My new year’s resolution was to start a blog, which I created yesterday. I named it Leelau Lessons to embrace those things I take away from my dog, Leelau. The blog will be more about capturing what I think about when I am out walking Leelau, but overall her main lesson is for me to try to be the person she thinks I am.

My motivation to start a blog is to hopefully experience a new medium and learn something new. Years ago I soured on social media, but felt there was an underlying positive aspect if it was done right, which I think blogging could be. I am also hoping to evolve to a newsletter, which might be a good forum to keep in touch with my network and share some hopefully useful thinking.

I plan to blog about my current life activities and Leelau’s adventures. I will want to share the random thoughts I am having while out on my walks. I will also try to share what I am currently reading. But I also hope to evolve the blog to share what observations I took away from a 32 year career in professional services and what I am sharing with my students as I start to lecture this spring.

Leelau wandering if this reindeer can fly.

Finished reading: Factfulness by Hans Rosling 📚

I am typically not a fan of non-fiction with a significant use of numbers and charts, but I enjoyed Factfulness as it was such an uplifting message. Each stat and graph brought a smile to my face, especially as so many people I know are simply down on everything going on in the world. The daily news puts everyone in a funk, which is unnecessary when you think about how well things are going for most of the world.

For someone who has been labelled a toxic optimist it has been hard to keep the positivity up. Factfulness was a great reminder how much progress the world is making and how good life is when you take a step back.

The questions he posed at the beginning of the book were great and I did as poorly as most people he has presented the questions to. After reading the book I think I will dial back my time I spend each day consuming news. More does not seem better. I will add that the end of the book was super sad and worth it to make it to the last chapter.

I have a mild obsession with tracking my workouts and overall movement. I am sure there are more obsessed people out there than me, but my wife would argue I am in a top tier. Back in November I realized 3 fitness goals I was tracking were all trending towards 2500.

For 2023 I ended up biking 2,518 miles. After retiring this summer I had much more time to be active, especially with biking. I was able to get out on 4 touring trips, which allowed me to log many more miles than prior years. Buying a new gravel bike also helped.

A couple years ago I heard a good goal would be to have Walking + Running Distance in the Health app on your iPhone to exceed the year number, so 2,023 miles for this year. I was able to log 2,567.

The hardest one for me to achieve was a complex point system I had developed over the years. Though easy for me to comprehend, I find it complicated to explain to others as I developed it over a couple decades. In general, this annual goal forces me to work out regularly, cross train, and brings some gamification to the workout routine. In the past I had an annual to run 1,000 miles, bike 1,000 miles and workout 100 times. The workout could be a 30 minute core routine, yoga or anything I deemed a solid physical activity which was preventing, or at least reducing, my running or biking. When Leelau came along I wanted to push myself to get out walking with her, especially after a work day spent inside an office. The goal became a point system based on running. So, running a mile was a point, biking 3 miles was a point, and working out or doing yoga for 30 minutes felt like an equivalent to running a mile, so a point. Adding the walking dimension took more thought. In the end, I felt one should move at least 3 miles a day, or 6,000+ steps. Therefore, I determined I would only get a point for miles moved exceeding a base of 3 miles, obviously excluding the run miles already accounted for.

The goal each year is 2,000, which I meet most years, but not all. For 2023 I was able to rack up 2,501 points. Barely made it, but it felt great to wake up new year’s eve morning with 2,494 points and head out on a 6 mile run and hit the 2500 mark.

Finished reading: Same as Ever by Morgan Housel 📚

A quick read and certainly to the point. A refreshing message to focus on: what stays the same when everyone is trying to busy themselves with the anxiety of what will happen next. He articulates some great examples in each chapter. He does go overboard with quotes and at times there are so many it is hard to keep track of the topic. However, I really enjoyed all the Buffett and Munger quotes.

In a world full of doomscrolling where media wants to scare the crap out of you, drawing on historical norms was refreshing.

