I’ve always had a soft spot for minivans since a few decades ago when I traded in my Toyota Supra convertible for a Chrysler Town & Country. Okay, maybe that particular event didn’t make me fall in love with the extraordinary flexibility and room of a minivan, but as the family grew, as we added dogs and sporting gear, everything added up to the minivan being a great addition to our vehicular family. Do I…Read More

So, you’ve got a new car? That’s super exciting – both for you and the kids. The anticipation of getting a new vehicle can be great fun – get the kids involved by guessing what colour you’ve chosen, what it’s going to look like and promising them rides if they behave really well all week! There are loads of things we swear we’ll never do when we get a new car – from being adamant…Read More

Want to take your work game to the next level, guys? Certifications are a smart way to do that, and one of the more popular is the Project Manager PMP exam. Here’s some useful info to get you started studying for this one so you can level up your career. The Project Management Professional (mostly known as the “PMP”) is a certification offered by the Project Management Institute that is acknowledged and respected throughout the…Read More

So you love animals but can’t have a cat or dog where you live? Landlords can be cranky that way, and if you’re in the dorms in college or live in a tiny house, well, it’s hard to have a Great Dane or live out your cat lady fantasies in 200 square feet! But pet owners can’t be with their pets 24×7 either, so there’s a surprisingly big need for dog walkers and pet sitters….Read More

I spend a lot of my time in coffee shops, cafés and other public spaces. Hours and hours every single day. On top of that, my oldest now works as a barista at a local tea house and we talk about customers, behavior and her interactions with people. The good news is that 95% of the people who go into her café are pleasant and easy to work with. But at least once every 30…Read More

I don’t wear a lot of ties, though I have a remarkable collection of them in my closet. I do wear a lot of button down shirts, so when I do want to upgrade and go the shirt-and-tie route, it’s not always easy to figure out the best pairing of the two. Does a patterned tie work with a patterned shirt? Can I wear a tie that’s the same basic color as the shirt without…Read More

I drink a lot of coffee but as with most drinks, my tastes run to cold far more than to hot. A latte, a cup of tea, even a glass of orange juice, I’m far more likely to throw a handful of ice cubes in the cup than have it steaming hot. At my local coffee hangouts, they know I’m the guy who gets “light ice” with my beverages, even on a freezing cold day,…Read More

I know, you’re completely focused on parenting and keeping your relationship together, getting to work every morning and making sure your to-do list is checked off by Sunday night each week. But sometimes it’s really important to pay attention to the big picture, to what’s coming down the road. And we all have to plan ahead on retirement because at some point your kids will be out of the house, you’ll have downsized the house…Read More

I’ve been working with a influence marketing company called TapInfluence since it was “The Blog Frog” and its founder and I were grabbing lunch at the local Mexican restaurant while he showed me his startup ideas for the product on his laptop. It’s been a good journey so far, and it’s darn convenient to have TapInfluence in my home town of Boulder, Colorado. Particularly so when the company invited me to speak at its first…Read More

With pets in the mix, it’s always a bit problematic to keep food in the kitchen if it isn’t going to be stored in the pantry or the fridge. Years ago we realized that the easy solution is to simply store the food, snacks, cookies and related in the microwave oven so that once the door’s closed it’s completely mischief-pet safe. I can hear you saying “just train your pets not to get on the…Read More

I love used bookstores and have visited tons of them on my travels. My home town of Boulder is blessed with some good ones, but they’re clean, modern used bookstores, not the classic musty fire hazards that are the mark of a truly great store run by a bibliophile, typically an old guy who’s retired and just loves books. Last time I was up in Montana visiting my son I spotted what looked like a…Read More

This is a somewhat “meta” post because I’m not going to be talking about parenting, not going to be talking about travel, or even about my latest adventure, a drive up to Montana last week. Instead, I want to talk about blogging itself, to share some of my own experiences and best practices working with brands, corporations and PR agencies as a blogger. To set expectations, though, rarely does working with a brand produce cash…Read More

I’m driving along this afternoon and my phone lights up. “Unknown Caller”. I never answer those, it’s almost always just a junk call. A few minutes later “Voice Mail” lights up and I listen: Hello my name is Robert, calling with Continental Document Servers. This message is for David Taylor. David I’m calling because we’re dispatching a process server out to your residence and place of employment today to provide you with legal documents. We…Read More

Perhaps I’m in the worst town in America for this observation, but I’m baffled why people don’t clean up after themselves in public places. I’m sitting at a busy Starbucks in Las Vegas, Nevada, on a bright Sunday morning so perhaps it’s something to do with hangovers after staying up way too late and drinking way too much alcohol Saturday night in Sin City, but still… From observation, it seems like there are two types…Read More

While all of us would like to believe that we smell like fresh linen, a garden full of flowers or something else wonderful, truth be told we humans can end up smelling less than delightful and to make it worse, I know a lot of guys who seems to have jettisoned personal hygiene in favor of efficiency and getting just one more thing done each day. Not an entirely pleasant circumstance, particularly for those around…Read More

I went by the East Boulder Recreational Center this morning as I frequently do and was quite surprised to find that the sign adjacent to the door to the men’s locker room had been updated. It used to say that any child over the age of six should be in the appropriate gender locker room. I never really thought about it before, as it made sense to me and seemed quite reasonable. Even six might…Read More

We are a two cat household and I love cats. Yeah, I like dogs and have enjoyed owning dogs at various times in my life, they’re definitely fun and more interactive, but there’s something about the independence of cats that really appeals to me. Add the wackiness of kittenhood, as we now have with our new 4mo kitten, and it’s great entertainment too, with flashes of fur as our two mad felines fly through the house…Read More

Okay, I’ve got a slightly awkward topic to address today, gang. Intestinal gas. You know what I’m talking about, we all have this problem at various times, and we’re >cough< aware when those around us have this problem too. The problem is, so many holiday celebrations are focused on eating, festive family meals, and general over-indulgence. I mean, nothing says Thanksgiving like overeating and then falling into a tryptophan-induced coma while trying not to fall…Read More

The parade of women with allegations against popular comedian Bill Cosby is almost non-stop, actresses, models and celebrity wives recalling alleged incidents from ten, twenty, even thirty years or more ago. Their claims are enough for many people in the media and the public to find Cosby guilty and condemn him, and Cosby’s having gigs cancelled, a re-run of The Cosby Show cancelled and much more adverse impact on his life. Meanwhile, locally, a University of Colorado Boulder student…Read More

Thanks to my pal Deb Isserlis for bringing some research to my attention about the curious correlation between happiness and suicide. Turns out that comparing the list of happiest states and those that have the highest suicide rates produces a weird correlation that happy people are more likely to commit suicide. Or is that what’s going on? Turns out that it would be more accurate to describe the situation as the states with the highest…Read More