At a certain age, gifts are either thoughtful or pointless.  There’s really no in-between for me (that’s how men’s brains work,) and you, kiddo, already have a car and we already have a plan for gas and insurance and you have a closet full of clothes and shoes and a nice phone and a computer […]

When you think about something four to eight hours a day EVERY day, it probably means you REALLY want whatever it is you’re thinking about, right? That’s more rhetorical than actually answerable, because I could fashion a scenario where it could mean the exact opposite. But it’s the first scenario for me.  I think about […]

My brain does not turn off.  Ever.  I’m quite certain I’m not the only one, but I am completely certain that the reasons why are always unique to each of us.   Another thing I am quite certain about is that the topics that saddle a restless brain and the reasons they won’t leave aren’t nearly […]

A few friends and I started a side business this week.  I would have never done that four years ago. Before I turned my every waking minute into building a website, I was the only unaffiliated candidate in the state of North Carolina to run for the General Assembly.  I never would have done that […]

It’s a weird debate to me, but we’re in a world where truth has no definition and facts don’t need evidence, so I guess it’s understandable.  I mean, even those people who call the virus a hoax admit that people can die a pretty shitty death if they get it, but I still feel pretty […]

Win or Lose…. ….and I know the odds are not in my favor, these past 13 months since I announced I was running for the NC House have been a case study in how to do something completely irrational with unbending rationality.  And that probably makes no sense unless you’d been in my shoes throughout.  […]

First, forgive me for the claim in the title of which I cannot prove.  I mean, I probably come really close in what you’re about to read, but I really try to not be like those people that go around with their sacred spaghetti necks judging people with proclamations about what Jesus would say about […]

When I look back at this time in history, I don’t think I’ll view it much differently than I do now.  I think I’ll still be completely baffled by it.  Either that or I’ll know this was the era within my lifetime that the world really did change for the worse. I think I’ve come […]

More than likely, my social media habits are going to change pretty drastically by about November 10th of this year.  Even if I actually win this race, whereby I will absolutely keep a campaign page and correspond with constituents as much as possible, I have pretty much already decided that that will be the ONLY […]

There’s a Johnston County Board of Education meeting tonight, so I figured I’d take a shot at one of them reading the opinion of a nobody political candidate, veteran teacher, and JCPS father.   It’s become apparent to me that it’s time to give ALL stakeholders a choice.  It’s time to give parents the choice to […]

It’s starting to not feel okay.  It never felt right, but I understood it.  There were just too many unknowns.  Too many what ifs. Too many warranted fears. This virus is absolutely still an enemy.  And we as a country have an answer for enemies.  We have the most powerful military in the world to […]

I don’t specifically remember the moment in 2014 that I said to myself, “Why in the heck are you still a registered Democrat?” but I had never known anything else.  My grandfather was the Democratic mayor of Four Oaks for about 40 years (not exaggerating,) and my dad was a JoCo School Board member in […]

Ever noticed that somewhere around 127% of all political candidates campaign on lots of stuff that is never actually questioned or explained?  The one that has always made me roll my eyes is “Common Sense Leadership.”  “I’m Roosevelt Beamon, and I promise Common Sense Leadership.” Blah. Liar. I mean, it’s obviously just a buzz phrase […]

There have been doubts.  There have been tears.  There have been internet trolls.  There are continuing struggles with fundraising.  There is a developing theme of having the least campaign time of any candidate alive because of being stuck inside four pandemic walls with two toddlers and a wife now working more than full time.  There […]

I was reading a thread on Facebook recently and ran across somebody who commented a couple of times about something that really made me step back and think.  He was talking about how people complain about politicians who are currently in office but they offer no plan to fix whatever it was they were complaining […]

I didn’t run for office just to win.  I didn’t run just for the competition.  I sure as heck didn’t run for power.  I didn’t even run for the validation of a platform, but the world is validating it for me in horrible, disgusting ways. I’m but one little voice, and sometimes that voice is […]

If I could pick one destination for the phrase “social distancing” – this is, of course, if such a personified ending was possible – I would commission a hole dug all the way down to the magma, drop it in, curse it, watch it burn, and then bury it a thousand miles below Earth’s surface.  […]

I’m not sure I can adequately express how badly I hate the word “liberal.”  I do not hate those who are sullied with such a title by those who find name-calling to be the best means by which to debate politics, but I can’t stand the word. For starters, I proved in my last blog […]

In reading about politics and the division we have in this country now, you sometimes see a phrase that basically says, “We’re really not all that different.”  The reason you see that phrase is because it’s mostly true.  You don’t often see much in politics anymore that you can actually look at and say, “Well […]

I’d like to offer one short perspective on the partisanship of this pandemic, and rather than anyone taking it personally, I hope you will simply consider it.  Every single aspect of our lives has been infected with toxic partisanship over the past several years, and the fact that a pandemic exacerbates that should be embarrassing […]

On April 1, 2000, the Census Bureau of the United States announced in their once per decade census that the population of the United States was 281,421,906.  Today, based on the Census Bureau’s online Population Clock, the United States stands at 329,491,711 people. That is an increase of roughly 48,000,000.  In percentages, the United States […]

**Note: If you would rather read this on Google Docs, where the tables below in the blog post were created and look MUCH better (especially on a mobile device,) it can be found here.** I get rather tired of politicians using spin to tell me how much they have done for me and my ilk, […]

Had enough of this yet?  Or is this your Disney World?   I can imagine that if you are married and have a family, the thought of being stuck in the house with them every day for the next few weeks is horrifying.  It’s probably especially bad if you are a ninja drinker. The fear and […]

The easiest way to describe the type of classes and students I teach would be to describe my school as a whole from the “top” down.  At the tippy top is a school within a school called the International Baccalaureate program. This is for the students that smashed their first birthday cake with one hand […]

With ten days to go before all of my signatures were due to the Board of Elections and I could finally file for the office of North Carolina House of Representatives, I heard something that just about floored me.  I heard about a person (who shall remain nameless but is related very closely to a […]