Guest Poster Extraordinaire

I've never been a guest poster--until now. Paul Angone of All Groan Up, has posted my article, "Just Get Your Degree." After a long day at my day job, I was at home surfing the Internet when I found his site. Let's just say that I fell in love with the idea. He's creating a community for those of us who grew up, went to college, graduated and then said, "what the heck!" A college degree hasn't automatically opened up doors to the perfect career and the meaning of adulthood. Instead, it has left many with tons of debt, disappointment and questions. One question that I used to ask all the time was, "what was the point?"

A huge thank you to Paul for recognizing that those of us who worked really hard to get to this point in life and find ourselves lost, need a voice.

And don't forget to read about his new book, "Are You My Life?: Searching for Self, Faith and a Freaking Job,"to be released in spring 2012.

Southern California Father's Day

Releasing frogs, eating seafood, sitting on the beach and watching a pendulum swing. Now that's an awesome Father's Day if I do say so myself. Saturdays are my days to go out and do stuff so I decided to celebrate the day with my dad a bit early. He and his girlfriend and I spent Saturday just enjoying the the weather and our time together.


It all started with my brilliant idea of releasing some frogs and tadpoles that I had caught about a month ago. They were all tadpoles when I caught them and all but three had morphed into frogs. We spent the late morning sitting on rocks near a stream, releasing my frogs and tadpoles and then watching them in the stream.

    

   

After releasing the frogs and tadpoles, we decided to stick our feet in the water and cool off before heading off to our next destination. It was amazing to stand in the stream and look one direction and see nothing but the mountains and look the opposite and see cars driving by on an overpass. It was a little piece of nature in the big city.

With growling stomachs and great anticipation, we drove to Malibu Seafood, in beautiful Malibu California. According to my dad I've been going there since I was in a bucket. It seemed fitting to enjoy a Father's Day lunch at the seafood shack that's responsible for dozens of happy family memories. After finishing off our meal of fish and chips, clam chowder and fried scallops, it was off to the water. We crossed Pacific Coast Highway, found a spot on the sand and put our towels down.

We made sure we brought crackers for our seagull friends and they were very pleased. One seagull decided that he was the boss and he perched on the remnants of a sand castle waiting for his share. It wasn't long before the rest of his buddies caught on and flocked toward our towels, waiting patiently for their turn to try and catch the next cracker that flew toward them. When they decided that we were really out of treats and that we weren't hold out on them, they flew off in search of their next meal. Soon after we decided to pack up our beach gear and drive toward Los Angeles. Canter's Deli was our next stop where we enjoyed coffee and dessert before ending up at the Griffith Observatory.

One of my favorite places to go is the Griffith Observatory, which sits high above L.A. in Griffith Park. The top of the observatory is a great place to go to look out over the city. At night everything seems to glow. One of the best things about it is that admission is free. We wandered around outside and made our way to the Tesla Coil for the last demonstration of the night. Finally we watched the pendulum that demonstrates how the earth moves. All in all, Saturday was a pretty busy day, but it was one of the best days that I've had in a long time. I love Southern California. Happy Father's Day Dad.