If I learned anything significant this week, it's this: Defy discouragement. Be unprepared and unperturbed. Just step on the gas.

Four bald tires and a damaged rack-and-pinion steering system couldn't stop me from taking my planned minivacation to Virginia on Thursday. Two soothsayer mechanics had forecast doom, and one told me, unprompted, that he ( Read more... )

Since every successful negotiation requires compromise, it’s become a strategic norm to slip a couple sacrifices into the bartering briefcase. These are throwaway requests made for the sake of bargaining; everyone comes to the table with something they’re willing to give away.

As Havelock residents and business owners prepare to lobby the Super 70 ( Read more... )

The question, so flippant but so intent, tumbles thickly from my numb, drunken lips.

What the hell is wrong with me?

It's a rhetorical query that many utter thoughtlessly. I mull it over like a thesis statement, the crux of a new scientific theory, the pivotal first sentence of that first chapter of that first bestselling novel all us wannabe writers ( Read more... )

The newspaper where I work - along with nearly every daily and weekly ink factory in the country - is printing a year in review package with capsule summaries of the year's top stories. So, as I reflect on 2007, I've compiled a personal list of the highlights and lowlights of another year gone by.

January
+ I rang in the New Year with some good ( Read more... )

 
“It’s not what the Founding Fathers would want.”

That sentiment’s been so often repeated by both Republicans and Democrats that it’s been reduced to middlebrow mush. The political equivalent of “Got milk?”- a once-successful slogan worn down by overuse - it’s actually a concept worth considering.

What would the Constitution’s cartographers do to ( Read more... )

Ambivalent? Not quite. Lost? Well, I wouldn't go that far. Rudderless? Sure, that's as accurate an adjective as any, though it is a rather ungainly, limp sort of word.

Unsure, maybe, is an incremental upgrade. I'm unsure.

With a lot of hard work and a little luck, I'll be debt-free by next summer if not sooner. A clean slate of sorts, an even draw in ( Read more... )

If you’re planning a jaunt to Jacksonville or Greenville to do your Christmas shopping, I have a simple request.

Turn the car around.

Shred the shopping list.

Put those glossy credit cards back in your purses and wallets.

‘Tis the season to shop where you live. Make the cash registers in Havelock and New Bern jingle and jangle like the merry ( Read more... )

 
There’s no right to freedom from offense. There’s no right to freedom from offense. There’s no right to freedom from offense. There’s no right to freedom from offense. There’s no r…

If that’s a smidgen repetitive for you, you’re probably not in government. Can’t say it enough times to penetrate the ponderous skulls of the well-meaning lunkheads we ( Read more... )

Film buffs and technophiles are taking sides in the tussle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray - the contenders for the dominant high-definition movie format. I’m altogether ambivalent about the outcome of this format war, as my choice for home entertainment has long been destined for obsolescence.

I grew up with the humble, hardy videocassette and grumbled ( Read more... )

My dad grew up saying he always wanted to be a mensch. I guess it’s my turn to try - even if I stumble; even if I fail.

Mensch, for the uninitiated, is a Yiddish word that Merriam-Webster’s defines as “a person of integrity and honor.” It means being respectable, honorable, dependable. Someone folks can count on.

For me, it means learning how to be ( Read more... )