Every month I report the progress of my yearly goals in order to monitor progress (or the lack thereof) and hold myself accountable.   The following are the results from…

My family and I were recently on vacation in San Francisco. During our trip, we attended lectures in the Muir Woods – a forest of redwood trees – and Alcatraz…

A few weeks ago, while visiting friends on Whidbey Island on the west coast, Charlie went fishing in the ocean for the first time. After fishing for about an hour…

I played golf yesterday morning with an 83-year-old guy named Gus before our school district's convocation. I'd never met him before, but I caught up to him on the second…

Today, I begin my 25th year of teaching. Summer has come to a close, which isn't easy. As much as I love my job, I admittedly enjoy the long, relatively…

A few years ago, I was working with formerly incarcerated men who now work in public schools, connected and supporting teenagers in hopes of helping them avoid the same mistakes…

More than a decade ago, a reader accused me of being materialistic after I wrote about my lack of a favorite number, specifically criticizing me for saying that when it…

While on vacation in San Fransisco, I taught Charlie how to play setback. Also known as pitch or high-low-jack. Not surprisingly, he took to the game as quickly as he…

Kansas resident Lee Wilson planted 80 acres of sunflowers as a 50th-anniversary gift for his wife. A total of 1.2 million sunflowers. He did all of this without his wife's…

While visiting Alcatraz, we took an audio tour around the prison, narrated by former correctional officers and inmates. At the beginning of the audio tour, it was made explicitly clear…