The Mason Minute

We're less than a week away from Halloween, and that's a big night for both children and adults. The kids go for the candy, and the adults go for the party with the wild costumes. I've never been a big fan of Halloween, and that goes back to my younger days when we all wore those costumes you bought at Kmart or even the grocery store. You know the ones with the mask that had the elastic string tha...

Can we ever make enough money? This is a rhetorical question. I'm trying to follow this gambling scandal currently unfolding in the NBA. And what confuses me is why millionaires need to make more money by breaking the law. Rich athletes, musicians, tech titans, and politicians do stupid things all the time. Yet they have money to avoid getting in trouble. And I'm talking about avoiding the problem...

I don't know if you have the same problem, but whenever somebody tells you to relax, you automatically tense up. I'm not the most chill person. And just asking me to do it makes things even worse. I automatically tense up. Some people can do it better than others, but it's never been one of my strong suits. Back in my younger days, when they were getting ready to drill on my teeth, my dentist woul...

Are you familiar with the concept of dynamic pricing? It’s how airlines, hotels, and even gas stations operate. They determine the price based on market conditions. Availability, or lack thereof, plays a significant factor. And while I understand the concept, it doesn’t make the experience of booking a plane ticket or a hotel room any easier. Hotel pricing is exceptionally frustrating because it c...

If you spent any time online yesterday, you likely found some of your favorite websites down. There was a major outage with AWS, that’s Amazon Web Services. And they host much of the content like video, images, and sound files for sites like Amazon, Snapchat, and Reddit. Plus, they host content for places like CNN Business and Venmo. AWS even hosts the mp3 files for the Mason Minute, even though I...

October is always a special month for my family. It starts on the first with my parents' anniversary and then on the 20th, which of course is today, my father's birthday. This year, it's even bigger than most years because my parents celebrated their 65th anniversary, and today, my father celebrates his 90th birthday. I joke that I've known him since he was 25. And that's hard for me to fathom. I...

One of my favorite parts of the weekend is enjoying a good meal. Not that we don't eat well at home during the week, but I do love dining out. When we grab a meal, it can be something simple or fancy. These days, it's usually something simple. I'm looking for something tasty, quick, and inexpensive. And things like that are harder to find today. It's especially tough when you're on the road. Durin...

I have a decent pain threshold, or I think I do. But there’s one pain in general that, while not debilitating, is one of the nastiest and annoying pains. That pain is from paper cuts. I’ve had recurring back pain for decades, and you can’t compare the two. Back pain is a nagging pain that comes and goes. But paper cuts are a stinging pain that may only last for a few hours or a few days. But when...

Have you ever heard of the lipstick index? It's a term economists use to gauge whether we're on the way to a recession. They base it on the idea that people buy certain items in advance, in bulk, when the economy starts to go south. For women, things like lipstick, eye shadow, and most makeup in general. There are other indicators, too. We talked about one a few weeks ago. It's when certain food i...

I talked about this a few months back. Researchers in North Carolina are looking at changing the traffic lights we encounter every day. For as long as I’ve been driving, the overwhelming majority of traffic signals have had red, yellow, and green lights. But these researchers are working on adding a fourth light to the mix, a white light. No reason for this extra light is to trigger autonomous veh...

I know that Gen Z and younger people prefer text messages. Older folks like me, who don't like them, still prefer email. I stopped counting the number of emails I get per day, but it's usually in the hundreds. If you do any online shopping or ever give a business your email address, you're bound to get lots of email from them. And often you'll see the headline say, "You just visited us —could you...

It was only yesterday that the kids were heading back to school. But many are on fall break right now. Some school systems had a break last week, others this week, and the week after. My nephew Ray is on fall break from college this week. And while the rest of his classmates enjoy the entire week at home, he’s already back on campus because he’s a member of the football team and the football team...

When people find out you live in Nashville, the first thing they ask about is our Lower Broadway tourist District, where all the celebrity bars are located. I'm sure this happens to people who live in Las Vegas, New Orleans, or any tourist-driven city. They expect you to know everything that's happening in the tourist hot spots, even though you never spend any time in that part of town. I even fou...

