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february. other than groundhog day and the occasional leap year, most people associate this time of year with valentine’s day. ironically february is also heart health month, and this morning, tara wakefield was on KC Live showing the co-hosts how to do CPR. you can click here to watch the segment. tara hired me to teach CPR a few years ago, and a few techniques have changed, but we still tell people to “push hard, and push fast” when doing chest compressions.

the entryway to this arcade looks a lot like the one that i walked through more times than i can count at northpark mall back in the 1980′s. i saw this photo on retroist.com, and a flood of memories started coming back. i played games like frogger, centipede, popeye, spy hunter, moon patrol, and so many others. the image above looks brighter than it really was. i remember that place like it was a cave, and the only thing that helped us see in the dark was the dull glowing screens and marquees.

i googled the phrase “proceed until apprehended” a moment ago and there was 77,500 results. google’s findings associate it with career tips and leadership lessons, but someone else explained it to me as sticking to your principles, and holding fast to what you believe is right. louise mathis was the first person who gave me this advice, and i am forever grateful. by the way, i don’t know if i have permission to use the image above, but i’m going to leave it up until someone makes me take it down.

sometimes when jenny & i eat at home, i need dinner music. my usual “go to” destination is the retro cocktail hour. it’s on the radio saturday nights from 7-9pm, but the shows can be heard any time on their website. when i hear the beat of the bongos, and the swell of the horn section, i feel like i’m wearing a smoking jacket, and drinking a martini, even if i’m just wearing a t-shirt and pajamas.

they played folk, they played the blues, and they had us all singing at the end. jim mathis, mike brockman, and sunny sundberg came together and delivered a good time of music and fun at homer’s this evening. jim mathis opened the show by saying “we are not millenials. we are perennials. we just keep coming back.” one of my favorite parts of the night happened when they mashed 3 songs together: hot rod lincoln, folsom prison blues, and pinball wizard.

last friday i went back in time at tapcade. it’s an arcade, bar, restaurant, and theater on the edge of the crossroads. i ate street tacos for lunch, and played old video games like popeye, missile command, gorf, galaga, defender, spy hunter, and dig dug. i took southwest boulevard home instead of the freeway, and pulled over when i saw a sign for pies. this kind of advertising always got my attention when my family drove through the desert. i went inside and met the owners, tracy and tami. their roadside food stand is called the peddler’s daughter. they have shelves full of amish preserves, zucchini relish (i bought a jar), and pies. they are open year round!

when i watch the news about anything trump-related, all i see is two opposing groups of people getting further apart, and not listening to each other. the guy above is robb willer. he is a professor of sociology at stanford university. here’s a nutshell quote from ted.com: “Rob Willer studies the forces that unite and divide us. As a social psychologist, he researches how moral values — typically a source of division — can also be used to bring people together. Willer shares compelling insights on how we might bridge the ideological divide and offers some intuitive advice on ways to be more persuasive when talking politics.” this is a 12 minute presentation that robb willer gave in sept. 2016. this gives me hope.

a few months ago i found out that i was selected for a maker-in-residence grant at the johnson county library! i called my family and a few close friends, but the news didn’t really get out until a local magazine that featured grant recipients started showing up in everyone’s mailbox. the image above is from the bottom of page 7. the image that i actually sent in for publication was this:

joshua and i found a fake bluff while geocaching this week… huh, i just realized that the words “fake” and “bluff” look funny next to each other. anyway this odd rock formation could be someone’s idea of landscape art, but i think a cement truck just dumped some of its excess where no one would notice– except geocachers like joshua and me! on our way back to his house we listened to crap from the past, hosted by ron boogiemonster gerber. one of the show’s highlights was this track sung in spanish by johnny mathis and deniece williams.

this pic was taken last sunday at camry & justin’s strawberry jam: a gathering of friends and musicians in kansas city’s west bottoms. when i met nora (above) she told me that she wasn’t a musician, but she was excited to play fruits with me anyway. i strummed my guitar and sang “let my love open the door” while nora played notes on a grape, a strawberry, and a cantaloupe slice. there was a bad connection halfway through the song, so i stopped playing, and nora ate the cantaloupe slice to a round of applause. now we’re friends on facebook.