This web-site is
all about me and the people who have made me ..."me!!!"
It serves as a tribute
to all of
the people who have come, gone and remained important
aspects and fixtures to who I
have become
today. I
have assembled the best collection of memories possible,
and laid them out on
these page. This
site is a living memory ... to my friends, my family,
and to the girls who have carved out
different
pieces of my heart ... and that have changed me
forever. It is also a tribute to
the two
most important coaches I have ever had in my life. One,
a man who taught me to push my
body
farther than it could have ever imagined going ... to
"suck it up," and to never settle
for what I
thought I could do, but to be a fighter -- to capture
goals. He taught me that Water Polo
was just a
game, but the lessons you learn from it would follow you
around forever. And my
other most
influential coach, my private club swim coach in high
school. I not only learned swim strokes, technique and
strategy ... but I learned about character. I
learned what it meant to be a man. I learned about
setting example by action as much as I learned about
setting goals. I learned that the quiet stare is more
powerful than the loud yell. Thank you ... as I go
each
day and serve the
children of this nation -- I pray for the same qualities
you both have, and
that I may likewise
affect the life of an individual.
This page
also serves as a testament to my life, who I am ... and
even more -- who I strive
to still
become.
|
"It is
essential to understand that battles are primarily
won in the hearts of men."
~ Vince
Lombardi
|
Graduation from
college was one of the most special times of my life. I
first dreamed of attending UCLA and of being a `Bruin'
in the 6th Grade. Those first few dreams began
decades
ago, and to now see them have end amazes me. Thinking
of the path that I traveled to get there, and everyone
I have met and everything I have done since then has
been incredible. There have been days and events that I
wish I could take back, but as I look over the past few
years, I realize that every experience, both good and
bad have helped to shape who I am today.
|
"To
Love is a Chore -- One I Would Labor For Everyday."
~ me,
1997 |
I wrote the words which
follow below (the ones written in yellow) several years ago.
To read what I imagined love being like ... and to now
actually share that feeling is simply breath-taking and
amazing. I have never been as content with who I am, as
I have become by falling in love with my wife.
The quote above was once the pride of my creative and
romantic life. I realize now that I was wrong.
To Love is not a chore, love is natural. I spent a
long time laboring for love ... and as soon as I stopped
trying so hard; I met my wife. To Love ... had been in the past, both
real and in imagined love ~ was a chore. It took labor
to make it perfect; and then I found what I now have and
enjoy the most in life. True, real and selfless love.
The type of love that is not a chore, and takes no
labor. Instead, it makes you jump out of bed in the
morning and smile through the day. My how times
change....
In the past few years, my friends
have begun getting married. It is such a beautiful
thing! For me, the past few years I have seem to become
the poster boy for Lonestar's song, "Smile"
with its words and meaning stamped on my forehead. But,
the idea of finding that one person who makes you so
happy that you desire to share the rest of your life
with her must be amazing. I have many dreams in life
... some big, others small. I think that my most
important dream though ... is to find that "one"
person. I often fall victim to "romantic" visions of
love and of finding the "one." I envision being in the
grocery store, or in a quaint bookstore in some secluded
coastal city in Central California and across an aisle
of fresh fruit or the latest best-seller ... there our
eyes meet. With timid smiles of flirtation and caution,
an eventual reason to talk takes hold and thus ...
magic! Ahhh, yes, to look into the eyes of another
person and to have her know you better than you know
yourself ... to share entire conversations without even
opening your mouth must be amazing .... I have done a
lot of things in life, and I am convinced, that no
number of awards and accolades, no amount of time in the
spotlight, nothing else in life can be as filling,
rewarding and rich as that of the pure, true love which
flows from the most inner, shy parts of who we are. I
may be asking for too much, I may be accused of being a
dreamer, or hopeless romantic ... but being any of these
things and alone will always be better than being with
someone ... and
being
lonely.
|
"Two
Roads Diverged in a Wood, and I -- I Took The One
Less Traveled By, and That Has Made All of The
Difference"
~Robert Frost |
My original goal
after college graduation was to attend Law School.
