat. He sits on all fours and he's got a red Christmas hat. And then the other two are like, they're like more -- I guess they look more like Beanie Babies. They're like bigger and they have -- one's like brown and one's kind of like blonde. Oh well, I said three, I guess more. I have like, six cat Beanie Babies, like the small Beanie Babies that I had saved forever too. Just because I wanted them. So all these things I saved because I wanted them, and now I'm like, "Oh my God! My child could actually enjoy these." So I, I like, went down a huge rabbit hole. I tried to look through all of these doll and toy restoration things. I ended up making friends with a friend of a friend who like, remakes dolls and does stuff with them and so was able to like, give me some tips on how to clean the Beanie Babies. It was like all -- it was like a three-day process, like I had to soak them – I think I soaked them in laundry detergent, and then I like, soaked them in -- what did I use? I think it was like vinegar or something. Or no, it was baking soda, and then scrubbed them and soaked them again and then I, I let ‘em air dry out in the sun. And then when they were finally, like totally clean, I could give ‘em to the baby. And then the other three plush cats, I haven't yet. But it's like all of them have kind of a story. I'm so excited to see what she does with them already. The Christmas cat, she sleeps with it now. She'll like -- we lay her down for bed and give it to her and she gives it like this big hug. And then she'll like, tuck it into her blanket and she'll wake up in the middle of the night and see it and go, "Meow!" And then…

One of the prompts this week is the watering hole, and have you ever been in a situation where you've felt out of place. And it's not that big of a leap to think of a bar as a watering hole and one of my first jobs out of college, we had occasional after hours get-togethers at a local bar. And being one of the younger members of the staff, also in a position where I didn't necessarily have a relationship or a family to get home to, I would at least be invited and informally expected to spend some time at the after hours gatherings, just, you know, ideally to socialize, or to, you know, celebrate staff coming together. Sometimes we’d have them when we have field inspectors come in from across, you know, the country for training sessions or occasional, you know, yearly or semi-yearly meetings. But I did have feelings of being out of place sometimes in just my life experience as what I was into musically, or socially just not necessarily meshing with the rest of the group. And even to a certain extent, kinda feeling like the folks with families kind of had a little bit of an edge. That they had a reason, maybe sometimes, to go home early if they weren’t having quite as much fun, because, yeah, they had kid activities to take care of, meals to prep, or time with their significant other.

I did have a story about bison versus buffalo. So basically, they're two different animals, but in the United States, we use them sort of interchangeably incorrectly. So I have been told. So, my sister works at [a wildlife sanctuary in] their nature center, learning center, whatever you want to call it. They have a building there that they do lots of programming in. And from that space they have lots of hiking trails, and in the winter when they have snow, like right now, they have ski trails that go from there and they have a rec building and all kinds of stuff happen on that property. So on that property, they have a herd -- and I think herd is the correct term -- of bison. And everyone who comes calls them buffalo. And one of the main talking points, one of the key learning points for children and grown-ups who come to that center, or to that property, is to teach them that they are not buffalo. Even though they want to be called buffalo. Everyone wants to call them buffalo. And my sister has had so many kids that have looked at her like she has two heads when she tells them that they are bison, and that to call them buffalo is really incorrect. That they really are -- they really are not bison, and they literally will tell her, “Yes, they are.” I mean, they will fight tooth and nail with her that what they are seeing is a buffalo because that really is what they -- what they're called here. I mean, that, that's totally what we associate that -- the word we associate with that particular animal. But if you really look at a buffalo, like an African water buffalo, for example, it does not look like a bison. You know, does not look -- doesn't really look like it. And I'm sure that she's told me where that confusion originally came from or how that kind of came to be but I don't remember any of that. But she is very -- she gets a little, little hostile about it because she's had to tell so many people that what they have there are, are bison and hopefully educate them and hopefully have them believe her when she tells them that they are, in fact, bison and not buffalo.

Another example: I think I was constantly underestimated on the basketball court. I don't have the appearance of someone who would be outwardly amazing at the game. I usually did not walk around with an air of confidence or cockiness and I'm relatively unassuming, you know, I am 6’3”, which is tall for most sports, except basketball. And basketball, it makes me look like just a pretty normal guy. And I will say, I took joy in being underestimated on the basketball court. I think that usually meant I was constantly surpassing expectations, which feels good in a way, but you know, it's more because the expectations are probably so low to begin with. I know when I went to the University of Michigan basketball camp, I learned after the first year, you know, they would take these hundred plus campers on the first day of the camp and run you all through a bunch of drills. And then the coaches would all go back to their quarters afterward and draft teams for the week based upon all those drills and watching us play. And because I was just so unspectacular, you know, fundamental but inherently, you know, I don't really catch people's eyes. At least I didn't at that point in time. Because of that, when I would come back in and check the teams, the next day, I was always the last name. And it wasn't written alphabetically! I was always the last name on my particular team, which meant that I was among one of the last players drafted, because they were just writing the names down in the order that they were selected. But then inevitably I would play myself right into the starting lineup and then by the end of the week, I lived for this, but by the end of the week, you know, it seemed like coaches would quickly realize like, “Oh my God, like, this guy's a gem.” Not from a superstar point of view, but I was such a -- I loved working hard and doing all the dirty work. You know, clearing the glass, doing whatever I needed to do to win, really. If I had to be the guy to score, I could, but a lot of times there were more talented scorers on my team. So then it was like, all right, I'll take the charges, I will…