Our Old Dad

Be like Mr. Walker and expect nothing for it. 04/13/2026 Hey, Dudes! Years ago, I moved back down to Boulder from Nederland. I was still working full time at IBM and also doing work for a friend who owned a computer hardware wholesaler in Boston. Things were going pretty well for me then, if you take my disastrous love life out of the equation. Looking back, I can see that the restlessness that brought me down from the mountains was about to disrupt everything completely. But I did not see that then. I just knew it was time. Or maybe more accurately, I just knew I was being directed. I rented a nice house in North Boulder, catty-corner from the open space that led to the North Boulder Rec Center. It was my first time living in that part of town, and I liked it. Next door lived a man named Mr. Walker. His family had owned the Walker Ranch that was later donated to the Boulder County open space program. He was close to ninety years old. ...

  Raven recently started taking photos to preserve memories and exercise her artistic abilities. This is one of her first staged shots that didn't involve photographing her little brother in uncomfortable poses.  That is Stuffy's cheese and cracker on the ledge. Raven muttered something about dreams being out of reach for most of us, but wouldn't elaborate too much. Here's to a long, creative career for Raven!

I'm on a train somewhere in Europe. Not actually—I'm in a pickup truck in Aurora, Colorado, sixty years old, half thinking about grading something I don't care about. But in my head I'm on a train, and there's a woman across the aisle, and we're about to have the conversation that changes everything. Inside the fantasy, age drops out. I'm just the guy across from her. And then I remember I'm in a truck and nobody's across from me. When I was eight or nine, my parents sent us to stay with relatives we barely knew. My dad's uncle Bob and his wife Earline, out in Normal, Illinois—flat, farm country, nothing to do. Cover story: go see how they live. I think my parents needed us gone for a night. We never asked why. Earline's mother lived with them. Ninety-something—slouched in a chair in the corner of a room that smelled like dust and menthol, a few stages short of puddling. We walked in. Introductions. You remember Grandma —whatever ...

  The Why Statement: What LifeEducation Is Actually For I've been building something called LifeEducation for a while now. I've written about pieces of it here — the slow-travel plans, the worldschooling idea, the general philosophy. But the project has gone from "a dad thinking out loud" to something with real structure behind it. The short version: LifeEducation is a lightweight operating system for raising capable, self-directed humans. It's built around one question — what should an 18-year-old actually be able to do? — and it works regardless of whether the kids are in school, homeschooling, or some mix of both. The project has three layers: The Why defines the thesis — what this is for and what we're optimizing for. The Floor is the contract — the non-negotiable minimum a young adult should be able to do by 18. The Domains are the broader map — ten areas of human competence that keep the full picture in view without pretending everything ...

I think about regrets a lot. Not in some grand reckoning kind of way. More in the ordinary way a person does when he gets old enough to see how small decisions turn into bigger ones, and bigger ones slowly become a life. I can look back on almost every stretch of my life and see where I should have been steadier, braver, less foolish. And if I’m honest, it doesn’t take many changed decisions to start changing everything. Even a few would have thrown the trajectory off. A different job taken. A different relationship held onto or let go of. A different move made earlier or later. A few degrees one way or the other, and maybe I do not end up here at all. But I would not trade here away. Because here means Raven and Xander. Not just children in the abstract, but these children. I was old enough by then to know that the best things don’t always show up when you expect them, or looking the way you expected. They were not part of some clean master plan. They were ...

Post 4 in the Slow Travel series · Constraint #1: Weather In Post 2 I introduced the constraint system — 11 filters that decide where we go. Weather is the first one, because it's the most ruthless. A place can be cheap, safe, beautiful, and full of opportunities. If the weather makes daily life miserable for six weeks, none of that matters. This isn't about chasing perfect beach days. It's about sleep, routines, and whether the kids can play outside on a normal Tuesday. These filters reflect our family as it is now. They'll shift as we do — that's why the system is built to be tuned, not carved in stone. People hear "weather constraints" and think high-maintenance. It's the opposite. The planet has hundreds of places with great weather in any given month. We're not limiting our options by being specific — we're choosing from an enormous list of places that actually fit, instead of landing somewhere and gutting it out. Exacting stand...

Post 3 · The Family Meet the Family (And Why We're Doing This) Before we go deeper into constraints and systems, you should probably know who "we" are. That photo is from the Philippines about 17 years ago — where this whole story really starts. The Short Version I'm Will. I'm 60. I'm a public school teacher in Colorado, a domain investor, and a dad of four. My oldest — Christopher (18) and Alexa (17) — are nearly grown and doing their thing. I'm proud of both of them. And then came the surprises. Raven (4) and Alexander (2) were not part of any plan. They turned out to be the best part of my 60 years. They're the ones who'll be slow traveling the world with me when I retire in about seven years. They're triple citizens: the United States, Ireland, and the Philippines. That matters — those passports open doors and simplify some visa decisions. Their mom is a US and Filipino citizen. She hasn't decided yet whether she...