June 2, 2022
I’m WAY less of a procrastinator than I used to be, but I wish I would have started training earlier for our bike trip this summer. When I was in middle school, I had serious procrastination issues. My science teacher once guided us through a science project for weeks. I remember coming home from school […]
May 27, 2022
Flags across the nation are at half-mast. Again. The proper way to put a flag at half-mast is to first raise it all the way to the top, then to pause and bring it back down. The explanation I like best for this tradition is that we bring it down to make room for “the […]
May 19, 2022
“Enough with the fruit already!” That’s what my friend Peter yelled at me while we were golfing last week. I had just bitten into my 2nd apple of the round as I was walking down the 12th hole fairway at the beautiful Soule Park Golf Course. I looked at him with his Diet Coke in […]
May 14, 2022
Thanks to all of you who read my last post on my son Sean. I keep track of how many people open each of my weekly posts, and the readership about Sean crushed everything else I’ve ever written. Your comments and emails were powerful and comforting. As good as it felt to write about it, […]
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 […]
April 28, 2022
My first two posts in this series on living a long and healthy life focused on moving naturally throughout the day and holding a strong sense of purpose. This week and for Part 3 of this series, I am focusing on downshifting. The Blue Zones research suggests that people in the longest living societies find […]
April 23, 2022
First of all, thank to all of you who read and commented on my last post via Facebook, Twitter, and the Blog Site. I love the conversation and I appreciate the wisdom even more. This is Post #2 of Evaluating my Quasi-Retired Life using Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones research. As a reminder, the nine Blue […]
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 […]
April 7, 2022
Jill and I returned home today from our Hawaiian vacation. I’m a big fan of our 50th state. If I feel far away from reality when I’m 26 miles across the sea on Catalina Island, imagine how distant I feel in Hawaii! Really distant is the answer. Even in quasi-retirement, being home means routines and […]
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, […]