Here is where I will be posting the recent adventures from our house in Billings, Montana. We live in a neighborhood called the Heights. We are about a 5 minute drive from the downtown skyscrapers.

Before it get >90F today, I wanted to go on a hike to earn some sweat. So, I put on padded shorts and biked to Eagle Cliff, which is where Castle Rock Park is. It was a slog 1.8 miles up and the reward was just a middle school. Redeeming factor, once you turn left on Hilltop from Lake Elmo Drive, there is a bike lane!

With any bike ride this summer in Montana make sure you have that camelback.

Being stoic is a good thing. I always equated it with rationality. In this cancel culture and pandemic we find ourselves in, we look inward. Stoicism was a “religion” in BC to AD times. It has many virtues and good characters if you read up on it. If you podcast it up, there is a lot of parallels in avoiding the happiness trap. It reminds me of my favorite TV show -the Sopranos. In one episode it was said, “we are our own worst enemy.”

Here is how you stay happy. Take a walk in the woods and think about everything you have. Nature provides stoic guardianship.

Woke up

did some meditation

Went for a bike ride where I explored new territory

Did some sit ups

Though about who the baby bootlegger is

Heading to the sauna

It was a great time. Learned a lot.

So I wake up at the normal time today, walk into the kitchen to find a half eaten loaf of bread in the wrapper, in the dish rack. I don’t crave loaves of bread in the middle of the night, so I investigated. Little bite marks. Open cupboard door. Of course, Meatball the kitty head cocked to the side wondering what I am going to do. Investigate no further. Kitty 1 -guilty!

Welcome to the site of Thomas (Tommy) Rodengen.