Simple Joe

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here.  I have discovered yacht rock, and apparently I'm about 45 years late to the party! On this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, I'm talking about why I've suddenly fallen in love with the smooth sounds of Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, the Doobie Brothers, Ambrosia, Little River Band, and yes, even Steely Dan. I grew up listening to har...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here.  It's Tuesday, and we're visiting Truro, England, for another round of Tuesday's Random Questions! Today I'm talking about the gift I'm most proud of giving, our family vacations together, and what would happen if the internet disappeared for an entire month. I'm also picking one skill I'd love to download directly into my brain, sharing an old fam...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here.  On today's episode of Simple Joe, I'm talking about popcorn, caramel corn, movie theater snacks, and one of my biggest regrets involving unlimited popcorn refills. We're checking the weather in São Paulo, Brazil, and Cincinnati, Ohio, celebrating birthdays including Dusty Rhodes and Hugh Jackman, and looking back at Christopher Columbus, the origi...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. Who gets the best version of you? In today's Personal Development Saturday episode of Simple Joe, I'm asking a question I've been wrestling with myself: Why do we sometimes give more patience, kindness, and courtesy to complete strangers than to the people we love most? I share some memories of those not-so-peaceful family drives to church, when frustra...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. A Segway tour I spotted while on vacation got me thinking about all the great ideas we gave up on. You know, those inventions, products, and experiences that actually existed, that people bought and used, and then somehow just disappeared. This Friday, I'm counting down my Top 10 Great Ideas We Gave Up On, and some of these are absolutely fascinating. W...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this episode of Simple Joe, I’m digging into one of the strangest stories I’ve seen in a while: the weird trash Yellowstone geologists retrieve from geysers, hot springs, and other hydrothermal areas. We’re talking about more than 20,000 pieces of trash this year, including hundreds of hats, AirPods, retainers, fake fingernails, toys, Pokémon cards,...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, I’m asking you to prove me wrong: is it okay to work a little bit while you’re on vacation? I just got back from vacation, and while I recorded Simple Joe every day, I don’t really think of the podcast as work because it’s something I genuinely enjoy and a creative outlet for me. The harder question is w...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In today’s Simple Joe, I start with the wild story of Daniel Boone’s 14-year-old daughter Jemima being kidnapped in 1776 and leaving clues through the wilderness that helped her father find and rescue her. From there, we check in on Melbourne, Australia, celebrate birthdays including wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino, Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnso...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’m back home in Cincinnati after vacation, running on a little post-vacation exhaustion but happy to be behind the microphone again. Today we check the weather in West Milford, New Jersey, celebrate a huge list of October 5 birthdays including Ray Kroc, Steve Miller, Brian Johnson, Bernie Mac, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mario Lemieux, Kate Winslet, Jesse Eis...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’m a little over a month into the return of Simple Joe, and today’s episode is really about one thing: gratitude. I talk about why I brought the podcast back after a seven-month break, including needing the creative outlet, wanting to stay active in podcasting and coaching, and wondering whether anybody would still be there when I turned the microphone...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’m wrapping up our time in Daytona Beach, Florida, and today’s Simple Joe takes us from groundwater hiding beneath our feet to a Friday Top 10 built around something most of us have probably experienced: being told all our lives that something is illegal, only to find out later that it really isn’t. I talk about the final day of vacation, the possibili...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’m spending October 1 in Daytona Beach, where vacation plans have shifted a little while Karin deals with a bronchial infection, but I still managed to get out for an electric-bike ride along the beach, meet Tony, a retired New York pizza-shop owner now living his dream selling Nathan’s hot dogs and Hershey’s ice cream, and make plans for a Halifax Riv...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been thinking about Batman, Bruce Wayne, and a question I’d never really considered before: how rich would Bruce Wayne actually have to be to make Batman work in the real world? In this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, I dig into what it might really cost to finance the Batmobile, Batwing, specialized equipment, research and development, r...

