Life’s a Road Trip

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Kale Sudhoff.

It took just a few episodes for me to notice that almost every guest has a thread that runs through their early life right up to where they are now.

The exception with Kale is that he is still a teenager -- a high school senior!

But as you listen to our discussion, you too will see the thread that runs through him: That of a caring and emp...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Chris Ruden.

I was drawn to Chris as a guest because I knew that we would get along well. You see, we both understand the male ego, we draw from our time as athletes (his being current and mine from my past), and we both accept failing but not failure.

Take a look at THIS video; it's the one that I refer to in the opening. This is a great example of acc...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Nate Methot

May is National ALS Awareness Month (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease) so we're ahead of the calendar, but I couldn't wait to drop this episode any longer. You see, Nate is now in his second decade of dealing with this debilitating disease and his message is too important to hold.

As you'll hear in this episode, we read ...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Jackie Schuld.

Jackie was gracious to do the interview while she was in the process of moving from the Southwest to the Northeast. No, it wasn't while she was driving a U-Haul truck along an interstate highway.

Jackie is our third guest to discuss autism. Her view is a bit different as she uses art to work with newly identified autistics and those who s...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Cam Beaudoin.

After I read Cam's post and image of what I call the "Gap Kid", I immediately went into research mode, and within a few minutes, I messaged him to request an interview.

But that post only scratched the surface of Cam's work. Like many entrepreneurs, it was an unintended adventure while at corporate giant IBM that led him to his company, Ac...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Shannon Hartinger

Being a soccer rat myself, Shannon and I agreed from the outset to avoid 'talking soccer'. This was very difficult for us as the boys Wisconsin State League team that I coach begins training this week and Shannon's high school girls team at Loyola Academy has been playing matches.

For this episode, we talked about the TOPSoccer program...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Denis Boudreau.

From the beard to the tat, Denis is what he says he is, straightforward. 

Denis knows his material, the ins and outs of inclusion, and he gives a damn.

Listen to Denis and you'll come away with a much better understanding of what it's like for those who need accommodation and accessibility when attending a lecture, meeting, or visiting w...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Lori Frisher.

The title of a podcast needs to have a hook. 'The Who' has the song, Athena. But that isn't the hook I was looking for. So I Googled "badass Greek goddess" and Athena came up. Bingo!

Lori is a badass fighter. She's a disrupter, which is where I've been driving the podcast for the past month.

During the show, we talked about her receiving C...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Sandie Roberts

Right from the start, I knew Sandie was deeper than her good looks as a model. Just four years into being a full-fledged member of the disability community, she's breaking the glass walls and the glass ceiling that surrounds this much-suppressed group. This is evident from the heading of her website: "Rolling into confidence, let’s create...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Deirdre Fagan

#loveforward is both a personal statement for the way Deirdre lives her life and a suggestion to the rest of us to do the same. Simple, isn't it?

Deirdre is the third author to appear on Life's a Road Trip, but she is the first poet as well. Listen to her read Most of the Days of the Week, or read it HERE. Pick up The Grief Eater or grab h...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Becca Lory Hector.

I was very happy to have Becca on to discuss her dealing with autism. This allowed me to add another layer to my first show with Mark Harris who provided us with a baseline about autism through his short story, Mute, and the video series that he produced for parents, Interacting with Autism: A video-based resource.

Becca is totally in...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

This week's guest is Anessa Powell. 

 

It seems the more shows that I do, the more I'm pulled into the much-maligned and severely underrepresented disability community. This episode added fuel to my fire.

Anessa Powell is well ahead of me on this front. I found her to be a warrior when it comes to supporting disabled folks who are searching for a career -- not just a job.

L...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.

 

This week's guest is Amy Cook.

I first came across Amy's work by reading Clipping In, a story that pleasantly ties together portions of her life that many of us can relate to and all of us will enjoy. It was here that I learned about Amy's condition, Central Muscular Hypotonia -- Think Cerebral Palsy 

Next, Amy takes us along on her runs through the area where she lives in ...

This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.  

This week's guest is Shuan Butcher.

Having been an able-bodied athlete before I became a quad amputee, I went into this interview with Shuan already having an understanding of the importance of sport. To me, soccer was my art and I assume that the same love for one's sport is in every adaptive athlete.

Discussing Shuan's work with Move United, Move United Magazine, and the...

This is an encore episode as I focus on my teaching.

 

This week's guest is Becky Kekula.

The single sentence definition of the word 'Inclusion' is "The action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure". Now let's expand that a bit: "The practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those who have physical ...

This is an encore production while I focus on my teaching. Enjoy!

 

This week's guest is Chris Kuell.

Chris is a blind writer, editor, and advocate for the blind. He edits The Federationist, the newsletter of the National Federation of the Blind of Connecticut. Chris is also the president of his local NFB chapter, serves on the NFB of Conn., board of directors, as well as on the board of directors of BESB, the Connecticut state ag...

This is an encore production while I focus on my teaching. Enjoy!

 

I had the honor of hosting Mark Jonathan Harris, winner of three Academy Awards for his work on a variety of important documentaries that present the stark reality of such topics as post-WWII and the events that led to the creation of the State of Israel (The Long Way Home) and the British rescue operation known as the Kindertransport, which saved the lives of over...

This week's guest is Rachael Mole.

As always, I do a deep dive into learning about my guests. Each of Rachael's layers had the same keyword: Energy.

And like all of my guests, Rachael cares. She cares about those she serves. And she cares about the disabled community.

To avoid using the label of age, Rachael has done a great deal in a short time. Where she stands now is as the creator and head of Moleworks Solutions Ltd. (Link).

By...

This week's guest is Puneet Singhal.

Puneet is a stammerer and much of our discussion was about his work with this portion of the disabled community. Thinking back to our discussion, not once did he stammer. Not once. 

Now, check out this video of a presentation Puneet gave as he talked about his life with stammering. He's calm, cool, and collected. 

But he's more than this. See his LinkedIn profile (Link) and scan down the list. A...