Jay Gaulard

August 28, 2025 / 0 Comments

My Jiu-Jitsu Hiatus

The only time I’ve ever taken a deliberate break from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was when Laura and I moved from Connecticut to Florida. At that point, I couldn’t train because I hadn’t found a new gym yet. If I remember correctly, it took me about three weeks to settle on a place, but from then on, while we lived in Florida, I was back to training three times a week.

When we later moved from Florida to Maine, it was a similar story, though that transition only set me back about a week. Aside from illness or minor injuries, I’ve only ever missed a few scattered weeks of training since I began in 2008. I’ve never taken a true hiatus. But here we are in the year 2025, and my mind is tired, so I’m finally taking some time off.

August 21, 2025 / 0 Comments

The One Surefire Way to Fail at Blogging

Casual blogging is easy. There’s really not much to it. You set up a blog and write whenever you feel like it. If the mood strikes, you set aside some time to jot down your thoughts. If it doesn’t, oh well – it’s not as if anyone was expecting anything anyway. You’re not letting anyone down.

Professional (and even serious amateur) blogging is an entirely different beast. While casual blogging is mostly a private exchange between a blogger and a computer, professional blogging is a relationship between a writer and his or her readers. And once that relationship is established, it can lead to wonderful outcomes – or terrible ones. In this post, I’m going to explore a variety of possibilities.

August 14, 2025 / 0 Comments

The Best Magazines of the 1980s

Do you remember when people read physical magazines? Those were the days. Even if you’re too young to have experienced it, trust me, it was a ritual for millions. You could grab the latest issue from a corner newsstand, a drugstore rack, or even the grocery checkout line. And those TV ads! “For only three easy payments of $9.99, you’ll receive a fresh issue every week for a year!”

Magazines had a certain magic; sleek covers, glossy pages, and that unmistakable scent of fresh ink. While newspapers kept train commuters and kitchen-table readers informed, magazines spoke to the style, hobbies, and passions of their readers. The only real dilemma was deciding which of the hundreds of titles to dive into. In this post, I’m flipping through the pages of the past, revisiting classics you might just remember – and maybe even miss.

August 13, 2025 / 0 Comments

Why ChatGPT is My New Blogging Assistant

When I sit down to write, whether on this blog or any of my others, I can get a little carried away. To say I become preoccupied, or even slightly controlling with my time, might be putting it mildly. When an idea strikes, my attention narrows, conversations fade, and my focus sharpens to an almost uncomfortable intensity. It’s not the most pleasant of sensations, but it’s undeniably part of who I am. I do my best thinking and creating in solitude, which is why welcoming my newest collaborator, ChatGPT, has been both a challenge and an intriguing change.

The above paragraph was edited and “smoothed” by ChatGPT.

August 7, 2025 / 0 Comments

What’s Maine Like in August?

August is the month that gives us hope. The humidity drops slightly and the light begins to change to include just a few more shadows in comparison to its direct summertime brightness. The nighttime temperatures also begin to fall into the mid to high 50s. It can be a glorious month, but it can also be downright miserable, just like July was. You really never know what you’re going to get with the month of August in Maine.

August 4, 2025 / 2 Comments

Enough With the Single-Sentence Paragraphs

I get it. Things change in the world, and since the internet has wandered on the scene, things have been changing faster than ever. Clothing styles have come and gone, our beloved English language has become better in many ways but worse in others, and the advancement in technology has gone off the rails. Whether you like it or not, the world today is vastly different from what it was a mere 25 years ago.

July 31, 2025 / 0 Comments

Drought in Maine?

On our property, we’ve got a stream, a brook, a pond, a shallow well, and another three-season stream that’s much smaller than the first. Since half way through July, the three-season stream has totally dried up, both the other stream and brook are all but a trickle, the pond is about three feet lower than its regular level (which is rather depressing to look at), and the shallow well is probably half its normal level. It’s got to be. I haven’t checked it this year, but if I were to go by what I’ve seen in previous years, that’s about where the water level is at this point in the season.

July 31, 2025 / 0 Comments

Becoming a Desirable Online Writer

Have you ever given thought to how many sheep live in the United Kingdom? During my search for this post’s leading photo, a hunch told me I should find something that pertains to Great Britain. Or England. Or the United Kingdom. Or one or all of the above. I’ll explain why below, but for now, just know that since sheep are plentiful in that part of the world, I decided to go with a photo of the very animal. By the way, in case you’re curious, England is home to 13.8 million sheep and the United Kingdom as a whole is home to 31 million sheep. And if you’ve ever wondered what countries are situated within the confines of the United Kingdom, I can inform you that they’re England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now there’s some random knowledge you never knew you wanted or needed.

July 26, 2025 / 0 Comments

You Need Only $100k to Become Wealthy

I should have named this post, “The Reason None of Us are Rich.” That would have been more appropriate because how many of us have the wherewithal to accumulate the first 100k of play (or investment) money? Not many. I can’t count how many friends I’ve attempted to guide toward investing income, only to wallow in disappointment years later after learning that their initial enthusiasm has waned into the abyss of nothingness. It’s a shame, really. Such a shame and I’ll tell you why below.

July 25, 2025 / 3 Comments

The Abominable Deer Fly

I never thought I’d hate something so much.

When I was a kid, I spent a good majority of my summer swimming at a lake about a half-mile from my house. I can remember enjoying most of my vacation days there – from June to early September. My friends and I would either ride our bikes down the hill to the lake or sit our butts on our oversized skateboards to do the same. Either way, we’d end up rolling through that six-foot tall chain-link gate that was attached to that six-foot tall chain-link fence. Ours was a private beach and membership was required. Oddly enough, I only remember one season when the powers-that-be actually enforced membership. They bought some elastic bands and plastic tags that members were encouraged to wear around their ankles. A teenager sat at the gate to police who came through. Again, that only lasted one summer, or two at most. And I’m not sure I ever wore the band around my ankle. I’m also fairly certain that only half the people who visited that beach were members. Relaxed environment would be an understatement.