Twenty-Five Years Later
Twenty-five years after walking through the doors of this institution, I found myself sitting in a leadership class for first-time managers, raising my hand just to remind people I existed. It wasn't the training that bothered me. It wasn't even being overlooked. It was the realization that after decades of service, battles fought, and lessons learned the hard way, I'm still standing in the same place saying, "Excuse me, I'm over here." Maybe that's the lesson. Maybe after twenty-five years, it's finally time to stop asking for a seat at the table and build a new one.
Can You Give Him A Goddamned Minute?
A food truck cook accidentally called a woman “he” while buried under a lunch rush. What happened next says a lot about performative outrage, modern allyship, and our culture's inability to distinguish between harmless mistakes and actual injustice.
AI Is a Tool
Artificial intelligence is a tool. A useful tool. A powerful tool. But like every tool, it has limitations. Mine seems particularly determined to turn me into a hairy biker named Randy, plaster motivational slogans on everything, and lecture me about conflict resolution every time I suggest solving a problem with a gun. A love letter, a rant, and a public roasting of AI, all rolled into one.
“Outlaw” Bikers
A trip to the Harley dealership turns into an unexpected lesson about modern biker culture. Expecting to find an ally in the fight against government overreach, one rider instead discovers that not everyone wearing leather believes in freedom the same way. A rant about loud pipes, regulations, Baby Boomers, and the growing gap between the image of rebellion and the reality of compliance.
The Weave
Every motorcycle rider knows the feeling: getting trapped behind a painfully slow driver while traffic stacks up behind both of you. What starts as mild annoyance quickly evolves into a full psychological investigation of the driver's intelligence, ancestry, and questionable life choices. A profanity-laced exploration of why riders weave, why drivers misunderstand it, and why some people should never be entrusted with the accelerator.
The Bear
After surviving a motorcycle crash that nearly killed her, a rider watches Santa Fe quietly criminalize the very thing many bikers use to stay alive: being heard. A furious reflection on freedom, government overreach, automated enforcement, and what happens when working people stop feeling represented.
Remember The Fallen
Memorial Day is supposed to be about remembrance, sacrifice, and the men and women who never came home. A submarine veteran reflects on military service, fallen sailors, branch rivalry, and the growing disconnect between national sacrifice and modern American comfort.
Behavior Correction Plan
Motorcycle riding is equal parts freedom and survival. Between breathtaking New Mexico landscapes and drivers treating traffic laws like optional suggestions, I finally decided to start documenting the chaos with a full-on camera setup mounted to the bike. Expect beautiful scenery, questionable life choices, and a lot of screaming.
Leadership Has Left The Building
After nearly twenty-five years inside a massive institution, I finally climbed high enough up the organizational ladder to see what was really happening. What I found wasn’t leadership. It was ego, self-preservation, and a startling absence of humility. A brutally honest reflection on management, modern corporate culture, and the difference between authority and actual leadership.
Show the Fuck Up
People reveal themselves in tiny moments. A smile. A thank you. Eye contact. Or the complete absence of all three. A breakfast encounter at a local diner turns into a reflection on presence, energy, and the growing number of people sleepwalking through life expecting the world to carry them.
Happy Campers
There are two kinds of happy campers. One finds peace in the quiet of the woods. The other parks in the left lane at 67 and destroys everyone else’s day. This is about the second one.
Hurry Up and Lead
I showed up to the airport way too early, thinking I was being smart. Turns out, I just bought myself a front-row seat to human behavior, and a reminder of what real leadership actually looks like.
People at 35,000 Feet
Somewhere between boarding and landing, people forget how to be human. It’s not the plane, it’s the entitlement, the impatience, the complete lack of awareness at 35,000 feet.
1:00 a.m. Courage
There’s a certain kind of courage that only shows up at 1:00 a.m., usually soaked in alcohol and aimed in the wrong direction. This is a story about commitment, accountability, and what actually matters when your life is on the line.
What the Hell Happened to Driving?
Traffic up to Los Alamos isn’t bad because there are more people. It’s bad because two or three drivers at the front of the pack have collectively decided that fifteen miles under the speed limit is a personality trait. And somewhere between horsepower and hesitation, we lost something.
We Create the Problems
Human existence sometimes feels like an endless loop: we build systems, then build more systems to fix the systems we built. Meanwhile, the machine hums, and we call it progress.
Free Enough to Complain
I rode all day in freezing sun, hands numb, coffee in my veins, donuts as fuel. And downtown? Protestors. Two years later, still marching like the sky fell. Here’s what I actually saw: a free country loud enough to complain inside it.
Coverage Limits
There’s something uniquely brutal about watching your trauma converted into arithmetic. Brain bleed. Collapsed lung. Facial reconstruction. Months of recovery. And at the end of it all? Coverage limits. It isn’t justice. It’s math.