Packing for vacation is easy. Said no one with a big family, five dogs, and a 3-row SUV ever. There’s an art to it. A science. A delicate balance between geometry, physics, hope, and delusion. And in our case, just enough chaos to keep things spicy. Let me paint the picture: we had seven passengers. Five dogs minimum. A Ford Expedition that, despite its name, was not designed for actual expeditions. And a family that couldn’t travel light if their lives depended on it. Let’s start with the girls. Now, I love my daughters. I would do anything for them. But these women pack like they’re fleeing a war zone and heading into a five-season reality show. Alida once packed two full suitcases, a duffle bag, and a backpack for a five-day trip. Five. Days. I asked her what was in there. She said, “Options.” I said, “What are you, a pop star on tour?” Meanwhile, Jamie’s trying to fit the dogs’ food, treats, travel crates, blankies, and “special bowls” because God forbid they drink out of ...

Years ago, I was working in Suffern, New York, as a fresh-faced estimator at a body shop built inside an old firehouse. It was a weird, gritty place—charming in the way that asbestos and oil-stained floor drains can be. The owner was smart, successful, and yelled at me every single day. I think he thought that was “mentorship.” And maybe it was. Honestly, if he’d just slowed down long enough to explain why he was yelling, I probably could’ve learned a lot faster. But I picked it up anyway, mostly by absorbing stress like a shop towel. One of the strangest parts of the job was this: when a car was done, it was my responsibility to deliver it to the customer. That meant final inspection, collecting the deductible, answering questions, and making sure the car didn’t look like it had been parked in a haunted sawmill. The problem? We didn’t wash our own cars. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we couldn’t . I don’t remember if it was a village ordinance, a plumbing issue, or jus...

There was a time—not long ago—when I thought I’d finished all the weird hoops required to become a licensed, credentialed, officially government-approved human being. I’ve passed tests. I’ve paid fees. I’ve driven hours in pursuit of laminated cards and mysterious stamps. And now, as of this week, I’ve apparently been fingerprinted so many times I’m starting to wonder if the feds are building a mosaic. Yesterday I drove to Florence for digital fingerprints—quick, clean, and impersonal. The kind where your fingers dance across a sleek scanner like they’re auditioning for a futuristic piano recital. And today? Well, today I’m at the local sheriff’s station, pressing inked fingers onto a card like it’s 1956 and I just got picked up for stealing hubcaps and talking back to a teacher. That’s two days, two States, two separate fingerprinting methods. Same guy. Same prints. Slightly less dignity with each stop. Now, I don’t want to sound paranoid—but somewhere, deep in the government c...

There’s a line from an old Eagles song—something about how you can spend all your time making money, or all your money making time. I don’t remember it exactly, but I know what it means. You blink, and five years have gone by. You’ve worked, raised kids, paid bills, cleaned floors, and maybe you even squeezed in a family vacation or two. But somewhere in all that chaos, you forgot to take each other somewhere. Just the two of you. That was us. Me and Jamie realized one day—probably in the kitchen, over lukewarm coffee—that we hadn’t been alone in years. I don’t mean just date nights. I mean away. Gone. Phones ignored, dogs with someone else, no kids asking what’s for dinner or who took the charger. Alone. So she said, “Go ahead. Plan something.” I asked her what she wanted, and all she said was, “I’d like to be by the ocean.” That girl loves the ocean. The Plan (and the Breakdown) I had it all mapped out. I remembered a National Geographic article I saw once in a waiting room...

A bunch of years ago, when the kids were little and life felt a little more portable, Jamie and I bought a Coleman Bayside pop-up camper with a slide-out kitchen. It wasn’t fancy, it had some issues, but it had heart—and room. Two king-size slideouts, a couple of twin-sized kid beds, and a little full tucked inside made it the perfect mobile basecamp for our chaotic crew. It even had a stove that could mount outside for those greasy summer breakfasts or inside if the weather turned. the kitchen that slid out and the little cargo box up front made it all work. Still proud of how I backed this up under a tree with just enough room to pop .. The shade from the beach sun was well worth Jamie yelling at me to go further right for 20 minutes Eventually, I scored an awning and poured more money than I’d care to admit into the roof, which was always threatening to shed itself like a sunburnt snake. Those Colemans had a delamination issue, and at highway speed, ours could fling off plasti...

  I’ve been a commuter my entire life. And I don’t mean twenty minutes down a sleepy road while sipping a latte—I mean real commuting. Mileage. Wear patterns. The slow erosion of the soul. commutes so long that sometimes it had a bathroom break. It started in upstate New York: Bloomingburg to Kingston. Pine Bush to Poughkeepsie. Then Bloomingburg to Hackensack. There was never an “easy” drive. Just traffic, construction, deer, fog, and that one guy who always drove like he had diplomatic immunity. To make a living you had to travel, I used to joke that every county line equaled another Ten thousand dollars in pay When I moved to North Carolina, the pattern didn’t break—it just shifted regions. For years, I went from Mt. Gilead to Fayetteville, then Mt. Gilead to Monroe. Long stretches of road, the same faded billboards, the same gas stations, the same little mental tricks to stay awake during that last stretch home. The best part about driving home from FayetteNam is I could occasi...

I graduated today. No cap, no gown. No champagne pop or emotional slideshow. Just a cheesy little Teams ceremony, a few Little jokes, with the team that went through so much together in short time, and a quiet moment when they said we were done. Cohort training complete. They released us into the wild. So here I am—on the porch, watching the water drop from Jamie Lee’s little waterfall. There’s sunlight on my feet. No Team pings. No breakout rooms. No scripted claim scenarios to run through one more time. I thought I’d feel something bigger. A spark, a fire, some kind of “next chapter” energy. But what I feel instead is stillness—and maybe that’s the point. We’re all so conditioned to chase the next thing. The hustle. The grind. But maybe this little moment—graduated, unplugged, sitting in the sun with a homemade DIY waterfall and a fake diploma—is the actual reward. A couple months ago, after more than a decade away, I started blogging again. Not because I’m building a brand or...

  I’m nearing the end of my formal remote classroom training, and this week I officially did the thing: I settled actual claims. For actual people. For actual damage. From behind a desk in beautiful North Carolina. Somewhere in California, a check is on the way. Same for someone in Las Vegas. And Alabama. And Ohio. Even a claim from Winnemucca, Nevada landed on my screen. Which is how I ended up humming Johnny Cash all day: "I was totin' my pack along the dusty Winnemucca road..."  So I wound up humming Johnny Cash all day, thinking about all the places in that song—Reno, Barstow, San Antoni—places I’ve never been but somehow feel like I have after hearing them loop through my brain for hours. Winnemucca, of course, started it, but by lunch I’d mentally traveled to every dusty town and two-lane highway from the lyrics, like I was on some weird honky-tonk pilgrimage without ever leaving my chair. By mid-afternoon, I wasn’t just totin’ my pack—I was praying for the ea...