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 […]
March 29, 2026
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 […]
April 16, 2022
If you started singing the theme song from Green Acres when you saw that title, you may (1) way too impacted by afternoon tv in the 1970s, and (2) also be considering this question. August 31 was my last official day at work in my job as a school superintendent. For almost eight months, I […]
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 […]
February 3, 2022
I was talking to my friend Kevin last week. Kevin and I have ventured through our public education careers with similar jobs as teachers, high school principals, and finally as superintendents. He has been a mentor and a friend for over 30 years, and I truly appreciate our bond and understanding of one another. Kevin […]
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. […]
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 […]
Marie Kondo
2011
Read: 2018
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction, Reading Now
I was listening to an architect who specialized in building new schools talk about what classrooms should be. One of his pet peeves was all of the nonsensical and nonpurposeful clutter that occupies many classrooms. He thought that every classroom should contain only those items which are useful for teaching and learning or inspirational for […]
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 […]
