Kelli and I have been having a lot of convos this year about a return to a more village/communal style of living. 🏡
Anyone else been thinking on that track? I’ll give one specific convo. Kelli talks to a lot of moms with little kids and shared how everyone is feeling like they are going a bit crazy. All day with little kids, doing the same things... with no adults. Cooking, cleaning, clothes, playtime, naps, bedtime, repeat. And the whole range of activities it takes to keep a child alive and growing is done by each family individually. Each family is like an island. COVID didn’t cause it, it just made the reality of it plainer to see.
Has it always been this way?
You don’t have to go back far (our grandparents) to find a time when the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child” was actually just describing normal life.
Now we do the best we can, see friends when we can, sign up for delivery services to help spread the load, contract community functions like babysitting to paid people we barely know and generally feel rushed, tired and alone.
Feels like COVID has given Kelli and I some clarity on a different path forward. Not sure where it will end... but hungry enough to try something crazy.
Time to buy some land and build houses without fences... 😂
Feeling happy/sad right now! 😊
Excited to announce that Vertigo Games is acquiring Springboard VR!
It's been an incredible four years... and I'm proud of what our team has built. I felt like I learned half a lifetime of lessons every week for four years straight... got to travel the 🌎... worked with an amazing team and together figured out the nuts and bolts of building a tech startup serving customers in 40+ countries.
What's next?
Onward to the next project!
Checkout 👉ArborXR.com 👀
Nothing is quite like that feeling of buying your first 🏡.
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Three kids born and lots of diapers changed. One company sold and another started. Much laughter and some tears.
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I still remember the first time we drove up to it. We fell in love with it’s old time craftsman character. With the neighborhood and the idea of getting to walk everywhere. With the backyard and all it’s rough potential. Over the years we grew up as a young family and the house grew with us. We reconfigured the layout to give us an office space. We built a giant deck that became a second living area for us. We got rid of our living room furniture, bought a big sheepskin rug and spent many hours wrestling on the floor. We walked… more than we thought we would. To Edgemere, Sparrow and Memorial park. To Holey Rollers and Picasso Cafe in the Paseo and to Cuppies and Joe on 23rd street. The neighborhood also grew around us. Every month, decrepit old houses were remodeled and new families moved in. The Central Park median on Shartel went from scraggle status to landscaped goodness. 23rd street blossomed into Uptown 23rd and the Paseo district came alive with new restaurants and events.
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Buying an old home can be a labor of love. Tearing out old windows, fixing leaky basements, repairing hundred year old door knobs. A labor of love. The work actually makes you love it. And if you are willing to stick with it… years down the road you find yourself surprised at the beauty of your old home.
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Seeing my house on Zillow and looking through the pictures, some part of me feels bittersweet. So many memories and some of my best years. I don’t want to leave!
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Houses aren’t built like they used to. Our good friend Mark who has spent his life restoring historic homes and helped us immensely on ours told me that new homes are built to last the life of the loan. Old houses on the other hand were built to last generations.
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The truth is that some old homes slowly die for lack of love. My prayer is that our home will continue to be a blessing to generations of families after ours who will love it like we have. 🏡
This backyard has become a true second living space for our family. I’ll miss summer evenings on the deck, dinners with friends, crisp fall nights next to the chimenea and watching the boys dig in the garden. When we moved in we saw the potential and after five years and lots of work… I’m proud of how it turned out. We put in a deck, flower beds, a fence, a dump truck of good soil, lot’s of grass seed, garden beds and restored the detached garage. The beauty of ratty yards and old houses is that they have character… and with some TLC, they come alive. If you’ve got friends who want to live close to midtown… will be on the market tomorrow! ❤️🏡
I wish the media covered more of what actually matters when it comes to fighting off viral infections like COVID.
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Remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine... meh. 🤷🏻♂️
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Sunlight, laughter, eating your veggies and getting your sleep would do more for the world in fighting COVID than any drug minus a vaccine. (Strong statement but I think it's probably true.)
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Related story....
We took our two year old, Brady in with what looked like a mild case of the flu several months ago and the urgent care doctor gave us several prescriptions for antibiotics and tamiflu.
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I asked her if antibiotics were effective against viral infections like the flu.
She said "No... but just in case this flu turns into pneumonia... we have to prescribe it because of liability." I then asked her if she had read much of the literature on Elderberry syrup and the flu. (Search pubmed for Elderberry + flu... it's nuts). -
She said, "You know, you are actually the second person today who has asked me about Elderberry. I haven't read anything about it!" She paused and then said a bit wistfully, "You know I kinda wish we had learned more about that kind of thing. We had maybe a half day on alternative therapies my entire time in med school."
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Our current paradigm of medicine is failing us... and it's never been more evident to me than right now during this COVID crisis.
Amazing cafe just opened up in Midtown. Plant based, whole foods, healthy and yummy. Feels like something you’d see in LA. Lotta interesting things on the menu.... everything from turmeric milk to sweet potato bowls. They also have CBD infused soda. (It works I had some in Boulder...) Check it out if ya want, just down the street from Commonplace Books on Walker. 🙌
Our team lives in California, Washington, Germany, France, Panama, Canada and more, but we work as closely together as any geographically located company. Video conferencing, Slack, Google Docs and a bunch of other smart technology makes it possible in a way that even 5 years ago wouldn’t have been feasible.
Working alongside people from all different cultures has been one of my favorite things and I’ve learned many things. One of which is that Americans like to believe that the rest of the world is thinking about us all of the time when in fact they rarely do.
And that while they may not like our foreign policy, or some of our politicians... they generally think Americans are OK. (With the exception of obnoxious tourists, but that’s kinda a universal rule.)
We were on a team Zoom conference call today and I snapped this screenshot and marveled for a moment at the world we live in and the technologies we take for granted. Technology isn’t a panacea... it’s just a tool... and my hope (and prayer) is that the next generation will grow up thinking more carefully about how they use technology.
Facebook wants to “connect” the world... but I kinda think what the world needs is a bit less connection and a bit more depth and intimacy.
We both got hats for my birthday.
He kept trying to convince me that I was almost as old as him because I was thirty TWO (holding up two fingers) and he was THREE (holding up three fingers).
This year has been amazing... lots of new experiences, and plenty of highs (and lows). On the balance though, being a dad has been the most fun and a regular adventure!
Someone asked me what I was most excited about right now... and my instinctive response wasn’t anything about upcoming trips, business or hobbies... it was, “man, I’m just loving being a dad and having two boys that make me laugh!”
Walked a lot, met some lovely people and cried a few times in VR. Venice Film Festival was 👌🏻 but the artists and community w/ this new emerging medium are👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻. I tried several immersive theater VR experiences that really impacted me. (Basically a combination of theater and VR.) One in particular (Cosmos) had a full band, director, stage hands and actors... all performing for one person in a headset. One actors only job was to introduce certain smells at the right time synched up with the VR experience. The director said they worked with a “smell consultant” for two weeks to develop dozens of versions to fit the moment. An example might be a flashback scene as a young boy and your grandma walks by you and you smell her lavender perfume. Wind, heat, smells, physical objects (like chairs)... it just creates this deeply immersive experience. Cosmos is the story of an old man losing his memory through Alzheimer’s and it’s the story of his life as he loses his brightest and most painful memories... one at a time.
I left feeling a bit raw emotionally... but in a good way like after you see a great movie. I’m excited to see how VR develops as a storytelling medium... feels like we are just learning the basic “language” of it all right now!
