As part of my journey to make my home here, I did something almost every evening last week. Mondays are reserved for curling but there was also an e-commerce happy hour/meetup event on Wednesday, a series of short talks on Thursday, and a comedy open mic on Friday. I met a couple of people on Wednesday but I’m hardly a social butterfly. Thursday was a wash. This post, though, is about the open mic on Friday.

I also wrote about the last open mic I attended this summer. That one was in a dedicated comedy venue in what has become the hottest city in America for standup and some of those acts are now headlining comedy clubs around the country. That wasn’t the case this time. This was in the brightly lit barrel room of a brewery with an industrial fan running on low the whole time. The acts were a mix of decent-to-good, vulgar, and downright awful. There was even a ventriloquist for some reason. It was a much more typical open mic than what I witnessed in Austin.

I went to the event knowing that the performances would be hit-and-miss. That’s what you sign up for as an open mic attendee. Even the misses are part of the fun; there is a perverse satisfaction in watching someone else fail even if most people don’t like to admit it. I enjoy watching standup comedy and even though I’ve never had the urge to perform standup myself I have great respect for those who genuinely pursue the craft. Trying, learning, and building in public is hard. Most crafts don’t permit such public exposure. The closest I come is publishing this every week but my writing craft is hardly improved through the manner in which this column is written and edited most of the time.

Long walks have been a part of my life for many years now. I started taking them in law school to break the rhythm of studying for hours and hours. I walked a lot of miles through the back streets of Cambridge and to, from, up, and down the Charles. Then chronologically there have been walking tracks, city blocks, rail trails, and lakefront parks. Now most of my walks are around the perimeter of a college campus.

On Sunday, though, I journeyed about fifteen minutes’ drive to a state park to walk a gravel and rock track along a river. Fall has finally arrived and I wanted to get away from the sounds of cars and traffic and into a place where I could hear wind through trees and some flowing water. The leaves aren’t quite at their peak brilliance yet here, but there is some color already and that offered a nice visual bonus when I wasn’t looking at the ground to plot my steps across the uneven surfaces. I chose a loop trail that was about 2.5 miles, nothing crazy. There was more elevation than I’d anticipated and overall it’s probably not a trail I’ll repeat any time soon as there are several others to try in the same park but it was still a pleasant walk. Also, there were so many turtles sitting on logs in the river. It was a deja vu of sorts after going to the sea turtle rescue center a couple of weeks ago with the little ones while we were at the beach. 

I couldn’t linger as long as I’d hoped as there was some added distance between the trailhead and the parking lot that I had to traverse and I needed to get back so that I could finally have a few guests in my apartment now that it’s fully furnished. Really, this just meant following a toddler around. It was clear that I’ve not set up this apartment for little ones, but everyone enjoyed themselves anyway.

Last week was fall break for lots of schools. My schedule is not normally dictated by the school calendar, but I went to the beach to meet some family who were taking advantage of their children’s fall break. I never had a full week for fall break when I was in school, but it would have allowed for trips like this one so I wish we had.

Work continued in a more-or-less normal fashion, albeit with a few zoom-bombing interruptions from little ones who just wanted me to finish whatever meeting was ongoing in order to get back to spending time with them. During more prolonged bouts of work, I stayed behind while everyone else went to the beach or to go shopping. These periods were either in the late morning or early afternoon so I was able to eat almost every meal with others and was able to go to the park with the older kids to talk to them while they were on the swings. I also didn’t have to miss any of the trips to get ice cream that I enjoyed almost as much as the children did.

It was impossible to get any attention from the youngest one where mom or mamaw was around. And even if they weren’t it still wasn’t easy as he grabbed whatever screen was available and made his way to watch one of several children’s programs I hadn’t seen before last week.

