Greater Milwaukee Men

After a long weekend ending with a day of celebration, despite my stance against excessive drinking, a hangover is a possibility to start your day back to work. There are many folk remedies and rumored methods for curing a hangover, but often they are not the best options when trying to live a healthy life style. A recent article at Good.is lists 10 Healthy Ways to Help a Hangover . Among things to eat and variations on burning it off with exercise two highlights include: have sex, and call in sick. Now those are two remedies that have my full support. OK maybe I have a reason to get a hangover...

Chicago Bears rookie J.T. Thomas showed true gentleman qualities when he escorted a girl with spina bifida to her school dance . Thomas heard about Joselyn Levell being turned down by numerous invitations through the school’s bus driver, so he decided he would take her himself. What could have been a little awkward - a 22 year-old taking a 14 year-old to her dance - instead is an inspiring story of a man with a good heart and great intentions. You see, Thomas's own brother Jared has autism so he understands. Great Play J.T., even if you are a Bear.

Did you think you could celebrate Milwaukee Brewers'  pitchers strikes as even more meaningful than a means to a win? Well, by supporting Hunger Task Force's K's For A Cause program you can sign up to make a donation to Hunger Task Force very time the Brewers get a strike. You can even get a cool and unique Brewers shirt if you donate a a certain level.

What makes a man happy? Of course there are lots of things that men want and think make them happy such as babes, 'ball, and booze. But there are simpler things that men can do in order to just have a happier and healthier life. MSN health has an article on the 14 Habits of Happy Men , and most of them are basic things like hanging with the guys (what you do with them is your prerogative) and being healthy. I distilled and combined the 14 down to seven highlights that stand out to me that align with the Well-Met Code  are:

The fact that there is less and less fanfare when people come out as being gay is a good thing, it shouldn't be a big deal. But in the sports world, especially men's professional sports, being gay still has a huge stigma attached. And so it is very admirable that Phoenix Suns president and chief executive Rick Welts recently came out as being gay . As Welts him self said in the NY Times article: “This is one of the last industries where the subject is off limits... Nobody’s comfortable in engaging in a conversation.” The story covers his rise as an NBA exec and the many things he did for his team and the entire league - including creating the NBA All-Star Weekend and slam-dunk contest. Later he would have to hide his grief over the death of his partner to AIDS. Welts now has done maybe more for the league than any of the programss he started.

Fifth Annual Event Encourages Early Detection For the fifth straight year, Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin , Fox 6 , the Milwaukee Brewers and ZERO: The Project to End Prostate Cancer are joining together to encourage men to protect themselves against prostate cancer. Set for Thursday, May 26 (rain or shine), from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Miller Park, the free, private screenings will be provided in a mobile clinic vehicle and in two private rooms inside the stadium. No appointment is necessary. Exams will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first 500 men who complete the screening will receive a voucher good for two tickets to a future Milwaukee Brewers home game. Statistics show one in every six men will develop prostate cancer. The good news is that with early detection, prostate cancer is highly curable. "If you’re over 40, getting checked is a simple step that could save your life," said William See, MD, prostate cancer specialist with Froed...

May is National  Bike Month  and this year Bike to Work Week is May 16-20and Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 2 0 . Sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists , the event seeks to promote riding your bike to work mainly as part of the Green movement. They also serve as advocate of bicycling in general. Interestingly enough, Milwaukee despite a growing bike community - including buses having racks for bicycles - has no events under the envelope of the League. It may just be that no organization is allied with the League as we do have bicycling groups here. In Wisconsin, Bike to Work Week is actually June 6 - 10 (maybe to allow for better weather than what Wisconsinites can experience in May as we are this week and last with winds and evening frost advisories).

National Police Week, which occurs each year during the week in which May 15 falls, recognizes the service and sacrifice of U.S. law enforcement. Established by a  joint resolution of Congress in 1962 , National Police Week  pays special recognition to those law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others. The National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund  is an organizer and beneficiary of events this week as well as the  Fraternal Order of Police/Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary  (FOP/FOPA), which organize the Peace Officers Memorial Day Service at the U.S. Capitol and  Concerns of Police Survivors   (C.O.P.S.), which holds the National Police Survivors' Conference. During a time when the men and women of law enforcement converge on Washington, D.C. to pay homage to their lost companion, please take time to honor your local serving officers. And if your life has been touched by ...

