Life, 2012.
Focus, habits, family, and everything else
- New Years cleaning
I love milestones. Times of year that mark change and give you a chance to pause and reset. I think that’s part of why I had such a hard time living in California during college, and why I appreciated the seasons so much when I moved back east. They provide a very natural rhythm. The… Continue rea...
- A web-wide moment of silence
Since last Friday, my life has seemingly been consumed with thinking about what happened at Sandy Hook elementary school. Maybe it’s the just horrific nature of the event. Maybe it’s that I’m a parent of two small kids, and I haven’t been able to stop hugging and kissing them and thinking about how ...
- Community, and Why Halloween is the Best Holiday
I love halloween. I think it’s my favorite holiday. The thing that I like about it the most is that it’s one of the only days of the year where you have a reason to go out and meet all of your neighbors. I spent a while last night walking around the neighborhood with Theo… Continue reading
- Striking the Right Balance
It’s hard to find the right balance when bringing technology into our lives. I do think lots of us suffer from some form of internet / social media addiction, and it’s getting easier and easier every day to bring all of that with us everywhere we go. This will only continue to accelerate (and I… Co...
- Hurricane Sandy
It’s really hard for me to comprehend what happened in NYC last night. Everyone I know is safe and sound, and the overall death toll is amazingly low given the severity of what happened. But man, what a hit the city took. The aftermath is going to be long and painful. I was also blown… Continue re...
- Analog + Digital
I buy a lot of books. I find it impossible to browse the web and not stumble upon a book that looks worth reading. For instance, this one. Until recently, I didn’t think use an e-reader so I always just bought paper books without thinking about it. I love having books on my bookshelf –… Continue r...
- Feasting on Good
I had the pleasure of spending the day yesterday at The Feast. I love their manifesto: Mankind is now more connected with the tools to engage millions and more potential than ever to build a brighter future. Our role is to inspire the next generation of doers. To empower more folks to ask why the… C...
- Defragging your Brain, The Slow Hunch, and Open Commonplace Books
Alex Hillman has a nice post on his response to Steven Johnson’s Where do Good Ideas Come From, thinking about how we continually process and re-process our information. It mentions one specific method, which Steven calls “the spark file“. The idea being that you keep a simple log of “sparks” — th...
- Getting Closer
Last night, Andy Murray won the US Open — his first grand slam victory — in an epic 5-set match (tied for the longest ever). I was on a train and missed the whole thing, unfortunately. But the story is great — Murray won the first two sets, then dropped the second two, only to… Continue reading
- Tennis, Psychadelics, and Entrepreneurship
I’ve always thought of tennis as perhaps the most difficult of sports. It’s like hitting a baseball, but while you’re running, and with 90% of the addressable target area out of bounds (in the net, outside the lines, etc). To top that off, you’re a team of one, battling yourself, inside your head....
- Making the Switch to Android
A few things happened recently, which are causing an unexpected and totally interesting change in my digital life. 1) On the last day of our vacation, Theo dropped our iPad on a brick patio, smashing it to bits. 2) I realized that I could save over $100/mo by consolidating my wireless accounts, and ...
- Le Burger Dog
This post has been a long time coming. This weekend, we hosted a BBQ at our house as part of the Summer of Internet Freedom. Internet Freedom is nice and all, but really, it was just an excuse to fire up a batch of burger dogs. What’s a burger dog? I’m glad you asked. A… Continue reading
- Smoke Detectors, or, it’s not the Backup; it’s the Restore
This week we are out in Cape Cod with Frannie’s family, hanging out at the beach in Truro (where, incidentally, there was a shark attack a few weeks ago). This week, we’re renting a different house than normal — it’s an old run-down house next door to the cottages where Fran’s family has vacationed...
- Arrived
In some small way, I feel like I arrived as a member of the internet today. Joi took some photos of me, which are now in his stream (along with photos of countless other internet heroes of mine). Thanks to Jess for making me smile and laugh as we got going. I am terrible in photographs. I always… C...
- When Paper is Better
Last week, I spent some time shopping for a new health insurance plan for our family. Two takeaways: 1) The new Massachusetts Health Connector is really great — the health connector is a state-run exchange that helps you find, choose, and purchase a health plan, either a state-run plan or a private ...
- Waboba!
We spent this weekend in Cape Cod w/ Frannie’s family — her family has been renting the same small cottage by the beach in Truro for 35 years or so, and we spend a lot of time out there in the summer. This year, our old friend Tati introduced perhaps the greatest beach innovation ever.… Continue rea...
- Learning new things
I have two kids — a three year old, Theo, and Brieza, who is one. It’s been amazing watching both of them grow. What’s funny about little kids growing is how it seems to happen in spurts. Everything will be going along, normal day to day, and then all of a sudden you stop and… Continue reading
- Automating your way out of bad behavior
As I write this, I’m sitting on the platform at the Back Bay Amtrak station in Boston, waiting for the train to New York. At 9am (6 minutes ago), I got a text message prompting me to write a blog post today. It said “Get your blog on! It’s a good thing”. The text message,… Continue reading
- Investing vs. getting in debt
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to invest lately. I’m not just talking about investing money, in savings or stocks or whatever; I mean investing in a broader sense, in yourself and in everything you do. I am without question an urgency addict — as a general rule, I procrastinate, let t...