March 31, 2022
We watched the Oscars on Sunday night. With my newfound time, I actually had the opportunity to watch most of the nominated movies this year. I loved CODA, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it win. Don’t Look Up was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while, but I thought that […]
March 24, 2022
Alternate Title: Parents and Tasmanian Devils Can Peacefully Coexist Our youngest son, Dawson, came home from college this weekend. It’s Spring Break, and he is in town for 10 days. Jill, Duffy and Maggie Mae (our Scottish Terriers), and I are thrilled to have him home. My good friend Chris Erskine wrote about his son, […]
March 16, 2022
March 15 is the Ides of March. The phrase ‘Beware the Ides of March’ is yet another Shakespeare quote still in our lives, made famous as a fortune teller’s warning to Julius Caesar about his impending death. I’ve been in a hilarious email exchange this week with about 20 high school classmates, reminiscing about our […]
March 9, 2022
I’m a big fan of pursuing happiness. Aristotle even said that doing so was the meaning of life, so I’m in decent company. I know that there are a million ways to define happiness, and that you don’t have to be smiling-laughing-giddy in order to be happy. That’s why many people are moving from the […]
March 3, 2022
I didn’t think I’d see it in my lifetime. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and as of the time of this writing, there is a fierce battle waging for the survival of this new and yet not new nation. I have to admit, I did not know much about Ukraine before last week. I knew it […]
February 25, 2022
The best gift any teacher can receive is words of appreciation from their students, from the parents of their students, or from a site administrator. I remember being a principal and walking into the room of one of a truly wonderful teacher. This teacher was loved by his students and by the community. Like most […]
February 17, 2022
We lost our lime tree this month. It was a beautiful and bountiful tree in our front yard that was part of our lives for about 10 years. As a boy from Arkansas, having citrus trees in our yard is still a wonder that I NEVER take for granted. We have lemon trees, a tangerine […]
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 […]
January 21, 2022
The great thing about Los Angeles is that it has everything you could ever want in terms of culture, sports, food, entertainment, and beauty. The lousy thing about LA is that if you have to go anywhere during rush hour or on the weekend, traffic can be b-r-u-t-a-l. That’s especially true if you live where […]
January 6, 2022
What do I want said about me when I die? That was a question posed to me in Michael Hyatt’s Living Forward book. He encourages readers to write their own eulogy, then live their life so that they live up to those words. “By writing the eulogy as if it’s being delivered today, you may […]
December 24, 2021
Twenty-three and a half degrees. Actually, is 23.4 degrees, but let’s not get too technical. It’s going to change anyway. That’s the tilt of the earth. Paraphrasing the classic Sam Cooke song, “Don’t know much about astronomy,” but I’ll say it – I am geeked-out-over-the-moon-fascinated by the tilt of the Earth’s axis. Tuesday was the […]
December 10, 2021
It has been a week since we learned about the horrific Oxford High School shooting. A good friend of mine is an Oxford alumna, and she is DEVASTATED. It hurts all of us, but for those invested in the community, it rips to the core. As Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said, “This wound will never […]
November 25, 2021
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! The Thanksgiving Tree is up in our home, both of my sons are coming home, and we are ready to celebrate! I hope you are too. First – a bit of gratitude for all of you. I want to thank those of you who read my posts and are actually interested in […]
November 18, 2021
He’s a little taller, and his sense of humor has gotten even better. Of course, that’s coming from me, a dad who feels threatened that both of his sons will be taller than he, and a humorist of whom my friend Merlin says, “Mike, you know not everyone gets your sense of humor.” Disirregardless*, it’s […]
November 2, 2021
Halloween is a big deal in our neighborhood. Our area is one of the few places in Malibu where streets are lined with houses arranged on traditional blocks, on a semi-traditional street grid. Malibu is dotted with large houses and properties spaced far apart, many of which are second homes that are dark at Halloween, […]
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 […]
October 9, 2021
I remember my first day of swim practice, way back when I was six years old. It was at the Little Rock Boys’ Club and Coach Brooks led the workouts. It was my first experience in a locker room, where I quickly learned that even though I was small enough to do it, you don’t […]
September 20, 2021
We have lived in our neighborhood for almost 30 years now. There are so many great parts of living here – the weather is spectacular, the beach is a ten-minute walk from our home (we can’t see it, but we can hear the waves in the morning), and we are right up against the beautiful […]
September 11, 2021
I love driving by the stunningly beautiful Pepperdine University campus, located on Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Malibu coast, especially in early fall. Just 10 miles from my home, I passed it on my commute twice a day, every day, for about 17 years. The university’s close proximity was a key factor in the decision […]
August 29, 2021
Pop-tops. Some call them pull tabs. What a lousy invention. But they were everywhere when I was growing up. Today, when you open a soda or beer can, you use a Sta-tab, which is what you find on nearly every can in the world these days. Daniel F. Cudzik was the engineer working at Reynolds […]
August 18, 2021
That was it. Dawson gave each of us a long and hard hug, picked up the last bit of dorm room essentials from our double Target run, turned around, and walked off to his dorm in the Colorado School of Mines. Oredigger Camp – his three-day orientation – starts tomorrow. He is fired up and […]
June 18, 2021
In my first ten years with with the Manhattan Beach Unified School District, I did not make a commencement speech during our high school graduation. I was honored and grateful when Mira Costa principal asked me to make a speech at the end of my 11th and last year with MBUSD. I took the opportunity […]
May 10, 2020
Unconditional love. If I could give every person on this planet one gift, it would be the promise that throughout your life, you will be loved, unconditionally. Such a love gives one strength and perseverance. It does not guarantee success, as that depends on our own efforts, our decisions, some luck, and a million other […]
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 […]