Welcome back.

Thank you.

How do you like this room compared to your old room?

I can bake cakes anytime I want, so that’s a big plus.

Have you cooked anything yet?

My TA’s have gone nuts a little bit. They have gone back and made some creative little dishes while we’re working in here.

Any favorite dishes?

They’ve made some cakes and pizzas. But no, my other one was more fun. I had bigger ceilings and a net and I had more cool eye candy. A lot of my creepy stuff seems to have disappeared. I think Stever stole a lot of my cool little marine toys. But I tried to find some, and they’re up there [on the wall]. I like an interesting, mysterious room. It’s not as trafficked in here, I noticed that. Not like my Alder room, with kids coming in and out of that spot. I noticed that.

Do you think that has anything to do with your hair putting people off?

(Laughs.) Maybe my hair is driving people away, yeah.

Being gone last year you missed out on a whole generation of kids. Do you think that’s why it’s less trafficked in here?

It’s early, and the seniors are way too cool now to hang out with a nerdy guy like me, for number one. But you’re right, I didn’t get a chance to meet the now-juniors. I missed out on that class and I hear it was a quality class so I’m a little sad about that. And then the sophomores are still looking at me like I’m this giant weirdo. They haven’t really figured me out yet, so they don’t want to hang out.

What exactly did you do on your year off?

I had to take care of some family stuff. And then I ended up taking some classes and picking up another B.A. I have a B.A. now in kinesiology. It’s a fancy way of saying I can teach health and fitness now.

Are you going to pursue that?

I am. I really enjoy it. I mean, I dropped enough coins on this thing, and it’s because I always like to learn new stuff and that was the cutting edge. Science is my number one love, but I like to keep doing different stuff. That was interesting to me: Can I design and run a class that’s kind of a combination of health and fitness information? Like when we had the pool – I’d like to see if we can get that back and start going with it, because it was cut – I don’t know the politics behind it, but I know that we lost the pool. So that always intrigued me for years and years: how can I break my day up to enjoy it and do something different. It’s a totally different aspect and you teach a wholly different group of kids and it’s fun. Like with Body Mass Index and these shows with Shaq saying, “Can Americans slim down? Are we eating right? Is it a nation out of control healthwise?” Taking freshman from their year and making them more aware that healthy body leads to healthy mind. I don’t think we do that very well in high school. I thought that was fun. Then I took all these kinesiology classes and now I can, if I want to, put something together like that and run a P.E. class.

There were rumors you were a sub teacher also.

That is not true. I could have taken a job, but…I was really torn on what I wanted to do. Family was the reason I went. But then I had some options, and one of the options was working. I had some job offers. I’ve been at Garfield for a long time. So it was, ‘Do I go and see another school and how it works, see if it’s any different?’ Or, I kind of think kids are kids so it’ll be the same no matter where I am. Or do something more for myself so I had this opportunity – you know, I’ve always said if I win the lottery, what would I do? I’d go back to school, it’s fun to just sit back there and learn.

So, ultimately, what made you come back to Garfield?

I don’t know. Well, a lot of my friends still live in Spokane, and they wanted me to get a job in Spokane. But my number one aspect is the marine aspect. It could have translated into doing things with rivers, but my emphasis forever, and my Master’s, is more in marine biology. And they don’t have a lot of marine biology in Spokane. Yeah, biology is biology and I would have incorporated it into whatever they had, but I don’t know. I just haven’t been landlocked. I’ve been on the ocean for the last 25 years; I have a hard time being inland. And I like Garfield. I know I like what I do, and I know I like really Garfield because when you have had the chance to be away from it, and you’ve missed it and you have had fond memories, it was like, oh. I realized that I was doing the right thing for right now and that I wanted to come back.

So, having been away for a whole year, while we’ve moved to a new building and all that, how do you think Garfield’s changed?

I don’t know yet, I’m still figuring it out. I’m asking freshman where things are. I know the restaurants are a little bit better. I like this place, I think it’s pretty cool. I like the layout, it’s really spread out. Kinda a drag ‘cause I’m right by the office, so there’s no excuse for me not to stop in and check it, still try not to. The kids are the same, there are knuckleheads as always. I like what’s going on around here.