Working from home is quickly becoming the standard business model across the globe. If you’re like many other employees or business owners, you may be looking for a way to improve your remote workstation. For this dynamic, it’s important to have your own designated room or space to work from while at home. When you give yourself that unique area, you minimize distractions, create a personal working location and separate your job from your personal life.

Minimizing Distractions

Whether you live alone or with friends or family, distractions appear in many different forms. They could be other members of the house, household chores or responsibilities. Things like outside noise can reduce your focus as well.

When you designate a room to work in, you remove those distractions from your mind. Communicate with your household members that your workspace is where you go to disconnect and focus solely on work. If you’re in a loud and disruptive area, you can invest in noise-canceling headphones, too.

Watch out for piled-up household chores. The dirty laundry or dishes that you need to take care of can distract you. When you have a space away from it all, you can devote yourself to your work, which helps you buckle down and dive into your assignments.

Having Your Own Space

You’ll need to consider different factors when choosing which room to designate as your workspace. What’s your profession or field? Will clients and customers be visiting? Do you only need a desk and a laptop?

Your job position can influence your space’s structure. If you are a crafter or builder, you’ll need a bigger area that you can stand to make a mess of sometimes. If you need a place for storing items and meeting clients, you may also need a bigger room. Turning your garage into a home office with proper temperature control can provide that ideal workplace. For some, using a traditional home office will suffice as well.

With your own area of the home, you can make it into whatever it needs to be. It’s now your workplace where you can get into the right mindset and concentrate on projects. With all your supplies and materials in one location, you can feel more comfortable transitioning from your daily life to your work headspace.

Balancing the Work-Life Dynamic

As you work from home, you may notice the work-life line starts blurring. However, designating a work area can help you separate the two. A proper work-life balance is one of the most important factors of working, whether you’re full- or part-time. When you’re doing your job, that’s where your focus should be. When you finish, though, you’ll need to disconnect fully.

The room’s physical boundary acts as a threshold. When you cross it in the morning, you’re starting work. When you cross it at the end of the day, your job duties are over. It’s tempting to answer that last email even after you’ve clocked out. However, you should respect your set boundaries, and a separate workstation can help you do that. That way, you can tune into work when it’s time and end it on time as well.

Benefits of Working From Home

When you take these steps to create a remote working space, you’ll start seeing the benefits. You can focus more on your duties during the day and more on your personal life after you clock out. You’ll see your efficiency increase, and you’ll feel more well-balanced overall. It all starts when you designate a unique location for your remote work.

Thirty years ago today, The Charlatans UK released their demo for the song that would start one hell of an amazing career. The song on that demo was “The Only One I Know.”

“30 years ago today we released The Only One I Know. Here’s the demo. Recorded in January 1990 on a farm in Shropshire. Lyrics not finished. Tim on tambourine. We pulled up the carpets to make Jon’s drums sound more garage(y).” -Tim Burgess

While it’s not the most amazing version, it’s still exciting to hear how the magic began. All this time later I’m still an avid listener and fan of the band. They’ve been through several stylistic changes, while never losing track of who they are and what made them successful.

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It appears some beer establishments in Indiana may be opening up further this weekend. I’ll try to have some updates on the list of open bars and brewers on my right rail, what they call that column over there——>

Friday, May 15

Saturday, May 16

Sunday, May 17

Dateline: Bowling Green, Kentucky-November 3, 2017

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is at his home, cutting his grass. It’s an activity familiar to most Americans. Paul has on head phones. He’s intently into his task, when from out of nowhere, he’s tackled off of his riding mower.

Paul is taken to the ground and a fight ensues. When it ends, Rand Paul is left with six broken ribs and some lung damage.

The attacker is Paul’s next door neighbor of close to two decades, Rene Boucher. Although it was insinuated that the attack was about conflicting political views, it turned out to be over Paul leaving his grass cuttings on Boucher’s lawn. This had been a bone of contention for some time. After bringing it up multiple times, Paul wouldn’t stop his lawn mismanagement behavior. On this day, Boucher saw him doing it again and he finally snapped.

