A Very Happy(dog) Birthday Thanks for all the well wishes yesterday! Sending love to you all! Gratitude for a Great Day Yesterday I celebrated my 47th birthday. It was filled with much love and well-wishes from friends, family, colleagues, students and random folks I don't know (yup!). My PRpeeps sang to me, as did one of my classes (I blushed). Since this first day of my 48th year is a "Happydog Friday," I thought I'd simply post what I'm most grateful for as I begin another

For Those About to Rock A salute to an old friend and his family I was about 12 years old when Chuck Craig moved into the neighborhood. We both just finished seventh grade and our birthdays turned out to be only one day apart. We instantly became great friends. Chuck moved from Walnut City, California (about 20 miles east of Oakland) where everything was cooler than our mid-sized, midwest town of Jackson, Michigan. While I introduced him to a few of my more mundane activities