Joseph F. Radosevich

My workout tomorrow will be my 208th for this year. My goal was 200. That allowed time off for vacation, sickness, travel, etc. This is my second year setting goals for the number of workouts. I think 200 is a pretty good goal. I switched this year to a physical journal. I love it so much better. It is lined graph paper so it makes it easy to make lists into charts. I highly recommend it. I have done Dan John's Easy Strength plan twice and am now doing Pat Flynn's kettlebell plan in his book  Paleo Fitness for Dummies . There is a saying in the fitness world that a trainer who writes his own plans has an idiot for a client. That's true. I've largely written my own plans over the years so I've been my own idiot. I'm finding holes in my fitness when doing plans written by others. Flynn's plan has me sore in places that I don't normally feel without beating me up everywhere. I plan to use plans written by others most of the time in 2025.  I made progress th...

In my first post, I wrote about books that I read for the first time in 2024 that were my favorites. In this post, I will highlight my favorite rereads of 2024. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I read this 20 years ago or so. When I reread it this year, I was blown away at how great it still is. I've watched movie versions many times with my wife, and this is still fresh and interesting. It's so wonderful. It's not just for women. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. I read this in college in Southern Literature class. I was curious what I would think having read 800 or so books since I first read this. If you like Southern culture and literary fiction, then this is really good. If you don't, then you'll hate this.  The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers. I loved this the first time I read it (in 2023). It is still so wonderful. It's about a 12-18 year old boy, so you have to like young adult fiction. Going forward, I would probably reread the sec...

Close to half of the books that I read this year were rereads. Several of the rereads were my favorite books this year, so I thought I would write two lists: best books that I read for the first time and best rereads. I'm pretty selective about what books to read, so I loved 75-85% of the books that I read. These are just the ones that I scanned on a list and immediately called these my favorites of the year. I'm thinking a new standard for best books is the books that you read again. These are books that I read for the first time. Fiction Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. I like to read juvenile fiction and young adult fiction when I go on vacation. I read this while we were in Williamsburg, VA for vacation. It's wonderful. Everything about it is great. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. This is a really fun, but bizarre mystery. If you like quirky humor and mystery with a little absurdity thrown in, then this is great. This is another young adult novel. Non-Fiction In...

Baptist News published an article on rural churches in Indiana . The author interviewed a number of people serving in rural Indiana. I've heard a number of those comments and trends. I thought I'd respond with my own observations here. I pastor a church with an average of 65 people in a town of 300 people. There is no stop light or grocery store in our county of 5000 people. We are very rural, but if we drive 16 miles, we can be in a town of 10,000 people with a Wal-Mart Supercenter and an Aldi. Here are my scattered thoughts responding to some of what is said in the article. Churches and leaders using 1970's methods to search for a pastor are not going to be successful. A paragraph in the state newspaper or on a job board is not going to get many views or applications. That might have worked in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, but it is time to change how you look for a pastor. Lost people in rural America are not financially responsible for their own pastors and miss...

Dan John's Humane Burpee was a great way to finish some of my workouts last month. It took me around 4-5 minutes. Instead of doing normal burpees which includes a squat and push-up in every rep, this has 15 swings followed by 4 squats/4 push-ups; then 15 swings/3 squats/3 push-ups; etc. down to 1. It is 75 swings, 10 squats, and 10 push-ups. After all my regular exercises, the swings were tough. Each time, I tried to beat my previous time without throwing up. I've started doing a bit of grip strengthening. I started it because I tried a wrist exercise and it felt so good. I bought a kit on Amazon with different levels. It makes me feel good, but I also hope it helps my grip and elbows for doing pull-ups and my finger strength for guitar. I finished In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton. It is so good! I could hardly put the book down. I walked around for a week saying, "And then the sharks came." I also read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I've seen movie versi...