The Mason Minute

The college football season is just getting started. The NFL begins this weekend. Some say you can feel fall weather in the air. That’s just wishful thinking, at least for now. I saw something online the other day that bothered me, and it had nothing to do with politics. It was ESPN predicting the matchups for this year‘s bowl games and 12-team playoff. It came out a day or two after the football...

For many of us, times are tight. The cost of everything is going up, but our wages aren't going up at the same rate. Nobody knows how this all plays out, but it's not just affecting people. It's affecting businesses, too. Many of our favorite restaurants have been in the news lately. Naturally, Cracker Barrel comes to mind. But there's been a lot of talk about the success of Chili's over the last...

As you know, I spend much of my life online. All of us do. It's hard to believe I've been living online for over 20 years. And the more time that we spend online, the more advanced bad actors become. Because of that, we have to have secure passwords, pass phrases, or passkeys. But wait, there's more. You also need to have two-factor authentication set up for all of your logins, too. Plus, some web...

I sometimes think we're a country that's become obsessed with winning and losing. But more importantly, we sometimes get more joy when others lose. I notice this phenomenon frequently in sports and, of course, in politics. Over the weekend, it was the kickoff to the college football season. One team wins, one team loses. However, some fans are already calling for certain coaches to be fired after...

Every now and then, I love a good conspiracy theory. And the ones I love are usually marketing-related. I’ve long been fascinated with the story of New Coke. Was it all a marketing ploy? Will likely never know. With all the discussion of Cracker Barrel the last few weeks, some are saying this was all a marketing ploy. They had been researching the interior remodel for a long time and were aware of...

I’ll be the first to admit, I probably watched too much television. I come from the generation that grew up on the boob tube, and of course, having a father who worked in the business for over 25 years, it was an essential part of our lives. Scrolling through the TV guide the other day, I thought of something. With all the cable channels we have, what if there were a rule that said you can only ha...

I had to go out and get license plates for one of my cars yesterday. And every time I do it, it's a challenge. You can apply for your vehicle registration online or by mail. But it's often easier to do it in person. I went to one of the county clerk's satellite offices to obtain my license plate sticker for the upcoming year. And because it was the last weekday of the month, the parking lot was fu...

Growing up, I excelled in my science classes in school, but I never truly enjoyed them. I could handle the memorization, but I never understood why some people are so concerned with some parts of science. The fascination that some have with dinosaurs and prehistoric times is something I don’t understand. Some scientists are suggesting that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals began interbreeding tens of...

I hear this all the time, and even say it myself, but we’re living in extraordinary times. Now I don’t know if this is something that happens as you age, or if things really have gotten weird. And this isn’t a rant about politics. It’s about clarification. I’ve noticed a trend on social media recently. Companies, both big and small, are making announcements about internal issues that most people w...

Let’s be honest, most of us spend too much time on the Internet and on social media. I know I do. Additionally, my job requires me to spend time on social media. So I’m on a variety of social platforms from sunup to sundown, and often late into the night. And yesterday I witnessed something I’ve never seen before. I was on Facebook when all of a sudden, everything on the page reset. It was as if s...

I don't do much grocery shopping these days. Years ago, I discovered that staying away from the supermarket helps me avoid buying unnecessary things. I don't know how much it's helped my waistline, but that's what I tell myself. My wife went to the store yesterday and let me know we were switching the cut of ground beef we buy. We always opt for the leanest ground beef, because it's just a bit hea...

School has begun in many parts of America. Some high schools went back as early as the first of August. And many colleges have also returned. Last week, numerous schools across the country received bomb threats. All were deemed false alarms. These have happened for decades. And more times than not, it’s just somebody trying to cause trouble. One of our local schools had a bomb threat on Thursday,...

I've long been fascinated with new technology. While I understand the fear that some people feel when accepting something new, I wonder why we tend to embrace everything the way it's always been. Take reading, for example. For so long, we read things like newspapers and books. It didn't matter if those books were hard or soft-bound; they were familiar. It's the same thing with newspapers. But now,...

