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I watch my shot glide to the basket on hole 18. It’s a short hole to finish the course, but treacherous. The basket is perched in front of a large boulder, and anywhere off a straight line to the basket is a precipitous drop-off. My shot lands a little short, to the left, but on the flattest line down to the basket. It’s my typical safe shot. I hop off the tee pad and collect my things. As I begin walking down the path, a little tuft of fuzz catches my eye. It’s quite still overall, but the bits of fur at the end wiggle in the light breeze. They’re mostly black, with a clear white stripe down the middle. ...

I’ve started tutoring through an organization called Step Up Tutoring. They run online-only free tutoring for students in grades 3 through 6 in the LA school district, one of the largets in the country. They haven’t been around long, but have already developed a great relationship with the district and a pretty robust network of tutors (mainly in California) to work with the students. ...

I’m starting to fall behind on my self-stated goal of reading 24 books each year. I had a wicked start, but have been stuck on a single book for the last couple of months. It’s a good book, but I haven’t been taking the long chunks of time I need to get through it. ...

My friend Brandon wrote a short play, Cameo, for performance over Zoom. It was part of an event put on by Invisible Disco Productions, and was the final of four plays put on, each about ten minutes long. ...

Every student that was previously instructed in-person by my company has been on Zoom for over a year. While we’re making plans to transition our learning centers back to in-person come this Fall, we have also spun off a permanently-virtual version of these courses. Instead of letting this year be a fluke when considering curriculum and instruction, there has been significant time devoted to improving the experience of student learning in this online face-to-face environment. Here are some reflections on what I’ve learned over that time, both in teaching last year and helping adapt our curriculum. ...

We have had several sets of federal education standards, the most recent being Common Core, but the focus has been on what, not how. These standards outline a broad set of topics and skills students should accumulate, but very little guidance on how to go about it. ...

After a couple weeks in Minnesota, I’m back in my San Francisco apartment. A key indicator of your living situation is taking a big whiff of the air the moment you walk in the door, because that’s what other people smell when they arrive. I’m happy to report the smell was pleasant and flowery, as well as comfortable and familiar. Erin and I have discussed what we refer to as “home” these days, and this apartment certainly has a lot going for it.

I’ve wanted to try disc golf for a couple of years. I discovered it through the fantastic YouTube channel JomezPro, and have been into the sport since. However, I never took the time to buy and mess around with discs, or check with my friends for people to play with. While in Washington, I discovered that a few friends of mine have started playing. That was enough to encourage me to give it a go while back in Minnesota. It’s already been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to working on it even more once I’m back in California.

Now that my fiancée and I are both vaccinated, we were able to fly back to Minnesota for two weeks. I don’t anticipate having a lot of time to write blog posts, since the little bit of free time I have outside friends and family will likely be spent editing Comical Start. So I’ll leave this short post as a reflection of my excitement and luck that I get to be back home for a little while. I hope others get the same opportunity soon.

This past week I was lucky to head out to Washington state with some friends. We had all gotten vaccinated (and had mainly been working from home), so it was a nice opportunity to just spend time together and go exploring. We went to various beaches, went on a whale-watching excursion, checked out the Hoh Rain Forest, and got up early to see a meteor shower (my first ever). Most importantly, I discovered my phone could take a timelapse. So, I made this nifty video. ...