life

A collection of 33 posts

Star Wars: The Kid Awakens

See that kid? That’s me on my third birthday. 1978. That’s a Darth Vader action figure in my hand. Guessing by the look on my face, I’m either mimicking Darth Vader’s breathing or I’m about to gnaw on his head. I’ve always blamed my mom for throwing my action figures in the trash. Maybe I ate them all. Sorry, Mom.

The point here: Star Wars has always been part of my life. I hadn’t seen the movie at age three, but it had already captured my imagination. That’s what it does.

And

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My 20 Years with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

music • 4 min read

Twenty years ago tonight, my friends and I began what would become, for me at least, a life changing adventure. Our destination: the most prominent music store on campus, Record Service I think it was, on Green Street in Champaign, Illinois. The reason: a midnight release of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the strangely named third album by The Smashing Pumpkins.

We’d all been introduced to the Pumpkins a couple years earlier by Los Angeles native Matt Redman, our teammate and friend. We each had varying degrees of interest in the new album. After all, $20 was a

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Remember

life • 3 min read

I was twenty-six years old on September 11, 2001, living about thirty minutes from Manhattan. I went for a run that perfect morning through crisp air and sunshine. After my run, I flipped on CNN. The first plane had hit. I thought it was a small plane, a Cessna. I didn’t yet understand. My ex-wife was a month away from having our first child, and I called her in from the kitchen to take a look. The other plane hit. The world changed. A perfect September morning etched itself into the collective memory.

An hour later, I drove to

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The End of an Office

business • 2 min read

This is the end. The final chapter. The goodbye. Of what? An era? A company? A dream? Let’s not get melodramatic.

It was October 2011. A growing company moves into a larger office space. We’d built this company from four employees to twenty. In the next two years, we’d grow to fifty. A consulting firm had blossomed into a product company with nearly ten business products and a consumer social site with teams of engineers, salespeople, marketers and customer service ninjas. It was a wonderful thing, growing, expanding, struggling but winning. It couldn’t possibly last.

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Lost Goodnights

parenting • 2 min read

As the days of an unbroken family drift further into memory, new realities intrude on an otherwise normal world. One of those realities, a harsh one, is that Daddy's little girls don't always sleep at home anymore. Half the week they stay with their mother, and their beds wait cold and vacant for their return.

At night, when they're home, before I go to bed I do what I've always done. I sneak into their rooms and give each a kiss. I'm not sure it's a smart thing to do, as Smiley tends to wake up fussy and thirsty, but

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The Road Goes Ever On and On

parenting • 2 min read

In a world where emotions change as frequently as the weather, today is sunny. I don't know why. Sadness and hatred have signed a temporary peace accord, allowing their epic battle inside my heart and mind to go unfought for an as yet undetermined length of time.

Smartypants and Smiley play, as they should. More and more often, they play together. Sibling rivalries develop hourly, and with each whine or tear I grow increasingly fearful of the long years ahead. I hope I can be the father they need. I hope I can keep them out of trouble. I hope

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A Note to the Historian

parenting • 2 min read

Throughout the course of history, even the grandest thinkers and doers have often found it necessary to abandon all worldly pursuits of knowledge or action in favor of gaining additional quantities of the most vital need of non-impoverished humanity: sleep. Such is my course.

To the detriment of my own slumber habits, my youngest child has willfully, and with much excitement, decided that dawn, with its majestic views of a rising sun and otherworldly colors, is the highlight of every day, and sleeping through it must be what some call a sin or what others call insanity. And so she

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The Road Taken

parenting • 2 min read

As I drove the lengthy, uninspiring, drab stretches of two-lane rural roads to my house this afternoon, a poem popped into my head, as occasionally happens. It's an old poem, one I have not read for years, but one my 11th grade English teacher asked me to memorize. "Someday it will have more meaning," he said, and he was right. It's a poem about choices and their consequences, about straying from the norm proudly and without regret.

And I realized, as I traversed the uneventful prairies and gazed toward the unbroken horizons, it's the perfect poem for stay-at-home dads. Our

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Star Wars: The Kid Awakens

My 20 Years with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Remember

The End of an Office

Lost Goodnights

The Road Goes Ever On and On

A Note to the Historian

The Road Taken

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