Blog

If you're like me (and I know I am), your phone is overflowing with thousands of photos. Over the Christmas break, I tried to clean up my camera roll and found the process overwhelming. I needed an easy way to free up space on my phone without spending hours...

  Pretty sure I am late to this party, but if you have not heard of it, Wordle is fun. Wordle is an online word game.  Players get six attempts to guess a five-letter word.  Every day, there is only one solution.  The entire world attmpts to guess the same word....

During the winter, I like to drink hot drinks.  Keeps me warm.   I like coffee, but am trying to cut back.  I like hot chocolate, but try to avoid too much sugar.  Sugar, especially in the form of chocolate, is my Achilles heel.   Tea is the best alternative, of...

Ten years ago, on January 10, 2015, I sent out the first tip of the week.  My tip of the week today is this. Just start.  Do not wait until everything is perfect.  Just start and make it up as you go along.   Back when I started sending out a weekly email, I did not...

Ten years ago, on January 10, 2015, I sent out the first tip of the week.  My tip of the week today is this. Just start.  Do not wait until everything is perfect.  Just start and make it up as you go along.   Back when I started sending out a weekly email, I did not...

 If you have multiple children and want each one to have an account on the site to keep track of their progress separately, here's how: After signing in to your account, click on the Members menu and go to Account Info. On the resulting screen, click on the...

Years ago, one of my kids discovered she really liked Hot Cheetos (not the official name, but that's what we call them at home).  She also likes to be clean.  Those two really do not mesh so well. She came up with a clever solution.   She ate Hot Cheetos with...

My phone is constantly running out of storage.  The problem is, it overflows with photos To free up some storage, I have begun decluttering. I grew up before everything went digital, and I sometimes miss the days of physical photo albums.  Sitting on the couch,...

Quick tip this week This Christmas, if you are giving a gift that requires batteries, wrap the batteries with the gift.  This quick and easy tip should eliminate the disappointment of receiving a gift with no power.  ...

We had a car go down this week.  Since my family lives in car-dependent Tennessee, we had to replace it.  Fun.  My wife and I had already been looking for a good deal.  We were able to find a ten year old car to replace the twenty year old car that broke down.  I...

I often make mistake when I type.  After all, I have Type-O blood.  Heh, heh. But, I recently found a web extension that reads pages aloud. It's a great way to catch errors you might miss.  Whether you are writing for work or school, before hitting publish or before...

I tend to be a bit scatterbrained.  I misplace things often.  Wallet, keys, phone, kids, students, pens, lego bricks.  You know, the usual stuff.    Years ago, I learned a trick from a book.  (I cannot remember the name of the book, as it turns out.)   Whenever I put...

These days, I do not rely on Google.  I learned the hard way. Twice Google shut my website down.  The second time the company shut my site down, they locked me out until I signed up for a monthly subscription.  I wish I had that kind of power.  I teach languages for a...

After sending an email last Saturday, many of you wrote to wish me luck opening a new store.  I received this note from Erik: Mr. Dwane,  Just wanted to quickly thank you for all the great tips throughout all these years, and wish you all the best with the opening of...

It’s election season in America.   Soooo… I recommend turning off all social media, all news, and all talk radio.  The 24 hour news cycle is negative by nature.  Negativity sells.  Fear sells. All advertisers know this.  In the newspaper business years ago, there was...

I am running on empty these days.  Pretty tired quite often.  Even now, as I type this tip of the week.  As most of you know, I decided to open a Lego store (Bricks and Minifigs) in Birmingham, Alabama.  Vestavia Hills, actually.  A little south of Birmingham. Long...

If you travel much, even for short trips, it is smart to keep a travel-only toiletry kit.  This is one you never unpack.   Have one set of toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and so on, in your bathroom at home.  Keep a separate set exclusively for travel. When you...

If you're trying to practice a new language, you can read Wikipedia articles in your target language. You’ll pick up relevant, real-world vocabulary across all kinds of topics. Another bonus: Wiki articles are generally clear and well-structured.  It's a great way to...

To register for classes on my site, you will need an email address.  Sometimes, younger students share a family email address.  Since many sites (mine included) often require unique email addresses, this creates a problem.    There is an easy solution.  You can create...

Here's a tip my wife taught me.   If you are staying in a hotel in the U.S. and you want filtered, purified water, but don't feel like paying for bottled water, take a water bottle to the hotel gym.  You will almost always find free filtered water in the gym.  ...

I have been teaching Latin for almost three decades.    People often ask me, “If I want to learn Latin, how should I do it?  To quote Hades’ minions in the movie Hercules, “If.  If is good.”   The truth is, you do not have to learn Latin.  Do not let people bully you...

If you are my age, you may remember Dilbert and his pointy-haired boss. Seventeen years ago, the author of the comic strip, Scott Adams, taught us how to become better writers.  He did it, brilliantly, using only two hundred and sixty-four words. Here is what he said:...

Writers of grammar books tell us to avoid the passive voice. Instead of writing, "The last piece of cake was eaten", we should write "She ate the last piece of cake." I agree, and I tell my students to do the same.  Learn to write in the active voice. But, as Alan...