I met Danny Evans of Dad Gone Mad during my first Journalism class at Fresno State in 1991. We were two Southern California sports fans in a sea of NorCal dweebs who thought the sporting world centered around the Golden State Bridge in San Francisco.

We quickly developed a friendship and I found Danny to be funny, quick-witted, and rather confident in his ability. Spending just a few minutes around Danny, I realized I was no longer the big fish in a little pond. I came from a small Southern California community college and thought I was a big deal having spent two years as the school newspaper's sports editor and worked a part-time at the local paper.

Along with others in that first class, Danny had far more experience in the writing field and seemed much more at ease about being surrounded by people who thought they were good enough with the keyboard to make some serious in the future at big market newspapers and magazines.

During our three years at college together, we played intramural basketball together, played golf, drank beer, snuck into the dorm's cafeteria for lunch and dinners, shared the campus radio airwaves as sports talk show hosts and annalists for school's softball teams, and covered the football games as sportswriters for the school's newspaper. In all the time we were at Fresno State, I don't remember ever studying together. Yet, on a Saturday morning in May of 1994, we both walked onto Bulldog Stadium as college graduates.

After graduation, I left Fresno to become a football coach at the high school I graduated from in Southern California. In need of employment, Danny accepted my offer of helping him land at a job at my hometown newspaper that I worked at three years earlier.

He spent my first season as a varsity assistant covering the team for the newspaper in of our school's greatest seasons. A few months later, Danny left for Orange County and we have had very little contact since his departure.

Thirteen years later while surfing the web, I googled Danny Evans in hopes of finding out where his writing skills have taken him. Not to my surprise, I found his blog Dad Gone Mad and quickly became hooked.

Reading his stuff was no different than sitting in his dorm room back in college. With humor, sensitivity, and brutal honesty, it was no wonder that his site was so popular among reader and advertisers.

I loved everything that I read and after eating up every post, I decided in January to give this blogging thing a try. Not because I thought I could be as good or better than him, but because it became obvious to me that his writing was a form a therapy for him and also provided an outlet for him to get anything and everything off his chest.

While I may have not been able to be as committed to blogging as he has been, I have found it to be rather therapeutic. I have also found that while I love my career choice in education and coaching, I have missed writing more than I would ever admit.

As a follower of Dad Gone Mad, I have waited as patiently as I could for the last year for Danny's first book to be published on August 4th. Deciding last weekend that I could wait no longer, I emailed Danny last weekend hoping that our onetime friendship and the the promise to post of review of Rage Agaisnt the Meshugenah.

After spending the afternoon in the backyard while my girls swam in the pool and the evening at the school getting ready for the start of my third season as the varsity coach, I got home late last night and found his book in my mailbox. Immediately, I opened the package, planted myself on the couch, and dove in head first.

I finished this morning and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Friend or not, Danny Evans has produced something that I was lucky to read. Something that I needed to read.

Still sitting on the couch eight hours after finishing it, I am unable to do it justice and write the review just yet. I need to finish digesting it.

I will say that it is better than I could ever imagined. It is something that anyone who has suffered from depression, loved someone who has suffered from it, and known anyone diagnosed as clinically depressed has to get their hands on it.

By Sunday, I will tell more and really get into what Danny went through and overcame. I will say that he has written something brilliant and I am glad to say that my first impression of Danny being funny, honest, and an incredible writer was right on.

(For more information about Danny Evans, his blog, and his book, visit Dad Gone Mad.)

OK. So, I suck. I haven't submitted a post in quite some time. Seems life sometimes gets in the way of doing the things that you love doing like writing.

My girls, summer school, and trying to get ready for the upcoming football season has made it next to impossible to blog on a daily or even a weekly basis.

I have received a number of emails asking me what has happened to me as of late. The fact is not much has happened.

My girls have spent the summer with me at football practice. When we are not on the field, we have been spending the weekends two hours away at our mobile home in Lake Isabella.

It is a small town community in the Western Sierra Mountains that has some of the best fishing in California. Already this summer, my girls have caught their first fish and have spent many hours swimming in the lake.

