Welcome to The Evil Daddy: How the Evil Baby Crew Came to Be

I didn't set out to start a website called The Evil Daddy.

Like most questionable decisions in my life, it made considerably more sense once kids, airplanes, Cheez-Its, motorcycles, cameras, money, bad decisions, good decisions, and one completely fictional assistant manager named Gerry Johnson became involved.

But we'll get to Gerry.

First, you should probably know what the hell this place is.

I'm a Dad. The Rest Got Complicated.

I'm a father of three boys.

If you've ever raised boys, you already understand that this means my life exists somewhere between unconditional love and asking questions like:

Why is that wet?

Who broke this?

Why are you wearing that?

And perhaps most importantly:

Why are there Cheez-It crumbs fucking everywhere?

Somewhere along the way, our normal family adventures developed their own mythology.

One kid became Evil Baby.

Then there was the Evil Baby Crew.

There were airport incidents. Road trips. Vacations. Oversized Crocs. Seating arrangements that gradually became international treaty law.

And, of course, Cheez-Its.

Always the fucking Cheez-Its.

Eventually I realized there were two different kinds of stories coming out of my life.

There were the real ones—the things I've learned about being a father, relationships, money, travel, careers, fitness, cars, motorcycles, photography, starting over and trying to build a better life.

And then there were the stories that got slightly...

enhanced.

That's where The Evil Daddy came from.

This Isn't a Parenting Blog

I'm not here to tell anybody how to raise their kids.

There are already plenty of people on the internet willing to tell you exactly how you're fucking up your children.

I'm good.

What I can tell you is what I've learned raising mine.

Some lessons cost me money.

Some cost me years.

Some hurt like hell.

Some I learned far later than I should have.

And some gave me the best things that ever happened to me.

I'm in my 40s now, and one of the strange things about getting older is realizing how much shit you were absolutely convinced you understood when you were younger.

You didn't.

At least I didn't.

So Dad Life is where I'll write about those things.

Fatherhood. Divorce. Relationships. Starting over. Discipline. Fitness. Careers. Going back to school when you're old enough to complain about going back to school. Money mistakes. Things I'd do differently.

And things I'd do a million times over.

I'm not a therapist.

I'm not a life coach.

I'm definitely not interested in becoming an internet guru standing next to a rented Lamborghini explaining the seven habits that made me a millionaire.

I'm just a dad who's lived enough life to know there are a few things I would've benefited from hearing sooner.

They're also things I want my own kids to know someday.

If somebody else's kid—or somebody who didn't have a dad around to tell them this stuff—gets something useful from it too?

Even better.

We're Going Places

Travel became a much bigger part of my life than I expected.

Sometimes with the kids. Sometimes as a couple. Sometimes alone.

And traveling enough teaches you things.

Which airports are fantastic.

Which airports were apparently designed by people who hate humanity.

Which lounges are worth walking three concourses for.

Which rental-car upgrades are actually upgrades.

How early you really need to arrive.

What benefits buried inside a credit card actually matter.

And how quickly a pleasant afternoon can deteriorate when an airport employee decides today is the day you're going to become their personal side quest.

Those stories belong in Travel.

Some will be reviews.

Some will be guides.

Some will be firsthand experiences that might save you time, money or aggravation.

And some will inevitably end with me asking for a supervisor.

Concourse C as in Complaint.

You'll understand soon enough.

Money Without the Bullshit

I've made good financial decisions.

I've also made financial decisions that would cause an accountant to stare silently out a window for several minutes.

Both are useful.

Money will cover credit cards, points, perks, debt, budgeting, side businesses, retirement planning and the financial experiments I've actually tried.

Not because I've cracked some secret code.

Because I haven't.

This isn't financial advice from a guy pretending every decision worked.

Quite the opposite.

Sometimes the most useful thing somebody can tell you is:

“I tried this. Here's exactly what happened.”

We'll do plenty of that.

