Category: Personal (Page 1 of 49)

Venardos – The Little Circus That Could

September 13, 2026 / Andy

If the Savannah Bananas had a baby cousin in the circus business, it might be Venardos Circus.

The Bananas took baseball, an institution with more than a century of tradition, and figured out how to make the entire experience more entertaining. Venardos has done something similar with the traditional circus. It has the acrobats, aerialists, juggling and comedy you’d expect, but packages everything into a smaller, more personal experience. Think Broadway meets the big top, without the Broadway ticket prices.

I recently took my five-year-old son to see Venardos Circus in Snohomish, Washington. He’d never been to a circus before, and I’d never been to one quite like this.

Remembering a Real Life Hero

August 13, 2026 / Andy

Some people enter our lives through circumstances we never could have planned, at exactly the time we need them. Jack was one of those people for me.

If you found yourself in Newport Beach on a Wednesday night, Jack was easy to find. He had his chair, and nobody else dared sit in it. Anyone new could introduce themselves, and Jack would dispense whatever wisdom he thought was appropriate. Sometimes it was profound. Sometimes it was practical. In my case, one of his first instructions was simple. Call him every morning at 8:00. Not 7:55. Not 8:05. At 8:00.

The 100 Cookie Problem, Part 1

August 2, 2026 / Andy

I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head that I call the 100 Cookie Problem. I’m not sure it proves anything, and there are probably economists who can explain why I’m thinking about it all wrong, but it keeps leading me to questions I find interesting.

Start with two people sitting at a table and put two cookies between them. They each get a cookie. There really isn’t much to discuss. Now put ten people in a conference room with ten cookies. One person doesn’t like cookies, so there is an extra. I suspect the other nine figure out what to do with it pretty quickly. Someone eats it, they split it, or it sits there until the meeting is over. Nobody needs to create a set of rules.

Now make it a picnic with 100 people and 100 cookies. This is where I start wondering what actually counts as fair. There are adults, teenagers and little kids. Some people are hungry and some aren’t. Somebody brought 20 of the cookies. Somebody else showed up without bringing anything. Do we still hand everyone exactly one? Maybe the little kids only want half. Maybe the person who brought 20 thinks he should get two. Maybe someone hasn’t eaten all day and everyone is perfectly happy to let her have another. There are still enough cookies for everybody, but dividing them fairly isn’t quite as obvious anymore.

20 Years!

July 17, 2026 / Andy

July 17, 2006.

That was the date of the 1st post on this blog. Amazing.

The 11 Funniest Geographical Match-Ups in the World Cup

June 10, 2026 / Andy

Every World Cup gives us the matches everyone wanted.

Brazil and Germany. England and Argentina. Spain and Portugal. Those games sell themselves. But we have A LOT of teams this year from a lot of countries. I’m more interested in the games where two sets of supporters look at the draw, pause for a second, and quietly think, “I have no idea where that is.”

That’s part of what makes the World Cup different from every other sporting event on Earth. Every four years, millions of people become amateur geographers, food critics and historians overnight. One day you’re studying the opposing striker. The next you’re looking up what haggis is.

So, for fun, here are the starting 11 for the World Cup’s craziest geographical matchups, where the prevailing qualification is simple: What are the odds that supporters of either team have ever actually met a supporter of the other?

Why Addiction Psychology?

May 17, 2026 / Andy

If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be working toward a master’s degree in addiction psychology, and publishing workbooks on the topic, I probably would have assumed you had me confused with someone else.

My background is in marketing, with smatterings of sports, journalism, education, and philanthropy mixed in to complete the gumbo. Most of my career has been spent helping organizations communicate more effectively, tell better stories, and understand their audiences.

Where Alcohol Fits – Live Now on Amazon

March 26, 2026 / Andy

June Update!

I have released a 2nd edition of the paperback for Where Alcohol Fits (still working on the new Kindle version) and now have a new page on Amazon. Please use this url for the book if you are forwarding to friends or colleagues.

Original Post

Big news!

I have created an LLC called Seashore Publishers. This will be the home for all my future publications. Look for a variety of children’s books and other titles to come from here soon.
But FIRST – The 1st book from Seashore Publishers has been launched – Where Alcohol Fits. I don’t have the Amazon url yet, but it I’ll post it when it’s live. The book is a journal for anyone who wants to self-assess their own alcohol usage. It doesn’t preach, recommend, or advise. It simply asks some questions and lets you think for yourself. I hope it helps a lot of people, and I’m sure there will be a ton of edits and new editions. I have a straw man for the book’s web site up at www.WhereAlcoholFits.com.

Man standing in the grass with bare feet

Sometimes You Just Need to Stand in the Grass and Relax

February 22, 2026 / Andy

When I get stressed, I don’t reach for an app. I go outside and take my shoes off.

That’s the whole strategy. Bare feet. Grass. A little patch of earth that hasn’t been landscaped into submission.

The Only Three Things I’m Trying to Master

February 15, 2026 / Andy

Most people know the Serenity Prayer. It shows up in AA meetings, on coffee mugs, in treatment centers, and taped to refrigerators.

For those of you who don’t know it, here is a refresher:

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s a genius prayer because of its simplicity. It doesn’t ask for wealth, success, influence, or even happiness. Just three traits: serenity, courage, wisdom.

Celebrating With A Million Friends

February 13, 2026 / Andy

Getting 1 million people to do a single thing is no easy task. Getting 1 million people to do an extremely inconvenient thing that disrupts an entire day of their lives is even harder. But that equation changes if 1 million people want to be part of something that happens only once every 10 to 20 years and they want to be part of a group of 1 million people. And that’s what happened with the Seahawks parade this week.