Click to hear MidiEastern by Kevin Shinn, ©2005 I have a friend getting out of prison this week. It’s been an enlightening journey over the last couple of years visiting him and learning about life behind bars. He was transferred to an Omaha facility last year, and it became a half day affair to …
Click to hear Ulcer at Work by Kevin Shinn ©2005 Over the last two weeks, how many of us became riveted to watching sports activities with which we were not familiar or possibly never even heard of? Who knew women’s biathlon would become so interesting that it would keep Karen and me awake an extra hour …
Read more “We can’t right now. We’re watching women’s biathlon”
Click to hear, The Pipa by Kevin Shinn, ©2005 We visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina this past summer. The waters off that island were dubbed the “graveyard of the Atlantic. In 400 years, over 5000 shipwrecks were recorded. Sailors feared that passageway, but they didn’t’ stop going through because it was a …
Boredom is a fascinating human condition. I wonder how much money is spent trying to address or assuage boredom versus trying to cure cancer or address any other disease? What causes boredom? Is boredom really a problem? Should it be labeled a disease? Does my dog get bored at home while I’m at work all …
Click to hear, Abundance by Kevin Shinn, ©2005 I’m currently binging on the NPR podcast, How I Built This. The premise is the same for each episode. Enter an entrepreneur that started a well-known company from a meager beginning in his or her dorm room or garage and hear first hand how it was …
I wrote this song in theory in 1994 for a student conference titled Uncharted Waters. The theme centered around the idea that our beliefs require a step of faith toward a desired future or outcome without always knowing how we will get to that end. I used the metaphor of ocean sailing as the language …
We closed the doors at bread&cup for good last Sunday. It was 10 good years of serving our community. But seasons change and its time for something new. I’m not exactly sure what that next thing is, but what I’m learning is that all good and productive work and activity needs to emanate from …
It’s loss. It’s an ending. A bust. A defeat. A demise. A shortcoming. A lesson. A message. An opportunity. It doesn’t matter what word I use to describe it. It only matters how I define it. If I don’t define it… …it will define me.
Nobody likes to talk about it. It’s as comfortable as discussing religion and politics with family at the dinner table. but I feel the need to write about the F-word. Failure. It’s not something we seek, nor is it something we can avoid. No one attempts an endeavor hoping to be unsuccessful. No one enters …
Welcome to my new blog, 55Degrees.US. This title is full of hidden meaning, but I won’t go into that right now. That’s for later. This first post is directed at me. It’s meant to help me take the first step toward what I already know about myself, but I need a starting point to which …