Author: dadcation

MLK weekend 2015

For the past several years–actually, for as many years as I can recall offhand–I haven’t had the Monday that is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off.  Since becoming self-employed in Spring 2009, I’ve always rationalized not taking the day off by thinking, “None of my employers gave it to me […]

New Year’s Day in New Orleans

Having dropped over $1000 for football tickets, we chose not to pay the inflated prices for airfare and elected to rise relatively early on January 1st and drive to New Orleans (after stopping in Montgomery to drop 3 children off at their grandmother’s house).  Did you know that I-10 is […]

on New Year’s Eve 2014

We took the babies to meet our friends and former next door neighbors, Erric and Pedro, for wings at Taco Mac in the early evening.  Before they moved to Texas for a couple years and we moved north of the city, we spent New Year’s Eve with them every year. […]

Christmas 2014

I don’t normally take the entire day off on Christmas Eve, but I decided to this year, and we visited the new ice skating arena that opened a couple miles from our house the previous weekend.  I hadn’t skated in years, and the 3 children had never even attempted it.  […]

How I conquered the sound of silence

In late 2003, I came back from Iraq, finished school, and started looking to buy a house.  A few months later, I moved into a gentrifying area of Atlanta.  I loved my little house, as long as it was never silent.  Silence reminded me I was alone.  Silence reminded me […]

Thank you, Muhammad

Among the pages of captioned color photographs from my 2003 deployment is one that sticks out.  There’s a woman in uniform, not unlike every other picture I have of persons in Iraq.  But then there’s this guy.  He has no BDU t-shirt or DCU pants; he’s in a white cotton […]

a day in New York City

As I pulled my suitcase into the kitchen Sunday morning where the children were having cereal, my 8-year-old daughter asked where I was going. “I’m going to see a friend I made when I was the age you are now.” The stated reason for my trip Sunday afternoon was to […]