Rebirth of "Cool"

Duke Ellington & his piano. Sometimes accompanied by Rosemary Clooney. A couple season-1 reboot episodes of Doctor Who – with Eccelston in his leather-jacket finest. Wine drunk from Mason Jars. Dinner from Portillos. Two Havanese puppies redefining, “adorable,” – apparently it’s in their DNA. And my Katie, curled up on the couch, delighting herself between sniffle sneezes with knitting, puppy snuggling, the most adorable animal videos of the day and, to my humility, me.

Somewhere around the purchase of her wedding ring, life took a turn for the incredible.

Somewhere around the time the ring slid on her finger, again, things hit their stride. Her family’s overwhelming support on Christmas Eve, nudging me toward her career-intimidating father to ask his permission. The fact he gave his permission at all overwhelmed me…

When one throws it all together, things are going in good grooves.

The necessity of learning to smile as I kill.

I’ve been simplifying things in my life. Our wedding date isn’t so far away anymore. We’ve got a platform that won’t finish itself and we can’t be as kind as we used to be until Project03 is in a position to run by itself. Sadly, we’re having to only take clients that either directly contribute to the building of Project 03 or inspire additional functionality. I don’t want to put the No Vacancy sign on at BakedFinn but the truth is in order to achieve our startup goals, we have to start saying, “no,” to those who aren’t perfect fits until the Project 03 is in high gear. Hopefully it’s only a 1-year-to-go sort of thing.

The revival of inspiration.

My cousin Cedan & I stayed up talking till 3am a couple nights ago. We haven’t seen each other in 3 years. He talked with me about books to read and helped me sort out those that will be challenging and inspiring to me. He was a damned search engine. I told him I wanted stuff that involved hard decisions and successful strategies and after some bobbin’ & weavin’ he came up with a few brilliant ones, it would seem.

They’ll be replacing my fantasy football and sport team monitoring until further notice.

I still do jumpshot follow-throughs every day but the truth I left sports a long time ago and I only haunt myself by paying so much attention to’m. They don’t care about me. My favorite teams still make the same mind-boggling decisions that keep them from success. But most important, there’s no reciprocity in being a fan unless your livelihood exists within the realms. The games are the same. It comes down to who can get over the illusions of fear and execute. So endth the lesson.

The same goes with comfort TV.

I only have so many hours in a week and for the first time in a long time, I’m not traveling alone. I’m traveling with family & friends. Even more important: I don’t feel alone. Religions isms’ of is always with you notwithstanding, for the first time in my life I feel like I belong. The merry band of misfits that has been traveling alongside us have been the beautiful, enchanting souls I’ve spent my entire career searching for. I’m not alone. Take that: daddy-abandonment issues!

That 20-30 hours a week I’ve spent watching sports, playing fantasy football or monitoring the latest offseason news needs to be spent on doing things that actually have an impact on my life. And for whatever downtime arises, that time should be spent on what inspires and recharges me. In this case, it’s books, music, art, fine food, family, friends and code.

Until the Cubs give me a job.

I’ll pay enough attention to keep up with the OldOld man.

He watches an amazing amount of sports. But I can’t do it to his level anymore. It’s the life I chose at 16 when I quit basketball. 20 years later. It’s time to accept the decision – even if it was fueled by anxiety.

Rebirth of “Cool”

Somewhere around the purchase of her wedding ring, life took a turn for the incredible.