Author: Steve Ainslie

When I was 20, I was working part-time as a minimum wage lifeguard while attending community college at night while still living rent free in my mother’s home. I had no car, no health insurance, no degree, no good job prospects and no savings. Still, I made the best of my situation by filling my…

Credit to Nikki Haley for this brilliant line directed toward Vivek Ramaswamy during the Republican Presidential debates. Regardless of the content of their debates, she nailed this one. A few weeks later, I was, once again, searching for interesting podcasts. I’m no longer interested in most of Rogan’s guests, nor his rants on politics, wokeness, CNN,…

Since my wife passed away a little over 5 years ago, I’ve received many invitations from friends (both new and old) for social outings, parties, trips, clubs, and events. I’m flattered every time someone thinks enough of me to extend an invitation. With few exceptions, I decline all of them. The first year, I couldn’t…

When I was a kid, I loved when Daylight Savings Time arrived every Spring. In Pittsburgh, our winters were long, gray and dreary with no sun for weeks on end but plenty of snow, ice, salt and slush covering everything. And then, just when it seemed like winter would never end, sometime around Easter we’d…

I listen to a lot of podcasts. A few are well known, professionally produced and backed by marketing & support from the NYTimes, Vox, Spotify, Amazon, Apple, etc. Others are less popular, but still somewhat mainstream and supported by ads and/or subscriptions. And finally, I often search for niche podcasts that cater to topics like…

The primary reason that I continue blogging, after more than 5 years and 1400 posts, is because it helps me sort out my thoughts. On several occasions when I stopped blogging (after my wife died and when I felt apathetic about blogging), I thought I would continue writing offline, but for some reason, it wasn’t…

Right now I’m reading a book filled with stories of people who made one or more significant career changes during their lives. One left a high-paying investment banker role to join an NGO. Another worked 20 years for the CIA before leaving to take a very lucrative executive security position at Disney. Others left the…

When ordering dog food recently, I saw that Brooks released this year’s model of the sneakers I wear. Whenever this happens, the previous year’s model drops in price and sure enough, Amazon has last year’s model listed at 30% off. For me, that’s a sweet deal. Instead of paying $130, they are now $90. I…

As much as I detest shopping, especially for something I am not familiar with, I still have to do it on a regular basis. Since I buy 95% of my stuff online, and usually from Amazon, I’ll skim through dozens of reviews on several different products trying to ascertain which item is functional, decent quality…

Yesterday I remembered that I forgot to include the window fan I haven’t used in 3 years with my last round of thrift store donations. When I opened the closet to grab the fan, staring me in the face was the yoga mat and the foam roller that I haven’t used in 5 years. Seeing…