Category: just thinking out loud

I got my mom a calendar of daily inspirational quotes (BTW, those daily calendars are a lie. They do one sheet for the weekend, and so you end up with less than 356 pieces of inspiration) for Christmas. We decided that we’d share the quotes, and talk about them.

Every day, given my mom is on the East Coast, I wake up to a quote. I spend a half a day thinking about it, and then I respond. Then we banter back and forth.

Sometimes it’s really lighthearted. Sometimes it’s deep. But every day I really look forward to it. It’s quickly become one of my favorite daily traditions. Some top ones so far (for either quote or because of the discussion) in my opinion have been:

• Ability will never catch up with the demand for it (good quote to remember)

• If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more. (good conversation)

• What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it (good quote to remember)
• Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened (really great conversation)

And there’s actually a bunch more (and it’s only February).

I genuinely love the Olympics. Following on yesterday’s talk about what to be excellent at, I think the Olympics gives us all a chance to really rally around this elite set of folks who are genuinely excellent at these sports.

For some reason, and I don’t really know why, I find the Winter Olympics to be much better than their summer counterpart.

I used to know all of the athletes, and really root for folks. Now I just enjoy the various sports. I LOVE figure skating (men’s and women’s), and I find the biathlon to be amazing. The ski jump always scare the shit out of me. And the new sports are fun to watch, and tend to be really exciting.

When all is said and done, we get to watch one person get rewarded as the best in the world at something. Imagine that. Out of 7 billion… you are number 1.

Now that’s excellent.

We’ve got an amazing thread going on on amplifize focusing on a New Yorker article about the ill effects of working too much.

I’ve ended up on the other end of the debate (as seems to happen a lot lately) advocating for overwork when applied towards achieving a degree of excellence. In my mind the goal is to get to the now idolized 10,000 hours before the gal (or guy) next to you beats you there. My brother, in his newly elevated eloquence, came back and challenged me by saying that excellence should be achieved in pursuit of a life well lived. He started and ended by asking me what I wanted to be excellent at. Here is my response.

The number one thing I want to be excellent at is being a father. When I think about the amount of time I put into this, I’ve definitely passed into the zone of overwork. That probably sounds ridiculous since fatherhood is considered by many to be a 24-hour job, but that is in fact a lie. It takes all of 30 seconds to become a father biologically. After that, the choice, and depth, of fatherhood is completely on the individual. The level to which anyone can invest should have checks and balances. I don’t think I’ve found my checks or balances. It’s definitely hurt me in relationships with friends. It’s also definitely made it harder for me to justify networking events, after works drinks, and the like. The costs are real, but the benefits are real as well. Overworking as a father is a choice that I continue to make. The only real concern that I have is that I haven’t found a good over-recover cycle to balance it. This is a challenge I need to address.

After that (for me) is to leave behind a legacy of a product excellently built, and, at this point in my career, I can still selfishly hope for it to be products plural. To build excellent products requires diving not only into the problem space, but the mind of the end-user, the architecture of the right solution, and the journey of the product life cycle. People specialize immediately in their careers because specialization is often interchanged with expertise. I don’t think this is true. A corner of a component of a product is as unaware of the whole as my left ear. And yet when I put it together with my right ear, the whole of my head, and the rest of my parts, you get a full picture of the product that is me. I think building excellent products requires being able to dive deep into the left ear while understanding that it’s a person you’re building, and not a microphone. Experts tend to confuse the microphone for the ear when in fact one simply mimics another. There is an obsessive tendency to building excellent products that leads to overwork, and I think it can be detrimental to the overall experience and outcome. Finding the release parachute when it’s needed is a hard fought battle with oneself, and one that I know I often lose. Nonetheless, I don’t know how else to build excellent product but with both feet jumping straight in.

Finally, I want to be an excellent husband. This means being more patient, a better listener, quicker with my kindness, and slower with my smart ass nature. This one is the hardest for me because I actually don’t know what it looks like. There’s no one else to compare to for an excellent husband for Micky. The lack of a yard stick means that no one else can ever beat me, but that I can also never know if I’ve done it or not. That vagueness, that abstractness, makes it hard for me to know if I’ve entered overwork or not. You could argue the same is true for the kids, and you’d be correct, but I’ve felt much less loss at striving to be an excellent husband than I have at being an excellent father. Maybe loss is the measuring stick, and in not losing enough (or trading off enough), I haven’t gone far enough. That’s actually a great question to ask. In general though, I find the pursuit of being excellent for her makes me better not only at this task but the other two above as well. It’s an unintended benefit which I’ll gladly take.

