Greater Milwaukee Men

One week from today is that phenomenon of the extra day that we get every four years. It is meant to synchronize our calendar to the astronomical or seasonal year, and with our current reckoning we get it once every four years. We could all do well to remember what it is - an extra day - and take into mind the fact it is called Leap Day. To properly honor the day, first - if possible - I suggest that everyone take the day off. Why use an extra day in the year for work versus personal. In fact I think it should just be a holiday - of every other year we work and are paid for 365 days (Ok we aren't really since most only work 5 of 7 days in the week) why should we be expected to work an extra day?

You probably have heard by now of the story of the Madison-area passerby who saw a girl walking on the street, noticed she looked out of sorts, and stopped to see if she needed help. It turned out she did need help, life-saving help. At 15 years old she weighed only 70 pounds and showed signs of abuse. You can find the details of her abuse across all Wisconsin media, but as so often happens, slowly but surely the heroism of the man who helped her gets lost in the horrid details. But let us not forget, there was a man who saw, stopped, and ended up saving this girl from further abuse if not likely eventually death.

I am not sure if the  American Heart Association  picked February to be  American Heart Month  because it is the month of the heart holiday - the holiday of love - Valentine's Day, or for some other meaningful or arbitrary reason, but the correlation still stands and so I am running with it. Giving your heart to someone goes hand in hand with keeping it healthy, since you need to be around to give your love (philosophical concepts about the afterlife and the ability to make contact from the beyond aside). To me the best gift is the one that keeps on giving so for Valentine's Day make your gift longevity and make sure you are keeping your heart healthy enough to let it keep the love flowing. At various time throughout the year I will always stress (no pun intended) the importance of health check-ups for men who rarely do them. For just about every season, every month, every week I can probably find a timely reason to tell you to get a physical but this time it is a...

Thankfully my wife and I have a shared dislike for the conventions of the holidays and gift giving. Well, really my wife is more against it, I would happily get her gifts if she wanted to return the favor. But, many of you are in relationships that call for the giving of gifts on birthdays, whichever winter holiday you might follow, and of course Valentine's Day. If you do follow the traditions, there are great ways to go above and beyond the normal gift and make it meaningful to someone else, and in turn likely to you and your significant other. If you are thoughtful about where the gifts come from, what they stand for, and where the money goes to, you can not only fulfill the requirements of the gift-giving tradition, but you can help others at the same time. Find companies and organizations that use socially conscious practices to obtain, make, and sell their goods and ones that give some of their proceeds to people in need.

Perhaps chose because Valentine's Day falls within it, February is appropriately National Heart Month in America. Heart disease kills an estimated 630,000 Americans each year. It’s the leading cause of death for both men and women. In the United States, the most common type of heart disease is coronary artery disease (CAD), which can lead to a heart attack. In Wisconsin, Heart Disease is the number one cause of death. In 2007, the most current year with data available, there were more than 87,000 hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease in Wisconsin, accounting for approximately $2.8 billion in hospital-related expenditures. CAD accounted for about 32% (14,836) of all deaths (46,117) in Wisconsin. This includes 6,824 deaths due to coronary heart disease, 1,419 to congestive heart failure and 2,632 to stroke.

Yesterday I finally took the opportunity to check out Stag Barbershop, and as far as first impressions go it would hard to have a better one, and a much needed one at that. You see, though I consider myself fairly stylish, I am by no means a slave to fashion. I am pretty frugal and just wear what I like. But for a long time I have been pretty particular about my hair. As with my fashion sense, I am a sort of chameleon and like to change things up so having a stylist that can accommodate that has been important and I had no problem spending on the high end (especially for men's grooming) for my hair cuts.