I know that I've said this before, but I love brunch. It's the best of two worlds: breakfast and lunch. I've never understood why brunch is better than breakfast, but it's a whole different feeling, and it's just due to the time you eat. Decades ago, there were always one or two big downtown hotels that served a brunch buffet on the weekend. And it didn't just happen in major cities. Cities of all...

It’s been all over the Internet for a few days and even made the national news. Cracker Barrel has decided to change its decor as well as its logo. Gone is the old man sitting next to the barrel, and they even changed the shape of the logo, too. People are upset. But these changes have been coming for a long time. Cracker Barrel is struggling. Their clientele is getting older, and the folksy resta...

I didn’t learn this until the other day, but bananas are the most popular fruit worldwide. In America, they’re neck and neck with apples. I like them, but I don’t enjoy eating them by hand. I prefer them sliced on top of cereal, baked into bread, or paired with ice cream, lots of sauce, and whipped cream. They’re one of the most affordable fruits. But growers tell us we should be preparing for a b...

I know I sometimes talk too much about my first-world problems. Yesterday, I was complaining about smelly dumpsters. Today, I'm talking about something that goes hand-in-hand with those dumpsters; that's cement mixers and dump trucks. I've complained about dump trucks before, about my frustration with their signs telling you to stay back 200 feet. Due to the constant construction, there are a lot...

Nashville is a town that’s always under construction. Not only are we building more houses, condos, and apartments, we’re also building more restaurants, hotels, and high-rises. And with all this construction comes a constant rumble of dump trucks and trucks carrying dumpsters. I drive to work using city streets, and I frequently find myself behind trucks carrying these dumpsters to the city dump....

I'm not exaggerating, but it seems the whole world is obsessed with pickles right now. Walking through the grocery store, I see more pickle-flavored products than ever before. Fast food restaurants like Sonic currently have limited-time-only burgers, tots, and drinks that are pickle-flavored. For me, pickles are something I throw on a burger or eat alongside a sandwich. But I don't feel the need t...

If you’re like me, you check your email multiple times per day. In a perfect world, we’d only get messages that we want. But a lot of our mailbox is now filled with junk mail and marketing messages. I’m pretty selective about who I share my email address with. So I’m usually interested when one of these stores sends me an email. But I’ve noticed a recent trend. One of my favorite clothing stores w...

Through the years, I’ve had the good fortune to eat at some fantastic restaurants throughout America. And while they were great meals, some even memorable, most were just expensive. But there’s one memory in life that stays with me, and that was eating dinner at one of those inexpensive steakhouses back in the day. And it wasn’t because the steak was that good, it was that all you can eat salad ba...

I'm an emotional person. I have always been good or bad. I wear my heart on my sleeve. And while there are times, I wish I didn't show any reaction, it's just not who I am. People who know me and love me say it's one of my better qualities. I'm sure others disagree. We live in a world where people don't ever want you to see their emotions, at least the real ones. But when it comes to pure emotion,...

We get a lot of severe weather in Nashville. Many experts say that it has to do with our climate and where we’re situated amongst the states. And as climate change affects us all, these storms seem to be getting worse. We rarely get simple rain showers; we get severe ones filled with thunder and lightning. And many of them happen overnight. We had some severe weather the other night, and at about...

I truly marvel at all of the changes that have happened throughout my lifetime. I’m not just talking about a man going to the moon, I’m talking about technology. Advancements like our smartphones and the Internet have significantly impacted our lives. It’s hard to imagine the time before the Internet. Kids today don’t know what life was like before the Internet. A small part of the Internet is goi...

Your parents taught you how to brush your teeth when you were roughly two or three years old. And you do it multiple times a day, day in and day out. But no matter how old you are, you’re likely making some mistakes when it comes to how you brush. Most people spend less than a minute brushing their teeth, even though dentists recommend spending at least two minutes to do it correctly. Even though...