One phrase that I hear constantly in my line of work is “The data says”. It can be rephrased as “According to the data”, “Data shows”, or “The data implies”. If you stop and think about all the conversations that you have been a part of and this phrase pops up, try to remember the immediate feeling after hearing the phrase. Depending on the conversation, you may have felt enlightened by the piece of information you received. You might have felt alarmed by it. Or perhaps you f

Have you ever been to Egypt? What about the Mayan Temples? No, well, neither have I. But I would definitely want to experience those places someday. Something that I would be interested in seeing is the historical artifacts, and learning about the ancient practices. The former ways of doing life were replaced with modern technology and a more efficient way of doing things. But I am also noticing how some things and exercises are becoming antiquated as well. Like ringing the d

Did you know Greenland experiences winter conditions for the majority of the year? Heard about a city called Longyearbyen in Norway? This city experiences an average of 111 consecutive days without sunlight. Its something about the winter season that gives many people a dreary outlook. This past winter has definitely done a number on me; it has felt like one of the coldest winters that I have experienced since being in the Atlanta area. My negative feelings about winter were

On November 21st at approximately 6:58 pm, I was triggered. While in a parking lot, I had a conversation with a person. The conversation started getting tense and emotional over a matter that I believe was a misunderstanding or just taken too seriously. The other individual may view it differently, but I think we both would have agreed that as the tension rose, the conversation became dangerously volatile when it could have gone a different direction. But this is real life, a

Last month, I took my youngest son to Rodney Cook Park. I am very familiar with this park because about four years ago, my wife was commissioned to paint a mural there. The park is fairly new, only four years old, and I haven’t been there since the mural was unveiled. So I decided to check on the mural and let my youngest son play at the playground. The park was originally beautiful when it first opened up; the playground looked fun, the splash pad was awesome, and everything

No tiptoeing into this one. What’s going on with students bringing guns to school?! It feels like every time I turn on the news, I’m seeing a story about a student bringing a gun to school. Now, before I venture off into this candid conversation, let's speak the truth first. The majority of schools in the country are safe, and mass shootings committed by students are not an everyday occurrence. The crisis that we are currently facing is the growing frequency of students bring