A Write Smart hits 100K!

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Well, I’ve got a right smart of friends, and this proves it!  Thanks to an incredible community of über-creative readers who enjoy hard workouts, great writing (not mine, necessarily), a little satire (mostly mine), and laughing their…

My Top 6 Driving Idiots

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The older I get, the more I realize that my own thoughts and experiences aren't as unique as I once believed.  In fact, I've decided that most everybody thinks pretty much the same thoughts.  All day long we're thinking the same stuff while we each think we're thinking different stuff.  Know what I mean? With that in mind, I wondered if you have some of the same driving pet peeves as me.  I bet you do.  I know this because I suspect you're like me — a considerate driver whose goal is to navigate the human legion of ignoramuses each morning and evening without making a trip to the body shop or hospital.  So in ascending order of malfeasance, here's my list of the Top 6 Driving Idiots.

Trail run - 1, Johnson - 0

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I awoke one Saturday morning in September, rolled over, grabbed my phone, and checked the Crossfit workout of the day. "I ain't doing that #*$%," I believe were my first words of the day. I'm not proud of the language nor do I condone…

Top 12 reasons why this 47-year-old HATES Crossfit

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After nearly three years in, I have a love/hate relationship with Crossfit. It's mostly hate. The majority of my 47 years were blissfully Crossfit-free, and I lived out my days happy and free of the dread associated with upcoming workouts and the soreness associated with past workouts.  It was all good.  (Except for the whole fat, weak, undisciplined, out-of-shape, crappy-quality-of-life part of it.)

10 things you should know before visiting Nashville

I've lived in Middle Tennessee 23 years, since 1990.  Next year (2014), my Tennessee total will constitute half of my life, since I'll be 48 then.  So while I'm not a native, I've been around here long enough to be dangerous. Over the…

That first step is a doozy

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Well, you can't say it hasn't been an interesting week. Tuesday morning, March 26, I was awakened not by my alarm clock, but by three mini-ninjas creeping into our quite-dark bedroom and pile-driving me to the strains of "Happy Birthday."…

Snow at Dave Greer Cabin

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I just returned from my annual writing "sabbatical" at the 180-year-old Dave Greer Cabin — owned by my good friends, Jim and Sheryl Buck — in Pall Mall, Tenn.  (You can rent this cabin.  Click here or go to www.buckslodging.com.)  I'll…

Larger than life

(Author's note:  This story appeared in the Feb. 2012 issue of the Tennessee Cooperator.) What Thomas “Bigfoot” Spencer lacked in historical staying power, he made up for in legendary adventure It was probably the winter of…

"No color copiers" revisited

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post called "No color copiers" about a trip I made to Putnam County, Tenn., to conduct an interview with craftsman Joe Stout.  As promised, here is the resulting story, published this month in the Tennessee…

The Top 10 Lame-Ass Reasons Not to Exercise

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Here are the Top 10 Lame-Ass Reasons not to exercise, as I see them.  It's not an official list compiled by the We're Better Than You Exercisers of America or anything.  These are reasons I've heard most often from friends, family, and…