Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
The Top-10 Songs of All (My) Time, #5: “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer
Dig if you will a picture … me in 1994, home from Michigan State for summer vacation, and delivering pizzas for Village Inn Pizza. I’d just finished my 3rd year at State. I was feeling good because I had gotten my college and academic life back on track. ’91-’92 was a great freshman year. ’92-’93 was the year I almost got myself kicked out of State. So ’93-’94 was the year I moved back into the dorms and prioritized studying. Also, that was the only way my parents would send me back to MSU and support me financially. In that ’93-’94 year, I changed my Major from Engineering to Communications and felt like, yes, I like this much better and I like the classes.
Kurt Cobain killed himself on April 10, 1994. And Weezer released their first studio album on May 10, 1994 – I had to look that up, because my Weezer story starts sometime that summer when the video for “The Sweater Song” debuted on MTV during 120 Minutes. The video for “The Sweater Song” was directed by Spike Jonze, who was just starting to make very cool, very different videos. Read More
The Dawn of Don and Dad Fuel
Today was my first day of Dad Fuel. A couple months ago I read something or listened to a Podcast (go ahead, my whole family laughs at me, too) and it said, “the best way to take ‘greens’ type drinks is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.” My go-to brand has been Green Vibrance and, for some crazy reason, I was taking it with food. What a fool I was.
Then I switched to Skinny Greens because someone in my household, and I won’t mention any names, read something or saw something or listened to a Podcast and “subscribed” to Skinny Greens. So we had a couple unopened jugs and I started the “greens on an empty stomach first thing in the morning” and I must say … whoa. Life changing.
And because I started researching greens and protein powders … Dad Fuel found me and I bought it … hook, line, and sinker. Read More
Countdown to Father’s Day and “I Love Don Week” (and many other things)
If you ever wonder what I do in my spare time, it’s figure out ways to waste time. This morning it was finding a “countdown” service. I was sitting, sipping coffee, and thinking, “how many days until Father’s Day?” And, “how many days until my birthday?” And how many days until my daughter moves out and heads to college …and my son … and some stuff at work? Or, how many days until my vacation?
Lucky for me, it’s the year 2025 and when we want something, the Interweb provides … enter hero-of-the-day …TickCounter.com.
Thanks to TickCounter, I, once again, don’t have to use my brain to “remember stuff” or think about other, more important things. Nope. Now I have my own personal website (this Blog entry) with all the important things happening this year. Read More
Form and Function
Remember the scene in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels where Michael Cane is teaching Steve Martin how to move his arms, stand, turn, and walk? If you don’t, here … watch this . . .
That scene made me think about form and function and now, the older I get, the more important proper form and function matter to me.
The human body is meant to sit, stand, sleep, and move in certain ways. Any stress to that system leads to injury.
A recent article from MSN talked about good posture as essential for better balance, circulation, respiration, digestion and bladder function. Not to mention it’s shown to improve cognitive ability and enhance our moods. Read More
All Or Nothing: Pellet Grills
A friend called me a few weeks ago and when I picked up the phone he asked…
“Donnie … I know you’ll have an opinion …what are your thoughts on a pellet grill?”
He’s right. I have opinions on ridiculous things like grills …coffee makers and contraptions …headphones.
Rather than tell him some pros and cons, or maybe something I read, I said something like the following.
Don’t … don’t … get a pellet grill. Those things seem cool, but you’re better off using your oven. First, pellets aren’t natural … they’re expensive. You’ve got to monitor them and refill them often, sometimes during a long cook. Which people who love their pellet grill think is cool … a loooooong cook. Read More
Life Advice: Never Drink from the Plastic Lid
Dear everyone,
Here’s some more Life Advice. Never drink from the plastic lid on your to-go coffee cup. Not at Starbucks. Not at Speedway. Nowhere. Never.
Pictured here is my hand on my plastic lid at a coffee and donut shop to illustrate what you should envision happening every time.
