Hey Dad. On My Late Father’s Birthday

Hey Dad, So much has happened since we last spoke in January 2017. Your grandson has doubled in age since then; he’s now 14. With each milestone of his, I think back to when I was that age… Read More

On Grieving

After our son was born I called friends who already had kids and apologized to them for not being more excited for them when they became parents. I didn’t know until I saw our own son how awesome… Read More

Teaching Irony through Sarcasm

  I have the luxury of working weekends and being able to pick up our son from school most weekdays. I watch with joy as he bounces down the steps from his school happy to tell me all… Read More

At 16 I Had No Muscles But I Drove a Muscle Car

I recently read Auto Biography by Earl Swift in which he retraces all the owners of a ’57 Chevy and it’s had me thinking about my first car. It was a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda. I unwrapped it in the… Read More

Time… According to a Child

     How amazing it must be to have no concept of time? How liberating. Plotting our sons growth alongside the chart of mankind’s evolution, he is close to understanding that as the sun settles near the horizon… Read More

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

Future Daddy Blogger Support Group

The meetings are held in the basement of a church near an all-night donut shop. Although both are helpful, the location is more about the donuts than the man upstairs. The chairs are arranged in a circle. The… Read More

His First Joke

For the first time in his life he has come up with something funny. Months later he still calls back to it. And it is funny.He’s had funny moments before. He’s pulled some physical gags and laughed at… Read More

My Son. My Chronological Yardstick

Every memorable event in my life that happened before the spring of 2010 is filed away in my brain with a five-year buffer. My mental calendar from the era before I had a child is ordered in half-decade… Read More

What I Did Not Do During My Summer Vacation

I was on vacation during the month of July. I ceased all work related activities. I also didn’t… It was a blissful month away from the airport. I return to the cockpit tomorrow. I just hope they didn’t… 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

We Tried to Sell Our College

It’s been twenty years since I was a college student, and I returned this past weekend as an alumnus to preach the airline life. These kids on campus now are just that—kids! Many were born after I started… Read More

Pacita Jugo Ladd… “Nana”

My Nana passed away on February 13th, surrounded by her family, after being diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks before. She passed very peacefully and kept her wit until the very end. Hours before, when people were… Read More

$#*! my son’s caterpillar doesn’t say

Several times between now and the era of the stage 2 Huggie overnight diapers, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of sleep deprivation, awakening in the land of disproportionate proportions with oversized talking caterpillars, four-key colorful pianos, and… Read More

If you watch enough daytime TV… you will get cramps

The boy is almost nine months old, and since I’ve been back to work after paternity leave, I’ve been flying weekends. Although airport Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday, it is nice to work weekends and steal the Sunday… Read More

I Made a Burrito and Forgot to Shave

My job as a pilot is made much easier by checklists and routines. I do the same thing – the same way – every time. Checklists are written in a way that is intended to flow logically as… Read More

Google Voice Poetry

I started using Google Voice months back on my G1 Android phone to transcribe my voicemails. When you leave me a message, I get an email containing the text version of that message. While I can still listen… Read More

My short career as Chris Winston – Overnight Disk Jockey

After college, or maybe it was during, I had a job for about a year as an overnight DJ at an adult contemporary AM radio station in Southern Virginia. Actually, it wasn’t just an AM station. It was,… Read More

My failed attempt at dog whispering

I was driving home today and saw a dog running around the neighborhood a few blocks from my house. Being the good neighbor and dog owner that I am, I figured it best to try and find the… Read More

Alert the pitcrew, we’re coming for more fuel

I showed up in DC for a 5:30 AM flight to Kansas City, followed by a flight to Milwaukee where I faced a 3.5-hour layover in the airport before our return trip to DC. Then it was back… Read More

Holds and diverts and storms, oh my.

This was our third leg for the day. We began in Omaha around 2 PM, flew from Omaha to Milwaukee, and then off to Boston. On the return from Boston to Milwaukee, we ended up holding over Grand… Read More

I never got many Gold Medals – But I used to make them.

I once quit a job without giving two weeks’ notice. I quit after my lunch break. The boss wasn’t surprised at all. I think she even wondered why it took so long like it was a bet amongst… Read More

I got some lip from a ROBOT

I called to check on room availabilities at a few hotels in Towson for my parents’ visit next month. Google, of course, gave me a few pushpins just a few miles up the road, so I started calling…. 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

My childhood “Boy named Sue” moment

In grade school, we wore navy blue pants and white dress shirts. The boys had triangular collars, while the girls wore the rounded ones that little Catholic school girls wear. There was an unfortunate era when my sister… 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

What’s on my dock

As friends make the jump from windows to mac – I often get asked what mac apps to use? Where are some good places to get software? What’s in your dock? Here is what is currently in my… Read More