Davis graduates high school. What????

I just sent a message to Blue Water Divers letting Mitch know that Davis wants to complete his Master Diver certification on Grand Turk. This has made me reflect on a few things. 

This blog that I wrote for many years was about me, and my adventure. But, this week Davis is graduating high school and is moving on to a university to study marine biology. In the future, it may bear out that my adventure was really about Davis.

While we were on Grand Turk, Davis learned to love the sea, and the ecosystems that the sea offers. In fact, when he wanted to to get his dive cert we said no. But he would not take no for an answer. He went over to Mitch's house, got a book, studied, passed his test, and got his cert. He was 12. 

He has never changed. He has had a determination to succeed, and he has done it on his own. This week he will graduate Southwest High School, in El Centro, California, Magna Cum Laude, with a grade point of 4.25. As he states, he will graduate with the highest grade point average of any "Hitch" in history. 

I think he is right. I graduated high school with a 3.95, fifth in my class from West High School, under four valedictorians, and I graduated Magna Cum Laude, fourth in my class from The Ohio State University, with a 3.58 grade point average, with Distinction in Architecture. But these things don't matter, and no one remembers.

Final Exhibit Text

For the last year, we have been working with Dean Weldon Exhibits to design and fabricate a permanent exhibit at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. Today, we reviewed the final text panels for the first printing.

For six months I have been writing exhibit text. We have gone through prototyping and visitor evaluations. I had different groups of people come out the the museum and read the text out loud as fast as they could. This was to see how things read, and in fact this caught lots of issues.

On a panel about using natural materials as pigments for decorating ceramics 5 out of 6 readers read the word "plant"out loud instead of the word "paint." This got corrected.

But today was about a final reading. Changing a "to" to a "for." Finding a sentence that used the word "might" twice.

I hate this part of a project. I love the big ideas and the dreams. Now we are down to the details, and in a day or two we will be in print.

What Does it Mean to Have an Adventure

What does it mean to have an adventure?

This blog has been dormant for so long. In part, because I thought my life had stopped being an adventure and became about a job. But this week I was awarded the most important grant of my career. That has made me think that maybe I have not been looking hard enough.

I wrote an article in 2003 about the most important experience I have ever had in a museum. It was the evening after the Dunbar House re-restoration opening when I sat in the parlor with a half a dozen people and listened to Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems performed as the light at the end of the day faded. I think 3,000 people had come through the home, including the Secretary of the Interior, but in that that intimate setting I felt like the house became what it had always wanted to be, just a place where a poem could be shared with a few friends.

In July, 2014, I had a new most important experience. My oldest son was married. But to say that he was married does not justify the experience. My oldest son was married in the first museum I designed and constructed. I can not even express what this means to me in terms of having had a career developing museums and historic sites.

My son's fiance found a site on Pinterest that she thought would be the perfect place for a wedding.  It was the church at the Ohio Village, a historic village at the Ohio Historical Society Museum. She had no idea that I had designed the interior and had managed the construction contract. The building won an Ohio Builder's Award, according to my resume my first award winning project. This was also my first project after being hired at the Ohio Historical Society in 1997. As a young idealist architect, I had no idea that the gas lighting, hand-rubbed wood finish, and three-tone mauve interior would be the setting for the best day in my son's life. But the backdrop was priceless.

As I get older, I am constantly nagged by the perceived failure of my career and the fact that my friends have had so much more success than I have had.  

But in this one moment I have received a gift. How could you ever expect that the circle of life would circle around back to this...your first daughter-in-law framed in the place she wanted to be married ...a place that you had created.

Best Friends

I wish my son could be my best friend. I am sure  it doesn't work that way, but I'm just sayin.

I took Lucas to the airport on Monday to fly back to Chicago. He has been here over spring break. I told everyone that he called his mom and asked to come home, because he missed home. How could I not buy him a plane ticket. He misses us.

When I told him that story he said he did not remember the conversation going like that. But I am glad he came home, because I miss him.

This week we went rock climbing, off-roading, and hiking. We sat at the Museum booth at the Mid Winter Fair and Fiesta. Lucas used our Adobe Illustrator program to design a new t-shirt and two cups for the gift shop at the museum. He is so cool.

