It all started with a flu shot (I think). The symptoms of a cold come slowly, like a shark slowly circling. First comes drainage. Then comes nasal congestion. Then come watery eyes. Then comes coughing and sneezing. When cold-like symptoms […]
Modern life has a lot of quirks. One of those quirks is the fire drill. The fire drill is a uniquely 20th century thing, made for 20th century and 21st century buildings. And if you think about it, it’s really strange. […]
Water navigation. Entertaining tourists. Playing DJ. Pulling people around on inflatable tubes. Captaining a tour boat on the lake seems like the best job. Or at least, so I thought as I watched a young Lake Lanier dock hand at work today. […]
Have you ever been doing your best to do door to door selling in a small, strange Florida beach town when your smartphone dies on you? I have.* There are few things more stressful – and I really needed to […]
With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein , you can now imagine Julie Andrews* singing about everyone’s favorite part of Atlanta, in all of its silliness and excess and beauty. Yuppies on scooters And gentrification King of Pops snacking and revitalization Dog […]
I’m told it’s important to set realistic expectations for any kind of search of places to rent, so I’ve written down some of my modest goals: 1. Defensibility – Must have arrow slits, good battlements, and plenty of places from which boiling oil […]
In the days of summer in the great city of Atlanta, the goddess Athena favored a youth named James and gifted him with the ability to finish a 5K without looking like a damn fool. James raced in the great 5K games of the Atlanta […]
One of the real pleasures of summertime is stumbling upon that one big hit that everyone you know starts blasting, that every radio station plays, and that seems to be the soundtrack for every fun summer event. Remember “Call Me […]
The post office line is one of the dreariest places to be on a Monday afternoon. I have never been in a packed room that silent, except perhaps for a funeral. At least at funerals, people occasionally laugh. This is […]
(This is not a serious post. A colleague of mine in sales complained about the difficulty of opening our office door today, so I informed him my new workout routine for salespeople would become the subject of today’s blog. He’s […]
I’m a simple man. When I need accountability, I turn to Graphics Interchange Format files. My friends and I have a running group chat in Facebook’s Workplace app. We use it mainly to coordinate our weekly mastermind accountability meetings, where we discuss […]
“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” – Jesus (NKJV) At last. I have been sitting on my outrage for months, and now it’s finally time to let […]
I’ve got some 50 years to train for being the best old man ever. They say you should visualize your success, so here are seven things I’m looking forward to about senior citizen status. 1. I will finally be able to say things […]
Human beings have the precious, irreplaceable gifts of life, consciousness, rationality, and creativity. We are ungrateful little bastards, too. We have gotten very good at wasting our best gifts on petty social media debates about whether Donald Trump is Hitler, whether […]
I live in the bright, sunny South, so when the skies dump snow on us, it’s kind a big deal. Children (and adults) build snowmen, cityscapes become more beautiful, and people slow down. But what I love most is snow’s way […]
If you want topics that spark great, deep, hilarious conversations with friends, you could be like everybody else and buy the game Table Topics for $40 on Amazon. But you aren’t like everyone else. You’re lean, mean, and frugal. You’re […]
This is a guest post by Over-the-Top Startup Bro, James’s professional alter ego. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” – Whole Earth Catalog motto, also Steve Jobs’ Stanford grad address Like most startup founders who moved out to the Val (Silicon Valley, that […]
Dear little girl who wants a hippo for Christmas, You ignorant little twat. You do realize that hippos are some of the world’s most dangerous animals, right? Did your parents drop you a lot when you were little? I don’t have […]
This is half tongue-in-cheek. If you were popular in school, I don’t distrust you – entirely. I don’t entirely trust the popular kids. Sure, when you’re in school, the popular kids are shiny and glamorous and interesting. You only want to […]
Let’s be honest, yellow lights: no one really cares about you. If an alien came to our planet and observed you, he would think your yellow light meant “DRIVE FASTER! CROSS THAT INTERSECTION NOW! SCREW PEDESTRIANS!” You’re like the mom of ten […]
Marketers, we all know direct mail is dying. Open rates are falling, conversion is falling, and eyeballs are moving away from our 10% off coupons to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. This might discourage other professions. But we’re marketers. When a medium is […]
In 1881, American writer Ambrose Bierce began work on a series of short satirical definitions eventually published together as The Devil’s Dictionary. If you’ve never read the entries, you’re in for a sarcastic, cynical treat. See how he defined “dictionary.” […]