Monthly Archives: August 2019

Now that I’m pushing 50, many of my friends are doing likewise. That means that many of them are parents of kids that are teenagers and/or pre-teens. That means that in the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of first-day-of-school photos of kids, often annotated by, or commented upon, with the words (or words to the effect of) “How did that happen?” Real talk: ohhhh, do I ever envy that implied lack of intentionality. Let me back this up a scootch. […]

Gather round, kids! Story time. Dar and his brother and I have been going to the designated Family Swim hour at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA. I love that they’re at this age where they can stand on the bottom of the Shallow Pool but they’re also not so big that they’re intimidating…or so I thought. I’ve been teaching R to swim, and he’s getting good. He can reliably make it almost one lap. I don’t love that he insists on […]

Watching Dar on the shoreline the other day got me thinking about Toy Story 4. Spoilers below, so come back after you’ve seen the movie. For years, in my film classes, whenever Toy Story has arisen as a topic, I’ve mentioned how it’s basically a Biblical allegory in which Andy is God and Woody is a believer trying to convert the heretical Buzz. There’s a lot more to it than that (Andy’s room as Paradise, the other toys as disciples, etc), […]

Thanks for enjoying the post about Dar hiking Angel Island! I may have forgotten to mention that one reason we visited Angel Island was to prepare for a then-upcoming trip to the Channel Islands. My wife has wanted to go to the Channel Islands for years. Having been there, I was like, why? Well, it’s California’s only national park that she hadn’tvisited. I said, “but…we have Angel Island.” But…we went to the Channel Islands anyway. The boat trip from the […]

A year ago I never would have even considered trying to walk with Dar from sea level to anything called “Mount.” But we’re getting more audacious ever since our recent successful walks in Zion and Bryce Canyon. Despite now having to carry emergency seizure medicine wherever we go. Granted, the Mount in question is the smallest Mount I’ve ever heard of, at 788 feet. And…even that was a tremendous challenge. The “sea level” was a big part of the problem. […]