The best part of the week was being around little ones for whom work from adults is just a temporary distraction from the serious activity of having fun with whatever game they are then playing. It was such a refreshing environment after what has been, with the exception of the previous week in Las Vegas, a slower period of work that has brought a few frustrations. Well, at least it was refreshing while no one was throwing a fit because they wanted to watch Bluey or play a game on an iPad. I was also able to commission some new watercolors for my refrigerator, one a rainbow and the other an apple tree. The exact subjects I would have chosen? Probably not, but I still see them a few times a day now and get to think about the time I get to spend with my favorite little people.

I attended my second Rhodium event last week. This meant another trip to Las Vegas. Once again, the trip was bereft of gambling and shows and only saw mixed results in trying new restaurants. Perhaps by next year I’ll feel secure enough to treat myself to a blowout experience or two but that wasn’t on the cards for this year.

It was a different experience this year. There were times when I knew I belonged. I had seen most of the people before even if I hadn’t talked to them previously. I knew how the sessions would flow and was more deliberate about the roundtables I attended. I was part of a bonus session at the start that I’d been unable to attend the year prior, a session for a smaller group that holds more regular meetings that I’ll be more involved in during the coming year. Throughout the conference, I spent as much time reconnecting with people I already knew as meeting new people (the former being a much easier task given my temperament).  

Then there were times where I still felt like an outsider. Some of these stemmed from my energy management strategies of walking off or sitting by myself for a few minutes to recharge, deliberate moments of physical separation. These weren’t an obstacle; they were planned. More telling, though, were the moments when I was reminded that this is a conference full of operators and I’m a service provider. They may be my clients but I’m not exactly one of them, not yet anyway. That may only be a subjective difference but that doesn’t make it any less real. I don’t know if this difference can be bridged. A law firm is a different business than those operated by the other attendees and any strategic or tactical insights have to be translated into our specific context. There’s no problem with this. It is just a reality to navigate.

I met up with friends on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday last weekend. Sure there are the necessary caveats that Saturday and Sunday involved the same people and none of these people are new friends, but so be it. It was the sort of weekend I’ve not had in a long time. There was a new brewery and restaurant to try on Friday. Then I continued to assist people get settled into a new place on Saturday and met them again for a food truck festival on Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t the healthiest weekend I’ve ever had, but I did eat a wide variety of foods.

I still haven’t hosted anyone at my apartment after I’ve completed furnishing it. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I offered on both Friday and Sunday. It just hasn’t worked out yet. Maybe that will come in a few weeks once I finish the current round of traveling I’m doing. It showcases me more than any of my prior residences, taxidermy included, and is more comfortable than the constant change in backdrop that marked my life through the late spring and most of summer.

I don’t consider last weekend to be a final iteration by any means, but it was a step in the right direction, a good start that I’ll build on in the weeks and months to come.

Operating a small business can be a roller coaster ride, ups and downs, twists and turns, and often in rapid succession. This has been one of those weeks.

In the middle of last week, we sat helpless as a buyer walked away from a transaction we’d been assisting with for months. This is a client we really enjoy working with and he’s built an incredible business. Everything was in line for an end of month close, then the buyer backed out. It was a gut punch for everyone involved. We will continue to support this client as he and the broker implement a strategy in the coming months to find another buyer and we’ll jump in to help again when the time comes. Then by Friday we were brought in to start an even larger transaction and now have several warm leads through our referral network.

The last couple of days have been filled with reviewing purchase agreements and letters of intent and having client calls to go over these transaction documents. These are the grinding days and the grinding calls, the sorts of calls we liken to a trip to the dentist. For me, these are the sorts of days when the emotion of Miles Davis playing his trumpet is the perfect background soundtrack. They are good days, but there have been fewer of them than I would’ve preferred over the past few months.

Today we had a closing. Sure it stretched out longer than it should have, but that happens with certain forms of financing. This was another closing that gave us more relief than euphoria but no matter, it’s accomplished. There is another small transaction where the documents are signed and it will close on Monday. Again, just momentary relief and onto the next one.

