A garage sale for your mind

A garage sale for your mind

Sign in Subscribe

Latest — 27 Aug 2026

From Paris with Love

I immigration, customs, and (miraculously) was reunited with my checked bag. Then: a vanishing Uber driver, a cash-only taxi, a sketchy neighborhood, and riddle-like instructions to get into the rental house. It was less hassle getting from Tennessee to Istanbul than from the taxi to my bed.

From Paris with Love

More posts

GA to TN to GA to Paris

Delta could not decide how to get me to Istanbul: through Amsterdam, then Paris, then Dallas and London, then Paris again, depending on which agent I last spoke to. One rep fixed it; the next un-fixed it because, "it was weather related." I have now traveled 14 hours and not left my home state.

GA to TN to GA to Paris

VBS Days 3, 4 and 5

I could seriously get used to this lifestyle where I come home from working out and the house is perfectly still and quiet. It's amazing. Thanks to this VBS being hosted by our own church, the kids aren't coming home with dispensational talking points or questions

VBS Days 3, 4 and 5

Bears-o-Plenty

Two bear cubs with no mother in sight, then a full grown bear strolling through the yard. Also on my mind this week: why Delta sabotages its own wifi by snubbing Starlink, which of two insufferable strongmen is worse, and how Apple Insider decided the company Apple robbed is the real villain.

Doing Battle with the Bugs

From the tire shop waiting room: why isn't an alignment assumed replacing all four tires? Meanwhile every soul in the waiting room is over 70+, overweight, and lamenting how hard it is to get older. I am no expert, but the one hundred fifty extra pounds might be a clue.

Doing Battle with the Bugs

Sabotaging the Chicken

I dry brined the birds for one hour instead of a day, ran pellets I already knew barely smoked, and skipped the step that crisps the skin. Naturally the result lost to the overnight marinated and grilled version. None of that is the smoker's fault. It was a baseline, and I'll do better next time.

Sabotaging the Chicken

Fresh off the Boat & Last Man Standing

Nearly every sitcom dad of the last fifteen years is a dopey incompetent. Last Man Standing tries to be the conservative Christian answer and, to my eye, fails so completely that if someone set out to undermine both the faith and the politics, I could think of no better way to do it.

The Tennessee Aquarium

Chose the Tennessee aquarium to the Georgia one so the car would not get stolen, or my family accosted. Found great parking, a splash pad crossed with a lazy river, and a city I keep wanting to move to. Then pizza, a movie, and a book study that keeps making premillennialism look worse.

The Tennessee Aquarium

The Smoker Finally Arrives

A two hundred thirty seven pound smoker that would not fit in the car, a white knuckle drive with no rope to secure it, a mountain of cardboard a boy refused to emotionally attach to, a foil boat for a massive brisket, and the strange feeling of going to bed with it still running.

The Smoker Finally Arrives

The Brisket Verdict

Eighteen pounds, on at 10pm, off at 209 degrees the next morning, and about ten pounds of pellets for the whole cook. Excellent reviews all around. But I learned two things the hard way: trim the fat, because the bark builds on a layer nobody eats, and wrap it far earlier to catch the stall.

The Brisket Verdict

Web Analytics