What happened is Rand Paul was beat up for acting like Rand Paul.

Rand Paul is one of those guys who likes to believe he’s always the smartest person in the room. He likes to show off. It often leads to embarrassment and in the above case, it led to him getting beat up. Being a U.S Senator gives Paul a forum to to act up. He does it quite often.

It’s hard to get anything done in the Senate. It’s an often contentious collection of one hundred men and women with contradictory ideas. Occasionally they do work together for the common good of the nation. One of those cases was in early March when they were putting together the first coronavirus bill to help Americans handle their economic distress. There was a lot of compromise and it was ready to go…except here comes Rand Paul. He had an amendment to the bill and was willing to hold things up until he was heard in Senate chambers. This meant all the Senators and their staff had to show up to listen to five minutes of Paul’s blabbering. He was voted down, condemned by many senators and the bill passed. But Paul’s ego put hundreds of people at physical risk.

So where was Rene Boucher when the Senate needed him?

A few weeks later, Paul was at it again. He tested positive for the coronavirus. Most normal people self-quarantine after receiving that diagnosis. Rand Paul isn’t most normal people. He continued to show up at Senate meetings. He showed up at luncheons with other senators. He continued to work out in the Senate gym and was even found in their swimming pool. In other words, Rand Paul again didn’t care about anyone except himself. His colleagues were furious at this behavior. Utah Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney went into self-quarantine, while others consulted their physicians.

So where was Rene Boucher when the Senate again needed him?

That brings us to Tuesday. The senate is holding a committee meeting on the coronavirus and what it will take to reopen the economy. Being questioned are the medical leaders of the White House coronavirus task force, including Dr. Anthony Fauci. It’s being nationally televised on multiple networks. Millions of Americans are watching. It’s the perfect setting for Rand Paul to try to bring attention to himself again.

Dr. Fauci says that reopening businesses and schools too soon could lead to more outbreaks and unnecessary deaths. Paul then gets his chance:

“As much as I respect you Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end all. I don’t think you’re the one person who gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge, that we can safely open the economy, and the facts will bear this out.”

Dr. Tony one-ups Rand calmly: “I’m a scientist….I think we better be careful if we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects. I don’t give advice about anything other than public health.”

Rand….Rand….Rand….maybe you shouldn’t pick on a real doctor? A real medical expert? With a degree that hasn’t lapsed?

So where was Rene Boucher when America needed him?

Before we get too outraged, I really don’t condone any kind of violence. The piece is labeled satire and humor. I really don’t want Rene to beat him up again. Besides, the act cost Boucher over a half million in damages. It forced him to sell his house, with those proceeds going to Rand Paul. That’s a lot of jack to give someone a beating.

We don’t know where Rene Boucher is today. Rumor has it that he moved to Florida to be closer to his children and grandchildren. If any of my Florida readers know Rene, please pass this column on to him. His services may be needed again. Knowing Rand Paul, it’ll be sooner than later.

Since we are all still working to limit the effects of this pandemic as much as possible, I wanted to let everyone know about something that I personally am doing this Friday that everyone can take part in.

I have been running free walking tours through my non-profit “Friends of The White City” since 2014 in conjunction with the Jackson Park Advisory Council.

The tour is meant to showcase Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair also known as The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and nicknamed “The White City”.  Anyone who has read Erik Larson’s amazing book, “Devil in The White City” can attest to the significance of this world’s fair on the city of Chicago and it was important enough to be represented as the third star on the current Chicago Flag.

Court of Honor from the Chicago 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

The tour will take visitors to the sites in Jackson Park and The Midway Plaisance where the fair was held and where visitors can still see relics of the fair in the park and at different locations.

Unfortunately, the walking tours have been put on hold during the Covid-19 crisis but Vamonde has been kind enough to feature the tour as one of their Happy Hour Virtual Tours.  So I have been working with them over the last week to put together the visuals and materials for the tour and we are planning to go LIVE this Friday!

