Who am I today?

Throughout our lives, we are given certain labels…mine would look like(only the nice ones, that is..)

Lani and Brian’s son

Kristina’s brother

‘that nice boy at Roland’s’

Paola’s husband

Jake and Zac’s dad

But the thing about these labels is that they are only just that until you take the step to embrace them. Then they become your identity, or a major thing that you associate your life and mission with. Nothing spoke to me about that more clearly when I became a dad. Put your seatbelt on, because your whole life changes. Never was I so worried about another being, nor did I give global warming or pollution much thought. I changed and began to think about those things through the eyes of my children, what kind of world are we leaving them? Right or wrong, that was my tipping point. From here, I moved to thoughts of ‘what does a good father do’ and about the type of father I wanted to become. I thought of my guiding principles, those that were passed down to me by my father, crafted by experience and how I would want to pass them on. One thing I knew that I was to care less about what my son’s would say about me in their adolescent and teenage years- I am certainly never going to be their friend or win any popularity contests with them during that phase, but more about how they would talk about me to their kids, how they were well brought up and learned valuable lessons from me. I knew it would be then that they would truly understand the what’s and whys of fatherhood, much like the revelation that I experienced. Most importantly, they needed to feel safe and that no matter who they were, wanted to be and turned out to be, that my love was unconditional and accepting and always theirs. That was a good place to start..

My relationship with Pao changed, and by change, I really mean that it grew stronger. We are really a team and we are in ‘it’ in a big way. In the beginning, our equilibrium was off and we worked to strike a new balance. It was hard and fun needing a lot of communication(Mars-Venus type stuff), but once that was worked out…boy what a fun ride it has and continues to be. I know my role as father and her role as mother and we work that very well. I love that she is the one who gets the raise our 2 boys with me. There is somethings that I did learn from her, often through some bit of pain...they include;


- No matter what you did at work, it was nothing compared to watching two toddlers and I mean nothing

- Be ready to ‘take over’ when you get home, they are yours and I have had an ass full of them!

- The kids are excited to see you come home, but mom is the main source of comforting, dont mess with that.

- MOM NEEDS TO GET OUT OF HERE AND FAST, kindly step out of the way...


My boys are 4 and 2 as of this posting. They require and deserve a bunch of my attention for which I happily give 95% of the time. They, along with Pao make up of most of the joy I have in my life. That said, I do have outside interests that I tend to like training for a marathon or whatever physical challenge I take on and keeping my golf game respectable. Those are important too, but they are not a priority. They simply fill in part of who I am today and provide me an opportunity with teaching moments to share along the way. That is who I am today and I love that!

Well Jake and Zac...that is it for today. I love you guys!