#greg schwem

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User Manuals, How I Long for Your Return

User Manuals, How I Long for Your Return

Wow, look what just came in the mail today? It’s that new electronic gadget I ordered from Amazon. It’s too complex to explain in the lines of this column, but I’m sure I’ll have no trouble setting it up and getting it to communicate with all my other electronics. I mean, how hard can it be?

This sure is a tiny box. I expected something larger, seeing that there must definitely be a user…

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There's a Large, Painful Font Trapped in my Body

There’s a Large, Painful Font Trapped in my Body

I prefer to keep my health maladies separate from the lines of my weekly humor column, but when a medical professional says your excruciating pain is the result of something “about the size of a period in 12-point font,” I had to make an exception.

Staring at my computer screen, eyes fixated on the period that just completed the previous sentence, my gaze drifts to the urine strainer on my…

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Sorry, I Won't Thank You for Reading This Column

Sorry, I Won’t Thank You for Reading This Column

I recently took a business trip to San Francisco, known as “The City by the Bay” and “The City Where Millionaires are Considered Middle Class.” It’s the only city where, instead of exercising, I shed unsightly pounds simply by not eating.

Hours after checking into my hotel, I met San Francisco’s pricey reputation head-on when I attended a cocktail reception and saw the drink prices. A single…

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Daddy Do-Over Moments with Kelly Clarkson

Daddy Do-Over Moments with Kelly Clarkson

My desire to appear on a daytime talk show waned considerably after Oprah called it quits in 2011. But, each Fall, I still scour the new crop of talkers, wondering if any have room on the couch for a middle-aged Midwestern man who could speak frankly, perhaps tearfully, on…what exactly?

Which leads me to The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Confession, I’ve been a fan of Clarkson ever since she became…

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Elizabeth Warren. Selfie Machine

Elizabeth Warren. Selfie Machine

Elizabeth Warren, exactly what do you eat for breakfast?

There must be something in your cereal, your eggs, your breakfast smoothie, or whatever it is you start your day with, that allows you to take selfies with strangers for four hours AFTER you’ve completed the stump speech that you hope propels you to the nation’s highest office in 2020.

If I posed for that many photos, my first act as…

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Affordable Dating May Require Wearing Cheese on Your Head

Affordable Dating May Require Wearing Cheese on Your Head

My wife and I often giddily discuss our plans to “start dating again” once our kids move out of the house and we officially become empty nesters. And, because we’ve been married 25 years, and those dates will involve each other, there will be no need to first swipe left or right.

Instead, we plan to leave the house and venture somewhere fun, interesting and affordable. Which is why I’m looking…

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Andrew Luck and I are "Retiring" Together

Andrew Luck and I are “Retiring” Together

Thank you, Andrew Luck , for putting retirement into perspective. Today, I am a much happier, and more goal-oriented, individual. 

Luck, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback, shocked the sports world this past weekend by abruptly quitting the game just shy of his 30th birthday. The announcement devastated Colts fans, who watched Luck take his team to the playoffs last year, leading many…

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[gregschwem]

Our Next President Must Master the Slippery Stairs

Our Next President Must Master the Slippery Stairs

Presidential election naysayers, rest easy. For I have discovered the quickest, fairest, most Russian hacker-immune method to elect our next commander in chief. The victor must exhibit strength, determination, cunning, logic and the wherewithal to elude his or her enemies; all presidential qualities, if I dare say. 

Also, the ability to navigate a set of greasy steps while wearing an…

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