The Singing Weatherman
When I’m not playing music, I’m teaching. When I’m not teaching, I’m learning. In reality, I’m often doing all three things at the same time. The bottom line is that, being a professional educator, I probably spend more time than the average bear thinking about how people learn new things. If you’re like me (and […]
I’m surprised I’ve not blogged about this before, but today is the 9th anniversary of the EF-3 tornado that rolled through our neighborhood when my family was living in Tupelo, MS. My family was lucky that day. We rode the storm out in the basement garage of a neighbor (the Rhea family) along with several […]
Last winter, if you recall, I built a backyard shed during my holiday break. My plan this winter has been to take care of another honey-do project that has been hanging over my head since last summer — my wife and I have wanted to paint the exterior of our house. Unfortunately, a bout with […]
Asking a songwriter to name a favorite song they have written can often be like asking them to name a favorite lung. Not so in my case. While I am very proud of a lot of my songs, “How Hot Is It?” has always been my favorite. It could be because I remember its origin […]
In my childhood, when I was going to attend a birthday party or spend a night at a friend’s house, my mother would remind me that, “Good guests get invited back.” As I continue to plan for this summer’s tour, I’m always thrilled when I get a request from a library I’ve been to in […]
As friends and fans know, I generally play music as a “one-man band.” You may also know that I’ve been getting my boys involved in music-making, and we’ve formed a little family band called “Henry and The Dynamite.” But this is not actually my first band experience . . . . During my holiday break, […]
My eldest son, Daniel, was born in Northern Virginia (Arlington) in 2007. By 2009, my wife and I had moved to North Mississippi. One of our first Christmases in our home in Tupelo just also happened to coincide with a white Christmas. This relative rarity made quite an impression on Daniel — he expected all […]
COVID-19 certainly has played a part (pun intended) in my theater experience here in Starkville. If you recall, my breakthrough case of COVID in August 2021 (during the “delta variant” surge) delayed rehearsals and pushed back production of “Smoke on the Mountain.” Well, the pandemic reminded me that it is still very much alive and […]
Many of you know that I travel with my family to play shows at schools and libraries featuring science demonstrations and weather/astronomy-themed songs. If you’ve been to a show, you also know that it is a production. Okay, there’s no laser light show or pyrotechnics, but I still bring a lot of equipment — demo […]
When I was working as a weatherman (TV and print/online), it was not unusual for me to forecast (and explain the atmospheric setup for) a “wintry mix” of snow, sleet and freezing rain. Whether as a full-time meteorologist or as a physics/astronomy instructor, I make a sincere effort to explain scientific processes in an understandable […]