Coffee fueled original content from an aging middle-of-the-packer
A recent visit to Vandalia, IL yielded a pleasant surprise. Shimoji Coffee opened at 7:00 AM on Sunday. The drive-through coffee shop was established in 2016 and works hard to assure a consistently pleasant customer experience. Shimoji roasts a rotating variety of beans for their shop and for consumers to enjoy at home. Hand-crafted syrups
I started competing in swim meets about five years ago and have learned a lot through the experience. I learned that forward motion after becoming set in the blocks can cause disqualification as a false start. I learned that flip turns are allowed in the backstroke portion of the Individual Medley except when switching to
What would draw a group of men to travel halfway across the United States to participate in roughly a half-hour of physical activity? Mike Freshley, Laurence Walker, Tony Ralphs and Peter Andersen have swum together in San Diego for several years and enjoy the competition of US Masters Swimming. A couple of the men recently
A year ago, my sister Joni went to the emergency room with abdominal pain she could no longer manage. She had lived with the pain for a while. The diagnosis rocked our world. Colon cancer that had spread to other organs. Stage 4. Metastasis. Abscess. Surgical repair. Chemotherapy. Words we’ve all heard but sound so
One nice thing about small swim meets is that they move along quickly. One bad thing about small swim meets is they move along quickly. I thought the time between my first two events was really short. That was before I saw my buddy Jon walk quickly from the finish of one race directly to
Most of my trips to Florida are to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. I usually struggle to find a satisfying cup of coffee in this area. High rent and a transient customer base is not fertile ground for growing a business focused on the bean. I’m not interested in how many flavors of
This morning I rode my bike for the first time this spring. My friend John rides about 25 miles on mornings when the pavement is dry and the temperatures are above 50 F. While I have had an active winter, I’ve only been on my bike a couple times in the past five months. I
Going to Florida to catch a couple spring training baseball games gave me the opportunity to run in the warmth of Central Florida. The Hampton Inn Kissimmee is in Calypso Cay, a development of hotels, condos and businesses tailored to tourists. A quick look at Strava and Google Maps made me feel the area would
My wife and I took our first trip to enjoy some Spring Training baseball. We flew in to Orlando and caught a Cardinals game against the Braves in Champion Stadium at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. Staying in Kissimmee made it an easy trip to the stadium. We opted for the free parking option
One of the things I love about going to Orlando in February is the chance to run. I have made the spring trek enough to have developed a couple safe routes around the Orange County Convention Center. This year I left St. Louis with temperatures in the 30s and arrived to the 80s in Florida.
