The Mason Minute

Libraries are often something we take for granted since the launch of the Internet. Children don’t need to spend as much time there researching school papers. Back in my day, I spent more weekends at the public library, and I like to think about it. I was constantly researching something for school, and we never seemed to have the materials in our school library. But the Internet has changed all of that, and now we can find almost everything online. Now they’re used more for public meeting rooms, borrowing multimedia materials, and of course, checking out books. But gett...

I have long been fascinated with sports fandom. While I’ve always considered myself a sports fan, I never understood the true meaning of being a fan until I moved to Northeast Ohio in the mid-90s. I never realized the extent to which some people take their fandom to the next level. And it never ceases to amaze me how fans react during championship celebrations. Why people feel the need to go out into the streets to celebrate is beyond me. And of course, we always hear the stories of the violence and destruction during these celebrations. Are these pe...

Twenty years ago, when I first started working in social media, I marveled at the possibilities of connecting families, friends, and businesses in a new yet simple way. But boy, has it changed over the last two decades. There's no way I could have predicted all of the political hatred and silliness caused by memes. A recent meme has taken over social platforms like TikTok, and it has finally hit the mainstream. The number 67 is now a meme, amusing young people and frustrating elders for months. But now that meme looks like it has finally jumped the shark, as they...

For many of us, it’s tough to look in the mirror and reflect upon our lives. When I dig deep, I often think about the mistakes I’ve made throughout my life. But there’s one day a year when I only think positive thoughts, and today is that day. It’s the day my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. And for 28 years, I’ve done something right. I’m blessed to have found the person who makes me happy —and, more importantly, the person I always want to be around. Some might say it’s divine intervention, bu...

Every year, TV news, newspapers, and even the Internet remind you to check your treats. That reminder goes all the way back to my days of trick-or-treating. But while you’re checking your children’s candy, take a look at the wrappers first. You may notice some changes there, too. Many chocolate makers have changed their formula, and you’ll no longer see the words milk chocolate on the package. That’s due to an ongoing cocoa shortage. So now, they’ve had to change formulas for many candy bars. There are many ways they reference the chocolate, but all you have t...

We live in a world where there's a lot of sameness. There are very few local or regional businesses anymore. These days, you can find the same gas stations and stores like Walmart or Target in nearly every city. And most of the places to eat, whether they're fast food or you can sit down, are now chain restaurants. It's easy to find an Olive Garden, Red Lobster Chili's, or a Buffalo Wild Wings in nearly every city. But have you ever thought about the fact that they all started with just one location? At this point, most are owned...

I've had a fear of needles since I was young. Yet that never stopped me from getting my vaccinations then nor now. As I mentioned recently, I just got my flu shot for the year. And I know that vaccines are a political hot button right now. I think of vaccines like insurance; they're a hassle, they may or may not protect you, but it's better to be safe than sorry. One of the vaccines many of us had as children was for whooping cough. But because of vaccine skepticism, whooping cough is making a comeback in Louisiana, and the...

The onset of Christmas advertising is hitting earlier and earlier. Over the weekend, I saw Christmas commercials for both Walmart and Home Depot. And literally as I’m writing this description for The Mason Minute, a Macy’s holiday commercial is playing on the TV. Many would prefer these commercials start after Thanksgiving or, perhaps, next week after Halloween. But with the economic uncertainty this year, and retailers’ need to increase profits, I can’t imagine any companies can afford to wait that long. I only worry that we will soon be seeing these commercials start even earlier in the year...

Sometimes you make plans and then don't follow through. Yesterday, I had the best of intentions. We've been out of town Friday and Saturday, and I knew I had some errands to run. But when I woke up Sunday morning, my body said, "Don't even bother." I knew I could put the errands off for a day or two, and I'm glad I did. We've been on the road a lot the last few months, watching a couple of our nephews play football. It keeps us busy on the weekends, and we're always trying to catch up on rest. As...

One of the joys of being a kid is when a carnival shows up in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center. The rides, the games, the noise, for youngsters. It’s a lot of fun, and you usually never know when it’s coming. But often, in the spring or the summer, a small carnival will appear in a shopping center nearby. But I saw something the other day that surprised me. Driving down the road a few miles from our house, I saw the lights of a Ferris wheel, and as we got closer, I could hear the...

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 that went around the back of your head. I didn't like the masks because I wore glasses, and that didn't make things...

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 in the first place. We all want to live comfortably. But by the time you become a billionaire, how much more comfortable can you get? Again, another rhetorical question... Click Here To...

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 would tell me to relax. It wouldn't hurt. It did. The other day, my wife and I went to get our flu shots. The first t...

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 can change on the hour, or even within a single mouse click. Sure, there are lots of apps that say they can help you find the best price, but you could spend hours trying to save...