I think if I pull off all three of those things, then I will have lived an excellent life. It will have been put to the test, and found sufficient. I think ultimately, it will be something that someone at sometime points to and says – I’d like for that to be me.

It’s a great conversation we’re having. I’m very lucky to be so challenged by such a great group.

There aren’t many examples of aging gracefully on my side of the family.

My grandfather on my dad’s side I barely remember being healthy (though I remember him living life fully and with a smile). My grandfather on my mom’s side was an ox, but then pneumonia & cancer got the better of him as well.

On my dad’s side, my grandmother has dementia.

Physical problems slow down the grandmother on my mom’s side (though she’s done amazingly well, and so maybe she’s the exception that proves the rule).

That’s why when I see Mike (my father-in-law) chase the kids, help paint the house, and chase after Micky, it blows my mind. The family of his who I have met (Patty, Monica) are equally well put together. I think it’s really great for the kids.

I talked to a financial adviser who told me that if I lived to be 95 years old, I’d need some big number millions of dollars to pay for my needs. I laughed. I’ve never wanted to live past 70 because in our family it doesn’t happen gracefully. But maybe it’s still possible…

Amelia got a camera for Christmas as she’s obsessed with taking photos. She runs around with no regard for composition or subject, and just takes photos. It’s actually incredibly liberating if you ask me. Since I got a 5D from my family for my birthday, I’ve been shooting a lot more as well.

The amplifize crew is doing a monthly photography theme as a group motivation tactic to take photos. This month’s theme is emergence thanks to John Shen. Here is one of my favorites so far:

Lots of family stress & sickness means that this post is two days late 🙁

The new house is in the Sunset. We’re about one mile away from the ocean, and so yesterday after we were done walking through the house we decided to head over to the beach. We started at the coffee shop at Judah and Great Highway. Then Micky and Mike headed home while the kids and I went to the beach for a quick toe dip into the Pacific Ocean.

As I watched them run around the sand I realized that Ocean Beach was my new front yard. Golden Gate Park will be the extension of my new back yard. And the kids are going to grow up with so many great choices about where to go and what to do all within biking distance.

The rest of the wonder I’ll leave to the photos.

I think most folks know how much I love Las Vegas. I don’t think anyone really knows why. Here’s the history.

I first remember coming to Las Vegas when I was 12 years old. We stayed at the San Marino hotel which is right by the airport. If I’m not mistaken, it was actually for a conference for my mom, and my dad tagged along to gamble. That was 1996, and so no Paris, Venetian, Bellagio, City Center, Wynn…

We upgraded a few years later to stay at Bally’s, and this time it was my dad’s conference.

My brother and I entertained ourselves at the theme park that used to be behind MGM. We’d go play the midway games at Circus, Circus. Then there was the arcade in Caesar’s and in Treasure Island (now known as TI). The show at Treasure Island was one with real pirates fighting instead of scantily clad chicks fighting. Both the play area and the show are now gone 🙁

As Comdex became more and more a part of our lives, we became regulars in Las Vegas.

I celebrated my 16th birthday in the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at the Paris hotel. I’ve seen all of the Cirque de Soleil shows, Le Reve at Wynn, love the Improv Comedy that’s at Harrah’s, and even the Variety show at the Venetian.

When I turned 18, a friend of mine scratched out the 4 in my birth year, and made it a 1. Overnight I was 21 instead of 18, and then the fun really began. I found the craps tables, and I never looked back (in fact, last May I told a dealer who carded me that he didn’t card me when I was 18 and playing, so why did he card me now? He didn’t find it amusing. It was definitely the same guy 10 years later).

When my dad sold his company, we came out to Networld Interop, and then went to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Zion national park, and this awesome pizza shop in southern Utah.

Bryan’s bachelor party at Hard Rock. First time out here with John. I brought Micky here, and she wore this smoking hot blue dress. My bachelor party at Aria. Microconf 2012. First CES I brought Amelia too. First time Luka came out here.

With Comdex out for the count after the Internet bubble burst, we’ve used CES as the conference to rally around. We meet up every January for a few days of conference, gambling, steak dinner, and laughter.

Most people have these types of memories at a beach, in the mountains, or at a relative’s house. For me, it’s always been Las Vegas.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I have such a love affair with this forever sinful city.

