A few weeks back, I had a neighbor over to watch Thursday night football on the outdoor television while sipping on some whiskey. What more could you ask for? Consistent and good wireless. That’s what. I highly suspect it is an Amazon streaming issue as that seems the least robust, but looking at the device, it was a weak signal. What makes this story worse is that my neighbor is a Director of IT and having a strong home network game is a source of pride for him and quickly became a source of embarrassment for me. We laughed it off and he offered me some very good tips for improving my network situation.

I headed to San Francisco for work. Each time I go, I always expect this will be my last trip. I am not fatalistic, I have made this trip many times over my career and have seen everything I would like to see in the city. I do not need to go anymore. This is a city I consider as my birthright. I feel a deep sense of spiritual home as this is where my parents grew up, met, married, and had me. We had moved very shortly after I was born. I always felt a close connection like I was returning home. In my old age though, I think I have lost that and no longer care about that connection or maybe it is not reciprocated.

I am often caught up in the method and not the purpose of getting things done. I will oscillate between written systems and digital systems to keep track of general todo’s and also identify what are my most important tasks for the day. Ultimately, none of it matters. What matters is if you are making progress on the things that are important to you. Putting your focus on the how and not the why is not a useful place to be. For me, I can become obsessive with the how and completely forget the why. I find I will be avoiding something and fall back into the idea that if I just tweak or change up my system, it will somehow materialize the motivation I need to get started - and it does, but for a short time. The result of change is I feel everything is out of place and further time is wasted trying to get back to todo list equilibrium. The more your todo system is unstructured and the more it can be aimed at the essential few things that matter, the better your outcomes will be. I am at a stage in my life where I pick the top three things I must do for the day to move the important things forward. Everything else is friction to that. For the record, more times than not, I am using my Field Notes as my guide to get through the month. There is no magic to it, but writing things down tends to help solidify what is important in my brain. It does not matter though - it is the outcome that matters.

For well over two years, we had some privacy panels sitting in a box in the garage. They kept getting pushed off in favor of other projects or obligations. I did not have any fear around the project, as I do with some and I am keen to keep an eye on what I am fearful of as that always leads to some good self-improvement. This was strictly a priority problem. With my sabbatical, I did not want to use up my entire time for projects but did want to make some additional improvements to the outside space before it got too cold.

“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy.”

During my time off, I played a few records. One in particular had my brain spinning on memories of being 19 years old. Mazzy Star was a big part of my youth. I collected all of their albums and one song in particular is still a favorite, Blue Light from their album So Tonight That I Might See. I have never been high before, but Blue Light is about how I imagine that must feel.

Old fashioned cocktails are a very personal thing. Everyone has their variation. For me, getting into alcohol much later in life, I have been able to try a better old fashioned from nicer restaurants. I do enjoy trying one from new places to see how they make it. This does lead to the occasional old fashioned that is made with too much fruit forward and a splash of soda water to fill the glass. That is not what I am looking for.

This is a book I had been meaning to read for about eight years. I have heard so many different people sing the praises of Tara Brach, but I had been putting it off far too long, not wanting to face the hard parts of my brain and self-image. I cannot think of any scenario where I would not recommend this book to everyone on this planet.

You will be happier in life if you measure success by periodic forward progress and not by a specific goal to be attained. It is like the saying, it is the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the process.