I dropped off Hunter yesterday for his new first day of school. He’s in the first grade and his teacher is Ms. Fort. He had a great teacher last year with Mrs. Dale and we’re hoping for another good year this year.
School starts every day 8:15am and I’m pretty happy to get our morning routine back.
I just spent a week at our family cabin in the Poconos and thought i’d write a little recap as it was a great trip all around. Some highlights:
Mckenzie and Tracey
Over the past 10-20 years it’s been tough to see Mckenzie during the summer as he spends a good chunk of it in Europe leading archaeological digs. This year he was able to join us after the dig but before the fall school session begins. It was really great to see him. As we get older it’s good to get a good number of days with someone to get a feel for their daily habits and lifestyle.
The big event that occurred was the proposal between the two. One beautiful Thursday night Mckenzie and Tracey went for a walk after dinner. While the dishes were being washed in the Glass House (thanks mom) Mckenzie presented Tracey with a ring he picked up in Florence and asked her to marry him!
We continue to get to know Tracey and she is really awesome. A highlight for me was arguing with her about the differences between Canada and the US and discussing the problems we have here in the US and what some approaches might be to fix them (not a quick convo, as you could imagine). I liked it because the conversation got heated in a way it can between people who like to argue and are family.
…and Georgia
Of course Georgia was in tow and it was really awesome to see Sasha and her (and sometimes Hunter) play together. Sasha and G are the same age (both 4) so they seemed quite comfortable with each other and their playing was incredibly cute.
Hunter did seem a bit left out sometimes but that’s to be expected when there’s only 3 (ahem, we need Reagan next time). But, the three of them did get some good play time in:
Kids and School
Now that our kids are getting older, we’re experiencing Summer break and the chafe that it is for two working parents. Hunter is between kindergarten and 1st grade and is off for the summer and we have to find things for him to do. We cobbled together a series of camps but this means that getting together as a family in the summer is much more logical than in years past
PLP
I haven’t been to my family’s cabin in the Poconos for almost a decade. It is so beautiful. The lake, the river and nature surrounding it are just awesome.
It’s also nice having my parents there and able to see and catch up with other semi-related folks. The cabins could be nicer (especially our Middle Camp) but it is great to have a place to go and have lots of family around.
Diane especially was a fan of the rustic nature of the cabins. Her childhood was spent traveling to Mexico every weekend and staying in half-built homes while they hung out with family and friends while enjoying the natural beauty of the ocean. She got the same feeling this past week, making the whole experience better for her.
We loved and plan on heading back again next year…
I the eve of Uber’s IPO, i thought i’d post some interesting differences between Lyft and Uber from their S-1’s):
Average Uber rider takes 2.3 more rides per month than a Lyft rider. The average number of rides per month is below:
Continue reading “Some interesting differences between Lyft and Uber (from their S-1’s)”
It’s becoming a tradition now for me and my family to go to the Walker Art Museum to watch the 2018 British Awards. It’s really pretty great to sit for an hour and watch the best commercials of the year.
This year it was noticeable about how many of them were about female empowerment (including the winner of Best Ad of the Year), which makes sense as it’s a topic capturing everyone’s mind share, everywhere.
My favorites of the year were these 5. They are pretty hilarious, cool, strong and, to use the British term, brilliant.
My favorite of the year was strange, ackward and just so funny. I have no idea what the ad is for but it’s still fantastic:
This next one is probably one of the funniest of the bunch, and I never even knew what Marmite was or that it could be so divisive:
This next one is really cute and captured our entire group. Even though it was the first ad we say, we all remembered it at the end
This one is just really cute and in the world we different it’s a great message of how kids don’t see color, race, etc.. Really well done
This one is just so epic. A move (the “tornado”) in a FIFA video game goes viral such that Ronaldo actually does it himself in a game and then goes even more viral to get other athletes to do it also. Really cool idea.
This final one is about the women’s Euro cup. The girl in the video just does a great job and is shows some great skill. Really liked this one
This is the quarter that I finally got rid of my cable subscription. I figured I’m paying an extra 40 bucks a month for something that i really only use once or at most twice a week. That’s roughly 5 to 10 bucks a show.
I thought it was the bay area but looking at this chart below it makes more sense why I feel like it costs much more to live these days. Sure my television is larger, my car is faster and my shoes are better but everything else is much more pricey.
Oh, and I do know that it’s ALSO because I live in the Bay Area. Even though all prices are on the up, the prices here are beyond ridiculous now. See how crazy they are here.
From those I know who work at GrubHub and other delivery companies, they all claim that UberEats is doing incredibly well. As Uber eyes the IPO next year, I can imagine this being a secret weapon that pushes their valuation higher than most would expect.
There was a good article in this week’s Business Week about how Uber is helping create “virtual restaurants” that have no in-person customers but exist only to deliver on Uber Eats. Uber brings some unique insight into the demand for existing restaurants.
If you haven’t seen this demo from last week’s Google I/O
Sundar says,
Our vision for our assistant is to help you get things done….A common theme across all this is we are working hard to give users back time. We’ve always been obsessed about that at Google. Search is obsessed about getting users to answers quickly and giving them what they want.
Google really wants to start doing things for you and Duplex was super impressive. It is, literally, a computer talking on the phone for you.
Check it out.
In an email to employees last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained that the reason for the Model 3 production shutdown in Fremont and Gigafactory 1 is to prepare to increase production. Substantially
The move seems to be in response to the recent miss in Model 3 production targets and is very bold in a Musk sort of way.
It’s a great email and I love how he evens gets low-level enough to tell people to walk out of meetings or phone calls if they aren’t well structured. So good.
Continue reading “Elon Musk Email”
I read this article in Monday Note the other day and it struck me how much of a problem Facebook has on its hands. It’s about how Facebook is flat out harming it’s users through it’s core functionality and through its ads. Both are being revealed as destructive. Really good article.