Summerfest - the world's largest music festival right here in our hometown - has a great program this year where you can buy tickets in advance online and a portion of the cost goes to one of 45 charities of your choice. $3 of the $15 ticket cost will be donated. In addition, your ticket purchase counts as an entry into a contest with prizes such as cash or VIP tickets to three different concerts. More info is at Summerfest's website , and here: Summerfest Fundraising Information This year Summerfest is partnering with non-profit organizations to assist them with fundraising. Through this program you, your family and friends can purchase and print your Summerfest tickets online and help raise money for your preferred non-profit organization at the same time.

A friend on a social network recently posted an article on the 25 Manners Every Kid Should Know By Age 9 , and noted that adults should know them too. I wholeheartedly concur and wonder, for adults lacking - did they never learn, or did they forget or unlearn them? In the list are the usual suspects like saying please and thank you, but here are the ones I think are important to being a Well-Met Man: Manner #4  If you do need to get somebody's attention right away, the phrase "excuse me" is the most polite way for you to enter the conversation. Manner #6  The world is not interested in what you dislike. Keep negative opinions to yourself, or between you and your friends, and out of earshot of adults. Manner #8  When people ask you how you are, tell them and then ask them how they are. Manner #12  Be appreciative and say "thank you" for any gift you receive. In the age of e-mail, a handwritten thank-you note can have a powerful effect. Manner #17  If you...

In this space for men's issues, drinking is and will be a common subject matter. The matter of being a responsible drinker should be obvious so I will rarely cover it solely, but I do mention it often within other posts. Today I am moving beyond the drinker to the drink itself. More and more we are seeing breweries, wineries, and distilleries being responsible in the creation of their drinks. Just as with food, a movement towards local sourcing, green production and post-production techniques, and responsible consumption is increasing in the providers. As I mentioned in my article on  Wisconsin Distilleries , two distilleries are being green by reusing bottles and using only local, organic ingredients when possible. There are many craft or micro- breweries that try to use as many organic products as possible and the wine industry is likely farther ahead their counterparts in beers and spirits. The number of organic and green wines at  wine.com  is pretty amazing.  ...

Is it manly to try to eat healthy? It sure can be. What is more manly that a steak, burger, or other beef meal. Beef, the word itself sounds manly. So go ahead, be a man, eat your beef. Yes, you read that right. By eating beef just as you do now - without changing any other practices - you can save calories equal to 5 pounds a year. The caveat is it has to be the right steak or burger - namely grass-fed beef.

Or is it when more is less? A recent article at Details.com goes over how skim milk is actually worse than 2% or even whole milk. This reminds me of the paradox of diet soda . When it comes to food, why do we keep trying to change the food instead of ourselves? It seems to be the new American way - something in our lives is wrong but instead of changing ourselves we try to change the situation. I am gaining weight -  food has calories which are the source of the weight - quick - change the food! Take stuff out of it! Change it's chemistry! Doesn't it make sense? Take milk - it has fat in it, if you take the fat out won't you lose fat yourself? Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Per the Details article -  In 2003, the Cochrane Collaboration, a respected source for unbiased reviews of research, compared low-fat diets with low-calorie diets and found that "fat-restricted diets are no better than calorie-restricted diets in achieving long-term weight loss. Fu...

As the weather gets nice it becomes time to start Spring Cleaning around the house and yard. Besides general cleaning some may take the time to review and purge items, and in general cleaning often things need to be thrown out. What this means is that we can build up quite a large amount of items from home and yard that could take up space in landfills. Instead of just throwing things out there are many useful and even helpful ways to get rid of all this stuff.

In Milwaukee, WI it is easy to know of and find local sources for food and beverages. We of course have local dairies and cheese makers as the Dairy State. And Milwaukee is once again regaining its title of Brew City not because of the macro breweries but because of the many micro- and craft- brewers. You can even get local soda from Sprecher Brewery and Black Bear Soda. But did you know we have a growing craft distillery movement as well producing award-winning gins, vodkas, and whiskeys? In Milwaukee bars you hopefully have started to see products by  Great Lakes Distillery  - mainly Rehorst Vodka and Gin.  Both are rated Excellent by Beverage Experts and received awards at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. I have seen their bottles more and more in local bars and restaurants - even specialty drinks on menus focused on Great Lakes spirits. Great Lakes also started a  bottle reuse program  to reduce landfill from their products. One really interes...