Category: People

Lightning Strikes

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The kids are getting older and older and while I’m enjoying getting more adult questions, I do miss the little kids I used to have.

This past morning, Diane and I woke up at 5am to a bang. We don’t have thunderstorms in the Bay Area (strange, right?) so we were shocked to get rocked by some good thunder. So was the rest of the house. The dogs started barking and then suddenly Hunter was in our room with a “did you guys see the lightning!?” and then a few minutes later Sasha jumped in our bed and asked, “Is this an earthquake?” The dogs then both jumped on the bed and all of the sudden we had 4 people and 2 massive dogs sharing our bed as we listened to the storm rage above us.

During the days, it’s often that both kids would rather escape to their room to call friends or watch their own movies on their iPads than hang out with Diane and I. So, it made my day to have a brief moment of snuggle time with the entire family. I know that lightning like this won’t strike that many times more as these kids get older and older.

My 48th Soccer Birthday Weekend

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Let me tell you about this past weekend…

Sasha had a soccer tournament all weekend. Two games on Saturday and a game on Sunday. I remember laying in bed before the weekend began, talking to God and saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if she actually won this tournament?” I knew it was sort of impossible because the team hadn’t been doing that well as a team and the last tournament we went to they lost all three games. That said, they had been getting better. Continue reading “My 48th Soccer Birthday Weekend” →

Sasha is Hilarious

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Sasha just started her first day of school today (5th grade) and is growing up.  She’s confident and social and loves her friends (Astrid and Malin). She loves our dogs (more than anyone else in the family).  She’s still a kid but I can see her getting more and more mature.

She made this video this summer and it cracks me up.  Anyone who’s seen The Croods should recognize it.

I’m Streaking….the Same Shirt

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Every Christmas, my mom gets all the boys a shirt, and they’re great shirts that I wear for years. This Christmas was no different. She got me, my dad, and the boss a great shirt.

I put it on immediately and the next day I put it on again. My sister and I were sitting at lunch at this diner in Minneapolis, and she said, “You should wear that every day.” I said I should. She said “I’ll give you a dollar for every day that you wear it.” which sounded good to me. Continue reading “I’m Streaking….the Same Shirt” →

Euro Trip 2024 – Milan

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The entire family took a spring break trip to Italy and Ireland. The trip was pricey and tiring but we had a fantastic time and made some memories that we’ll remember forever.   This post is just the start of our trip.

Given that this was our first real trip as a family, my main goal was for everyone to just have a good time and want to travel more. On that front, it was a huge success. We had no arguments, meltdowns or even disagreements.  We had a blast.

It was also huge for the kids. They were able to experience being in another country where they saw new cultures, new languages and people who didn’t look or talk like them.  You could tell it was eye-opening.  Hunter especially loved it. He said that if there’s one place he wants to live in the world it’s Rome.

On to some day-to-day details. I’m doing this (below) mostly so I remember exactly what we did.

Thursday (24 hours before the trip)

We were supposed to leave Thursday morning but Diane and I went out of breakfast on Wednesday and we discovered that Italy won’t let us in with Diane’s passport as it expires in 74 days.  This is news to us. After initially panicking and thinking about cancelling the entire trip, Diane hustled her face off and got to the passport office and managed to get a passport turned around in 24 hours.  We pushed our flights back one day and were off on Friday.

Friday

We’re off.  It’s a long flight but everyone’s pumped.

At SFO. Note that Hunter's jacket won't actually make its way home

We do one flight to JFK and then another red-eye flight to Milan. Continue reading “Euro Trip 2024 – Milan” →

Getting Rid of Scars

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We all have things in our past that we frequently remember, good and bad.  Some bad memories in my past are events where I’m really embarrassed about my behavior:  women I treated poorly, friends I didn’t respect as much as a should, and situations that I let get out of hand to a place where I was uncomfortable.  I would do all of them differently now but it’s obviously too late to fix.  These events pop up all the time in my head. I relive them, briefly, but regularly.

Imagine a river flowing.  This river is my energy as a person. Now imagine a rock in that river.  The water moves to go around the rock. It still flows and isn’t blocked much but the flow is somewhat disrupted.  Each one of these memories is one of those rocks. These are memories that get me charged up and that charge takes away from me doing other positive things and having positive thoughts.

This past weekend, I undertook an exercise to get rid of those rocks. Continue reading “Getting Rid of Scars” →

Tesla madness

134: Tesla Madness

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Can we talk about Tesla for a moment? The reason they are relevant today is that their stock is ridiculous. Not that it’s high (which it is) or that the company is loved or hated (which it is) but that its volatility is off the charts. Tons of trades happening every day. For instance one day last week (Monday), Tesla opened $114 higher than its previous close, then gained another $136 within 15 minutes, then dropped by $324 before the market closed. Each dollar of share price corresponds to a market capitalization of $185 million, which means that Tesla lost more than $60 billion of value during the day. That’s more than the market cap of Ford and Fiat Chrysler combined. And this happens every day. Walls Street analysts have no idea what to think. Their price targets range from $87 (GLJ Research) to $2,322 (Piper Sandler). Continue reading “134: Tesla Madness” →

Day 32: Tech to the Rescue

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What I’m Thinking About: Tracking Through Tech

I’m really interested in the privacy implications and the technology behind how we track people who have recovered and keep track of those are infected as we will need to do to get back to our lives. Without doing this, this shelter-in-place will just continue until a vaccine arrives – which is just too damn long.

Google/Apple have formed an alliance that will help track people that are infected. The way it works is:

An app on your phone will pass a random and anonymous code to all other phones within a few yards of you, wherever you are (and vice versa). If you test positive, you tell the app, and every other phone in the region checks the codes they’ve seen in the last 14 days, and if there’s a match they can say ‘you’ve been exposed’. This is anonymous and automatic.

This is very cool, but am skeptical that it’ll ever happen because it really only works if governments mandate it and I just don’t see that happening.

On a related note, there’s a new San Francisco company called Onfido that is working with European governments to develop phone-based “immunity passports” for those who have already recovered from COVID-19. This is happening in Europe and is similar to what’s in China. Oh, and just yesterday they raised an additional $100 million.

At My House

We’re digging into the remote learning more deeply this week as our school is starting to get more involved and attentive to what’s happening at home.

That only takes half the day. The other part is spent enjoying the great weather we’ve been sent

Fitness

One of my friends sent me this today. I’ll be joining him:

I do one plank a day during the pandemic, holding it for as long as I can. Have made it to three minutes the last three days. Join me.

… and then I make myself a cocktail almost immediately afterward.

Other Stuff

Now this is a great use of modern technology. Here we have a Twitter account that is judging people’s video call background. Just what the world needed (thx Lizzie)

Thanks Jackie!

Check these out. Might as well keep safe in style:

Cases

New York added two thousands deaths to their list who were people they hadn’t tested:

(spreadsheet)

Only 64 more days to go