Piecing together the back-to-school puzzle

Does anybody have any idea how any of this is supposed to go?

You know, back to school. Back to work. Back to the fall routine.

Back to the manic morning shuffle. The back-to-school puzzle. How all the pieces fit together, interlocking in a chaotic ballet of furious activity and utter panic.

When people scream, “Oh, the humanity!”

And someone else screams back, “There’s no time for ‘humanity!’ Forget your shoes and get in the car. Your school will be fine with bare feet.”

Amidst this madness, I often think to myself that this must have been what it was like when the meteor took out the dinosaurs. Only, that was calmer.

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Tips for surviving summer to-do list crunch time

Here we are again. Reaching the end of summer. When you come to the realization that you’ve squandered all your free time on frivolous things like watching sports, nacho chips and a little thing you like to call freestyle nap-drooling. (Don’t look for it in the Olympics, but it SHOULD be there!) Meanwhile, the massive lists you’ve spent the year building – all with the expectation that you would do them during the dog days of summer (so-called because you’re lazier than your dog) – have gone un-filled. Non-complete-o. And you’re running out of time.

If you’re like me, you’re about to start mad-scrambling. It’s summer crunch time for the project punch list. So, I’ve gathered a few tips on how to navigate the to-do deluge:

• Have patience. This is a must. It is highly likely that with a lot of patience, and a little faith, your wife will eventually talk to you again. Remember, the shame and frustration she is feeling over your complete and utter failure to finish a single thing is understandable. Afterall, this is likely the 8th or 9th year you’ve been given the same tasks.

• Cram. You need to think back to your high school and college days. Remember? Right before a test? The one you always forgot about. Until, say, 20 minutes before. But do you know what you were capable of when pressed? When the pressure was on? In 20 minutes, you could do remarkable things. You could plow so much knowledge into your head. You would go into that test feeling on top of the world. Like you owned it! I mean, you still failed. You ALWAYS failed. But for that briefest of moments, you felt really good.

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Not quite the ‘whoopers’ we used to be

“Dang,” I said. “I really thought we were going to ‘whoop it up!’”

Definition of “whoop it up!”: To enjoy oneself and have a very noisy celebration. You know … to party. To cut loose. To go out drinking all night. And to drink things that are lit on fire. Maybe get in a bar fight. Definitely get arrested. But not like major-crime arrested. More like, “Sir, reciting Shakespeare in the middle of the road is definitely frowned upon. I mean, who even reads Shakespeare anymore?”

To cut loose. To run free. To live.

Whoop … it … up!

Because … that’s what you’re supposed to do when your kid goes away on a summer retreat for a week, right? Your 15-year-old daughter. Your only child. Which really means you’re only ever alone when she goes on a youth retreat to North Carolina. And once when she took a middle school trip to Washington D.C. And before that? That 5 minutes she was sleeping in the womb, right before she woke up with a startle and kicked your wife so hard she swears there’s still a bruise on her stomach.

“We are going to ‘whoop it up!’” I remember saying before she left. “We might even cash in your college fund and fly to Vegas. Because we are free, sucker!” (I’m not exactly the greatest parent.)

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Travel is great, but there’s no place like home

Ah, it’s good to be home.

I love to travel. LOVE to travel.

I love packing a suitcase. I love trip checklists. I love the nervous feeling you get when you head out the door, and the excited feeling you get when you arrive. I love buying coffee in strange places. I love trying to figure out how I’m going to manage to go for a run when I only packed one running shoe. (Good thing I brought the duct tape and my flip-flops!)

But there are few things better about traveling than coming home.

I love to come home.

Maybe the best thing about traveling is appreciating how important home is. How welcoming. How comforting. How reassuring.

This is especially true after spending 13 days on vacation, with the last one stuck in a car for 14 hours on a rainy slog from Virginia on the Friday before the Fourth of July.

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Trials and tribulations on a summer road trip

Ah, the good ‘ole American road trip. Nothing makes you feel more alive and in touch with your roots than cramming more stuff in your car than you could use in a year. You set off down the highway in a vehicle so unbalanced that a ladybug fluttering at you aggressively could tip it over. And before you make it two blocks, you realize you forgot your wallet, your toothbrush and maybe even your child.

Two blocks and you’re already heading back home.

Yes, it’s the greatest of experiences. Your back aches. The coffee is usually bad. Most of the hundreds of miles you see are entirely unremarkable, aside from the occasional billboards for “adult stores” that truckers frequent and you have to explain to your child why people like us don’t go there. Luckily, my child is now 15, which means she has zero interest in looking out the window. She has an iPhone and a Kindle that she watches simultaneously, and I spend most of the trip yelling: “Those are going to rot your brain. Now look out the window and count the garbage!”

