Month: January 2024

On Sunday for lunch, I went to a dim sum place in a strip mall a few miles from downtown. That may seem a dingy description, but perhaps the best Chinese food I’ve ever had was at just such a place in Houston so I wasn’t deterred. I’d first seen this place on one of the best restaurants lists and then saw it in person when I visited a brewery located in the same shopping center. I had offered the restaurant as a possibility to some friends the day before but they were busy. I decided to go anyway since I’d put the idea of Chinese small bite goodness into my own mind.

One of the easiest heuristics for judging a restaurant is to look at the other patrons. If I’m going to a steakhouse, I want to see people who are dressed like the meal is a special occasion. If I’m going to a Latin place, I want to see Latinos eating the food. If I’m going to a Chinese place, I want to hear a language I cannot understand. It’s a quick way to estimate quality.

Well, this restaurant checked those boxes. Only a few of the patrons looked like me and several tables were not speaking English. I ordered with a combination of a paper card with everything written in both English and Mandarin where I wrote the number of each dish I wanted and a laminated menu where I could view pictures of the menu items if I didn’t recognize them by name (of which there were several). The pictures didn’t always help, but so it goes. There were also no forks on the table but only chopsticks. I’m sure that they would’ve brought a fork had I asked for one but I accepted the challenge. Then when the food came out the waitress rolled out a little cart and deposited the dishes onto my table.

Did I order too much food? Perhaps. I admit leaving a few bites uneaten. I wanted to try a smattering of the menu and so ordered about six dishes. I regret nothing. I’d like to go back with a group of people. That would let me eat even more different items, maybe even some of the more exotic ones. Exploring restaurants and cuisines is one of my priorities for 2024 and this was a good start.

I had two six-hour drives this week. Normally I would listen to a mix of podcasts and music on such trips, but recently Spotify launched an expansive audiobook offering and there were a couple of books that were right around that six-hour mark that showed up in my feed. I opted to listen to these instead, The Psychology of Money and The Courage to Be Disliked. These are two different books, one from a financial reporter telling short stories to exemplify different mental models around money and how not to get wiped out financially and the other a distillation of a school of psychology presented in a form similar to Plato’s Dialogues. Both presented ideas that I’ve continued to turn over in my head but I’ve not had the opportunity to discuss either with anyone else.

I don’t need Spotify in order to listen to audiobooks. It also isn’t necessary to use Audible or any other paid platform. I could just use Overdrive and combined with a library card have access to any number of audiobooks. I’ve even used Overdrive in the past, most commonly when I wanted to indulge in some escapism during my metro commute in DC. Yet now I don’t do that now. Perhaps the fact that I chose to listen to books at all during these rides is a testament to recommendation algorithms more than anything else. While there is definitely a risk of getting stuck in an information bubble with such algorithms, it was good to be fed a few things (presumably based on my podcast listening history) that brought some variety to my information intake.

I’ve found it a waste of time to listen to dense non-fiction. Such reading requires too many pauses to allow things to sink in that are not conducive to an audio format. I’ve tried a few times in the past and it hasn’t worked. In this newsletter I even wrote about an attempt to read and listen to a book at the same time to maximize information absorption. That didn’t work either. The sort of book that works in audio format for me is something lighter, the sort of book that could be part of an oral tradition. I suspect I’m not alone in that. While I’m not anticipating any more long drives like that for a while, recommendations are always welcome.

I failed in this week’s attempt at a new extracurricular activity. I picked out a happy hour for young professionals at a newish beer hall/taphouse on the other side of downtown. Happy hours are a coin flip at best for me and those odds have actually improved over time. However, I set myself up for failure with this one.

Simply put, I waited too long to walk over and so didn’t arrive until the event had already been going on for half an hour. That is a self-inflicted error and I know better. Arriving early is one of the most effective tactics for events like happy hours for me. This was one of my biggest takeaways from the book Quiet. If I get to a place early, I can settle into it and get comfortable before the decibel levels rise. This allows a mental shift for me from “I have to break into the event” to “I am a part of the event already and now others will join.” This is the battle raging in my head. My extroverted readers may have no familiarity with it but the introverts among you will empathize.  

The scene wasn’t aided by the cold weather forcing everyone inside and the venue’s concrete floors and cinder block walls. Combine that with conversation circles that had already formed and I waived the white flag on the event. Was the retreat too hasty? Perhaps, but that was what I chose. My hope is that by writing about the experience I’ll not self-sabotage similar events in the future.

I’ve had a slow start to the year in my personal life. Some of this was planned, some the result of extended holiday breaks for some of my regular events. On Sunday evening, I walked over to the performing arts center and took in a traveling Broadway production. I found a discounted resale single ticket in the middle of the front row of the upper deck and snagged it for an unobstructed view. The only things I knew about the show before seeing it were the name of the show (Girl from the North Country) and that it was a musical set to Bob Dylan music. Other than that, I was going in blind, which is not how I normally operate.

This was my second event at DPAC. For a city the size of Durham, it is an amazing venue. This was also my second time in the third deck but I don’t feel compelled to spend more money to be lower down, especially at the price I was able to get my seat. There were lots of stairs to climb since I didn’t want to wait on an elevator, but I went ahead and got into my seat early so that I could get settled in and claim the armrests before the seats filled up around me. I was on the younger side of the attendees but a few young people were there with their parents so I wasn’t the youngest.

The show itself was melancholic. It was set in late 1934 against the backdrop of an impending Minnesota winter. There were a few jokes and some cursing that brought some levity but the show stayed serious as it progressed. Not one of the characters had a happy beginning, nor a happy existence during the play itself, nor was any blessed with a happy postscript. It was an appropriate tone for a performance in the relative cold of early January and Bob Dylan music is hardly upbeat and cheerful. The set design and choreography were reminiscent of the mid-sized productions I’ve seen in New York. I actually expected more of a drop off since this was a traveling production so that was a pleasant surprise. I don’t see myself buying a season ticket this year, or for the foreseeable future, but it is nice to know that I have the option of a different type of entertainment within walking distance.

At the beginning of 2023, I left Raleigh and went to the beach for a period. I deliberately set off on January 1 as a poetic gesture to myself. The idea was a new direction and new plans for a new year. Those plans didn’t manifest as I thought they would even though I snaked my way across America and all the way to the Pacific coast before I finally turned around. I didn’t come back to Raleigh, instead opting for a new start in nearby Durham. I have definitely felt that 2023 was a year my life spent in neutral. I made the right decisions in the end even if I had wishful tunnel vision at the start.

I’ve joked recently that I no longer make five-year plans. After the way last year panned out, perhaps I shouldn’t make plans beyond the current quarter. And while that may be an exaggeration, that is roughly what I’ve done. I have work plans for the quarter and goals for the year. In my personal life, I’m currently evaluating and ruminating during the January M&A doldrums.

As 2024 begins, my focus is on adding and not subtracting—activities, trips, and friends in my personal life and systems in my professional life. I’ve committed myself to the Triangle Region of North Carolina. Now with that decision made, I can turn my attention to building my life here. Maybe I’ll even find some grace for myself in not making that commitment sooner. After all, it takes time to sink in roots and patience has never been my superpower.