My mom’s mom, Edith Pescatello, is 91 years old and a total badass. Let me just start by saying that is so awesome that she now has her own commercial on GNC. They found her on the street in NYC and asked her to do this. It’s pretty cool:
Great work Baba!
We had a great year in 2012 and here’s a video of it. We wish everyone a great 2013 and hope to spend lots of time with you all.
Lots of love from Mike, Diane and Hunter (4 months old)
PS: If you like the song in the video, it’s a great Phoenix cover and you can get here.
I last did a report about life with Hunter when I was 3 weeks in. Since then, I’ve learned a few more things.
Getting up in the middle of the night repeatedly can make a man (and mom) batshit crazy. For us (and most people), the getting up in the middle of the night to feed the child never stops and is totally exhausting. Diane and I are taking turns who gets up for the main feeding in the middle of the night. We found that if the same person keeps doing it, that person becomes not so fun to hang out with. We’ll see how this new experiment goes.
Continue reading “9 weeks in: a report”
David Brooks, one of the better columnists out there was interviewed by Alec Baldwin a few months ago on the Here’s the Thing podcast. It’s a really interesting interview. The entire thing is here but below is my favorite 4 minutes of the interview is where he talks about the book he wrote and why it’s so important to choose a good spouse.
The first few seconds of this clip below is about his book is about why kids drop out of high school. He found in his research that you can tell in the first 18 months of kid’s life whether they will or not. Apparently, kids who can form attachments at an early age can form emotional attachments with teachers and peers later in life and they’ll generally be okay. If you can’t, life if very frustrating.
The second part of this short clip he shares some of his thoughts on marriage. I found it interesting to hear that he goes around and tells people, “If you have a great career and a crappy marriage, you’ll be miserable. If you have a crappy career and a great marriage, you’ll be happy.” I like the thought of that. If this is true, then all the courses you should take in college should be about who you should marry.
He then talks more about happiness and makes the point that money only correlates a little to happiness and that studies have shown that, of people who are happy, they have a good marriage and that the happiness gain of a good marriage is equal to that of doubling your income.
The link to listen to the pod is here
This may be why I was so willing to quit my job in 2009 – because I was about to get married.
Well, Hunter came into the world three weeks ago. A few people have asked how it’s going. Here are some initial thoughts:
There are some new experiences. Here’s one. Never in my life have ever not been able to go to sleep when i’m tired. If i’m really tired at the end of a day and something comes up, i’ve always (if I’m really tired) been abel to push that item off till the morning or do some small action to appease it enough where i can still go to bed. Even in college, i’d take short power naps when i got really tired in the middle of the night. I’ve never been forced to stay awake, ever. Until now. Not being able to go to sleep because a baby is just crying its face off is a new experience and it’s quite painful.
Continue reading “3 Weeks In: A Report”
We had a big change in the Lewhouse family this week. On Monday afternoon at 5:25, we welcomed Hunter Lewis into the world. He’s definitely keeping us busy and now that we figured out how to actually get food into him. We’re rolling – at least so we think. If you’re interested, you can read below for a timeline log of the actual birth and how it went down.
Continue reading “Welcome Hunter!”
I got to quite a bit of live music shows. I try to see my favorite acts whenever they roll through Colorado. I just went to Coachella and in the past year i’ve seen Mumford, The National, Wilco, Andrew Bird, Shins, Radiohead, Childish Gambino, Band of Horses and others. I like these shows but they are also frustrating. I increasingly find that rock bands do nothing more than just play the songs from their album, in a way that sounds just like the tracks on the album and i leave the venue wonder why I went.
I began to think back to why people used to go to shows. In the past, i could imagine that music represented more than it does today. It represented a movement. The Rolling Stones and Elvis were a powerhouse that were more than just great songs. Or, i could see how an artist’s lyrics (such as Bob Dylan’s) were so meaningful that their concert was more akin to a speech or a rally. None of these are happening in indie rock today.
However, i do see this stuff happening with the electronic music scene. Two things are different. First, now that music is digital, the instruments of today are the computer and that’s resulting in brand new music that is truly different than anything that’s come previously. Second, the concerts where this is played are extremely social. The DJ’s aren’t just playing music for an audience, the audience is involved. Very involved. As my friend JT said this weekend after hearing Swedish House Mafia, “it feels like the DJ’s are conductors.”
Also, these electronic artists don’t need major labels. They are proficient in interacting and promoting online. If fact, most of them don’t even release albums in the traditional sense.
It feels to me that this electronic music scene is the future. Bob Lefsetz agrees with me. I just hope i’m not too much of a dinosaur to enjoy it.
I went a great man-date with Julian last week and saw “Like Crazy” which stars Felicty Jones and Anton Yelchin as two college students who fall in love. It’s not a rom-com but rather a romance. Here are some thoughts…
The film is a very realistic portrayal of 20’s romance. Anyone who has ever been in a long distance relationship in their 20’s will relate to this film. You feel high on the relationship one second and then it drags and disappears.
Great use and progression of cell phone technology. Finally we see the impact texting can have on a character. It always bothers me that this doesn’t happen more in movies. Also, the technology was pretty accurate – from the clamshell to the iPhone, it was some very realistic mobile movie footage. Continue reading “I Really Like “Like Crazy””
I’ve got the mp3’s of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and i’ve been listening on my daily commute for the past few weeks. So far, i’m 25% through the book and loving it. Here’s what i like about the book so far.
So far this book has increased my respect for Jobs ability to intuitively know what people want but i’ve also amazing how bad he was as a manager, friend and as a person. He seemed so erratic and awful.
I’ve yet to read about his exile, his days at Pixar and Next days, or his Apple comeback. i’m sure he gained perspective and some humility but man, in those early days of Apple he seems brutal.
I was thinking about my life and the web the other day and talking to some friends over lunch about how I love that i’m married to a woman who enjoys the web and has intellectual curiosity about it. I was then approached by a woman in a restaurant who was eavesdropping on my conversation. She called me over and then went on for 10 minutes telling me how my love of technology is what’s making the world so horrible. How my blind devotion to electricity is polluting the lakes and ruining the planet. I’ll spare you the “conversation” but let’s just say, i left wishing she hadn’t felt a need to share and that my friends were quicker to pull me away.
So, for her and her hatred of technology, I’d like to share a quote i just read:
“When department stores had Christmas window with clockwork puppets, the world was going to pieces; when the city streets were filled with horse-drawn carriages running by bright-colored posters, you could no longer tell the real from the simulated; when people were listening to shellac 78’s and looking at color newspaper supplements, the world had become a kaleidoscope of disassociated imagery; and when the broadcast air was filled with droning black-and-white images of men in suits reading news, all of life had become indistinguishable from your fantasies of it. It was Marx, not Steve Jobs, who said that the character of modern life is that everything falls apart”
History repeats itself. The world is changing and that change frightens people and computers are thus responsible for the problems. This isn’t the case. It’s not the web making the world a worse place. Relax people.
Continue reading “The “Better-Nevers” of Technology”