By MATT WIXON In a recent letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News , a 14-year-old pointed out that his high school's requirement of one semester of speech should be eliminated. "High school is supposed to help get you ready to go into college and the business world," he wrote. "If someone's career will involve speech, then he or she can take it." The letter was well-written, especially for a 14-year-old. But I think the requirement of a speech class should remain, and here are two reasons why: First, no matter what you do in life, the skill of public speaking is useful if not essential. If you can look someone in the eye and deliver your thoughts with confidence, or at least without throwing up, you'll have a key ingredient to success. And second, and nearly as important, I want other people to go through what I had to go through in high school. That's right, leaders of tomorrow, it's your turn to feel the terror of public speaking today!...

By MATT WIXON As your body calls out for its afternoon caffeine fix, the boss calls for a meeting. Moments later, you and your colleagues are in the conference room, daydreaming about 5 p.m. as the boss talks about the company’s new policy on Post-it notes. Or maybe he’s talking about plans to stripe the parking lot with yellow paint instead of white. Or announcing that, after a six-month study, management has decided to change a comma to a semicolon in the company’s mission statement. Whatever the topic, it’s one of those essential meetings. And that’s when it hits you. An elephant has landed on your eyelids and you are being pulled into the Darth Vader-like grip of sleep -– and perhaps unemployment, if the boss sees you. You try to resist the dark side, staring hard at the boss and focusing on every word: And furthermore, we feel we can improve our performance vector and overall synergy with the use of Helvetica 10-point bold in ALL office memos ... You fight it, but it’s soooo diffi...

By MATT WIXON The check-in line at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine has a sign that says, “Start your adventure here.” What kind of adventure? Well, about 50 feet from the sign are two animatronic trees that will be harmonizing with a pretend raccoon before the day is done. It’s that kind of adventure. It’s kind of like being immersed in a Disney movie about kids taking over a hotel and building an enormous water park inside. Unlike a movie, however, Great Wolf Lodge offers the added bonus of a chance to spend $25 on a magi wand or $50 on a stuffed animal with your child’s wish sealed inside. Bring the whole family and your credit cards. It’s that kind of adventure. But wait … this is actually a positive review of Great Wolf. The biggest reason is that the water park, which is huge, great for all ages and kept at 84 degrees year-round, has pretty much ruined every other water park for me. Great slides for kids and adults. Very short lines. No sweltering heat or need for me to slather SPF ...

Not the best resolution with YouTube, but good enough to see the amazing dance moves of the Wixon boys. OK, maybe not amazing, but definitely interesting. The amazing part was that nobody was injured during the filming and nobody had to sit in our house's "timeout" spot.

Twenty years ago, I graduated from high school in Glendale, Ariz. My school was Apollo, home of the mighty Hawks, the motto of "pride, class, dignity" and at least 100 cars with bumper stickers that had been altered from "IN-N-OUT BURGER" to "IN-N-OUT URGE." Apollo also featured some sweet fender benders during lunch break, when half the senior class would tear out of the parking lot hoping to make it to Burger King and back in 30 minutes. I was thinking about this because I recently received my 20-year reunion invitation. It reminded me of the goofy video I did a couple of years ago to accompany one of my humor columns. It features some highlights from my high school yearbook that are probably similar to many yearbooks. Here's the video, presented by the person voted "most likely to be forgotten or confused for some guy named Mike, Mark or Max." Oh yeah, and Class of '89 RULES!

Iwrote this column a couple years ago, but since the National Spelling Bee is back on national TV this week, I decided to repost it: Humor Me: Spelling out success By MATT WIXON Kids always get critized for not knowing much. And during this week of remembering our fallen soldiers, I bet someone asked, "How many American children can even locate Iraq on a map?" Well, considering a recent survey showed that two-thirds of adults ages 18-24 couldn't find Iraq, I'm going to say not many. Unless an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" featured SpongeBob hanging out with Mr. Krabs on a sand dune near Baghdad. But that's enough talk about the kids who can't find Iraq. Let's take a positive spin and talk about the kids who can spell Iraq — and nidifugous, obmutescence and docosahexaenoic acid. Those kids take the stage this week at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which for the first time will be broadcast live in prime time. PRIME TIME! That means kids w...

By MATT WIXON So I was sitting there at the front of a Barnes & Noble, parked behind a table loaded up with my books. Lots of my books. More than I could ever imagine selling in one hour without appearing on Oprah or changing the title from The Great American Staycation to How to Achieve Financial Freedom and Have the Best Sex Ever . (Although my book doesn’t directly address achieving financial freedom or having the best sex ever, those things could possibly be achieved by reading it. Reading the book might even help people solve their problem thighs. Please feel free to spread wild rumors about the book’s magical properties.) Back to the signing day: At Barnes & Noble, I was sitting directly in the line of sight of people walking into the store. That made sense, because it allowed everyone to see me, and when somebody was talking to me, it was great. But when I was finished talking with a potential staycationer, book-buyer, curious passerby or a lonely person looking for co...

It started with an e-mail that had “CNN Interview Request” in the subject field. Sent to me by an associate producer for CNN, the e-mail started like this: “Hey Matt, I’m writing to find out if you can join Fredricka Whitfield during CNN Newsroom Saturday at 3PM CT/4PM ET, to discuss your book The Great American Staycation.” I received this e-mail on April 1, so I was suspicious. But no fooling … none of my old college buddies were involved and it was not a prank. It was truly a golden opportunity to get some national publicity for my book -- or perhaps pass out or throw up on live television and became a YouTube legend. Thinking about it now, maybe I should have done something outrageous during my interview. A million hits on YouTube would undoubtedly translate into some book sales, if only from people who felt sorry for someone who was humiliated in front of a national audience. But the interview went pretty well, or so I’m told. I’m too embarrassed to watch myself on television so I...

I was on CNN on Saturday for an interview about staycations, and I should be able to upload that video in the next few days. But today I was on "Good Morning Texas" to talk about staycations, and it's much easier to get that video. Good news: Although I was nervous, I didn't suffer an attack of flop sweat. Bad news: Well, I'm not sure if there is any. But I don't like to watch myself on television, so I didn't look at the video too closely. Here's the clip:

By MATT WIXON A few years ago, I tried yoga. I tried and failed. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, because you can't really succeed at something that you commit to for less than an hour. Certainly not something like yoga, which is defined as a system of exercises for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being. Yep, that's yoga. A moving meditation that can unify the body, mind and spirit as it balances your energy centers -- also known as “chakras.” Sounds great, but that's not beginning yoga. Beginning yoga is defined as a system of exercises for attaining humiliation as you nearly fall through a coffee table while trying to achieve the Extended Camel Posture (Purna Ushthra Asana in yoga terminology). Beginning yoga is what I do, or more accurately, did. My dedication lasted approximately 39 minutes — the running time of an instructional yoga video. At first, I had high hopes because my wife loved the video and said that it improved flexibility and strength...