Father’s Day 2016
I wrote this essay as a birthday card to my dad last year. When sitting down to write him a Father’s Day card this week, I kept thinking about this gift to him. On that birthday night, our whole family sat down to a celebratory meal at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Marina del Rey, […]
Is World Peace Possible?
This past summer I left my home in Donnellson, Iowa and traveled all the way around the world, baking American pie in 10 countries as a way to promote cultural tolerance. I returned with the intention of writing a book about my experience. I already had the title: World Piece, spelled p-i-e-c-e. But it is […]
World Piece: The Homecoming…But Where is Home?
Goodbye, Frankfurt! My very last stop on my World Piece itinerary was Frankfurt, Germany. This was where my flight would take off for Los Angeles. LA was the place where I started, the place where three months earlier I said a tearful goodbye to my parents as they waved to me from the other side […]
World Piece Gets a Little Press
At KRUU-FM, solar-powered radio, in Fairfield, Iowa.With one of my favorite hosts, Steve Boss of “Great Taste.” While I consider my World Piece journey a personal one, it is also nice to have people — and sometimes the media — take notice. I say “nice” mainly because I hope the effort I am making will […]
Why It Pays to Resist Your ‘Inner Pig Dog’
Redondo Beach, 23 April 2015, Me with local resident Nina and Aussie adventurer Rob I had one of those days today, the kind where I had to fight off my resistance to getting out of the house. I had to take my Mini in for its third service in three weeks, but what I really […]
No More Excuses: Make Your Own D*amn Movie
I have been resistant to learning about video editing for a long time, always making the excuse that I was a writer not a filmmaker. But I am prying my eyelids open to view a whole new world of possibilities just by acquiring a few video editing skills. There have been too many signs to […]
The Shoes of Palos Verdes
Is this Hawaii? No, it’s Palos Verdes (California). My new neighborhood. I read an essay about 15 years ago titled “The Shoes of Kilimanjaro” by Cameron Burns. In the story he describes his climb up the towering volcano in Tanzania and how he felt bad for the guides whom he assumed were so poor they […]
Finding Solace in Solitaire
I’ve never been a fan of card games. It’s just not my thing to sit at a table and dole out little rectangular pieces of coated paper with numbers and symbols and faces of royalty printed on them. It seems pointless, a waste of precious time that could be—should be—spent doing something productive, like exercising […]