Over the years I have been somewhat obsessive with goals. After a couple years of trying to dial in a goal list, I believe I dialed in the right list. I have tied them to a focus on living a balanced life in the context of mind, body, soul, and social. When I started to make a goal list I became somewhat dogmatic. Anything on the list had to be met. But after a couple years of not completing each goal, but looking back with a sense of pride regarding what I accomplished, I became less focused on what had to be met and what had the potential to be pursued for a sense of accomplishment. Since I shed the need to hold myself accountable for every goal I set and was just going to look back and be proud of what I was accomplishing I just kept adding goals. One year I had grown my goal list to 20 various goals.

Having 7 goals seems like a better number. My job seemed to challenge me mentally, so I did not feel I needed much in this area, but to read a book a month sounded like a worthy goal. As my job was fairly sedentary, the body needed the most focus. No goal list should be without a weight goal, so I made a goal to be in the normal range for Body Mass Index. At my height this meant I needed to be 178 pounds or less to be in the range. I will likely never need to know what the lower end of the range is unless I get very sick. When I turned 48 I had heard about a goal of running a 10K in minutes equal to your age. I thought this sounded pretty bad-ass and felt it would be a good goal to keep my running pace in check as I aged.

The fourth goal was discussed in a previous post, which was initiated to push myself to workout 6 days a week and have some cross training designed into a point system.

With the mind and body being covered, there appeared to be a need to cover the social and spiritual aspect of my life. Though there did not seem to be a need for a social or spiritual goal, there did seem to be a need to check in on how I am doing socially and spiritually. Once a week, typically on a Sunday morning, which would be a good nod to the spiritual, I would make myself journal a page in a 5” x 7” journal. The journalling would need to have some reflection of how the week went and what could be an intention for the upcoming week. If I was not being a good person and felt my spirit was not where it should be I could reflect on why and what I could do better in the upcoming week. It also addressed the social, so if I felt I was not getting out in the world and connecting with others I could make it a priority which would bring the social pillar in balance.

Any coach on goal setting would have to agree these are well articulated, specific goals with good timeframes. With 5 goals being SMART, I felt there was room now for goals to be more open ended and provide space for more creativity, spontaneity and ability to take advantage of changes in life events. I still had a nagging notion I was not addressing the spiritual aspect of my life for attaining balance even though I did not have any reflections I was out of balance. The sixth goal became a general goal which stated daily I should do something good for the soul or makes me feel uncomfortable. This is broadly defined as meditating, relationship building, sauna / cold water therapy or something new which would take me out of my comfort zone and would lead to the final goal.

The last goal also was structured to allow unstructured activities in. Simply titled, “Discover” the intent was to try new things and bring some spice to life. If the journaling was on track there would be some level of monitoring if I was regularly bringing new and interesting activities into my life.

Experience = Reality - Expectations

I recently was reminded of a formula defining one’s experience as the reality you are faced with less the expectations you have formed about the perceived reality. So many people seem to be down on their life experience. With most market indices hitting record highs, unemployment down, and inflation having a soft landing it would seem reality for many people would be pretty good. Especially if you think historically where things like child mortality and those killed from disease and war are dramatically lower. Reality for most people gets better every year. Actual reality and perceived reality are likely two different things. Reality it seems is defined by those who are incentivized to articulate gloomier versions of reality. If attention is the currency in our digital world, it seems the best way to get it is to scare the crap out of you.

As for expectations, social and mainstream media don’t help. Too many posts focus on people digitally portraying a version of a perfect life. Mainstream media also pushes commercials and news stories about any number of products, medications, or experiences portraying a scenario where if only you had it in your life your life would be complete.

Best to look at reality more objectively and less defined by those fighting for your attention so as to not form unrealistic expectations. If the reality is great, appreciate it and try to fuel more of it. If reality can be improved, do whatever you can to make it better.

Leelau seems to be having a great experience. Her reality is solid and I am assuming dogs cannot form expectations.

Had a great trip to Durango, CO to snowboard at Purgatory. Four days down the hill saw an easy day where like most CO resorts there was not a lot of snow, to days 2 & 3 where 10" and 3" of snow came and then a 4th day of just blue skies. I have a love hate relationship with powder. I am not out west enough to master the snowboard in powder so it is a lot of effort and at some point is just draining. However, the feeling of riding a snowboard atop 10" of fluffy show is magical.

