Well, it happened – I hit the big 4-0. Don’t ask me when or how, but here I am. Forty years old, with a family, kids, mortgage, responsibilities… Life, basically. And while all of that brings real joy (honestly!), I can’t deny I’ve been catching myself more and more often thinking: “When did everything change so much?”

I look at my kids – smart, lovely, amazing. But once they glue themselves to a phone? Game over. TikTok, YouTube, bizarre games, and even stranger influencers. Trying to get them outside feels like negotiating with terrorists – only they’ve got the stronger arguments.

Then a picture lights up in my head: me, dirty from head to toe, running through the forest, jumping into the lake from a pier, kicking a ball around in the yard. I’d leave the house in the morning and come back only when it was too dark to see – usually just to eat dinner and crash. We lived without phones, without internet (at least in the early years), and if I wanted to meet a friend, it wasn’t a message on Messenger – it was the doorbell and a simple, “Hey, coming out?”

I started this blog because I just needed to get this off my chest. Sometimes I feel like a grumpy old man, but it’s hard not to when you see what’s going on. I worry about my kids’ health, their future, the state of the world. I’m frustrated with politics, annoyed by celebrities and influencers who’ve made careers out of nothing – or worse, by promoting idiocy, emptiness, and behaviors that are just plain wrong. Sex for likes, dysfunction dressed as lifestyle, drama as branding. And young people soak it up like sponges – because “if they’ve got a million followers, they must be cool,” right?

And so I drift back to those safer, simpler times. To a childhood that wasn’t perfect, but it was real. That’s what I want to share here – memories, thoughts, frustrations, and funny stories. Maybe someone will smile, maybe someone will sigh with nostalgia, or maybe I’ll just feel a little better getting all of this out.
Welcome to my blog. Make yourself at home. Maybe together, we’ll find a way to bridge the old with the new. Or at the very least, have a good laugh along the way…