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 don’t deal with them directly. For me, it made work tough as I couldn’t access many of the websites I need daily. They don’t go down oft...

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 can't imagine what it's like for him to think about all those years. It's a fantastic accomplishment for anyone. And this one's hitting me a little bit hard. Because...

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. During football season, we spent a lot of time traveling to watch our nephews play football. And your options are often minimal when traveling. I miss the...

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 you have one, you often lose focus, or at least I do. You can treat it with an ointme...

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 items like Hamburger Helper see a sales increase. Numerous factors fall into this lipstick index. I always knew that there were items that the experts watched...

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 vehicles. They’re preparing for the day when there are more driverless vehicles on the road than there are drivers. Testing of this fourth signal is about to begin, and many...

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 please take the time to fill out the survey?" Everybody wants your input. And while there is some value, most people stop filling them out af...

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 is getting ready for a big game this weekend. And keep the players occupied. They have practice scheduled all week for eight hour...

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 found out there's a term for all of the celebrity nightspots we have in Nashville: star bars. Every year, more and more of them open up, and a few...

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 warning. And then later that day, another game, same thing. The next day, watching the NFL, the same thing. Now I understand. It's always been a timeout, but it's...

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. But who knew that one restaurant's menu change would get so many people upset? That's right, some people on the internet are currently expressing...

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 suffering from hair loss grow hair. Researchers have found that combining stevia with minoxidil, the hair-loss agent in Rogaine, can improve the hair growth process. Let me try...

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 greater scale before my time is up. I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that claimed the average American has only visited seven states. I...

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’m a sucker for health news, so whenever I can read about healthy eating options, I’m all in. Yesterday, a story abou...

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 Walmart have personal shoppers who walk through the stores and fill those online orders. The other night at Walmart, I had my first encounter with mul...

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. Over the weekend, I was chatting with my nephew, Ty, and we were discussing marketing. We discussed his entrepreneurship class and some of the products they're currently selling or...

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 station conference room, named Taylor Swift. And all I have are 30-second snippets of her songs. The technology didn't allow us to record anything...

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 technology. And of course, fast-forward to today, and it seems relatively simple, very outdated, and to some downright silly. Today, we take for granted the ability to communicate with others while driving...

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 Internet. They don't even have an old-school answering machine. And the only cell phone they have isn't even a smartphone. They only use it for emergency purposes... Click Here To Subscribe...

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 not sure if the experience is quite the same. The state of Ohio has just announced that anyone under 21 who applies for a license must...

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 genuinely a fantastic fete. I can't even fathom a number that large. And in a world where 50% of the marriages don't last, it should be celebrated in a significant way... Click Here To Subscribe...

When we were kids, we were fascinated with insects. But by the time you’re an adult, you come to hate them. It doesn’t matter what kind, they’re all a hassle. We have a problem with ants numerous times throughout the year. It could be because of where we live, the fact that we’re near the river, or perhaps that they built our house on a slab. Like many places across America, wasps are a recurring issue for us, too. However, over the last couple of days, we’ve been inundated with tiny bugs, and I’m unsure what...

I’ve been hearing this most of my life, and I’m sure you have, too. One of the keys to good health is ingesting the proper amount of fiber in your diet. It’s good for your digestion and will keep you regular. And, of course, it will aid in weight management. But did you know it can also help with your mental health? Most of us don’t consume enough fiber in our diet. Experts say most of us need 30 to 40% more. And while we do worry about being regular and watching our weight, the added benefit of mental h...

I’ve never looked up this statistic, but I’ve got to think that by the end of our lives, at least 80% of us wear glasses for some portion of them. For some of us, it starts early. I got my first pair before I was six years old. I remember getting them midway through kindergarten. And it was one of those revelations where I could finally see the blackboard clearly. But like most kids, wearing them isn’t fun. Losing them, breaking them, and just the annoyance of wearing them all the time make it difficult. Rumors have it that s...

Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about the economy. People are arguing about how we’re doing. Is there a recession or just a lull? Several indicators suggest when people are starting to tighten their belts. One indicator that may surprise you is the sales of Hamburger Helper. If you’re of a certain age, you remember the 1970s pantry staple that makes a great meal. It always sells well when times are tight and people are struggling. This year, sales are up by over 14%. Like many, I enjoyed it in my younger days when times were tight. And if...

If you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you'll often find my media and journalistic background coming through. Due to my years of experience working in the newsroom, I strive to avoid showing bias on any subject. That's why I'll rarely take a stand on any issue. My politics, morals, and philosophies really don't matter. Because I doubt there's anything I could say that can sway your opinion on any subject. Some people think I should choose sides, but that's not my style. While I'm sure I could get more listeners by creating controversy, that's not who...