Good group of 4 guys organized by my friend Toby. My past job would have never allowed me to do a trip like this at this time of year. This is the 4th guys trips I have been on where it was a larger group in the past, but due to job or family commitments, or an inability for some to participate in the physical nature of the trip, less of the original group can go so there is a need to invite others. Good for me and it was a nice way to get to know 2 new people who were great to spend 5 days with.

We had a great trip to Albuquerque last week for a wedding. The couple did an amazing job planning events throughout the entire weekend for the out of town guests. We spent most of the weekend in Old Town having some good southwest cuisine and then on Sunday got out of town to Santa Fe. There were also ample galleries and craft shops, which get old to me quickly. In general, I do not like going into a business where I have no intention to buy anything. The weekend weather was great so it was good to be out and about.

It was a nice getaway to a part of the country I have not been to. It was my 48th state. Many of the popular states I have been to for fun, but the less popular states I have visited were through work. So now I am down to less popular states which do not have many large companies. I have South Carolina and West Virginia remaining. Asking the couple’s family what were some of the main industries were, they listed out oil, tourism and a large Air Force base where they train astronauts. Then someone joked, methamphetamines - a nice nod to Breaking Bad.

Overall, it was great to be with family, especially having dedicated time with my wife and 2 daughters.

After starting to blog I felt I needed to reassess how my entries would be presented. For some past posts I felt I was going on far too long and then I felt I corrected and was writing too little. This led to just not blogging, which was unfortunate.

I have made no progress on a style, but I do get the sense I simply need to be spending more time blogging so at some point I figure it out through experience. Probably a lesson in life there somewhere.

Finished reading The Future by Alderman

It was a well written book. Easy to get through. Interesting cast of charachters who were easy to follow. The flow and adjacent stories fit well together. After reading so many articles on the risks of AI, I was not overly thrilled at the early, somewhat dystopian tech views. However, there were some great twists and I thoroughly enjoyed the end. The antagonists are recognizable characters in the real world, so it was fun putting real world faces on fictional characters.

I scratch my head sometimes at stories regarding the prepper community, religous cults, and overall dystopian perspectives of the future. The storyline did a good job weaving in and out of these topics in an engaging way. At the point I did not know how the story was going wrap up being aware of how many pages were left, I enjoyed how it came together in the end.

The book is featured as the December book at Books & Bars. I have attended in the past, but not for awhile. There can always be an excuse, but a goal to get back attending more. It does bring together two things I enjoy.

I am recommitting to blogging for the second time. Hopefully the last. This medium seems right for me. As many who blog, I have soured on social media and overall enjoy story telling and long form writing / journalism.

I have been fairly good at goal achievement, so I have had to do some soul searching why I have not been consistent with this blogging goal. In the past, I have found the best way to achieve a goal is to put it out into the world - mainly to family and friends. The fear of telling those close to me I did not achieve a goal is typically enough motivation to put in the work towards achieving the goal. With blogging, I seem to be over indexed on getting a style right prior to sharing it. Therefore, I am going to commit to creating a couple more posts this month and send a message to family and friends introducing my blog. Once it is out there, hopefully I will become a more consistent blogger.

I need to share some thoughts on books recently read, recent trips, and other random thoughts I have gathered.

Finished reading: Thrive by Ravi Bapna 📚

I have read enough on the concerns of AI, so it was refreshing to read Thrive, by authors Bapna and Ghose. They lay out more the art of the possible for what AI can do for us and society than the typical ethical and apocalyptic concerns over AI. 

I also enjoyed the examples provided. As both authors are professors, you feel you are getting multiple layman’s summaries of detailed research papers. The chapters follow these examples moving from dating apps to health to education to work to your home. Easy to read and follow, though you also get a sense of the complexity of the AI behind the stories. 

Even more helpful was the model they present early on called the House of AI. It was a simple to follow model to structure the conversation. It lays the groundwork for presenting AI, not just in terms of the latest on generative AI, but more about how advanced analytics can be applied to a problem.  