I scored some sick goals tonight, but we lost 9 – 13. More details to come after my shower

Note: This is being updated a day later because I passed out and fell asleep

We showed up at a brand new gym ready to play soccer. The other team was half the normal team, and half ringers who came in to play. The quality was really good, and we had a lot of fun. I had 2 goals I’m really proud of. The court size was tiny, and it contributed to some challenges, but I think as a team we handled it really well. If we could just find a goalie, then I think we’d be in great shape for playoffs, but that’s not easy :-/

On to the goals…

The first goal was really the more slick one. It’s a basketball court, and so I had the ball at the top of the key with a defender on my right hip (with my back to the goal). The spot to shoot was actually directly behind where my left foot, and so I had to turn on a dime and shoot while holding the defender where he was. I faked right by stuttering that direction, and then literally turned in the same spot (semi-shielding with my left hip), and nailed it with my right foot. The goalie was actually in good position, but couldn’t get enough hand onto the ball, and I scored. That made it 6 – 8, but we just couldn’t get closer 🙁

The second goal was off of an inbound from Gustavo. The ball gets passed in from out of bounds. I was making a sideline run on the right sideline facing the goal we were scoring on. I took the ball on my right foot, and shielded the defender off with my left hip. I let the ball roll to about the equivalent of the free throw line, and then used my positioning to toe poke the ball towards the near post. The goalie, again, had good position, but just lost his post, and the ball snuck through. The defender (as I was in the air with my left leg wrapped around him), then air lifted me into the corner, and dropped me off. The landing wasn’t smooth, but the goal sure was 🙂

We would have easily beaten them without the “subs” there. It’s fine for a regular season game, but I’m keen to make sure that the playoffs are just players from a team’s roster.

Next week is a double header, and it’ll be tons of fun I’m sure…

Every Sunday night, I’ll do a weekly update of life because it’s too hard to keep up otherwise.

This was a week of family bonding. Over last weekend, we took advantage of not having any kid’s activities to head south. We hit up Costanoa (we love this place) for elephant seals, s’mores, and some camping. The kids got to take their scooters out, and they loved it. Elephant seals are huge, and the babies handled the hike really well. My back not so much 🙂

For New Year’s Eve, we got together with Christian and family. We hiked Tennessee Beach and had a blast. Amelia really became fond of Astrid to the point where leaving turned into a flood of tears. Amelia worries me in that she connects so deeply with people so quickly. I think it’s a wonderful thing, but gosh do I know the downside of it…

Saturday night, Micky and I headed to Meg’s 40th birthday party. Meg is such a huge part of our family. It was a blast catching up with the gang, holding baby Renzo, and hearing Paul’s toast to his lovely daughter. I really had a great time, and it was a fantastic celebration of a really fantastic person.

The rest of the week was filled with parks, getting back to work, soccer, swimming, and getting as much family time in as possible as the holiday season came to an end.

Micky started watching the CBS sitcom, “The Good Wife”, and we’re both hooked. I know the show has been on for a while, and that the reviews have been good, but we haven’t gotten into it before.

It got me thinking about how I consume TV these days.

I really got into “Bones” during season 6. I then found it on Netflix, and binged through it. Same thing with “Burn Notice”. And now, I’m working my way through “Star Trek: TNG” since I saw them in real-time, but I was 7 – 10 years old.

I actually get upset about the Christmas and Summer breaks that shows go on in real-time. I hate having to wait one week at a time to catch the next episode. And it really bugs me that I can only catch shows that are either on Hulu or only after they get to DVD and onto Netflix.

My model of consumption is a completely different model of consumption from how TV is designed.

Netflix gets this. That’s why House of Cards was released all at once. I didn’t get it when it was released, but as I jump from episode to episode of these shows, I totally get it now.

Once sports leagues figure out how to make money from the cable-free crowd (and MLB is leading the pack on this one with MLB.tv), I’m going to be an epically happy, TV-watching dude.

All you can eat seems to be swarming media. Music had it forced onto it; TV is being disrupted by new players; but books are sticking to the old ways.

I’ve been looking for a mass consume way to do my one book a month resolution. The SF library has a pretty awesome e-book collection, but a lot of them are browser only. Classics seem to be really hard to find in e-book format, and I’m not finding a simple way to just have a small, digital library from which I can pull books and read.

I wonder if this gap in the market is something that will doom books.

I also wonder if this gap could be filled not for finished books, but as a way for author’s to connect with their audience, crowd source different endings of a book, create an environment for fan fiction to grow, and make distribution a central part of the entire process.

If music artists need concerts and to sell t-shirts in a post-CD world, then what’s the platform for authors? And how do I mass consume books?