The love it and I love reconnecting with a spot that my parents and I went to nearly every summer when I was a kid. I frequented it during my 20s a number of times and even stayed in the same mobile home that I took over from my former head football coach two months ago.

I wrote about this spot in a prior post and shared the story of how I was mistaken in a local bar as the kid from "A Christmas Story." Good times for sure.

However, not as fun as spending time with my girls there. They have already decided that we would be spending the next holiday season up there.

Looks like another version of "A Christmas Story" will be in the making.

I love to text message. I find it to be a perfect outlet to get straight to the point the with a person without the annoyance of having to acually have a real conversation with someone.

Nothing worse to have to be on the phone for 10 minutes with someone when all you need is a one- to two-word response from the person. Text a simple question and wait a few minutes for the answer.

"Hey, what time is the meeting tonight?"

"7 p.m."

Perfect. Didn't have to hear about his or her day and got the information I was looking to get. Impersonal as hell, however, gets straight to the point.

But... text messaging does have its' drawbacks. Like when you text something personal as hell to the wrong person.

Oh, the problems that can cause. I have been guilty of it many times.

The first time was three years ago when my ex-wife picked up my kids from me on a night I was to entertain the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. As soon as she was gone, I quickly typed up the following text:

"Hey... I am finally alone. Hurry up! I want you now!"

Instead of sending it to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, I sent it to the last person I texted. My ex-wife.

Needless to say, my night didn't go as planned. Instead, I ended up driving to the exes house to pick up my kids because the ex threatened to leave town for good with my girls if I didn't come get them.

You would think I learned my lesson after that. Nope. Yesterday, I did it again.

This time a new coach I just hired was on the receiving of one of my personal texts that went to an innocent receiver.

Last weekend, I spent the weekend with two women co-workers in Las Vegas to help put an end to a recent but lingering funk I have been in. We had a blast going from club to club watching each other hitting on and being hit on by other patrons.

It was great fun. The highlight of the night was listening to one of my friends having to endure on of the worst lines I have ever heard.

"Excuse me. . . can I be blunt?", said an obviously drunk man in his late 50s from New York.

"Absolutely,", said my friend.

I sat in excitement with what he was about to say to my very attractive friend. After hearing what he said, I knew I would never make the same mistake.

"You have real nice boobies."

My friend laughed and said thank you for stating the obvious and kindly asked him to leave.

We laughed all weekend about it and I thought I would have a little fun with her by sending that line to her yesterday afternoon in a text message. But, instead, I sent it to my newly hired coach that I have only known briefly for a month.

While he is a big guy, I would never say he has man boobs. Even if he did, I would never tell him, "You have real nice boobies."

I realized my mistake when I got a text from the coach.

"Hey Coach... While I am flattered, I really think we should keep our relationship strictly to football. But, again, thanks for the compliment."

Damn, I did it again. And, I did it to a guy who I am so thankful that I was able to steal from a rival school. While I was kicking myself for the fuck up, I got another text from him.

"You know Coach, if you take me to Vegas, I will show you my boobies."

Well... at least this time the recipient of my wrong text had a sense of humor about it.

I Want Revenge Saturday

One of my favorite sporting events to watch with my girls is the Kentucky Derby. I love the pageantry and the history of the event. They love the horses and the women in the stands with their fancy clothes and hats.

We have started the first Saturday in May off the same way for the last six years. Waking up, grabbing the newspaper, and then all sitting down in the living room choosing our own horse to root on later that day.

The person who picks the winning horse gets to decide what family activity we will do Sunday. Not a bad way to spend a day with your daughters.

However, this year my girls and I will be rooting for one horse and one horse only.

I Want Revenge is the early favorite and a friend of mine happens to own one percent of the horse. He will be at my house Saturday enjoying the race with my girls and I in what should be an exciting day.

All week I have been reading articles on how I Want Revenge has been training and all indications are that he is primed for a big race. The anticipation of watching has been building and my girls are almost as excited as I am.

"How many more days until the horses race, Daddy?" Alani asked Monday morning during breakfast.

"Five more, baby."

"And your friend's horse is going to win, right?"

"I hope so."

"Good, then that's the horse I am picking."

I Want Revenge is the horse my girls and I will all be picking this year. And, we can't wait to watch him run.

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