Finding The Perfect Spot For Your Birdbath
Placement is everything when it comes to a birdbath. Choose a spot with partial shade, full sun heats the water quickly and encourages algae, while…
Author: Rick Good
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader's money, real estate, and business coverage.
Ask the Expert: Rate Locks
I’ve been shopping for a mortgage and my lender mentioned a rate lock. Can you explain what that is, and whether I need one? Great question — and…
More homes, more choices: The market may be shifting
After years of intense competition for homes, bidding wars, waived inspections, and cash offers that seemed to materialize out of thin air, something is…
Change your Google habits
By now, you have seen the AI answers pop up on Google when you search. And it’s high time to treat Google more like an AI and less like a search engine….
The one habit that separates productive people from busy ones
Here is the problem with multitasking: it doesn’t actually exist. What the brain does when we think we’re multitasking is switch rapidly between tasks,…
The follow-through gap
Most people are not short on ideas. They have plans, intentions, good resolutions, and moments of genuine inspiration. What stops them isn’t talent or…
Spring clean your workspace, spring clean your head
Something about spring and cleaning goes hand in hand, and it’s not just closets and garages that benefit from the treatment. Your workspace, whether it’s…
Collectors drawn to the quest, history of objects
Most people have heard of stamp or coin collecting, but the world of collectibles runs far deeper and stranger than that. Victorian figural napkin rings,…
What will happen to your collection?
You’ve spent years — maybe decades — building a collection you love. You know why that particular piece of Depression glass is rare, why one vesta case…
Mental Health Month What to do with the seriously mentally ill?
In August 2025, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who had come to the United States to escape the war, was stabbed to death on a Charlotte,…