What's in Dave's Head

Donna and I visited Santa Barbara for a few days before Jack and Erin’s wedding to explore the coast town before relocating to the more remote resort where the wedding festivities would occur. Santa Barbara, which bills itself as “the American Riviera,” is not Columbia, Maryland. It is comprised exclusively of beautiful, tanned residents. The weather is required by law to be sunny, dry and warm (but not too warm) every day. The majestic Santa Ynez Mountains to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south sandwich white mansions with stucco roofs nestled on irrigated, emerald-green lawns adorned with swaying palm trees. There are walking paths, biking paths, parks, and wine tasting rooms on every corner with fine restaurants in between. Unlike its neighbors, L.A. to the south and San Francisco to the north, the traffic is not bad. And everybody owns a Bentley, a Mercedes S class, a Range Rover, a Maserati, or a Ferrari. Most people own one of each. Nobody works. The thing ...

This past weekend Jack married Erin Breslin in Santa Barbara. Erin is smart, sassy, strong, funny, and beautiful. She and Jack are nearly inseparable, and when they are together, they talk and laugh nonstop like two school kids. As Donna noted in her beautiful, heartfelt remarks at the rehearsal dinner, it's hard to know what they have left to talk about after carrying on this continual conversation for more than three years. It is obvious to anyone who sees them that they are head over heels in love. Donna and I had met Erin's parents last December in Philadelphia. We immediately became friends and found that we shared a lot of common values -- particularly the importance of family. It was great to see them again in Santa Barbara and to meet their son Gerard and many of their siblings and in-laws. It also was great to meet some of Jack's fellow YouTubers. There's a culture of camaraderie in the industry, and many of them were eager to help Jack when he was g...

Over the weekend of April 14, our son Jack won a prestigious award for his work as a YouTuber – a “Shorty” award for YouTuber of the Year. It’s an honor that recognizes his contributions as an entertainer and his success: Jack’s channel, www.youtube.com/jacksfilms ,   recently topped 4 million subscribers, putting him in the top echelon of YouTubers. He recently posted his 1,000 th video and has received more than 1.6 billion views since launching his site in 2006. I’m proud of Jack’s success, but I’m especially proud of how he has achieved it. In school, Jack was really good at math, and I assumed he would major in math in college and get a job in that field. But Jack had other ideas. In high school he made a video for a school project, and that was it. He fell in love with video, and any thoughts of a math career were in the rearview mirror. It took a lot of courage to decide to try to make a living making videos, then moving to California where he knew one person...

I enjoy doing the Sunday crossword puzzle in the Washington Post Magazine. The puzzle was created each week by the brilliant Merl Reagle from 2008 until his death in 2015, and is now produced by Evan Birnholz, at least as clever and funny as Mr. Reagle, but more devious. The April 1, 2018 puzzle is a masterwork in creativity and was like peeling the layers of an onion. Five of the 21 X 21 square puzzle’s clues asked for the name of an historical personality: Cold War leader (Harry Truman), “Rebecca” producer (David Selznick). Answers to six other clues helped you piece together a website URL, which got you to www.devilcross.com/ . But that wasn’t enough information. You had to go back and determine the missing middle initial of each of the five personalities. They spelled out S-O-L-V-E. The puzzle’s directions explained that once you had the correct link, go there and enter your name and email address for a chance to win a prize. I did. I entered www.devilcross.co...