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 […]
October 26, 2025
Jill and I recently had dinner with two old friends — well, one of them is old (just kidding, Kevin!). For three decades now, our conversations have centered on our kids — their successes and struggles. But this time, the focus was on our parents. I would say that our parents are one of the hottest […]
May 4, 2022
Gravity feels a little more forceful today. Back in my high school physics class, Father Fred taught us that gravity pulls us down at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. Today feels like a double-digit day. It’s harder to do just about everything. You see, today would have been my son Sean’s 29th […]
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 […]
October 19, 2021
Critical Race Theory. It’s something I had never heard of until September of last year. And then, I began getting very angry emails and people started coming to board meetings to demand that we stop teaching it. The questions were very much like ones featured in the first-ever school board meeting parody on Saturday Night […]
Admiral William H. McRaven
2017
Read: 2021
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction, Reading Now
I’ll get to the title of the book later. This is written about the trials and travails of life. It’s about how life can kick you in the teeth, whether or not you deserve it. He writes about Naval SEAL training and the strength you need to get through that. SEAL training prepares our young […]
Fritz Gilbert
2020
Read: 2024
Non-Fiction, Reading Now
After I finished my first year of retirement, I found this book. Mr. Gilbert’s book is thoughtful and introspective in his analysis and reflections. His advice would be to read this book and start thinking about all of this at least three years before you are considering retiring. I would say that anywhere from one […]
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 […]
Stephen Covey
1989
Read: 2010 or before
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction, Reading Now, Recommended for Young Adults
This is another one of my bedrock books. Stephen Covey has had such an influence on my personal and professional life. The seven habits: Be Proactive Begin with the End in Mind First Things First Win-Win Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood Synergize Sharpen the Saw From “Beginning with the End in Mind” which […]
