Author: Steve Ainslie

When I looked around my living room last week at paintings I had stacked on every flat surface available, I realized it was time for a change. I hate clutter and my paintings collection had creeped up on me over the winter.  I hung some of the paintings on the wall. The rest I gathered…

One of the best parts about the life I have built is being able to spend most of my time with my dogs. I sleep next to them them. I eat near them. I walk them. We snuggle together. When I’m working out, they are in the next room. When I’m doing chores, they are…

When I was going through my stuff this week to see if I had anything to get rid of, I came across 2 books that I no longer need. One was a book on how to do DIY repairs (which I purchased on the advice from a friend, but have never used because I find…

My friend recently broke up with his on-again/off-again girlfriend and is back on the dating apps. He told me about his successes and failures in his first few weeks. There’s nothing new here. He has a track record of finding attractive women to date via the apps. Unlike me, he has even had a few…

I regularly download royalty-free photos from Unsplash and websites to draw when I’m creating pen & ink urban sketching watercolors. I’ll spend an hour searching for images of streetscapes, cities, ruins, lighthouses, farms and restaurants to use as inspiration.  My technique is to simplify the image first with an ink sketch. Then I sketch in…

I threw out a perfectly good Japanese futon mattress last week. I bought the mattress right after I bought my house, thinking I’d be perfectly satisfied sleeping on the floor in a minimalistic Japanese style. After all, I’d just ended a 2 month road trip sleeping on an air mattress in a coffin-like unheated camper. Sleeping…

I was watching a pharmaceutical commercial last night when I began to wonder why it repulsed me so much.  It was the smiles that really got to me.  Suddenly it became clear to me that the fake smiles gave me the feeling I get when I see a “too close to humanlike” robot or doll….

When I listen to an interesting podcast or watch an TV show, I’ll often check out the background of the people. I’m curious to see their work history, education, age and appearance. Most of the time, a quick search reveals personal websites, business related websites, wikipedia pages, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Lately, I’ve noticed…

We’re raising a Generation of Pussies. Kids don’t need supervision 100% of the time. They need to be sent outside to play and told “Don’t come back inside until lunch time (or dinner time)”.  Parents shouldn’t set up play dates. They should encourage their kids to go to the playground, introduce themselves to kids on…

In my quest to improve my vocabulary, I’ve been reading the book “Grow your vocabulary: by learning the roots of English words” by Robert Schleifer. I tried different book on root words first, but it went way too deep into the archaic history of language with lots of “guessing” about the origins of words from…