That, however, wavered sometime in
the Spring of my Junior Year at UCLA. At the time, I
was re-evaluating my life, and I
woke up one
morning realizing that the reasons I wanted to attend
Law School for the most part
were
attached to money, ego and prestige. Because of my
girlfriend at the time,
I began to realize
that happiness is truly not measured in dollars and
titles, but rather in
the inner joys
from the world around you -- and for learning that
lesson, I am forever thankful. It amazes me how
one person can change your life, and because of
her,
that I am exactly where
I want to be
today. Because an individual had the courage to tell me what I
may have not wanted to hear,
and no
matter how hard-headed I was -- I am now doing what I
treasure most. In the movie Mr. Holland's Opus,
there is a line saying "I got drug into to this
(teaching) kicking and screaming, and now it is the only
thing I want to do." I love the
Law, but I am
passionate
about education, about children and the future of our
nation. Education is truly the silver bullet. The
classroom is the frontline to so many social battles
throughout the world. I have found in teaching,
something, and someone that I never knew existed inside
of me. I am blessed that I never go 'to work.' Rather,
I go and play. I have strived my entire adult life only
doing one thing -- and in these 3 1/2 years ~ it seems
as though lifetimes of rewards and tears have come to me
already. "Dead Poets Society" came out on video when I
was 15 years old. I remember being roused and stirred
by Robin William's character then. "Mr. Holland's
Opus" came out when I was 17. Long before I had
fathomed "stooping" down to teaching, these movies made
my passions swirl. The were inspiration and I craved
those feelings -- even before I decided to teach. And
now ... these same movies draw tears and humility from
me in baskets of abounding love and touching moments.
They say with parenthood that you can never explain to
someone the feelings and emotions you feel inside. I
think the same is true with teaching. My life has been
touched in ways which you can not explain, and I hold
the memory of my students and my athletes close to my
heart as they have helped to shape who I am still
becoming....
|
"A Hundred
Years From Now, It Will Not Matter What My Bank
Account Was,
The Sort of
House I Lived In, Or The Kind Of Car I Drove ... But
The World May Be Different Because I Was
Important In The Life Of A Child." ~ Unknown |
At this time,
touching
the future seems to be a richer reward than anything
that money could ever buy.
The
plan right now is to teach for a few years, and at that
time re-evaluate life, where
I am, who is in it,
etc., and then decide which course to follow. It looks
at this point that I will continue to serve in education
for the rest of my professional life -- to which
capacity I am unsure still ... but a
PhD in
Educational Policy seems to be the direction I will be
heading in a few years.
|
"It is raining still... Maybe it is not one of those
showers that is here one minute and gone the next,
as I had so boldly assumed. Maybe none of them are.
After all, life in itself is a chain of rainy days.
But there are times when not all of us have
umbrellas to walk under. Those are the times when we
need people who are willing to lend their umbrellas
to a wet stranger on a rainy day. I think I'll go
for a walk with my umbrella." ~ Sun-Young Park |
Henry David Thoreau
once said that he went to the woods so that
he could
learn to live deliberately ... to suck out the marrow
of life, so
that when he died, he would not learn that he had not
lived.
Jimmy Buffet once
answered the question of `where
is 'Margaritaville'
by answering that, `you will know it
when you
get there ....' For where we each find ourselves is a
journey of
one's soul ... of one's mind, and follows the road of
experience
that life, God willing, provides for each of us.
|
"Sometimes it is Your Purpose in Life to be an
Example to Others..."
~unknown |
We all have our own
story, of tragedy and comedy, of life and love. It took
me 20 years
and a city
of well over a million individuals to realize what my
life was
meant to be. Bruce
Springsting offers in his hit song from the smash
movie, Jerry Maguire,
"You've
gone a million miles, how
far did you get?
That
place where you can't remember and you can't forget."
Where
have you gone ... how many miles have you traveled?
Never
discount what you have learned. The most seemingly
trivial
moments can have the most profound effect on the shape
of
our forms and molds. Who we are, for better or
worse. Without the patience of our good and forgiving
Lord, I would not
want to fathom where
I would be today. Without the support and
love of my
family and my incredible inner circle of Life-Long
friends, I
would not have
the courage to wake
up each morning in this sometimes frightening
and often
cynical, cynical world. Some people are lucky to have
the gift of a brother in
this
life. I am luckier, I have three. Even if not related
by blood or by marriage, these are men who have fought
time and age, distance and thought to brave
a frontier
of intimacy that few individuals can share -- to be
part of a family. Those who have always been there
to pick up the pieces of shattered hearts,
broken
bodies and unimaginable pain. They have always had the
strength to tell me when I was
being a
jerk, and we have all shared the joy of each others'
incredible and trivial
accomplishments.
|
"The
Only Thing Necessary for Evil to Triumph is for Good
Men to do Nothing."--Edmund Burke |
"ALL AMERICAN"
What is All
American? All American at present is a dream of a
better America. The idea that we might be able to save
our nation from a conceited, self-interested generation
who has left little to spare for their children and for
those to come. This vision may sound utopian, but is
far from idealistic. All American stands for the idea
of being American. Of drawing from the "positive"
points of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, to
create a new vision for America, the vision of our
Fore-Fathers. It is the vision of a nation waking each
morning and being proud, having respect and humility for
a country which was based on better concepts than some
of our present leaders could ever imagine -- concepts
such as God, Individuality, Competition and a rich since
of Creativity. To emphasize the important things in our
hectic lives, the things often most sacrificed ... our
Families and our Education systems. It is an attempt to
recognize that America was established as, "one nation
under God," and that to rob our judiciary and school
children of this founding Christian principle is a
shame.
