We’re less than two months away from the Presidential election. I’ve been a moderate all of my life, so while I’ve been interested in Nov 3 in the past, I’ve never been hell bent to support one candidate over the other. Sure I’ve had people I favor, but it’s never been something where I think the fate of the Union depends on my vote.

Welcome to 2020. I won’t share my presidential opinions here. Because that would distract from the main question of this piece – Are we even able to ask each other about their political opinions?

In my Seattle Covid-19 bubble, conversation about candidates would center around topics such as a failed pandemic response, failure to be honest, failure to grasp difficult subjects, failure to listen experts, failure to believe in science, well you get the point.

But there are areas of the country where giant percentages of people would say the Democratic candidate is a career politician, old, senile, and a China lover who won’t leave his his basement.

(We will save the argument of whether people should be leaving their homes for a political rally for another day.)

But my question is whether we can even discuss it together? I have multiple friends and colleagues who are deleting and unfollowing family and friends for their political posts. People seem to be not just entrenched in their decision, but ready to hate people who have an alternative point of view.

So a simple blog like this… Can I share some opinions?

No way.

I hope we all can get together soon. Maybe it will require a national disaster…. oh never mind we already have that.

So look, if you support the other candidate than I do, I may think you are kind of nuts, but I’m ready to listen to your point of view. And if I’ve played soccer or softball with you for the last 10-20 years, I won’t think less of you, just be bummed that we can’t play sports with each other. And maybe one day we’ll have a national plan to fight the pandemic that actually seems like it was written by competent people and we will be able to hang out with each other again.

In the meantime, I’ll stay neutral. I don’t want to inflame anyone with a discussion about science or facts. Be safe everyone.

So, imagine for a moment, that you are the leader of the free world. You have made some mistakes, but you also have fervent supporters. As you enter your re-election year, an alien spaceship materializes out of nowhere and begins to attack the entire world, your country included.

This is clearly unexpected. One might even say unprecedented. You would have to carefully consider what to do next.

Now, as the leader of the free world, you have some advantages on your side. For example, if you wanted to, you could assemble the smartest collection of individuals on the planet to be your closest advisors. On a daily basis, you could be interfacing with intellectuals from around the world, who collectively are focusing on the most advanced technologies known to man. On top of that group, you could also assemble a “tiger team” of people whose single role is to disagree with your first-team’s initial analyses, creating a dialogue of debate based on facts and science. And then, after all of the math and logic has been debated, you might have a cadre of close advisors – long-time allies and confidants who you have shared success with. A group of people you trust to help you understand the words the intellectuals have thrown at you.

So knowing that you have this all-star team of brainpower and creative ideas at your full disposal, and staring in the eyes of a global catastrophe, one might think to themselves, “Hmm. Well, this is going to take a while to solve. I probably should have my people pull together an 18-36 month plan. In fact, I should probably call all the leaders of other large nations, and coordinate how we want to work together. And then, I should probably assemble all the governors, and implement a national organization that will address the issues over the next 1-3 years.

At this point, your campaign manager may come up to you and say, “Well do you realize that if you implement an 18-36 month plan to address a global crisis during an election year, you’ll basically be forcing voters to abandon a war-time plan if they vote for your opponent? The other candidate will literally have no chance of beating you. That doesn’t seem fair at all.”

You might look at your adviser and say, “Politics be damned. I care about the American people. Let’s show our world leadership, and then unite the country so we all fight this battle together. If history says I didn’t fight a fair campaign because I united a nation during a campaign year to fight a common enemy, then well, I’ll just have to deal with those ramifications down the road.”

In some parallel universe, this logic occurred. Unfortunately, in ours, these paragraphs are a work of collective fiction.

My politics don’t swing wide left or wide right. When there is a political event, I appreciate any media that provides a true and accurate statement of the facts. I also love the media in general, especially now. It’s a fascinating time for the broadcasting industry since ratings mean revenue and controversy brings ratings.

That’s why I am enjoying “Front Row at the Trump Show” so much, and recommend it to everyone I talk to. It’s a fascinating, non-partisan perspective from a member of the White House Press Corps through four Presidents. It’s a great listen on Audible as well.

As a reader of this blog, I trust you already know that cleaning disinfectants are for tables, not intestines.

The gym is closed, you don’t want to run at Greenlake, and your soccer season is canceled. How are we all going to stay in shape?

For some people, a routine and discipline are the keys to exercise. So when every day is Tuesday and every hour is 1:00pm, how do you accomplish that discipline? How do you make that routine happen?

I surveyed a few friends, and here are some ideas we’ve come up with. All of them take two minutes or less, and by the end of the day, you’ll have completed a decent amount of calorie burning.

1. TV Pushups: We’re going to be streaming more shows, especially until the weather turns around. So before every show, throw down 10-20 pushups. The more TV you watch, the more pushups you do.
2. Old school Jumping Jacks: Yeah, it’s cheesy. But two minutes of jumping jacks will make you feel like you earned that episode of Ozarks.
3. The Jump Rope: It was your favorite exercise toy as an eight-year-old. 2:00 as an adult will have you breathing hard.
4. Walking Stairs: We may not own Stairmasters, but we do have staircases in our house. Take two minutes a few times a day and walk up and down the stairs 10 times. See if you can get to 50 flights a day.
5. Sprinting Streets: Greenlake and Burke-Gilman can get crowded. But we don’t need long trails for sprints. Measure out 100 yards in front of your house and do a few sprints a day. Sprint up, walk back. It’ll take mere minutes and get your heart rate up.
6. Chin-up bars: Cheap, easy to set up, and super effective. Don’t be discouraged the first time you try it.
7. YouTube Yoga: You can find a lot of exercise content online – even short stretching and yoga exercises. Stay flexible my friends.
8. The Massage Gun: Not everyone agrees in their benefits, but for a relatively small price (especially considering we don’t have gym membership dues), we like Massage Guns for loosening up muscles. I don’t have an Amazon Affiliate account or anything, so you can read about them on CNN.

You probably have your own ideas. Send me an email and share them, or just ping me on Twitter. Stay healthy everyone.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly understand SEO if this is the title and metadata you need to use to rise to the top of 296,000 results for the Google search, “Mariners Ticketmaster Account.”

I tweet for fun and emotional humor release, not to develop an audience. And my typical tweet generates somewhere between 0 and 5 responses. Who knew that I could generate a larger audience by making fun of anarchists? Maybe I should present this strategy in my next client meeting.