Getting Some Narrative Continuity

This is a cross-post from my Substack “Little Drops of Happiness” — go there to get the full post with all the pictures, and subscribe there to get notified about new posts by email.

It’s been about 7 months since my last post and life has picked up a new faster cadence. This change sits at the confluence of waning grief, renewed enthusiasm for being out in the world, memories of the pandemic starting to fade, my startup gaining traction, and transformation of key relationships. Hello, hi there, it’s me!

After nearly 20 years and ~500 posts I find myself craving some kind of narrative arc on my blog. I re-read it and remember my life but when enough time passes, it can be difficult to tie things together. I’m an old school blogger, mixing in my personal life we other musings and I like to have a single place where the big life stuff is noted because otherwise I have to look across a lot of different social media accounts. Now that I’m down to just Twitter (still refuse to call it X) and Insta it’s a lot easier because Twitter = text and Insta = pics.

So in order to unblock myself to write smaller posts about more recent events, and keep this in some semblance of chronological order, here are some highlights of life since I last opined on the glorious summertime in the Rocky Mountains.

September ‘23

Nashville for the first time! Exploring with Jonathan and Regan, and driving to Gatlinburg to celebrate another friend’s wedding in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Highlights: an emo sing-along in country bar, snacks from Buc-ee’s, and a day at Dollywood . I loved traveling with the whole Groupthink crew for this one!

Back in Colorado, we headed up into the Rockies to see the fall leaves, grill burgers, ride the UTV, and sit around the bonfire. We were up early for a hike among the Aspens turning orange in Arapaho National Park, and went out on a friend’s boat for its final run of the season.

October ‘23

Montana to see friends for the last of the warm weather! Two hikes, including my first time up “The M” at Bridger Canyon — a 850 ft climb in just over a mile.

Kevin and I had a blast celebrating Jonathan and Regan’s wedding in Las Vegas!

November

The Christmas lights went up at our house before the first snow!

Nuggets basketball season started — and of course I cheered for the Warriors with my gold nails, which ChatGPT designed and my tail tech made real!

First snow, up at Red Rocks with Dagny for my final dry-ish hike of the year.

December

Achieved an angel investing milestone: $1 million of my own money deployed in companies and funds since I started doing deals on my own in 2012.

Hood River for Christmas! The first celebration without Angela was sad at times, but I also found comfort in seeing how resilient kids are. We stayed at Skamania Lodge on the Columbia River Gorge, and wow the Pacific Northwest is pretty.

January ‘24

Stepping into the new year, my cofounder and I made a switch in roles and I moved from CTO to CEO of Groupthink. This decision deserves a much longer post. I spent a lot of time in Arizona working on our roadmap and transition.

Frugality has been on my mind with more international travel and big plans for home improvements on the horizon, and one area I knew we could do better was our monthly food spend. Two people really don’t need to spend $3,000/month between groceries and eating out — even when food is my major hobby.

To save money and improve nutrition, I upped my meal planning and prep game, with daily mis en place in the late afternoon and much more attractive container game for leftovers. I’m re-visiting my whole view on leftovers, and trying to get more green on the plate and experiment with plant-based and vegan recipes.

February ‘24

Hawaii for my annual trip with my parents! My Dad was waiting on a knee surgery (successfully completed with no complications last Friday) so we had a very laid back time in Kauai, and I stayed behind for a few days after everyone else left to write and think and work on my CEO transition in peace.

March ‘24

Celebrated the elopement of friends with a fancy, and I loved my new dress!

Then it was off to San Francisco to hack on an Apple Vision Pro app prototype and catch up with old friends! A packed social scheduled meant reunion meals and drinks at old favorites like Cotogna, Local Kitchen, Burma Love, As Quoted, Coqueta, Shotwell’s, Plow, Senor Sisig, Zuni Cafe and Saison and new spots like Early to Rise, Dalida, Pacific Cocktail Haven, and Copra.

Even “casual” food feels a bit more special. There is a lot of pride in the food culture here, and it shows. In the land of move fast and break things, his perspective on craft, quality, and excellence is refreshing.

Breaking bread, telling the long versions of stories with lots of eye contact, holding space for the anxiety of big news (a birth! a death! an engagement! a divorce! a loss! a breakthrough!) and never quite being the right temperature but dealing with it because you’re just so happy to be here.

The same parts of San Francisco that were gross and dangerous when I moved there in 2009 are still like that. The locals avoid 6th Street (drugs) and Union Square (tourists). It smells like eucalyptus and sounds like parrots in the morning.

Onward!