It never rains in Southern California—until it does. And then it doesn’t want to stop. We live in the land of extremes—and that has always been so, but the extremes are only getting more so: Three years of drought followed by an atmospheric river combined with a bomb cyclone. But rather than wait to see if we needed to build an ark (we didn’t!), we skedaddled to the desert a few days ago—Palm Desert, to be exact, about 2 1/2 hours due east of our house.

With back-to-back James Beard nominations, Waxlight Bar a Vin has become a restaurant that travelers make sure to book whenever they land in Buffalo. In the 716 area code, it’s a harder sell, partly because many Buffalo-area restaurant customers have never seen anything like Waxlight’s menu, full of ingredients and dishes they’ve never heard of before. Waxlight aims to balance that adventurousness with the everyday: a shot and a beer is $7, and a plate of meat and potatoes that’ll make you happy is always on the menu.

I didn’t like school much growing up. For starters, I wasn’t a good student. I couldn’t pay attention, and found the whole thing extremely boring. However, there was one school day I always looked forward to, field day. Field day happened once each year, in the spring. It was on a Friday. It was a half-day. And instead of being stuck inside all morning, we assembled at the school soccer field.

Magazines used to make me swoon. I grew up on a steady diet of Sassy and YM and Seventeen. When I graduated college, I only wanted to work in magazines, and I spent my twenties and thirties writing for a slew of them. It wasn’t just how beautiful the print mags were to thumb through with their four-color photos and expert aspirational articles, it was the graphic fonts and the feeling that you were slipping into another world entirely when you opened the back and front covers.

Cornerback Dwight McGlothern transferred from LSU to Arkansas for the 2022 season. He missed some time in 2023 with injuries but still put together a decent year. I’m higher on McGlothern than most, which could mean I’m being too optimistic, but I think he could be a top 100 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Visit my Twitter account @Sam_Teets33 for more opinions on prospects, clips, and the latest football content.