After living in California for 28 months, I finally decided to go to the DMV to get my drivers license (the law says I should have done it in 10 days).

I took the advice of my co-workers and went to the Thousand Oaks office, and I must say that it was a good idea.

I spent a total of 25 minutes there, including filling out forms, having my info entered into the system, taking the vision test, having my picture and thumbprint taken, taking the written test, and getting my temporary licen... read more

This morning on the way to preschool, our son told told my wife "Mommy, if traffic is stop and go, get off the freeway and take Victory."
Victory Boulevard is a major east-west street the parallels the 101
freeway for many miles through the Valley.


I know I’ve sucked even more than normal at keeping up with my blog, but the last several weeks have not been fun.

Almost 4 weeks ago, I had to get a root canal, and the pain (and pain medicine) had me knocked out for almost a week.

No... read more

The weekend, we took a family trip to a Church camp in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 120 miles away. I had some less than great memories of both Catholic and Protestant camps growing up, but I was sure the Unitarian Universalists would know how to have a fun weekend. I was not wrong.

By far the worst part of the weekend was the 4 hour drive, made worse by freeway construction that shut down part of the route we had planned on taking. But when we got to camp, the stress from the drive... read more

I had just moved to California when the wildfires hit two years ago, but I had never seen them up close before.

Wednesday it took me a long time to get home due to the 118 being closed and smoke in the air. When I was driving from preschool to home, I could see lines of flames in the hills above the valley, along with multiple helicopters in the distance. However, I was not too worried, because the flames looked to be 4 or more miles away.

Wednesday night, we got to see live coverage of... read more