By Dom Cioffi The moment is burned into my mind: It occurred around 2007 on a weekend when my niece was home from college. I had read several recent news stories about a young tech company called Facebook. The organization had developed a social networking platform a few years earlier that was gaining new users…

By Marguerite Jill Dye  “When ambition ends, happiness begins,” Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and mystic wrote. My husband, Papa Duane, and “I,” “Gammy Jill,” just spent a few unambitious and happy days with our 19-month-old grandson, Silas, in Massachusetts. The days were full and exciting watching him explore the world. There are many lessons to learn…

By Dan Lambert The word has fallen out of use since the late 1800s, but you might hear its echo this time of year wherever streams carve channels through the land. Listen for the sound of water rushing over rocks and bursting into spray at the crest of a wave. The word is “freshet.” This…

Remember those socks that sat all year in your high school gym locker? Calcified, petrified with sweat, they felt like sandpaper putting them on; they smelled like a kimchi factory staffed by gangrenous skunks. Had your mother known that they even existed, she would have slapped you, washed your mouth out with soap, and burned…

By Kevin Theissen Here’s a stock market prediction for you: It will crash. Winter is coming. Wait, you mean spring, right? Nope, winter in the market is coming. We are currently in an eight-year bull market. Bear markets, defined as a period where the stock market goes down 20 percent or more, from highest point to…

By Brett Yates The title of this piece notwithstanding, “Cold Prey” is not technically a skiing movie; it’s a snowboarding movie, insofar as it concerns sports at all. More importantly, it’s a slasher movie: a group of frisky young adults, a masked killer on the loose—it all just happens to take place at an abandoned…

When you reach your retirement years, hopefully you will be able to do the things you love. Your hobbies and passions in life probably had to take a back seat to work and family responsibilities during the years you were employed, but now they can take priority! “They” say that it’s important to have a…

By Dom Cioffi I was in Nashville, Tenn., this past week for a marketing conference. This was my first trip to the country metropolis known as “Music City.” And while I spent most of my day attending lectures and workshops with my 20-something coworker, I did find time to break away during the nights to…

By Bryan Pfeiffer Trees speak many languages, their leaves whooshing in summer and trunks creaking in winter. At the onset of spring, trees become sounding boards for courtship. Before the thrushes and warblers and sparrows arrive to sing from branches and boughs, woodpeckers kick off the spring chorus with a drumroll. Although woodpeckers certainly vocalize,…

By Marguerite Jill Dye Did you know that essential oils fall from the trees to bathe us with healing properties? Inhaling phytoncides improves immune function. Being surrounded by nature reduces anxiety and hyper activity. It puts us in balance with our center, and clears out brain clutter and constant chatter. It synchronizes us with Mother…

My first men’s physique show By Kyle Finneron “Men’s physique debut, you’re on deck!” the announcer said. The other competitors and I looked at each other in a panic. I grabbed a handful of tanner and started to smear it all over my chest and arms. Let me back up, just a bit, to the…

By Kevin Theissen “It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so,” wrote Mark Twain. In 2016, NerdWallet commissioned a survey to get a better handle on Americans’ thoughts about lying when money is involved. It’s interesting to note which money-saving lies participants found acceptable. The list included: Logging on to someone else’s retail or media…

By Brett Yates To make things immediately clear, “Hot Dog… The Movie” is not good. Indeed, one could go so far as to call its post-ellipsis subtitle aspirational, or at least a reflection of a certain need for self-reassurance: “Hot Dog,” a low-budget comedy directed by Peter Markle, really is just barely a movie at…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week’s Horoscopes are coming out in the wake of the Easter rituals, under the light of a Capricorn Moon. There are lots of changes going on in the next two weeks. Between the Easter Bunny and the IRS most of us don’t know if we’re coming…

By Dom Cioffi I took my family to the ocean this past weekend for a birthday celebration. This needed to be a bigger-than-normal event since my son was officially transferring into the realm of a teenager. The plan was to soak up some sun, play a little golf and eat to our hearts’ desire. I…