I lack self-confidence in many arenas. Put me at a party where I don’t know anyone, and I do my best to look invisible. I’ve had a few jobs where I had to act the part of a salesperson, and I have found that I rarely have the hutzpah one needs to repeatedly ask for […]
January 3, 2026
Happy New Year everyone! First and foremost, I hope that 2026 brings you all joy, meaning, good health, and a heck of a lot of fun. For my swimming, golf, and pickleball friends, I hope the year brings personal records, a new age group, consistent workouts, long straight drives, a few lucky breaks, around the […]
December 24, 2025
My brother Pat is an artist – I’ve written about him before. One of the coolest and most spectacular pieces that he creates is his seasonal studies. He takes a subject – it could be Colorado aspen trees or Arkansas cypress trees or something else simple and yet majestic, and then creates four separate paintings, […]
November 9, 2025
Two Mondays ago, Jill and I channeled one of the great movie lines of all time — from Risky Business. (I’ll substitute “heck” for the original.) Both Jill and I like routines. I find that when I’m in my regular routines, I eat more healthily, I exercise hard and regularly, I sleep a little better than I […]
September 15, 2023
I always appreciate my friend Mikke for his humor, fantasy football banter, and his sense of adventure. But way more than that, I appreciate him because he is a very wise man who has listened and helped me to be my best on numerous occasions. He now serves as an executive coach, and he has […]
March 12, 2023
I turn 61 years old this week. Hopefully, I am both older and wiser. I recently heard wisdom described as lessons you have learned in your life once you shed the associated emotion. I like that. A friend shared an article that Jon Gordon wrote when he turned 52, in which he shared 52 lessons […]
April 25, 2020
It may have been the most thoughtless senior prank I ever experienced. As a former high school principal, I don’t love senior pranks. Usually, very little thought goes into them, and they end up being destructive, damaging, or time consuming. Occasionally though — and I mean very occasionally — a group of seniors pulls off […]
Johann Hari
2022
Read: 2023
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction, Reading Now
My friend Jenn loaned me this book. That means I read it as a paperback, instead of Kindle-ing it. I read less than 10% of my books in hard copy. This was a perfect one to choose to be part of that 10%. This is a book about why we are distracted, and the forces […]
David Allen
2001
Read: 2011
Non-Fiction, Reading Now
When I started teaching at age 22, with just two large classes in a high powered high school, I had great ideas. About 10% of my great ideas turned out to be pretty good lesson plans. But behind all of the ideas, there was a jumble. I struggled to keep up with all of the […]
Richard Kiyosaki
2000
Read: 2010 or before
Non-Fiction, Reading Now, Recommended for Young Adults
It’s been on the best seller list since it came out. It’s corny and very simply written. But as a parent and an educator, there’s not better book to give you the big picture of money. We educators don’t think about money. We think about how overwhelming our job is, how wonderful it is to […]
Roland Merullo
2008
Read: 2023
Fiction, Reading Now, Spirtuality
OK. I love this book. It’s one of the few books I’ve read where, after I finished it, I immediately began reading it a second time. I’ve written about it in two separate blog posts, and I have many friends who have read it and loved it after I suggested it to them. It’s a […]