In this instance, a woman was out in the lobby with a broom and dustpan. I walked in, she told me she’d be with me in a minute, she set the broom and dustpan down, walked behind the counter, took my order (medium coffee), punched the keys on the keyboard, took my $3 in singles, put it in the drawer, then used her fingers to give me .68-cents back as change. Read More
The Birth Rate Thing
What’s the worst thing about Disney World? The crowds and the lines. Ever go to a beach at your favorite vacation spot and say to yourself, “back when we first started coming here, this was our own little secret and now I gotta fight for chairs and a spot close to the water with nobody blocking my view of the ocean (so I can take the perfect picture of my feet with the ocean as a backdrop)?”
I’ve stopped going to certain restaurants because they’re always so busy and there’s always a huge wait.
Birth rates seem to be a topic everyone wants to talk about right now, including the President thinking about giving $5,000 to couples who have a baby (honey? if you’re reading this … let’s talk …remember how we wanted a hot tub … $5,000 could come in handy for that … ). MSNBC …ahem, a news network that I watch … did an entire segment on declining birth rates. And Tangle, yesterday, was all about the birth rate. Read More
Japanese Organizing Techniques
A couple weeks ago I watched Shogun, a miniseries set in Japan in the early 1600s. Something about British v. Portuguese trying to control the trade routes and colonize Japan, I think, while also navigating the thousand years of Japanese fighting and politics. The story isn’t important …what’s important is how clean, neat, and serene Japanese homes and meals are – at least as depicted by this 10-part TV series.
You all know I like to learn all my history from TV and movies.
The show stirred something inside me. No. Not that I need to read more and learn about ancient Japanese history. No. Not that I should plan a trip to visit Japan. Instead, I learned, I would like my home to be neat and tidy and I want to focus on form, function, and simplicity. Read More
Dunbar’s Number and Angel Whispers
I think about my friends a lot. I think about former co-workers a lot. I think about family members a lot. And when I think about these people, my mind races with thoughts of, “I should text so-and-so,” or, “I wonder how the heck what’s-his-name is doing?” Sometimes I text right then and there. Sometimes I call and if I get a voicemail, I always leave a message and usually I say, “hey, old friend …nothing important and no need to call me back, but I was just thinking about you and wanted to call and say ‘hi’ . . . ”
And then I’ll tell them about some memory I have with them or say something I admire about them or just tell them why I thought of them, at all.
Years ago, I started to think of these random thoughts of random people as “whispers from Angels” …meaning, “random thoughts” aren’t random, at all. I theorize, if you have a “random thought” it’s because an Angel snuck up behind you and whispered into your ear a thought or a name, and the Angel expects you to do something.
Because I use my iPhone’s voice technology feature, my kids call me crazy. Actually, I think my daughter says I’m “psycho” every time I suggest, hey, give that person a (phone)call.
Am I crazy? Not for using the phone as a phone, but for calling (or texting) in the first place?
For a few months, I’ve called a former co-worker twice and texted once. I haven’t heard back. It makes me wonder one of two things … (a) is this person OK or (b) did this person never think of me as a friend nor someone worthy of keeping-in-touch with? Read More
The Top-10 Songs of All (My) Time, #6: Losing My Religion by R.E.M.
In the ’80s, teenagers were faced with a musical fork-in-the-road. Before the ’80s, it was a Top-40 dominated world and most artists tried to make songs that landed them in the American Top-40. For most people, if a song was on the radio and the artist was at The Grammy’s, that was good enough. Country music couldn’t get onto the top-40 charts (save for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, maybe). R&B couldn’t get there (save for Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston types). Album rock and heavy metal couldn’t get onto the Top-40 charts either. Then came MTV and it was all visual. It upset the status quo. Suddenly, if a band made a video, any band, MTV would show it, and genres were born. Bands like Flock of Seagulls, Erasure, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Smiths (and Morrisey solo), and dozens of other bands previously considered “college rock” were in midwest living rooms and me and my friends, the MTV Generation, were “discovering” bands and music we never would’ve known existed.
The “musical fork-in-the-road” was the moment most kids felt like they had to choose. Were you a rock and heavy metal kid? Then you can watch and enjoy Headbangers Ball. If you liked rap? I did. So I liked Yo! MTV Raps. And what about the emo kids? They had 120 Minutes (debuted in 1986). Of course it’s silly to think a kid couldn’t enjoy it all, but the way I remember it, ya just couldn’t. Read More
Don Kowalewski 