Sometimes, it's the small things that get under your skin. And while this shouldn't affect my life, it bothers me. I was watching some college football last week and noticed that, with two minutes left in the first half, the referees called the two-minute timeout. And this has been a part of football for decades upon decades. But they never just called it a timeout; they called it the two minute w...

At one point in my life, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. But obviously, I spent too much of it sampling what I was making. But every now and then, I do try to get creative. For a recent office luncheon, I decided to whip up a batch of skillet queso, or, in this case, crockpot queso. I've eaten skillet queso at numerous restaurants throughout the years, and they all have slight variations. Bu...

Here in the south, for many, the beverage of choice is sweet tea. But if you're an unsweetened iced tea drinker like me, you're faced with a myriad of options to sweeten your beverage. You can use sugar or products like Sweet'N Low, Equal, Splenda, or Truvia. It's a newer choice made from the stevia plant. But one of those sweeteners may do something more than replace sugar. It can help those suff...

Like many people, I enjoy traveling. However, as I have found in recent years, I don't travel as frequently as the young people in our office. Many of them think nothing of traveling to Europe for vacation, or to somewhere warm like Jamaica, Bermuda, or Antigua over our Christmas break. While I've been to most states and traveled across our borders a few times, I still want to see the USA on a gre...

I’ve always been a news junkie. I guess I have my father to blame for that. Well, I didn’t mind poring through a few newspapers over the weekend, or the daily edition of USA Today, but the Internet changed everything for me. Now I can explore and delve into a vast array of subjects. Some are serious, and some are frivolous. But I’ve always justified it as a way to talk to anybody about anything. I...

I don’t know many people who enjoy shopping at a big box store. Yes, it’s convenient, and the prices are great, but the experience can cause significant stress for people. I don’t get stressed when visiting a big box store, but at times, I do get a little frustrated. Many busy families are finding one way to go around going to the store. And that’s by placing orders online. Then, stores like Walma...

If you've ever spent a great deal of time with teenagers, it's often difficult to get them to talk to you. You'll get the basics, but it's rarely an actual back-and-forth. And when you do have conversations with teenagers, it's often basic stuff: social media, sports, and maybe, where to find the best chicken nuggets. But it's not often that you can sit down with a young person and talk business....

When you're a digital pack rat like I am, you never know what kind of old files you're going to find. The other day, I was in my home office looking for something, but I don't even remember what it was, and I came across some old files that included digital videos. I shot them back in 2004/2005 and am amazed at how technology has advanced. I was shooting a new country music singer in my radio stat...

Today we're exploring technology, again. But this time, I'm walking down memory lane. When I looked at the calendar this morning, I realized it was 10-4. You know, like the old CB radio catchphrase, 10-4, good buddy. It's hard to believe the CB radio craze occurred just over 50 years ago. Although it was short-lived, it was remarkable how it took the country by storm. Everybody marveled at the tec...

Many people won't admit it, but they fear technology. Everything's changing at such a rapid clip that many people don't know what to do. And some people can even be considered technophobic. No, technophobia isn't a clinical medical illness, but experts say many suffer from this fear. Two of them are my parents. For as long as I can remember, they've shied away from technology. They don't use the I...

Many times, as I'm heading to and from work, I think about how long I've been driving. I recall the things I've seen and the predicaments I've gotten myself into and out of. And I owe it all to my driver's education course in high school. It has been a long time since most schools discontinued driver's ed due to funding issues. While there are private companies that can train you for the road, I'm...

When it comes to celebrating marriage, people always talk about the big numbers like 25, 50, and, if you're lucky, 75. Those are the ones that have fancy names, such as silver, gold, and diamond. But today, the more I think about it, 65 is an amazing number, too. Today is my parents' anniversary. They're celebrating 65 years together. And well, that may not be as glamorous as 75 years, but it's ge...