Why I Retired from Competitive Sports
A few years ago, I officially announced my retirement from competitive sports. I was on a kickball team at the time. I know, it’s not really a competitive sport, but we were in a league with matching t-shirts and referees and rankings and all that. Although we told ourselves we were out there just to [...]
Strawberry Fields Forever
When I was a kid, my family went strawberry picking once a year. We’d scamper through the fields, eating just as many strawberries as we put in the basket, and then go home to eat strawberry shortcake for dinner. Yes, for dinner! Those were the days… So when a friend suggested we go strawberry picking [...]
Call Me Maybe? Nay, Call Me Definitely.
Back in March, I set out on a mission: For the first time in my life, I wanted to write a novel from beginning to end. I had started two novels before that, approaching them as daunting, monstrous works that could only be completed if I took lengthy sabbaticals in a log cabin in the mountains where [...]
Seven Pillars of Success: My Mom
This year I started a series on the blog about individuals who are really successful in one specific area of their lives. I believe that everyone has at least one component of their life that they’re really, really good at. The two I’ve written about so far are John Donovan and Eric Silverstein. Today I’d [...]
The Best Concert I’ve Ever Been To
I haven’t been to that many concerts in my life, but I feel like I’ve said this at least a dozen times: “That was by far the best concert I’ve ever been to.” And then I say it again the next time. Maybe each consecutive concert is inherently better than the last. A few very [...]
It’s Time to Finish Off the Adoption Stigma
The other day I saw the following photo on Pinterest: You’ve seen or heard this type of adoption humor before. It’s a fairly common joke in movies, sitcoms, and online memes. I’m writing today as someone who is not at all sensitive or ashamed of the fact that I’m adopted to say that this type [...]
Life and Death for a Family Member vs. a Pet
Consider the following scenario: Your 78-year-old father gets in a terrible car accident. He lives, but machines and a cocktail of medications are the only things keeping him alive. He can’t communicate at all. The doctor says that they can perform an experimental and very expensive surgery to possibly save your father’s life, but he’ll [...]
Would You Cover a Major Medical Expense for Your Pet?
Consider this scenario: You’ve had a dog for the last 12 years. He gets sick. Really sick. The doctor says that your dog can be cured, but it will cost $6,000 out of pocket for the medicine and surgery, and he’ll be physically limited from then on. What do you do? If the scenario were [...]
The Best Day of My Whole Life
“Dad, this was the best day of my whole life.” –Caine Monroy, age 9 If you haven’t seen the 10-minute video about Caine’s Arcade that went viral today, I suggest you do so here (I’ll summarize below the video). Warning: You may cry. I did. So, there is a boy in Southern California named Caine [...]
Why I Don’t GChat
I don’t GChat or IM or Facebook Chat. Unless you give me a really good reason, I probably never will. I have nothing against people who GChat. If that’s how you like to communicate, keep doing it. I’m not here to convince you otherwise. But I feel like I get asked to switch to GChat [...]
The Top 12 Things I Learned in School…and What It Means That There Are Only 12 Things on This List
We all had this moment at least once, if not many, many times, when we were in school. Moments when we thought, Why do I need to know this? There were all sorts of justifications at the time if we bothered asking. Maybe we were learning something–or a variety of things–so we could know if [...]
Will the Future Be a Dystopia?
Hunger Games fever (not an actual ailment) continues to sweep the nation. If you’re a reader of fiction, you probably know that the demand for not just The Hunger Games, but also all young adult dystopian fiction, has been quite high the past few years (see Matched and Divergent, among many, many others). In fact, I [...]
The Two-Month Gauntlet
I’m going to write a novel by the end of April. That’s at least 80,000 words, give or take a few thousand. I started writing 14 days ago. I now have over 15,000 words. I’ve had the idea for the novel for a while, but it didn’t really come together until two weeks ago. I was [...]
Dear Photograph
Dear Photograph has been one of my favorite photo blogs for a while now. Every day, the creator of the site posts a few unique photographs that were submitted by readers. What makes the photographs unique is that they’re digital snapshots of old printed photos overlapping current environments. So you might have a photo of [...]
The Phantom of the Operation
Several years ago, a woman on Twitter sent me a direct message that read, “Can I ask for your insight as an unbiased third party?” “Of course.” I love providing insight. It makes me feel insightful. “I’m thinking about getting a breast lift. What do you think?” Surprisingly, this was not a come-on. The woman [...]
The Spring Break Mistake
Over the next two weeks, college students across the country will drive to exotic locations for their spring breaks. Knowing this makes me think back to my younger days as a spry young man. I fondly remember those spring breaks, but one of them comes tainted with a big mistake. (Feel free to pause your [...]
Promises Kept, Promises Broken
I talk a lot about grandiose ideas on this blog, but I have to admit, I rarely follow through. When I make these promises, I firmly intend to follow through, but later I’m either not excited about the idea any more or it seems like a lot of work. A lot of these promises are [...]
A Weird Love Story
Sometimes you find love in unexpected places. It creeps up on you and when you realize it’s real, you know you have to have them in your life full time. You even ask them to move in, and you’ve only known them for 2 weeks. You make lists of things that you think you want: [...]
Confession #18: The 11 Horcruxes of Jamey Stegmaier
In the Harry Potter mythos, Voldemort broke his own soul into 7 different pieces and ensnared them in various objects that were dear to his heart so that he could live forever. Put all the horcruxes together and you complete Voldemort. Destroy them and you destroy Voldemort forever. In a similar vein, I’ve decided that [...]
The Tournament of Awkwardness
I think that 99% of all people go through at least one extremely awkward phase in their life. For most of us, it’s a bell curve: You start off really cute as a little kid, you accelerate into full-on awkwardness in middle school, and then you grow into your body and your style in high [...]
High School Jamey
A few months ago, the alumni coordinators of my high school senior class came up with the idea of compiling life updates from a few Class of ’99ers every few months and sending them out to the whole class so we can see what everyone is up to. My turn in the rotation came up [...]
How Did You Originally Choose Your Favorite Sports Teams?
I always find it fascinating to learn how people choose the teams they root for. There’s a wide spectrum of answers, from lineage (you root for the team your dad roots for) to location (whether it’s where you’re from or where you were when you started caring about the sport) to pure coincidence (the underdog [...]
The Oddest Job I’ve Ever Had
Yesterday you read about how Eric quit his career as a lawyer and opened his own food truck. We all have dreams like that. But we also have a history of random jobs, even careers–I read today that the new length for a career is 4 years. So it got me thinking about the oddest [...]
The Comments Challenge
I’d like to throw the gauntlet to people who read this blog. (Wait, do I throw the gauntlet? Do I lay it down? Is it a glove I throw? Like one of those white lady gloves, but for Southern gentlemen?) Regardless of the nomenclature, I have a challenge for everyone who reads this blog on [...]