My fictional accountant will also periodically appear to explain why whatever I'm currently attempting is probably not deductible.

More on him later.

There Will Be Machines

I've always liked cars, motorcycles and things that become considerably less sensible after you start modifying them.

So naturally, Garage exists.

Motorcycles.

EVs.

Off-road builds.

Suspension.

Parts.

Installations.

Trips.

And eventually, if everything goes according to plan, an absolutely unnecessary Rockwell-axle buggy sitting on 49-inch tires.

Because apparently adulthood means finally having enough money to build the terrible ideas you couldn't afford when you were 20.

The governing philosophy is simple:

Poor Decisions. Proper Suspension.

And Cameras

Photography gets its own section because it's one of the few expensive hobbies where buying a $3,000 lens somehow makes the next $3,000 lens seem perfectly reasonable.

I'll talk about the equipment I actually use, what I've learned, shooting techniques, travel photography, editing and whether expensive gear is actually worth it.

And unlike much of the internet, when I tell you I use something, I intend for that to mean:

I actually fucking use it.

There will eventually be affiliate links around here. I'm not allergic to making money.

But the goal is simple: useful first, monetized second.

If something sucks, I'm not giving it five stars because somebody paid a commission.

Which brings us to a very important subject.

Five Stars Are for Above and Beyond

Somewhere during all of these adventures, Evil Baby developed a philosophy.

Doing your job?

Four stars.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Five stars are reserved for going above and beyond.

This distinction becomes extremely important when Cheez-Its are involved.

Three bags of Cheez-Its?

Four stars.

You did your job.

Three bags of Cheez-Its and a Blue Raspberry Slurpee?

Now we're discussing fifth-star territory.

This completely reasonable performance-management system eventually led to the creation of a man named Gerry Johnson.

Poor bastard.

A Note About Evil Baby Lore

This is where reality leaves the building.

Evil Baby Lore is approximately 10% historical record and 90% complete bullshit.

Real people, real trips and real events may provide the inspiration, but conversations, characters, confrontations and increasingly ridiculous consequences are exaggerated, fictionalized or invented entirely for entertainment.

In other words:

Evil Baby probably didn't get anyone demoted.

Probably.

Gerry Johnson is fictional.

Delta Corporate is fictional.

The increasingly hostile performance reviews are fictional.

The demotions are fictional.

The fact that Gerry can apparently maintain Manager status for no longer than four consecutive months is also fictional, although we're not entirely convinced Gerry understands that yet.

Lore has its own rules.

You will learn them.

Chief among them:

Never compromise Cheetos for Cheez-Its. That's 4-star behavior.

So What Is The Evil Daddy?

It's all of it.

It's raising kids while trying to remain something resembling an adult yourself.

It's traveling with them.

It's traveling without them and somehow still finding Cheez-It crumbs in your luggage.

It's making money.

Losing money.

Learning how money actually works.

Buying machines you absolutely do not need.

Taking pictures of places you don't want to forget.

Getting older.

Starting over.

Figuring some things out.

Still being completely fucking confused about others.

And realizing that the ordinary moments you barely notice while they're happening may eventually become the stories your kids remember for the rest of their lives.

That's really why I'm doing this.

Someday my boys will be adults.

They'll have careers, relationships, bills, problems and lives of their own.

Maybe they'll come back here and read some of this.

Maybe they'll laugh at how ridiculous we were.

Maybe they'll find something I wrote when they were little and understand something about their dad they didn't understand at the time.

Maybe they'll wonder why the fuck there are 47 stories about a fictional airport lounge manager.

That's okay too.

Because Dad Life is what I want my kids to remember I taught them.

Evil Baby Lore is what I want them to remember we did together.

Everything else lives somewhere in between.

So welcome to The Evil Daddy.

We're raising good humans, exploring the world, making memories and causing minor problems along the way.

And Gerry?

If you're reading this:

Keep doing your fucking job.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