The Barn Philosopher

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and Shelby talk about the joys of getting old—or at least all the weird stuff that starts happening to your body along the way.

Ridge has an upcoming eye surgery, not because he got injured doing something exciting, but simply because his eyes are wearing out. Shelby has his own collection of unexplained aches, pains, creaks, and pops. Apparently, you don't have to do anything wr...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Rita and Shelby take our marital disagreements to Marriage Court, with ChatGPT serving up the cases and putting us on the spot.

From thermostat battles to Shelby's chronic lateness, we tackle the everyday disagreements that come with sharing a life together. Who's right? Who's wrong? And who is just making up rules to get their way?

We also mix in a few travel wishes, because apparently even...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge brings a phrase he's been chewing on: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

It's a phrase that sounds simple enough, but something about it bothers Ridge. What does it actually mean? At what point do we confront the sin instead of simply loving the sinner? Can we genuinely care about someone while avoiding the very thing we believe is hurting them? And is refusing to address wro...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, I sit down with Rita to talk about where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001.

Shelby was working in construction, going about his normal day and catching bits of the news on a customer's television. Later, at the lumberyard, he got another update as the reality of what was happening continued to unfold. Rita was new to Ohio a...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Shelby sends Ridge a cryptic message containing three things that seemingly have absolutely nothing to do with each other: abortion, miscarriage, and three liters of soda.

Somehow, Ridge manages to turn Shelby's half-formed thoughts into an actual conversation—and, in the process, occasionally helps Shelby understand what Shelby was trying to say in the first place.

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Rita and I are nearing the end of our trip through Germany, sitting under the trees at a lively biergarten in Freiburg im Breisgau.

It's one of our last recordings from the trip, and we spend some time taking in everything we've experienced—from cuckoo clock towns and waterfalls to the strange and wonderful experience of spending days i...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and I ask a couple of questions that aren't really about us at all.

If someone found a time capsule from your life 100 or 200 years from now, what would you want them to know about you? Not just your job, your accomplishments, or the things that ended up on paper—but the things that actually mattered to you.

Because eventually, everyone who knew us personally ...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and I take on something neither of us particularly enjoys: advertisements.

Shelby has reached the point where seeing an ad can actually make him want to boycott the product. It started with paying for premium subscriptions to get rid of ads, only to watch those same services slowly bring ads back and eventually ask for even more money to remove them again.

Ridge has...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and I just catch up on life.

I give an update on the old truck I'm restoring, Ridge talks about getting closer to welcoming a new baby into the world, and we check in on his ongoing sinus problems—which, thankfully, finally seem to be heading in the right direction.

Nothing too complicated or profound this...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and Shelby introduce a recording Rita and Shelby made while traveling through Germany. We were sitting in a biergarten when Rita decided she had the courage to do something I probably would have talked myself out of—walk up to a couple of complete strangers and ask if we could sit down and talk with them.

Thankfully, they said yes.

We met a young couple in their early 20s. She wa...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge and I set out to do something simple: tell dad jokes.

That plan lasted about five minutes.

We start by talking about the difference between explicit language and adult content. There’s no explicit language in this episode, but that doesn’t mean everything that comes out of our mouths is exactly appropriate for all ages. We spiraled, things got out of hand, and somewhere alo...

TJ is back in the barn, and this conversation takes a long, strange road from monk-made beer to some of the internet's more questionable guilty pleasures.

Shelby brings special beers back from Germany, brewed by monks at Ettal Abbey, giving the guys something worthy of a proper tasting while TJ explains his unexplainably large corn cob pipe, before the conversation takes a sharp turn. Ridge, TJ, and Shelby talk about the things the...

This is a good topic because there's something very relatable about realizing you don't have to finish a vacation just because you paid for it. I'd lean into the "cut your losses" idea, with a little humor around the vacation slowly becoming less fun.

1. When Vacation Stops Being a Vacation: Knowing When to Go Home

2. Cutting Your Losses: When It's Time to End the Vacation

3. Good Money After Bad: Knowing When to G...

Rita and Shelby decided to test their knowledge against a little trivia—and quickly discovered that confidence and correctness are two very different things.

It all started when Shelby came across some surprising statistics about tourism around the world, including how many people travel and how much money tourists spend. That sent the conversation down the road to a full-blown trivi...

Rita and Shelby start with a simple question: Why do we keep buying the next cool water bottle?

From the crazes of the 1990s to today's Owala cups and whatever comes next, they talk about the endless cycle of buying the thing everyone suddenly needs—until the next thing replaces it. But the conversation quickly grows into something much bigger: consumerism and our ability to buy thin...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Shelby and Rita talk about a grandkid sleepover that didn't exactly go according to plan.

Two of their grandkids came over for the night, but things quickly went south when one decided he wanted his mom. Before long, the second one followed suit. Shelby took on the role of protector and tried the tough-guy approach—even declaring that he and t...

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Shelby sits down with his cousin and good friend Arthur for his first appearance on the show.

Just one year apart, Shelby and Arthur grew up sharing family, memories, and plenty of time at their grandparents' old farmhouse for sleepovers. They look back at growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, and how life in some parts of town gradually changed as they got older.

Arthur talks about being glad he e...

Ridge's wife didn't think he could do it. Three nights chaperoning a kids retreat, staying awake from 11 PM until 7 AM to make sure the kids weren't getting into trouble. Fresh off sinus surgery and already struggling to get enough sleep, Ridge probably didn't have the ideal qualifications for the job—but he accepted the challenge anyway.

And somehow... he won.

In this episode of The Barn Philosopher, Ridge tells Shelby about...

Ridge walks into the barn expecting a normal episode. Instead, Shelby has a surprise waiting for him: a roast beef sandwich showdown.

We're keeping the two sandwich chains a secret for now, but one is a familiar name you'll probably recognize immediately, while the other has become something of a rare bird. Shelby and Ridge put the two roast beef sandwiches head-to-head and run them through the same comparison process they've used ...