They don’t tell the 26-year-olds about late April and early May. That’s why we figured April 29th would be a great day for a wedding. Nobody warns you that in two decades you’re gonna be so busy prepping for end of year testing, getting sluggish teens to muscle through academics and finishing strong on the…
You almost lost me on page 219, Jon. Technically I think I have to blame your wife and her bullying. There I was, vibing with everything you had written. Then, out of nowhere, shots fired. The exact phrase, insultingly throw-outable, was “best paired with easy-fit slip in Skechers.” Whoa whoa whoa. Pump the brakes, Acuff….
I turn 46 today. I’ve spent more of my life as a college grad (and ostensibly an adult by any measure other than ability to rent a car in the US) than as a student. I’ve lived 3X the amount of time needed to mature enough to be offered a learners permit for driving in…
It’ll be two years ago tomorrow. On the 90-minute drive to speak at a meetup, my wife finally got fed up with my big talk combined with lack of action. “Just do it already.” she said, likely not even looking up from her laptop (for dramatic effect) in my passenger seat. I had been researching…
College Basketball is a business. We’ve known it for a decade or more, and with things like NIL and the transfer portal, it seems like every few minutes it becomes even more of a business. I’ve been a Tar Heel fan since before I had the ability to talk or walk. Growing up on Tobacco…
Last week I experienced a defining moment in my career: I was asked to speak at the Support Driven Summit in Los Angeles. It was a great time of being around “my people” and contributing to the community of folks in whose waters I have swam for more than a decade. Support Driven is a…
“Dad, what was it like to watch Vince Carter live?” Well son, it’s difficult to explain, you kinda just had to be there. I got to watch Vince run out of the Smith Center tunnel exactly one time. It was January 17th of my senior year of high school, and my brother (a freshman at…
A few months ago my beloved eldest son had an altercation with a (hearty!) bit of shrubbery while parking at a Bible study. To temporarily fix the busted headlight, I cut the section of the bumper below it (that houses the fog light) and replaced the headlight assembly Note if you look closely in that…
I’ve never written a year-in-review post, but I feel like it is the right thing to do, because 2025 deserves to be named. It was a year. A lot of a year. And my biggest takeaway from it all is this: God is still with us. Month after month, one hard thing followed another. Yet…
A deep dive into my 10,000 tricep dips journey Introduction I’ve never been great at New Year’s resolutions, probably for the same reasons you aren’t. First, I’m bad at estimating future motivation. Second, I wasn’t tracking something measurable. Third, I’ve always failed at tracking progress toward the goal. So on January 5th, 2025, I set…
It was Sunday, February 24th, 2013. I had been unceremoniously let go from a sales position I had thought I had room to grown into just 6 days earlier. With a two- and four-year-old kid at home, one part-time employed wife, and about $350 to our name, it was a rough week. Being the part-time…
When I was 16, I watched (though likely didn’t pay much attention, as 16-year-old me was frighteningly aloof to the real world) as my dad was laid off from his well-paid corporate position. This was the ’90s: an era when kids like me were essentially feral, riding around on bikes—and then cars—with no reasonable way…