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RUNNING CLUB UPDATE w/ Matt Riffle

I’ve always been of the mindset that it’s best to:

• Reject new ideas
• Push back against change
• fight practices that may promote personal growth.

Despite my strong opposition, the Waterfront Hall Run Club is getting a jump start on our New Year’s resolutions. Some of our goals are to increase weekly turnout, make sure runner’s of all levels feel welcome, and better organize our routes and event schedules. Sooo take a look at this poll:

Your feedback is what helps us grow. Actually that would be your attendance. So we want to continue to improve so that we can have both. See you Wednesday at 5:45p & Saturday at 10a.

From Ian at the Bar

A huge thank you to all who joined us for our Thanksgiving wine tasting this past Thursday!

I'm overwhelmed with the amount of positivity that has come from the event and it's given me a renewed confidence in continuing my long term wine education.

Back in 2015 when I first contracted the wine bug I had high hopes of trying to gain as much wine knowledge as I could. Later, when I learned about the sommelier program through the Court of Master Sommeliers, I realized I found my niche and immediately started prepping for my first level course.

I passed the course back in 2017 and for many reasons my wine education has sort of been on hiatus ever since. My goal is to more consistently put a variety of wine events on and by extension my education will organically continue to grow.

So, please keep an eye out for more tastings and events such as Wine and a Movie night, which will be premiering soon!

I also want to remind those of you who are interested that Casa Di Vino is still holding their wine tasting every Friday at 5pm. They do a great job and I’ve enjoyed it more and more every time I go back. The trick is to just get out there drink more wine and talk about it with likeminded folks. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and your table is full of delicious wine.

From Dan

My goal for this Thanksgiving is to stay off my phone and try to be as present as possible. I hope you'll join me!

YES, like you, my cousin will argue that birds aren't real, they are government surveillance.YES, my uncle is going to try to convince me that we should drill for oil on public lands in the name of energy independence. SURE, other family members will talk about reality TV and regard the relationships as something real instead of manufactured drama made to have us all sit slack-jawed in front of the TV and not focus on real problems!

To be fair, I'm sure certain members of my family will be thinking, "Great, we have to listen to Dan talk about Jerry Garcia for 45 minutes" or "Can't wait to hear about his grammatically-incorrect newsletter!" or "Why does he allow his continued desire to prove himself create a locked cage of productivity, leading to his 5th episode of burnout and crisis of conscience? Time to grow up buddy!"

Ahhh.....family.

Well let me make a proper defense for my own and yours this Thanksgiving if we're feeling a little uneasy:

• In 2009, smartphones began to enter our pockets.
• Around 2012, the "apps" (see: facebook, instagram, twitter) arrived on these phones.
• Over the next decade, ALMOST EVERYONE GETS ONE.
• Smartphones slowly become our companion, move to the center of our life, and begin to quietly exploit us while stealing our attention away from the people who matter.

For god's sake, I have to work to keep my screen time below four hours today. In 2012, I spent an hour on my phone and most of that hour was talking to someone I liked!

We have all been changed radically, and I'm not sure it's for the better. Yes, we may now know more about our favorite subjects and the internet is our modern day Library of Alexandria, but at what cost? At the cost of those closest to us?

Let's unite this Thanksgiving by having a discussion around the table about what we have in common:

• Billionaire Technocrats creating algorithms to predict and therefore greatly influence our way of thinking, feeling, being.
• The need to rise up in the face of this and create a world that holds them accountable for the social and cultural damage they've done.
• Developing greater awareness around our technology use and trying to divorce ourselves from our harmful patterns.
• Banning phones from all K-12 schools and all the good it will bring.
• How being in person with one another and developing greater understanding of how this has affected each other is essential to our future.

Check out Jonathan Haidt's take on this to get you prepped and ready:

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I hope you all have a splendid, slow-paced Thanksgiving and throw your phones in a river, stream, or lake.