If it sounds like I’m virtue signaling, yeah, I can live with that.

Every summer I donate money to a number of public school education charities. I am motived to do this for two reasons – neither of which is because I’m a good person. Remember how angry I used to get back in 2015? Yeah, good times – I miss that guy.

I donate to education because 1) I reeee-he-heeeally hate people who were born on third base and walk around like they hit a home run and 2) If I have achieved any measure of success it was because of educators who were constantly forcing me to do better. For example, I had to sit in the front row, if I had already finished homework, test, quiz, or assignment, then they forced me to grade papers, make copies, staple copies, run errands for the front office, and if all else failed, I had to go get them coffee.

My fortune is largely the result of the country I was born in, the social conditions which arose without my cooperation, manners and opinions which I cannot trace back to their source, and many origins with which I am completely unaware of. Forces that were all completely out of my control and that simply carried me with the current.

So whenever and wherever I can, I give back to the Commonwealth of Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools, youth sports leagues, and teachers who need coffee and supplies. I don’t complain about the traffic, the heat, the humidity, or the THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE data center projects that Dominion Energy has waiting in the queue for power connections – Great Scott! That’s almost as many gigawatts as the entire 13-state Mid-Atlantic grid today! But I’m not leaving, they’re leaving; Once someone with a calculator does the math and realizes they’re never ever going to be able to power their data centers in the fertile Piedmont Valley that gave birth to the internet. If Silicon Valley is so star-spangled-awesome then why don’t they go build data centers there! But what the hell do I know, I went to public school.

P.S. – I fulfilled all my donation obligations to Virginia Tech decades ago. Go see VT Parking Services, they got all my money. Go Hokies!