At the beginning of the year we were able to get away to Santa Barbara, CA where my daughter attends college. The motivation for the trip was to celebrate her and her twin sisters’ 21st birthdays. I did not expect to be celebrating their 21st with them as I would certainly not have thought about celebrating my 21st with my parents. It was a celebration where I had so much I had to give some back. Right on the cobblestone streets at the Landing in St. Louis, back in 1989 when it had a vibrant bar / restaurant scene.

My sister-in-law Carrie was able to join, which is always great to have her along. She stayed with us for the couple months at the beginning of Covid and is certainly a member of our family. Santa Barbara is as beautiful a place as you would expect. The place we rented had bikes, so were able to do a nice campus tour by bike and it was not too far from the ocean, so we had some very pleasant walks.

I feel in past trips we were more about the hiking or getting out to surrounding wine country. This visit was more focused on seeing Santa Barbara. There are some great restaurants in this town and we ate well on this visit. The Lark and Sama Sama Kitchen were both amazing. If I did reviews I would give them both 5 stars.

The eve of their birthday there was party at their apartment. I spend $150 on alcohol and Angie and I were treated like royalty. They wanted to go to a bar at midnight, so we went to a speakeasy style place nearby called the The Imperial Lounge. A super trippy place that seemed like it was out of a David Lynch film. A great find and fun to have cocktails with the group.

If ever in Santa Barbara, I cannot say enough great things about Lotusland. It is an amazing property with so many varietals of plant life and overall great background story. Highly recommended, but unfortunately it was closed that time of year. I will plan to go every time I visit.

After a 32 year career with PwC I wanted to try one more thing. I had 4 ideas as to what I wanted to do for Retirement 1.0. Two fizzled out quickly, one did not materialize and one stuck.

I earned a contract to deliver a course at the University of Minnesota in the Carlson School of Management. The course is titled IDSc 3104 Enterprise Systems, a 2 credit course delivered over 8 weeks in the second half of a semester (B Term), offered 3 times in the fall and twice in the spring. It delves into large business transaction systems, focusing on one used by very large companies, SAP. If you are getting a Management Information Systems (MIS) degree you may take this your junior year and if you are working on an MIS minor, you likely take it your senior year. MIS majors their junior year in the fall are far more enjoyable to teach than MIS minors in their senior year in spring about to graduate.

I have met people over the years with a strong desire to lecture at a university. This was not top of mind for me and certainly not a goal when wrapping up my time at PwC. I regularly guest lectured at an introduction to IT class at Carlson, which entailed speaking to a couple class sections during one week per semester. Practically, it had a recruiting dimension, but it also felt good to be in front of students conveying the benefits of pursuing a career similar to mine. After leaving PwC, I had the opportunity to shadow a professor and the energy of being on campus felt like it would be a great opportunity to give back and fulfill a purpose I may not have realized was available for me to fill.

The time and effort to deliver a university class is much harder than I imagined. I did not think it would be easy, but since most my materials were inherited from the previous lecturer, I would be assigned a Teacher’s Assistant (TA) to handle most grading, and an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA) for each section to assist students with hands on exercises, I did not think it would be too hard. However, preparing and practicing enough to feel comfortable owning a room averaging 40 students who are counting on you to fulfill their learning needs is no small effort. There is also the administrative burden to be the recipient of 200 students in my 5 sections. Between illness, illness of family members, religious holidays, accommodation coordination, and a host of miscellaneous questions along with those who should have gone to the TA or the UTA is a much more time consuming effort than I would have thought.

Not often, but from time to time I have heard someone make the comment about how easy teachers have it. There are what seem like rather naive points of view on the limited hours of teaching and all the time off during seasonal breaks, especially summer. The next person who makes this comment near me will likely get an ear full. The course design, prep, delivery, student interaction and grading are serious time commitments and big energy drains. And I am teaching college juniors and seniors, so I cannot even fathom what it takes to teach at the elementary and high school levels.

Overall, a great experience. However, the next time you are introduced to a teacher, please thank them for what they do and comment on how hard their job must be.