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The diary of a cord-cutting, wannabe streamer

I’m setting two goals for myself: 1) Try to make $1 trillion by mining bitcoin on my standard-issue home computer, and 2) finally cut the cable cord. I want to do these two things because it seems like everyone is these days. And at my advancing age it is important to keep up with the trends and stay relevant. (Plus, learn some TikTok dances.)

But I’m also motivated by money. Because we all could use more of it, and right now, it seems like all of mine is going to the cable company. I looked at my cable bill recently and realized that I am paying what is equivalent to the national debt of Northern Macedonia. Each month! And I’m sure they at least have some kind hydro-electric damn to show for their money.

Me? I have 82,000 channels and only two that I use: Food Network and any channel with a show on that has “unexplained” in the title. (Someone really should start a whole network called “Unexplained” to capture the attention of people like me. It could be bigger than mining Bitcoin.)

Otherwise, I don’t use it. Actually, that isn’t true. I use it quite a bit as I scroll endlessly through the channel guide in a desperate search for something to watch. Anything with the word “unexplained” in the title. I’m like a thirsty man lost in a desert. Or worse, a zombie stumbling around moaning, “Must watch ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.’”

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A different kind of dad this Father’s Day

There’s an odd book sitting on our side table. It’s not like the other books. The biography of Hamilton. The science fiction tomes. The light and breezy books on financial planning. So comical and perfect for a day at the beach.

This one has a whole different feel to it. Its own vibe or mood. Truthfully, it seems like it’s from some kind of parallel universe. Somewhere alien and un-relateable, as if written in an entirely different language. Kind of dark and foreboding.

It has a word in it that causes heart palpitations and intestinal backflips every time I read it: College.

Which is a little funny considering the fact that I work and teach at a college. Rather love the place. The idea behind it and all that it means. A place of learning. Of higher thinking. Of pushing your level of knowledge and critical thinking as you set a career path and figure out who you are. Oh, and beer pong! Plus, gluing your sheet to the ceiling of your dorm room for no better reason than: a) you have a sheet, b) there is a ceiling, and c) … beer pong!

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With a road trip coming, it’s travel gadget time

I think I might be addicted. Like having a serious problem. Gone-to-Vegas-and-decided-to-become-a-professional-Keno-player problem. Or decided to join a cult. Or stayed up for three days straight trying to beat a video game. (And I don’t even play videogames!)

But all of those would be easy. Instead, I’m hooked on travel gadgets and accessories, and I don’t know how to beat the habit.

It’s been spawned by a new car and an upcoming trip that will see us head off to North Carolina and Virginia, where we’ll zip along winding mountain roads in search of dallying mountain streams. And waterfalls!

It’s a road trip. A rambler. A spend-lots-of time-in-the-car vacation that I dream about. Highways open up in front of you, stretching out for miles in every direction. Just inviting you to come and drive until your butt goes numb and you can’t feel the gas-pedal anymore.

I’m not sure why that’s fun, but I love it.

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The king of absent-minded forgets … wait, what was it again?

I feel like I am forgetting something … Oh yeah, to write this column! Dangit!

Almost forgot.

I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Or if not a lot, at least more often. Forgetting things. Being absent-minded. Not remembering … wait … what was I doing? Dangit! This column … right.

Anyway, it seems to be more common these days. Happening more often.

Sometimes it’s little things. Like leaving the toaster on. Or forgetting to put the cap back on the milk.

There was a green plastic cap sitting on the counter. I saw this and did what comes naturally to most family men in the household: blamed everyone else.

“Hey y’all, anyone know where this cap goes?” I said. “Because clearly it goes to something. Because caps don’t exist in nature all by themselves. And clearly it was one of you because I am infallible, recognize the value of ‘cap management’ and never leave anything out rather than putting it back in its rightful place where it is ‘capping’ something. So, yeah, who did it?”

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A Florida camping expedition beset by dust and sink holes

Dusty tent? De-dusted. Vehicle? Three-inch crust of dirt chipped loose with industrial chisels and diamond-coated scrapers. Body? Soaped, scrubbed and exfoliated. But … still needs another 18 or 19 full washes, plus a professional-grade pressure washing. All to get the layers of grime, bug spray, sweat, dirt and other varieties of filth completely off.

And that was just from one night of camping.

What would it have been with two?!?

This was our big family camping excursion. The one my daughter has been asking to go on. The one my brother signed us up for, along with his wife, 7-year-old nephew and my dad. Dragged us all out to a Central Florida state park along a river with water the color of bad coffee. He picked it special because it’s also known for ensuring you get to see more dust than water.

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