Archive: June 2011

I’m not a theater guy. I’ve tried my whole life to integrate theater into my cultural palette, but have never been able to embrace it completely. I’m just too fidgety. This is not to say I don’t admire the theater. On the contrary – I happen to think that actors are the most talented people within the creative class. But still, I’d rather watch a movie. We saw Shrek the Musical this week at the Belk Theater in Charlotte. We…

I recently changed my Twitter bio. It’s pretty short now, but really is an accurate snapshot of my essence. However, I’m probably doing it wrong by being so essenc-y. And that’s ok. I’ve rarely done it right when it comes to Twitter since I got on here in 2008. If you look around at the bios of the highly successful people on Twitter (aka the people who tweet business links while they’re sleeping,) you’ll see that you’re supposed to use…

“What are you looking at?” the man screamed from across the parking lot. “Yeah? What the fuck are you looking at, asshole?” “Do you think he’s talking to me?” I asked my wife who, like me, was stepping into our car. The man with the long blonde hair and dark beard threw down his keys and started marching toward us. I looked over at my wife, then behind me, then back at Lynyrd Skynrd who was only a few feet away…

It was a rare night when I retired early. I kissed my wife and kids and went to bed. No sooner had I drifted off, my wife woke me up. “Joel! Joel get up!” she said in a forceful whisper, shaking me with both hands. It took at a few seconds for things to register, “What. What is –“ “Shhh,” she said interrupting me and gripping my arm. “Did you hear that?” Through the moonlight I could see that she…

And so here we are off on brave new directions once again. In 2009 we killed our cable television service for an internet connection and free over-the-air HD TV for local channels. And we’re perfectly fine with it. Now, most of our content, as a family, comes via the internet. And not just Netflix. About 5 years ago I wanted to listen to MLB games in our car. So we signed on with XM Radio. It was brilliant. The cumbersome…

I’m so tired of questionable business practices being passed off as corporate benevolence that I’m going to rant a little. Despite my local perspective, I’ll bet this is a universal issue  – so try and stick with it to the end. Last week, our seven-year-old daughter came home from school with a bright green nylon bag that had drawstrings for shoulder straps and the Geico gecko screen printed in blue on the front. She’d attended her class’s annual end-of-school picnic…