Once, when my daughter was about six and she had just started soccer, she had trouble getting excited about going to practice. And by getting excited, just wanting to go. She hated running and thought it was stupid. As we walked toward another practice we were talking about what she could do to make it better. I told her, “…in life, sometimes you have to approach things with a crazy amount of optimism to get through them. I mean a stupid amount. That’s it. That’s our motto from now on ‘Stupid Optimism!'” She looked at me and smiled. I said, “What do you say? Think you can do this with some Stupid Optimism? Ohh, we can even make shirts!” And without missing a beat she said, “I’ll wear the shirt that says ‘Optimism.'”  She laughed and ran off to practice. Thus, Stupid Optimism was born and I knew I was in trouble in the same moment.

I am a husband, a father of three, and an English teacher living in Pennsylvania.  I am a lover of reading, writing, and the English language.  I am a fan of the outdoors and of exploring it with my family.  I am enthralled by science and technology, even though I don’t math well. Like, at all. I am an activist and using my voice to lift the voices of others. I am interested in anything and everything, and it’s always been my motto to try anything thrice.  And I am writing this because I want to share the random brick-a-brack I think of on topics like the state of fatherhood, education, and really anything that pops into my weird, age-addled brain.