My brother Pat FaceTimed me at 6 AM on the morning of Monday, September 21. I didn’t expect the call, but I knew what it was about. I should have been ready. “Mike?” He asked, in a hushed tone. “Dad is resting peacefully, but he’s going to die soon. It could be an hour. It […]
August 8, 2026
There’s a famous scene in Caddyshack where the unkempt and quite odd assistant greenskeeper, Carl Spackler (played by Bill Murray), asks to visit the home of the quite wealthy and eccentric Ty Webb (played by Chevy Chase). Spackler asks if Webb has a pool, and Webb famously replies: “I have a pool and a pond. The pond would […]
June 1, 2026
Five years ago, I wrote a post about taking our youngest son to college. Dropping him off was a bigger deal than I thought it would be. It hit us like a ton of bricks as we watched every step of Dawson’s journey from the car to his dorm. We both had a good cry, […]
May 9, 2026
“I don’t know the answer to nothin’ about a blessed thing.” That’s what Mac Sledge, played by my favorite actor of all time, Robert Duvall, said near the end of Tender Mercies, after his daughter was killed in an automobile accident. He’s overwhelmed because he has been blessed with love and simple beauties, and then hurt to […]
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 […]
September 15, 2022
We had a wedding last weekend. It was perfect. Well, it was as perfect as life these days would allow it to be. Let’s start off with the challenges. First of all, and damn you COVID-19 for still existing, finding a venue for this wedding was stupid crazy hard. Ryan and Yesi scoured Sacramento for […]
June 30, 2022
I have loved not working. Transitioning from a 60 to 80-hour work week to a 0-hour work week was easier than I ever imagined. I have rested, lost weight and become healthier overall, organized my life, increased my time spent on hobbies I love, and avoided being such a pain that my wife wanted me […]
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 […]
Eckhart Tolle
2010
Read: 2022
Non-Fiction, Reading Now
I’m not sure why I haven’t added this book until now. I’ve been reading it and re-reading it for years, and it has helped me through many a stressful time. I love the references to all of the world’s major religions. The main premise is rather Buddhist in nature, seeking the end of suffering through […]
Patrick M. Lencione
2016
Read: 2024
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction, Reading Now
One of my favorite parts of my career in public education is the teams that I have been fortunate to be a part of. I wrote a post on my love of teams back in 2020, celebrating teams that included: History classes that I taught New teachers (and eventually veteran ones too) at San Lorenzo […]
Read: 2022
Non-Fiction, Reading Now
Younger Next Year is a book I keep coming back to. I forget who first turned me on to it, but I read it in my mid-fifties, and it continues to inspire me. The bottom line is that at some point, sometime in our forties or fifties, our bodies want to get old and decay. […]
