Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
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
I’m Going to Lose Weight and Be In Great Shape
I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to lose so much weight and be in such great shape, you won’t believe it. My stomach will be flat. I’ll start running 5Ks and sprint triathlons, again. I’ll work up to 100 push-ups at a time. I’m going to be amazing. I’ve been telling everyone for months and months that, when I start exercising and eating right …whoa! Look out! I’m going to be my best-self and have the best-life-ever.
Lazy, fat, unmotivated people are what’s bringing me down and just you wait.
But …first. I’m going to eat like a pig. I’m going to sit around and eat some more. I’m going to drink beer and booze. Like, five or six days a week. I’ll have Five Guys for lunch every day for a month. Sugary candy and cookies? Yes, please. Read More
Take “greens” on an Empty Stomach
Over the years, I’m sure I didn’t void all the benefits of daily greens by taking them “with food.” But that’s what I was doing.
I’m a multivitamin-guy and I come from a multivitamin-family. My Mom swore by multivitamins and before it was cool and before the Internet, she was very into the multivitamin thing. Back in Grand Rapids, MI, in the ’90s, before every specialty market had supplement and apothecary sections, my Mom “did the research.” The world had Centrum, and maybe GNC had some stuff for Men, but multivitamins were an emerging scam …er … trend. Nowadays, you can spend hours reading about every multivitamin and manufacturer and learn their background and how the inventor grew up on a farm and has my best interest in mind and all ingredients are sourced by fairies and trolls and grown in an area of the Brazilian rainforest that has the least amount of air pollution anywhere in the world. Read More
The Top-10 Songs of All (My) Time, #7: Somebody That I Used to Know
I was lucky. My parents had a wonderful, normal, healthy relationship. I met my soulmate when I was 15 and started dating her when I was 18 (going on 19) and we’ve been together ever since. She’s normal. SHw as normal then. And is normal now. She’s nice, honest, funny, wicked smart, and makes me better, and my life better, because she’s in it. My wife’s parents are normal and had a great marriage.
But ya know what fascinated me all through college and after? How different other relationships are. How dysfunctional some relationships are because of the bizarre world-view of one, or both, of the people in that relationship.
Some dudes in college were a source of endless entertainment. Guys just couldn’t figure out the whole girlfriend thing. Things like “buying a girl a dozen red roses on a first date.” No. No. No. Or saying “I love you” on a second date. Record. Scratch. They’d come to me for advice, as if I actually knew what I was doing …I was figuring it out, too, but just had a better head-start (see first paragraph). The questions they’d ask would be things like, “when should she meet my parents?” I’d have to convince them to let it happen naturally and “you’ll know”, but definitely not after one month and 3 “sorta dates.” Read More
2025 Goals Check-In, Month-1
I’m totally stealing this from author, speaker, storyteller, teacher, all-around-great-guy and guru, Matthew Dicks. I envy him and idolize him. For years, he publicly lists all his goals and then, equally publicly, updates his progress. Good and bad. Successes and failures. It’s what makes him unique compared to so many other gurus and coaches that offer advice …he ain’t perfect and he’s not too proud to admit it.
But …he’s pretty incredible and good at stuff and great and getting stuff done. So that’s kind of annoying.
Below (and here) are my 2025 Goals and my 30-day progress and update.
MAKE MY WEBSITE AND BLOG A REAL THING
- Categories Finite and Sensible <- I’ll say A+ on this. I feel very good that if some rando goes to my website, they’ll be able to figure out what I’m about and if you know me and are looking for something specific, you can find it.
- Build it for 2 Specific Audiences In Mind, and those audiences are… <- B+ … it’s a slow process to take all my old Blog posts and Pages and organize it so I can proudly tell, say, my co-worker, “hey, if you want to order salsa, just go to my website.”
Don Kowalewski 