This Friday, May 15, 2020, the virtual tour will start at 4:00 pm.    The tour is FREE but you must register for the tour at the link below.  This would be a great experience for those who are homeschooling as a virtual field trip.  There won’t be any walking involved but it will be fun just the same.   Great thing is that we don’t have to worry about getting rained out!

Date:  Friday May 15, 2020

Time:  4:00pm

Register at:  https://www.bigmarker.com/vamonde/Virtual-Tour-1893-World-s-Fair

Hope to see you all there!

 
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Those needles look scary but they can save lives.

Damn, it looks scary. The anti-vax Facebook post shows a baby doll with  20 or so needles sticking out of its arms and legs. Listed below the picture are 26 toxins, antibiotics,  pesticides, and other chemicals that are said to be ingredients of the vaccinations your child should receive by the time they are six years old. Wow, those needles must be sharp and the chemicals sound nasty: Formaldehyde and Borax and Sodium Hydroxide and Many More Awful Things. What could possibly tempt you to shoot those into your defenseless child’s body?

Now I’ve got a scarier list for you:

Hepatitis A and B
Rotavirus
Diptheria
Tetanus
Whooping Cough
H. Flu
Pneumococcal Meningits and Pneumonia
Polio
Measles
Mumps
German Measles
Chicken Pox

In case you haven’t figured it out, that’s the list of diseases that all those needles and vaccines protect your kids from. And in doing so, help protect your neighbor’s kids and your kid’s schoolmates. Protect you too…adult chickenpox is not a pretty sight. You do not want to catch it from your unvaccinated kid.

And don’t tell me that even unvaccinated your child would never get any of those diseases. Don’t say that nobody gets measles anymore. That’s like the old Yogi Berra non-sequiter “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” Kids normally don’t get measles because most kids are vaccinated. When vaccines rates go down, disease rates go up.

Sure. it would be great if we could produce immunity in our kids without injections, or if the injections and the few oral vaccines that are used were 100% chemical-free. But if you have been paying attention lately you know that vaccines are tough to create–and as we will see when a COVID vaccine is available, tough to manufacture and distribute. I’ll suffer a tiny drop of a preservative if it lets me hug my grandkids.

You may hate big pharma. You may admire the brave anti-vax stances of Robert Kennedy Jr, Kristin Cavallari, Robert DeNiro, and other celebrities. And you may think you are doing your child a service by not having them vaccinated. You are not! Now and forever, believe the science. You’ll be doing right by your kids, and doing right by all the rest of us, too.

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I thought long and hard about writing this post. How do I justify or authenticate an exhortation that cries out for indignation and protest against the racial violence that consumes our country when I am writing this from my plush condo overlooking the lake?

And then it comes to me. That is the point of it, the desperate need to speak out from a vantage point that is not a makeshift desk in a four-flat in Englewood!

I take up the cause because I represent all of us with open-hearts, yet faint of heart, taking refuge behind the justifiable concerns of our rational minds: I don’t have the credentials; nobody is going to listen to me anyway; what good will come out of it compared to the risk of some troglodyte MAGA fanatic insulting my lineage, citing my membership in a deep state conspiracy of Jews and dybbuks and accusing me of running a child pornography ring out of a pizza shop.

Better to keep quiet.

Yes, we sympathize with the broken-hearted mothers wearing Black Lives Matter tee-shirts; we feel for the generations of children with second rate educations and stunted opportunities; we are appalled by violence in marginalized neighborhoods and the despair that seeps into the lives of millions of families struggling to survive income inequities, food deserts, health discrepancies and a continuing, unrelenting Jim Crow mindset still pervasive in America.

But better to keep quiet.

Of course we admire the exemplars who decried bigotry and advocated with their lives in behalf of equality and diversity and brotherhood, but really, isn’t it a bit far-fetched to think we’re going to trade in our manicured lawns and expensive condominiums for a rehab in Garfield Park or North Lawndale.