It’s been an eventful week. Most of them feel eventful now. During a conversation yesterday with a classmate from law school who stayed in the big firm litigation world, I was smacked in the face with the reality of how crazy that really is.

This was a much quieter week than I’ve had in a while. I didn’t drive hundreds of miles or fly across the country or move into a new apartment. It was a chance to finally feel settled in my new surroundings, try a few new restaurants (a very good pizza place and a not-so-good bbq place), and put things in their place in my living space. Well, mostly, as there is still one project that needs to be finished.

Over the next week, I’ll continue the push to settle into my new home. I’m going to join a coworking space downtown but with different purposes than when I’ve tried coworking spaces before. This time I’m not getting an office and will probably spend no more than a couple of hours at a time there. I already have an office that works just fine for deep, uninterrupted work. My aims are twofold, to have somewhere to anchor as a workplace that requires me to leave my apartment building—it’s a ten minute walk, just long enough to allow a mental frame shift—and to gain access to the member events. It is for that latter reason that I chose the most established and biggest coworking space here instead of one that might have more amenities. I don’t consume caffeine anyway. Will the coworking space experiment work this time? I don’t know, but the odds are higher than for my prior attempts. I also continue the search for new activities to try, even if some of those won’t start for a while yet.

After a few days in the South Bay for the SaaStr conference and related events, I spent a couple of days north of the Golden Gate Bridge (which was shrouded in fog both times I crossed it). That meant that I spent zero time in San Francisco itself this trip; I didn’t want to see it in its current state. Even stores I visited during my trip last year have now closed and I prefer happier memories.

It was a pleasant and relaxed couple of days in a place that feels like it’s a world away from the city just across the bay. I even rode along for a work-related journey some distance inland and got to experience the insanity of Northern California’s microclimates. In the space of about 30 miles, the temperature increased almost 20 degrees even as the altitude increased by no more than a few hundred feet. In this country that only really happens near the Pacific coast.

These couple of days were about closure. It was a natural coda to the cross-country road trip that saw me snake across America through the spring and early summer. There was also confirmation that I made the right choice for me. It is a nice place to visit and I’m sure I’ll visit again, but California could never be my home. The mindset and zeitgeist are too different from what I’ve known and am comfortable in even though I now live and breathe technology companies. Instead, I’ve committed to North Carolina and building a home here. Curling season starts up in just a few weeks and I’m looking to add a few more activities to my plate before then.

I will admit that it is a little odd that I’m flying to the west coast so soon after having driven to the west coast, but that’s life. This week is going to be another iteration of the continued experimentation that is our law firm. We’ve done small conferences before, will do another one in October, but this is the first megaconference we will have attended as a partnership. It’s also going to be a much quicker turnaround than when we went to Europe for a conference last year and each stayed for several weeks. I am going to spend a few extra days in the Bay Area but I’ll be alone in doing so.

My goal was to finish setting up my apartment before leaving on this trip. That didn’t happen as I’m still waiting on a few more deliveries. It’s close though. This scramble also meant that I didn’t finish packing until this morning. No one who has travelled with me will be surprised by that news.

I was on the road for almost three months this summer. There were positives and there were negatives, surprises and predictable bits. This short post is about the most impactful moment of the whole journey so that I can record it for myself.

I’d just finished dinner at a local Tex-Mex type of place in Denver near the end of my time in the city. I didn’t pick the place but I made it work. It wasn’t about the food anyway but instead about the people I was with.

At the beginning of my car ride back to my lodgings, the three people I’d had dinner with crossed the street in front of me. I don’t even know if they saw me. There wasn’t anything special about the moment—my friend was pushing his son in a stroller and walking alongside his wife. And still it hit me hard. It was an image of where my life isn’t, where I want it to be, where I thought it would be. I couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of the evening. Then the next day was a long and empty drive across Wyoming, which only let the image seep deeper into my consciousness. It wasn’t that moment alone that changed the final destination at the end of my road trip, but it certainly played its part in the decisions I’ve made over the past month and my plans for the months to come.