The dad stood atop the tallest ski hill in the east, 4386 feet above sea level, looking out at the surrounding mountains and down a steep slope of white. It’s one of those views that make you say, holy crap, I’m on a mountain.
Then he turned to his kids and lowered his goggles.
“Alright, we’re gonna take our time, wait for eachother, and stick together,” he said. “We got this.”
And off they went.
I turned to my kids and could see the concern in their eyes.
“What he said,” I muttered with a less cool lowering of my…
I’ve been accused of being an alarmist. Which I’m totally okay with in this situation. There’s plenty of reason for alarm and action.
But one thing I think we need to be aware of and not be alarmed by is this: the US virus count is going to go up dramatically in the next week. This isn’t because of a new bloom in disease. It is out there and circulating. It’s because we are about to start testing on the scale we should’ve been doing for a month.
Test, isolate and treat.
South Korea is the best model for this…
The people buying up all the toilet paper need to calm right down.
Who else needs to calm down is all the people telling everyone to calm down.
Whether you realize it or not, the novel coronavirus is serious stuff. Comparisons to the flu are quite misleading. Yes, the flu killed 34,000 people in 2018–19 in the United States. It did so with a .1% death rate. Meaning there were at least 34 million cases of the flu last year. That number reflects the results of public health efforts to raise awareness, vaccinate, and reduce risk. If not for these…
There’s a theory out there that claims the side of the head a man parts his hair on says all you need to know about his personality, his potential in life, and his success.
I heard about this “hair part theory” recently on a podcast, which is the new reading. It used to be that some schmo would have to write something down so others could begin sentences with, “I read recently that” blankety-blank. And then all the rest of us would automatically give it credence because the schmo wrote it down. …
Down he fell again, this time landing on his back. I could practically feel the rock-hard ice reverberate through his little body. Pads or not, that one had to hurt.
He hesitated, worrying me that he was actually injured this time. Then he rolled over, scrambled to his feet, regained his balance, and skated on — certain to crash land again in the moments ahead.
It was a cool November morning during his first hockey practice when I realized my son didn’t know how to skate.
We’d gone skating before as a family over the years, a few times at…
A butterfly flaps its wings in New Zealand, and I end up late for work.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t entirely the butterfly’s fault. It really started, one morning last week, with my eldest daughter and her talent for sleeping through an alarm clock. Literally, this is her super power. An alarm clock could be buzzing right next to her ear, and nothing. Which probably has something to do with her penchant for staying up late to finish homework. Which may or may not have been on abstract mathematics.
Our typical morning routine has a predictable linear structure. (I…
Four walls made of pillows, or cardboard, or plywood, or snow; a roof of blankets, or branches, or open to the clouds; a secret entrance. There’s something about a fort that brings joy to every child.
In recent days, I found myself at home on a Friday night with just the boy. My wife and his older sisters were headed to the local high school drama clubs’ production of Alice In Wonderland, and my 3 year old was deemed too young to attend. Thank goodness.
“Can we watch Chuggington?”
“Dad, can we make a fort?” He asked.
Like any dad…
A light bulb went on above the little boy’s head as he scanned the yard and realized where the Golden Egg likely was. He’s just five years old, and his bag of eggs was half as full as the other kids. Yet suddenly, he knew where the last, most sought-after, most well-hidden egg just had to be.
He darted across the grassy expanse toward an overturned plant pot tucked under a tree. Others saw his movement, realized what he must be thinking, and began to follow.
Arriving at the pot, he bent down and lifted it, revealing the glint of…
The Simple Phrase that Inspires This Dad to Run
This is not a story about weight loss — unfortunately. Nor is it a fitness how-to. I’m not the right person to write that. This is simply about one dad’s motivation to get through his workout.
Like many adults, I’ve struggled with those extra pounds over the years. And, like most parents, part of the problem has been finding the time and energy to fit in a fitness regimen. The other part of the problem is that I love food, but that’s a separate story.
