As a human race, we have a lot of disagreements. However, I think there are two things that everyone on earth, regardless of race, religion, politics and wealth, can agree upon:

1. No one needed a fourth Indiana Jones movie
2. Magic is the best thing ever

I believe that if you’re good at magic, you’ll never have an enemy again. Just imagine if the President of the United States could do magic. During the State of the Union Address, he’d be talking about his policy, and the camera would pan around to Senators being crabby like normal. But then at the end, he pulls out a deck of cards and tells the Speaker of the House to imagine a card and pull it out. The Speaker imagines his card, but can’t find it in the deck. Where is it? He’s on national TV, and he’s getting a little flustered. Finally, the President saves him by pointing to the American flag behind him. What’s that? The Speaker unfurls the flag to find the stars arranged to form the very card he was imagining: the ace of spades. The place erupts, the President is a hero, and the next day, everyone signs up for Obamacare.

I’m not the President, but I do teach second grade boys Sunday School and lead Junior Church once a month. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s no faster way to get kids on your side than to say the words, “I’ve got a magic trick.” So for the past two years or so, I’ve ended my Junior Church message with some sort of magic trick illustration.

There’s only one problem with that: I am terrible at magic. Continue reading →

If we’ve met in person and you filled out a comment card about that first interaction, I imagine it would say something like, “Well he tried hard, and he certainly smiled, but…”

I am not great at first impressions, so I try to learn everything I can from the people I meet. Last week, I came across three different women at Carrabba’s trying to make a good first impression for three different reasons and let me tell you – I learned A LOT. Since I never got their names, I took the liberty of naming them Jen, Jenny and Jennifer.

Jen

I drove straight to Carrabba’s after work last Monday to meet up with Deserae, and I sat for a few minutes after I had parked listening to a podcast, because sometimes I forget that podcasts are not live radio. This gave Jen enough time to stake me out. As soon as I started to open the door of my car, she caught up to me.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to bother you, but my car ran out of gas, and I’m with my kids, and I just need to borrow a few dollars to fill it up at the gas station down the street.”

“Of course!”

I said “of course” because Jen fit squarely into the second of three categories of people I lend money to: immediate family, damsels in distress and the U.S. government. Continue reading →

I had a wonderful blog post full of twists, turns, jokes and wit lined up for this week. It was all laid out in my head; all I had to do was write it on my return flight from Bermuda.

Unfortunately, I was not able to write that blog post or retrieve my laptop or move even a single inch on the plane. I am not telling you this so you feel sorry for me (Again, I was coming back from Bermuda). I am telling you because making fun of airplane travel is the easiest, hackiest blog post to write, but it was the best I could do with the only things that worked during the two-hour flight – two thumbs and a phone.

The following is basically copied and pasted from a super long note on my phone. Sorry.

“Nononono…yessssss. Nononono NOOOOOO…yessss.” This is Deserae’s inner (and outer) monologue as she watches people walk past our row. Two people in a three-person row is Deserae’s first class since she gets to sprawl out even more than she already does. Nonononono…[silence and fake friendly smile as a man sits in the aisle seat of our row] No first class today. Continue reading →

This site has recently gotten a bit of a facelift that wouldn’t have been possible without my brother Scott.

Scott is a computer genius. And not just like he reads a bunch of Gizmodo or is good at troubleshooting Wi-Fi or something. Scott wrote a program that ended up saving a giant retail company over $300,000 a year when he was in high school. Scott is a LEGIT computer genius.

As a computer genius, Scott is also a huge nerd. As in, he owns an “I’m not slacking, my code is compiling” t-shirt that he wears while his code is compiling.

Scott wasn’t always a huge nerd. As a freshman in high school, he played soccer and basketball. Like his older brother, he was terrible at both, but at least he was on the field flopping around and sweating and becoming a man. I couldn’t have been prouder.

But then he started taking apart electronics. I was OK with that as long as the goal was to electrocute or explode something. But then he started learning C. Then C++. Then Java and databases, and before I knew it, he was a full-blown nerd. Continue reading →

I played soccer and baseball all four years of high school. Although I can’t be certain, I truly believe that if I wasn’t the worst two-sport athlete of all time, I was certainly in the discussion for top 5.

People with my skill set are supposed to try Little League for two years, then join the marching band. But a perfect storm of perseverance (stubbornness), undying belief in myself (delusion) and a small high school (He’s a senior, so I guess we have to let him play?) kept me pressing on.

I was a terrible high school athlete and am currently an even less athletic adult, so what reason could I possibly have for playing in my high school’s alumni soccer game last Friday?

I blame it on the shoes.

Continue reading →

Every year, Deserae and I try to take a short out-of-town trip to celebrate our anniversary. Two years ago, I planned the best one ever: a weekend at an awesome cabin in Hocking Hills. There would be sweet hikes, hot dogs over the fire, millions of stars, rock climbing – it was going to be the best.

The weekend finally arrived, and after Deserae finished packing with five jackets (tomorrow night is supposed to be kind of cool), enough marshmallows to insulate our cabin (you like s’mores, right?) and everything else we own (just in case!), we were off.

I was so pumped that I was even able to tune out Deserae’s obnoxious talking GPS for the first few hours. But sometime around Columbus, it started to get on my nerves. Continue reading →

The Life Lessonbook is not usually an angry site. I do not write controversial things about politics or social issues or child discipline.

Today, this is an angry site.

That’s because last week, I met a genius.

It all started about a month ago when my iPhone began randomly heating up to a million degrees and burning through half the battery in 20 minutes. I was a little alarmed the first time my phone turned into a small fireball inside my pocket, but because I am kind of a lazy person, I didn’t do anything about it.

After it happened a few times, I tried resetting it, restoring it and deleting a few apps with no success. Last week, after it happened again, I plugged it into my MacBook Pro at work to recharge it, then a very bad thing happened. Continue reading →

I worked all four years of college as a telemarketer. This isn’t a fact I’m particularly proud of, and I’m still a little nervous that I’ll someday have to answer to a LOT of people who ended up with the New York Times despite not actually wanting it.

Most people who work telemarketing hate it (if you can imagine). The average lifespan of a telemarketer is probably about a month and very few people ever make money at it.

I was one of the few. There were weeks that my hourly wage with commission was two or three times what I’m making now, SIX YEARS after college. I was good because I discovered the two-part secret of telemarketing (and convincing anybody to do anything):

1. Get the person to think that it’s his idea to order a newspaper from New York even though he lives in Mobile, Alabama.
2. GET OFF THE PHONE FAST. Continue reading →

“Planning a wedding is a not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.”
– Dustin Brady, May 2009

Before I got engaged, I was happy to provide this quote over and over when the subject of weddings came up because I was young and dumb. In a few short months, I would learn learn that planning a wedding is a much bigger deal than one would think if one had not been planning said wedding since age 5. If you’re thinking about getting married, here are a few of the things that become very big deals, very quickly. Continue reading →

Nobody likes Bicycle Guy.

Bicycle Guy owns a yoga studio full of tights. His bike weighs less than your shoes. For some reason, he needs cleats to pedal. His seat (which he insists on calling a “saddle”) is half a cheek wide and costs three times more than your office chair. He chooses to ignore perfectly good bike paths so he can clog up traffic in the street.

He is the most obnoxious person in the world.

Last Saturday, I found myself surrounded by Bicycle Guy. That’s because I decided to participate in the Cleveland Clinic’s “VeloSano,” a bike race created to raise money for cancer research.

I did not blend in. Continue reading →