Category: Newsletter (Page 7 of 20)

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.

This week took me to Nashville for Christmas, the same place we’ve celebrated for over a decade. There was a time when we’d celebrate early, as soon as a school semester finished, but now we navigate work schedules instead. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’m able to work from anywhere so my schedule didn’t figure into the determination. I did shepherd a closing on Thursday but after that my 2023 matters were completed. Bill is still pushing hard for at least one more 2023 close but now all I can do is offer secondary support and set the outreach agenda for next year.

This weekend was the first time I’d ever seen a concert at the Ryman Auditorium. It is an old-time venue with significant history and incredible acoustics. I didn’t know all of the songs and the pews didn’t make for the most comfortable seats, but there is something magical about watching a show in a place like that.

We only experienced a childhood Christmas this year through a phone screen. It looked like a chaotic mess with the kids hyped up on sugar and dancing and running around the living room. I’m sure they crashed not too long after they showed us their new baby dolls and Flintstones car.

This was a rare year when I completed my gift shopping before Christmas Eve. My gift wrapping was still last-minute and shameful but it’s more about what’s inside the wrapping than the wrapping itself. Overall, everything was great. At least until I ate myself sick on Christmas Day, but that’s a boring story for a book I’ll never write.

For the past six weeks, I’ve attended an improv comedy class. Well, I missed the first week with COVID but I’ve already told that story. This was my second improv class. I took another one when I lived in DC. That one had a younger crowd of people in their 20s and 30s. In this one, there was much more variation in age among the participants. This one also had a public graduation show as a focal point instead of just doing exercises.

I took an improv class again for two reasons. One was to have an opportunity to meet new people and make new connections. This didn’t work as well as I’d hoped but I’ll keep trying. The second was to force me to be more present and spontaneous in conversation. Sometimes my conversations with prospective clients can get repetitive, introducing a danger that I go into autopilot, miss their core concerns, and lose out on the business. A similar dynamic can occur in my personal life as I focus more on what I’m going to say next than on what my conversational partner is saying now. In improv, you cannot get away with doing that. You must be present with your scene partner and in so doing get out of your own head. That alone was worth the time and money I invested into taking the class.

On Saturday, we had our graduation show. Only 8 of the 13 people who started the class were there for myriad reasons and there were only about that many people in the audience. Two of the audience members were even people I’d invited. My set was with 5 of the 8 as there were two sets during the show. During the set, I gave a monologue about a certain groundhog (or more realistically series of groundhogs) named Rufus that resides under my parents’ shed. This idea resulted from a prior scene where a young child named a racoon. My three scenes weren’t great in my own assessment. I inadvertently took over the first one about a frog from my scene partner and it stalled. A second saw me trying to buy a Christmas present while hopelessly lost in what became a French shopping mall. And I could not even remember my third scene at dinner afterwards. Overall my performance was better and I had more fun during the practice show we did on Tuesday, but that was largely immaterial.

Will I take more improv classes next year? Maybe. I don’t feel any compulsion to make a run at becoming a cast member of SNL. It may depend on scheduling and what other activities I find.

I flew down to Miami on Friday afternoon, took a rideshare to my brother’s apartment, and then waited for my sister-in-law to get home from work. We ate an early dinner at a place I’d eaten at with them previously, a rare-in-Miami southern place with some very good fried chicken.

I’m not a beach person, much to the constant chagrin of my hosts. This meant that we spent Saturday afternoon walking through Coconut Grove instead of going across to Miami Beach. There was also a visit to another holiday market, my third of the season after the two last week. This one was the worst of the three, even worse than last week’s that was interrupted by a protest, because we also had to drive quite a distance to get to it. We gave up very quickly and ordered pizza to pick up on the way back. On Sunday we did go across to Miami Beach but not to the beach itself as we walked through a section of South Beach before a quick visit to Brickell (after waiting what seemed like forever for a drawbridge in downtown because that’s a thing in Miami). Then we ate dinner at a new cocktail bar that was still finding its feet with its food offerings.

I spent most of the workday Monday watching continuing education videos. It might help my sanity if I spaced those out throughout the year, but I no longer beat myself up over having to endure two days of CLE per year. Only four more hours to go this year. Yay.

