Listening to wisdom from a babbling mountain stream

There’s a little mountain stream outside of Blowing Rock, N.C. It’s down a winding road with a grade so steep it will rip the gears out of a transmission. When you drive that winding road, your vehicle groans and curses and threatens to leave you stranded. This stream runs beside a cabin. If your transmission holds out, you can make it there. You can sit on its porches beside the stream and listen to the water. It talks to you. You should do this. A Carolina mountain stream has much to say. But you have to take the time to sit and listen. To take in its wisdom. To hear what it’s trying to tell you.

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You know you’re a true Floridian when …

And now it’s time to play another game of, “You know you’re a true Floridian when …” This week’s theme is: Mosquitoes! Oh yes, something we all know about. If you’re a real Floridian, you’ve spent most of your life covered in red welts and scratching like a deranged dog. You’ve probably asked a mosquito to drive you home after one too many. Some of your cousins are even mosquitoes.

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Making sense of Sea Monkeys

It was an incredible amount of pressure. I was home alone for the night. My wife and child were in Orlando with friends. I was ready to kick back on the sofa and wait for my mother to call and suggest PBS shows I should watch: “Brian, the 12-toed Australian sea sloth is on at 9. You should really watch it!” The phone did ring. It wasn’t my mother, though. It was my wife and child. They had something important they needed me to do. My evening was shattered. No relaxation. I was on … Sea-Monkey duty!

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Thoughts on business travel and wonks in Washington D.C.

I’ve always said St. Augustine is the Bermuda Triangle of Florida because you get in and can’t get out. Not that anyone’s trying. It’s the perfect place to be stuck, and you always count yourself lucky when you return to a place like this. That’s especially true when you go to a conference in, say, the nation’s capital. I love traveling. Especially to a city like Washington D.C. There are monuments everywhere. Museums that sell astronaut ice cream. And a plethora of people who can speak cogently about Chapter 13, Section 12, Item B, Paragraph 42 of the Affordable Care Act. They do! Everywhere you go! And boy, it sure is interesting! It makes you realize the best part of St. Augustine: Coming home. But as always, I learned a few things while away, and I thought I would share:

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