Welcome to Simple Joe. In this episode of Simple Joe, I’m coming to you from Daytona Beach while we check in on Tangier, Morocco, celebrate National Coffee Day, and work our way through another round of Tuesday Random Questions. I share some vacation updates, including our somewhat disappointing dolphin and manatee tour and our plans to explore St. Augustine, where the haunted and paranormal stuff...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. I’m still on vacation in Daytona Beach, and today I’m talking about why we decided to skip the Garth Brooks concert after it turned into one big decision hassle, and why I’m glad we did get out for an awesome sunset cruise aboard the FunCat sailboat Arabella with Penny, Captain Troy, and especially Nick, the incredible first mate. We saw dolphins, caugh...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this episode, I’m talking about something I’m pretty good at doing: worrying about tomorrow before tomorrow even gets here. Even while I’m on vacation in Daytona Beach, I can find myself thinking about what’s happening back home, what’s going on at work, what we’re doing tomorrow, and all the things that could possibly go wrong. I tend to catastrophi...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Saturday episode of Simple Joe, I start with the surprising story behind Ric Flair’s adoption before checking in on Vienna, Austria, and Daytona Beach, Florida, then move through birthdays, historic events, and a few of today’s celebrations. But the heart of the episode is a Personal Development question: Do you put your shopping cart back? That...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Friday episode of Simple Joe, I’m talking about 10 Real Laws That Sound Completely Made Up , including triangular margarine in Iowa, nighttime seaweed restrictions in New Hampshire, greased-pig contests in Minnesota, Kentucky’s anti-dueling law, Little Rock’s after-hours sandwich-honking rule, Indianapolis horse speed limits, Carmel-by-the-Sea h...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Thursday episode of Simple Joe, I start with a look at the cultural impact of Julia Child before checking in on the weather in Overland Park, Kansas, and Daytona Beach, Florida. I celebrate birthdays including Jim Henson, “Mean” Joe Greene, Phil Hartman, and Kevin Sorbo, look back at a few historic September 24 moments, and somehow work my way t...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, Karin joins me from Daytona Beach for a vacation update covering everything from the first few chaotic hours of the trip to the simple routines that are making this vacation so good. We talk about my airport wallet panic, the rental car that immediately started throwing warning lights, finally settling i...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In today’s episode of Simple Joe, I’m coming to you from Daytona Beach while checking in on the weather for our friends in Saint Paul, Minnesota. We start with the strange realization that hamsters actually live in the wild, then roll through birthdays including John Houseman, Tommy Lasorda, Toni Basil, Debby Boone, Andrea Bocelli, Joan Jett, Bonnie Hun...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. On this Monday episode of Simple Joe, I start with the wild story of former Yankees outfielder Rubén Rivera taking a bat and glove from Derek Jeter’s locker, then we head to Tokyo, Japan, and Daytona Beach, Florida, for the weather. Florida rain sends me down a vacation-memory rabbit hole involving an upside-down attraction, a spinning tunnel, and a fin...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Sunday episode of Simple Joe, I’m recording from Daytona Beach after one of those first vacation days that starts with travel, errands, a missing-wallet panic, rental-car trouble, and finally, a chance to sit down and look at the Atlantic Ocean. That quiet moment became today’s Faith Connections conversation about something simple: God made a wo...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Saturday episode of Simple Joe, I’m talking about using the beginning of fall as a chance to reset without turning life into another giant self-improvement project. I share some of the things I hoped to do this summer that didn’t quite happen, especially riding my bike and getting more exercise, and why I’m choosing to look at fall as another op...

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here. In this Friday episode of Simple Joe, I’m getting ready for a couple of weeks in Florida, so I’m having some fun with a Top 10 list of things to do in Florida that aren’t Disney or any other amusement park. And yes, Disney people, we’re still friends. I talk about why Florida means more to me than theme parks, share some of the places and experiences th...