We talked about architecture and city design. Over the weekend we went to a history conference and sat through a dozen presentations on local historical organizations. On Monday I got an email from the president of the San Diego Congress of History telling me what a nice boy Lucas was.

On Saturday we went to see San Fermin at UC San Diego. The concert was so cool...and by cool I mean loud. On the two hour drive home we talked about the history of music and how current artists fit into the genera of past decades.

I called my brother Bryan this week to tell him how much I missed our dad. I had no idea how much my father loved me. I am only beginning to realize how much joy he got out of what I thought were sacrifices. I am so happy that our boys are moving on to become men. And I am very proud of the men they are becoming.

One day they will see life through my eyes and realize how much I loved them. And by that time I will probably be gone, just like my father was gone before I could realize how much I wished he could have been my best friend.  

Just so you know, yes, I am crying like a big baby.

What I am Thankful for...

An ode to the 2011 Jeep Wrangler that was a big part of our lives, but is now gone. We bought this Jeep in December 2010, just weeks before I moved to California. In the 30 months we had it out here, we trashed it. But I guess it was for a good cause; a great time off-roading. Here it is as a Brand New Jeep in Columbus, Ohio.

Here it is in the Coyote Mountains, its first week in California, after Graham and Martin brought it on a cross country trip of a lifetime. 

This is our Jeep in Arizona. 

This is the Jeep getting banged up in Split Mountain pass. 

This is our Jeep for sale in the used car lot. 

I get very sad when I look at these photos. I wish we could have held on to this little workhorse, with its several small modifications and the new off-road tires I had to buy after Deneen drove over a large piece of metal near the high school. 

But it was time for a 36,000 mile service, and somehow I convinced myself that it was cheaper to just buy a new Wrangler. I hope we make as many memories in the 2014. And I hope we can buy a second Jeep Wrangler next year when the new turbo diesel engine is released in the United States.     

What I want for Christmas

What do I want for Christmas...

Umm...a new Jeep.

I loved my Jeep Wrangler in the Turks and Caicos. The gas gauge did not work, when you filled it gas ran out from under tank, and it backfired. But you could take it anywhere and you never worried about a scratch.

The 2011 Jeep Wrangler that we bought to move to the Imperial Valley turned out to be the little Jeep that could. It has been in and out of a lot of places. This image is my Jeep coming through Split Mountain in an area where we had to build up a rock ramp in order to transverse through the wash. I did not appreciate this Jeep until it was gone, but at the beginning of November it was at its height in trade in value. For three years and 37,000 miles this Wrangler took us on countless adventures throughout the Yuha Desert and the Anza-Borrego State Park.

Jeeps seem to hold their value. I bought this Jeep for $24,000, traded it in for $17,000, and you could buy it today at Rogers ad Rogers for $22,000.

Our new Jeep is a 2014 Wrangler with an automatic transmission and a hard top. It is new, and clean, and not a scratch on it. Well, not so fast, on Sunday I had it in the desert for the first time and got into a tight spot on BLM road 094. We came too close to a creosote bush and now its has a few scratches down the passenger's side. Let the dance begin.

My Work Here is Done

 Has it been a year? I don't believe it. The last blog I wrote was after our annual meeting in 2012. The 2013 annual meeting is next week.

Ah, so what have I been doing, you ask?

"Working. Working. Working." say I.

What happened to the adventure, you ask?

"Working. Working. Working." say I.


I have included the Opinion piece that was heart breaking and awful and 30 months ago. It followed the first public interview I had given to the paper after arriving in the Imperial Valley in 2011. The Opinion piece that came out today says it all.

Click on them to read them. The comparison of the two articles could not be more telling about what this year has been like. It has been a lot of work.

But my work here is done. This is what we came to do. Open a museum that would make an impact, that would be community focused, and that would reach for the highest standards and maximum fun.

I am ready for the next adventure. Please let me know if you hear of any museums with a major crises that needs fixing - that might also be in the Caribbean, South America, South Pacific, or Alaska. I would also really be interested in developing something for Carnival or Holland America Cruise Lines.

So please, keep your ears open...