The plan was to go to the Titans game against the Dolphins on Monday Night Football. That was the original justification for my visit. Ultimately, we decided not to spend the $200 per person to drive 45 minutes up to the stadium and sit in the nosebleeds. Instead, we opted for a group parrilla dinner at an Argentinian restaurant. On this evening, it would have been warmer had we actually been in Buenos Aires and the meal would have been much less expensive. The amount of English spoken in the restaurant, though, would have been almost exactly the same.

We then returned to my brother’s apartment and watched a roller coaster of a football game that had one of the craziest endings I’ve seen in a long time and left us ruing moments earlier in the season that led to losses that will make it almost impossible for our team to make the playoffs. I’m not disappointed that we watched it on television instead of in person. We yelled just the same and at least this way we weren’t in any physical danger when the Titans pulled off the upset.

I went to two different holiday markets on Saturday, one in Raleigh and one in Durham. Neither was a first-choice activity for me but both were opportunities to spend a few hours with friends after a stop-start workweek.

The Raleigh event was in the early afternoon. It took place in the middle of Fayetteville Street, the main street downtown between the few skyscrapers. It was too warm for a holiday market but a few of the vendors had Santa-themed wares on offer. Did I accomplish any Christmas shopping? Of course not; it’s far too early for that. I also didn’t eat lunch before going. That was a mistake as it left me with a bit of a headache walking around. The dumplings that I ate when I finally did get lunch were very good though, better than my previous experience at the same restaurant.

The Durham event was centered around the lighting of a big Christmas tree in one of the angular plazas downtown that were created by the weird street alignment. The market was set up on a closed side street and there was a stage set up in the plaza for different entertainment acts. When my little group arrived, there was a Latin band playing. The sound was hardly festive, but it was at least thirty decibels too loud to make up for it. None of the vendors seemed to have gotten the holiday memo either as no one was selling anything that appeared seasonal to me. There was even a free Palestine protest starting to add even more confusion to the scene. We ended up punting on the whole idea and walking a few blocks to a place for burgers and fries. None of this was a disappointment to me but I suspect it was for my companions. I enjoyed dinner and interacting with their little one who is really starting to grow into his personality.

I was in Kentucky for most of the last week as I opted to go to my parents instead of having them come to me. Deer season was still open in Kentucky and so going to my parents meant I’d get the opportunity to hunt. I took a small buck, one of two deer we harvested on Friday and one of four for my family this season. It only took two hunts for me to tag out and my brother took only one, a stark contrast from our childhoods and a testament to all of the work that’s taken place over the years on the reclaimed strip mine we call the farm.

I ate the Thanksgiving meal with my immediate family and some of my extended family. The best part might have been the surprise on the little ones’ faces when they walked into the living room and saw that more people than just their mamaw and papaw were there. I was sure to pick them up when they ran to greet me. From what they would tell me while we ate, school is going well. The oldest is at an age that was not much fun for me so that was good to hear. Their brother wasn’t any more interested in me than he was the last time I saw him but I’m not going to give up that easily. We’re going to be buddies.

The rest of the weekend passed in relative ease. I floated several possible trips for 2024 but didn’t receive much interest from anyone, not that that will stop me from acting on any of my ideas. I’ll also have a new batch of ideas by the time we convene for Christmas, but there will be a few adventures between now and then.

I subscribed to ESPN+ a few months ago so that I could watch some sports that I’d been missing out on after some of the recent account sharing crackdowns that have taken place this year in the streaming world. This has created opportunities for me to watch a few sporting events that are relatively obscure in the United States.

Over the past month or so, the cricket world cup took place in India. These games started at 4:30 AM (3:30 after daylight savings time) and lasted through the morning. That meant that I had something to watch when I couldn’t fall back asleep. I ended up watching parts of several games through the tournament.

The final was on Sunday. India, playing at home in front of over 100,000 fans in a packed stadium, came up against Australia. India was favored. India was undefeated. Australia won. It wasn’t Brazil 1-7 Germany, but it was still painful to watch as a neutral. We don’t have anything quite like that in the United States, no sporting event where the collectively expectations of our entire nation rests on the shoulders of those on the field. Sometimes I think we’d be better off if we did as that would at least give us a single thing to rally around as a country.