I came home from work late the other night. Like most nights I stopped at the Safeway to get some fresh vegetables for dinner, but this night I was too late and Safeway was closed. …

My father, Victor H. Napier, was born in Portland Oregon on May 7, 1920. Imagine the world he was seeing when graduating from high school in 1938. As he looked to the east, my father would have seen the Dust Bowl, and tens of thousands streaming towards California, immortalized in…

David Barker, The Grooming Corporation and Vic Napier, VicNapier.com Work from Home, or WfH, is here to stay. Businesses were forced into remote work at first, but once they saw how much money they save by giving up office real estate they were onboard. …

Look to history, not headlines. You’ve probably heard that inflation is on the rise, and you probably realize that your new paycheck might not be keeping up with inflation. For most Americans recent raises are falling behind increasing prices. The headlines are full of announcements and analyses of the recent…

Instead allow them to share your joy. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of being a full time writer. I guess everyone who likes to write sometimes thinks about making a living at it. …

When we think about the value of a college education, it is usually in the context of making a living. We expect that a college education will result in higher earnings over the course of our lifetime. This idea has been drummed into us for the last thirty years. …

Math anxiety is contagious: It’s transmitted by parents and teachers We’re in big trouble… Among industrialized nations, Americans have the worst relationship with arithmetic and math. According to a 2015 Pew Research study, in a field of 71 countries, American 15 year olds placed 28th in math scores. Those 15 year olds will grow up to be Americans adults who cannot do simple math. …

I would have stayed in Oregon. Oregon is a great place to be if you want to be cold. It’s dreary and rainy most of the year, always damp, even in the summer, and never really dries out. And it smells. Not a bad smell, really. More like wet dirt. And Cedar trees. That’s because the dirt is usually wet and cedar trees like wet dirt. I grew up…

We have to spend eternity with them? I had a rather disappointing thought today while I was contemplating the nature of the universe. Specifically I was thinking about what happens to us after we die. I don’t have any firm beliefs about life after death. The idea of a heaven or life after death has always seemed unlikely. Consciousness — that sense of individual identity express as “I” or “me” ceases to exist…