National Adoption Month. Where Do Storks Come From?

“Father?” Said the almost five year old. “Listen, there is something I’ve been thinking about. You and I have been watching a lot of classic television programing lately. Shows like Tom and Jerry and Dumbo and I’ve noticed… Read More

On Fatherhood: Almost 40 With a 4 Year Old

How different his world is in 2014 than mine was when I was his age in 1978. This is the blessing of the late blooming father. Had I begun the child rearing phase of my life a decade… Read More

I Fear My Son Will Think I Don’t Read

I fear my son will think I don’t read… or listen to music… or vacuum since that task has been assigned to the robot. It’s been years since I bought a physical book and I can count the… Read More

6 hours ahead to 3 hours behind

On Woensdag (Wednesday), we left Amsterdam for Reno. Well, we attempted to leave Amsterdam for Reno. The daily Usairways flight from AMS to PHL was full and rather than roll the dice on one flight we figured a… Read More

Assimilation

The whole houseboat is IKEA! We’re in a neighborhood a bit outside of Central Amsterdam. Although it’s only a 30-minute walk or an easy tram or bus ride into the center of it all, we are far enough… Read More

The summer of fun just got ‘funner’

With her off for the summer, I ‘bid’ to have some weeks off with her. I was awarded six weeks from the end of June through early August. Eager to kick the summer off, I asked for—and was… Read More

I’m thankful for warm lemonaide and chicken.

A four-day trip the week of Thanksgiving took me to Columbus, Ohio. Since I was to spend the holiday alone in the hotel, S. decided to drive up from visiting her grandparents in Pittsburgh. She had our cousin… Read More

I was a Nintendo Fanboy at Five AM

I got to Walmart at 4:30 am armed with a large coffee and my hacked PSP, ready to play an hour and a half of ExciteBike on a Nintendo emulator until the store opened. The Wii was to… Read More

C.S.I. Baltimore

We were woken up by several very abrupt knocks on the front door at 2 am this morning. Luckily, I’m feeling under the weather and had called off a two-day trip. I say ‘lucky’ because if I had… Read More

And it only cost a quarter

It was a Jesuit, shirt and tie, all-boys high school. Everyone drove to school or had a ride. I rode the city bus. “H.A.R.T. Line” was the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Association. They had a big red heart… Read More

My theme park – My babysitter

I grew up in the theme park Busch Gardens and its water park sister, Adventure Island. They were my babysitters. They were my Grandma’s house. They were home. They were where I went when school was out for… Read More