All American
is a craving for classic-liberal governance. One based
on a strong and free market economy with limited state
interference, however, with a new and
important appreciation for dwindling resources and
global environmental dilemmas. We have come to live
within a political environment in which the main actors
strive to structure social thought and practice.
Through this, by action, these leaders demonstrate a
lack of respect and moral character which is sabotaging
our great and proud nation. They have begun leading us
and our children down a destructive path of humiliation
as the once great Roman Empire found itself on. Adam
Smith said in the Wealth of Nations that the state is to
provide two basic functions: The protection of private
property and responsibility for national defense. The
thought of All American would support this
contention with the necessary appreciation for the new
and complex problems never known in world history. That
sacrifice in simplicity must be made in order to
establish certain protections, not between each other,
but between factors which can not protect themselves.
All American believes that every person in America is a
special and unique individual. Whether they are native
to this land, or are immigrants by either choice or
force, and are White, Black, Asian, or Hispanic --
that we are all Americans. The institution of
America is a fragile one however, and strength comes in
numbers. We need to each see ourselves as "Americans"
while maintaining an appreciation of where we have come
from. Factional dissidence has riddled history as the
cause for the breakup of many great nations. Therefore,
we can not be assorted varieties of "Americans," rather
we must simply unite as -- AMERICANS -- to best
preserve what is left of our nation for our children ...
and to repair as much of it as we can. We owe it to our
fore-fathers, we owe it to the million young men who
have selflessly sacrificed for EACH of us in battle, and
most importantly ... we owe it to our children.
|
"How
we spend our days is how we spend our lives." --Anne
Dillard |
DEDICATION
This page is
dedicated to several people. Justin, who without his
hours of patience, I would have never been on-line in
the first place. "moondogi.com" began as a free site
and 20-character address back in 1997. It was created
by Justin and now today it is inspired by the memory of
two incredible girlfriends for whom I wonder if life
would be possible without them having been there in the
past. And of course, to Casey. "Goose," "Keggers" ...
my very best friend in the world for whom I respect,
admire and adore more than anyone else in my life. You
ARE the best at being a friend, what else can I
say Cas ... our lives together bring tears to my
eyes as my heart swells with passion, love, joy and
spirit. I do not imagine that either of us will
ever marry the Prom Queen, or drive BMW's ... but
everyday man, we are getting it done, fighting the
courageous fight and making life real for kids from all
sorts of worlds ... our careers
will not make us rich ... but we will sleep well and
feel accomplished at the end of each day. To Travis, in
a short time, but with powerful words I learned that
success comes from being happy and the judgments of
other people are nothing but judgments. I read your
words everyday, and they keep me going more than you
ever could have imagined ... bless you. Shep, Swanny,
Freet, Ron, Cory, Kromer ... oh the "San Diego Days,"
you are guys are crazy, and whether we are drinking,
gambling, surfing, talking or hitting on hot chicks --
you guys ROCK -- thanks and to many more days!!! Maren,
you reminded me to read, and how to dream. And Jen from
Virginia, God's gift to me for 5 years, an
amazing angel for whom words can not speak enough for
... you never stopped listening to my ramblings and
dreams -- and you encouraged me to write like no one
ever has. And back to Justin, it will always be "your
song." I wish you the best in your walk for where
God is leading you. May your heart and passion for all
in your life and for all you do never burn out. Vince
Lombardi use to tell his teams that "There's only one
way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it
everything." As annoying as it can be ... that is you
... that is you. And last ... but never least; to the
Love of my life -- to what the years will bring; for the
foreign lands we long to travel and the vast expanse of
learning which we can share in together -- thank you for
believing in me. Thank you for proving that fairytales
do come true, and for being worth not having to
justify anything. We are the Lyndon & the Oak.
This page
was born at the University of California, Los Angeles
Westwood,
California; 90024
1997
~
moondogi@uclabruins.com
