Pigskin Wisdom for the Playoff Season

As we all get ready for Super Bowl Sunday which will cap a particularly spectacular playoff this year, I thought all you fellow football fans might enjoy this piece from the Wall Street Journal written by an enlightened Englishman:


In its energy and complexity, football captures the spirit of America better than any other cultural creation on this continent, and I don't mean because it features long breaks in which advertisers get to sell beer and treatments for erectile dysfunction. It sits at the intersection of pioneering aggression and impossibly complex strategic planning. It is a collision of Hobbes and Locke; violent, primal force tempered by the most complex set of rules, regulations, procedures and systems ever conceived in an athletic framework.


Soccer is called the beautiful game. But football is chess, played with real pieces that try to knock each other's brains out. It doesn't get any more beautiful than that.

Click to read the complete article...

Sorry, Favre fans. I had to do it!

Every Public Airport in California

Seems like not all that long ago my cousin, Phil Anady, and I were little kids running around playing baseball and video games together. Now we both have wives and kids of our own, as well as more ambitious goals than making the Little League All Star Team.

In addition to being a fantastic middle school teacher, Phil has been a flying planes since he was high school. During a recent visit I was blessed to have with Phil and the rest of the Anady family in California, he told me about his incredible goal of landing at every public airport in the state of California. At first the idea seemed pretty daunting; then I checked out the blog he keeps to log his adventures, and I realized that daunting didn't even begin to describe the magnitude of the endeavor.

Below is a link to his blog, complete with maps, stunning pictures from his plane, and information about his current projects. My hat is off to Phil in his exciting adventure and I wish him the best of luck. Check it out for yourself:

Flying California

About The Pilot and Mission

The Pilot

I started flying when I was 16 years old, soloed at 17 with 16 hours of flight time and eventually finished my training and passed the private pilot checkride at the age of 20 with about 64 total hours of training. I learned to fly at Cable Airport in a Cessna 152. I currently rent and fly a Cessna 172 out of French Valley and a Cessna 162 Skycatcher located at Hemet Ryan Airport. My “day job” is teaching middle school math and science therefore aviation is purely a hobby and passion for me but my long term goals are to earn an instrument and commercial rating and eventually become a part-time Certified Flight Instructor.

The Mission    Click here to read more...

G'nighnigh, Daddy!

There are few things in life as humbling and terribly moving as the realization that you are important in the life of a little child. Even more when it's your own child.

I recently returned from a rather exhausting 5 day business trip that had me in a different time zone every night. The entire time I was counting the minutes until I would see my boys and my wife again. As it turns out, they were doing the same. Both boys - each in their own way - showed me how much they missed Daddy.

Rocco was up when I got home and he couldn't seem to contain himself when I picked him up. He was dancing and wiggling and giggling (he's normally doing all or some combination of those things, but this time it was with a special joy). He kept giving me hugs and those sloppy, slobbery kisses 1 year olds are known to dish out. I was more than happy to take all he wanted to give.

Killian was napping when I got home so his moment came later that night. We three boys spent the afternoon wrestling and running around the house shooting imaginary guns and playing with "da guys" (any action hero qualifies). When it came time for bed, we tucked him in and I said as I do countless times each day, "I love you, Killian." My little 2 year old whose normal language is a stream of gibberish punctuated by individual words looked up at me and said very clearly, "I love you, daddy."

I was floored and looked at my wife who was in a similar state of joyful shock. He had never said something so clearly. I went back in to give him another kiss and say goodnight. He one-upped me and said, "I miss you. G'nighnigh daddy."

It was one of those moments when everything makes sense. When I realized that, despite all my failings and how insignificant I am, I'm very important in the eyes of two little boys. And that's more than enough to keep me going.