If we speak out, the foul comments aroused on Twitter will be sickening; it will be a shitstorm of insults and threats.

But the start of this week has headlined more disturbing events, final straws that compel me to speak out. I ask you; how can we keep quiet any longer?

Coronavirus is devastating African American communities. CDC data reveals that one third of COVID-19 infections and deaths nationwide have affected black Americans, although blacks represent only 13 percent of the U.S. population. The environments where most live, the jobs they have, the prevalence of health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and the lack of adequate medical treatment have created a toxic storm of severe illness and death.

The shooting death in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery has added another entry to the list of unjustified murders of black men by white vigilantes or police officers; rest in peace Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray and Eric Garner.

The election of a rabid Trump fanboy to union president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, an often-suspended and currently sidelined cop with 35 complaints against him for personnel violations. Imagine the dismay in the black community to have this officer heading up the police union, even as he is under investigation by the department on allegations related to the 2018 march protesting police violence.

So I ask again, what can we white people do?

Do our homework!

Acknowledge the true history of the continent’s colonial origins which exterminated 33,000,000 indigenous peoples in the name of God, Gold and Glory.

Reexamine your benign schoolboy education that glossed over the heinous wrong of slavery with ballads about the Boll Weevil sung by Uncle Remis.

Reject out of hand the insidiousness of “polygenism” the pseudoscientific ideas about race that distorted the collective American subconscious with the bullshit theory of supposed black inferiority. Such pernicious thought exists today despite the advent of modern DNA science, which has shown humans share about 99.9 percent of their DNA with each other, and outward physical characteristics such as hair texture and skin color, about which racists have long obsessed, occupy just a tiny portion of the human genome.

Stop being quiet. Stop being indifferent. Look deep inside and see our own potential for racism… and recognize it as the bleeding, original sin of our country that has been allowed to fester.

Do your homework.

Stream “13th” on Netflix, a 2016 documentary by director Ava DuVernay that explores the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States.”

Ditto the documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro,” a 2016 film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript.

Ditto “Where to invade next,” a documentary by Roger Moore which cites the mass incarceration of African-Americans for petty drug crimes, slavery in a new guise, he suggests, backed up with unsettling newscast images of black people being savagely abused by white police officers.

Read the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection” – nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Respectfully, I ask for forgiveness and submit this poem as a small offering of atonement:

Apology to my African-American brother

Some of my best friends are black.
Hold the snickers and ‘woke’ guy jokes.
I’ve been to wakes and weddings
And blessed am I
To have the colors scrubbed
Blind to the third eye.

Not wholly erased;
How can they be!
The stories my friends have shared
Make me want to strip the white
Off my privileged pale hide.

My friend,
When you tell me the tales of horror
The words go through my ears
And travel into my body
Penetrating deep into my heart.
Swallowing me whole.

And I am not me
Listening to you.
I am you.
I am Black.
And I start to shutter with the fear
That now is mine.

Chained to the wall
In the basement of Comiskey Park
By a Chicago policeman
Who serves and protects
Me.
From you.

Dinner in a loop restaurant.
You the lone black man in the room.
Stares burning a hole our heads.
“What are you looking at? I mutter,
Knowing all too well.

Inspired by and dedicated to:

Lily, the gentle presence in my childhood who taught me that kindness and patience and the sweetest of dispositions have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

Marion, the Salutatorian of my high school class who taught me that intelligence and perseverance have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

Rufus, my teammate on the high school track team who taught me that humor and adaptability and team spirit have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

Barnsie, my army bunkmate and comrade in arms who taught me that forbearance, resilience, and humility have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

John, basketball icon, groundbreaking first Black head coach in professional basketball, inventor of the fast break and my partner, mentor, father figure who taught me that patience, competence, and character have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

Jolyn, my client, businesswomen and assertive female entrepreneur who taught me that trust, gratitude, and civility have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.

And especially, Brian, my brother of the soul, brilliant life coach and family patriarch who teaches me daily that courage, redemption, forgiveness, and love in all its purity have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin.