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    • Anticipatory Anxiety

      Anticipatory Anxiety

      Some people get stressed on Sunday afternoon thinking about the work week ahead.  “Sunday scaries” is one term I’ve heard.  I’ve felt that way before in jobs I didn’t like all that much, or when I had a particularly tough week ahead of me, or when I was about to travel for work and was processing what I had to do and making sure I triple-checked the alarm.

      But for me, anticipatory anxiety comes in knowing I’m about to sit in traffic to get somewhere.  That somewhere is usually Boston, but sometimes it’s the thought of getting through Hartford or New Haven, Connecticut to get to New York or New Jersey.  I’m a rational human being, but I hate the thought of being late for a meeting or a game because I got stuck in traffic.  I haven’t succumbed to the fate of so many commuters who just shut down and take whatever the road gives them.  Which is funny because I drive all the time.  But I can drive seven hours across New York State and Massachusetts without giving it a second thought.  Unless…  I’m anticipating traffic on Route 495 in the last hour of my commute.

    • Bootstrapping and Double Dipping

      Bootstrapping and Double Dipping

      “Life really is generous to those who pursue their destiny.” – Paulo Coelho

      There are several ways to start a business.  Raising capital and going big seems to get all the attention.  But bootstrapping a business while you’re doing the 9 to 5 is a more attractive option.  Largely because going big is an easy out.  Big means putting things on hold and focusing on the big prize.  While this option gets the most attention, it’s not reality when you have kids in college and a mortgage and car payments and a thousand other financial cuts.  No, it’s far more realistic to opt for the bootstrapping path.

      Coelho, Seth Godin, James Altucher, Tim Ferriss…  and countless others have pointed out the path.  It’s a great time to listen.  So that’s my holiday gift to myself.  Starting today, figure some things out, get moving on a few options, choose the one that makes the most sense for you, and begin.  And in the meantime, keep on chugging away at the day job and making it successful too.  Nothing at all wrong with having two things going well at the same time…  and maybe keep writing, and perhaps you could add a third revenue stream.  And then another bootstrapped business.  And so on.

      It’s all attitude, really.  And while I’ve wanted to start a business, I’ve never really had the burning desire to take the risk.  Screw the risk.  Bootstrap and double dip.

    • A Stake in the Ground

      A Stake in the Ground

      Here in New England, if you own property and you want the keep your lawn intact you have to mark the line where the lawn meets the street.  This is so that tired plow drivers don’t take the shortest path between two points and plow straight across your lawn.  Having both property and a lawn that curves outward towards the street, my yard is a natural for plow drivers wishing to unearth dormant worms.

      The only defense from the snow plow is the stake.  Mark thy property or forever regret the loss of turf.  And so I hammer stakes into the ground in hopes that the plow guys (or ladies?) follow the clearly marked path.  Alas, inevitably at least one plow will choose to ignore the stakes and opt for the straight path.  But you have to try, and in November and early December it’s time to pound the stakes.

      2018 brought early snow, much sooner than I was able to mark the lawn with stakes.  Being in Key West at the time, I had to hope for a plower who knew the curves on our street.  For the most part that bore out, but I knew I was operating on borrowed time and drove in a pair of stakes as soon as I got back.  And just to be sure, I’ve added four more to clearly mark the curve.

      Will it help?  I’m not optimistic, but I can’t give up either.  Such is the dance in the snow belt.  We do what we can with what we have, and hope that the plows are kind.

    • Handshake with History

      Handshake with History

      Whenever I visit a place, I try to understand a little bit about the place.  Who came before me?  What happened here and how has that changed this place and the world we live in?  You stumble on ghosts walking through quiet woods when you come upon a stone wall running straight as an arrow left to right.  Or an old logging road cutting through the forest.  Dimpled rocks betray the hundreds of micro spikes that gripped this granite before you came along.  Statues and monuments tell one story, but so too do the buildings and canals and cobblestone streets.

      I’ve visited Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Robert Frost’s farmhouse in Derry, New Hampshire and Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West, Florida.  I ran my hand up the stair railing in each and stood in the doorways they would have been standing in as they looked out on a different world than the one I live in.  Dancing with ghosts.

      I once helped a friend tear down an old shed that had seen better days.  Hammer and pry bar in hand, I stripped layers of plywood and siding off the walls until we were down to the studs of the shed.  This was no Home Depot special.  The studs were old growth wood, hand sawn and straight.  They’d been quietly doing their job for a hundred years or so.  I gave a nod to the craftsman who built it.

      I visited the Duston Garrison in Haverhill, Massachusetts last year, the day after visiting the island that Hannah Duston escaped from between Concord and Franklin, New Hampshire.  In walking around the garrison, built by Hannah’s husband Thomas, a brick layer and farmer, I came across a pair of thumb prints in the brick.  Were they his thumb prints or those of someone who worked with him or re-pointed the brick wall somewhere else in history?  I don’t know, but I do know that whoever it was came before me and I put my thumbs in those compressions in a moment of solidarity across the centuries.

      Thomas and others built this garrison in 1697 for protection from the indians who attacked Haverhill, killing members of his family and his neighbors.  This was the frontier, and I often think about that time in history, so close to where I’m living my own history, and yet so different.  321 years later, this is our time.  That’s not some bullshit motivational slogan.  We’re alive today while the vast majority of people who have lived aren’t.  So many others came before us, and so may more will come after us.  I quietly make my handshake with history when I feel it.  And I feel it a lot in the places that I go.

    • Adventures to Come

      Senses overwhelmed with sulfur, the heavily-accented English and the green twisting glow of the Aurora Borealis, lighting an otherwise dark sky.  Bracing against the cold winds on the fringe of the arctic circle and anticipating adventure.  A glance to the west and I see it.

      Follow the sunset far enough and you get there.  Walking across the hot sands as the surf crashes and knocks the amateur surfers off their boards while the veterans deftly swing around them like Olympic slalom skiers carving into the pins.  Dreams of tropical drinks on the lanai later.  Hawaii is more than halfway from Boston to New Zealand.

      The land of

    • Across the Pond

      Across the Pond

      Sailing from Boston to the English Channel took roughly a month in the 18th century.  Sailing in the other direction took longer because of the Gulf Stream and prevailing winds.  Today the Queen Elizabeth II sails in both directions in seven days.  You can fly to London from Boston in under seven hours, or around nine hours going the other way.

      Benjamin Franklin made the journey between America and Europe many times in his life, and was a keen observer of the sea and the creatures in it.  Franklin was an avid swimmer and no doubt had his opinions on salt water swimming versus fresh water.  If I were a time traveler I’d certainly accompany Franklin on one of those trips across the pond to get his perspective on things.

      With friends sailing across the pond next year, and Emily contemplating studying abroad in the fall semester, I’m thinking more about crossing the pond.  I started this year looking west from the coast of Portugal.  I looked east from the coast of Massachusetts just yesterday.  The Atlantic is telling me something.

    • A Walk on the Beach in December

      In some way my walk on Salisbury Beach today was a bookend moment for 2018.  I took a similar walk on this beach earlier in the year (writing about sea glass).  This time I was looking at my computer screen and decided I needed to take a walk.  Where better to walk than a quiet offseason beach?

      Winter beach walks are different in a few ways.  First, and most obviously, the water and air are colder, so you aren’t barefoot unless you’re hardcore.  I don’t shy away from cold water swims, but I wasn’t going to walk barefoot today.  Second, and almost as obviously, there aren’t all that many people keeping you company.  This solitude, combined with the sound of the surf, promotes quiet reflection.  And another difference in winter walks on the beach plenty of free parking.  I have a real problem with paying to park for a walk on the beach.

      I’ve always said I couldn’t live in the desert because I’d miss the ocean too much.  And yet I don’t really spend all that much time on the ocean or even looking at it.  But I know it’s there, within reach, and sometimes that’s enough.  Today it wasn’t enough, so I visited the beach for a short walk and a few pictures.  The sun was setting behind the rows of houses lining the beach, which cast a beautiful light across the beach and waves rolling in.

      I need to do this more.  We all do.  I believe that most of the worlds problems could be solved with long quiet walks on the beach.  I’m doing my part.

    • Statues and Semaphores

      Statues and Semaphores

      It’s said that there were 17,000 statues in Paris that were removed and melted down by the Nazis.  I was reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway where his main character is driving by the statue of Claude Chappe, the inventor of the semaphore.  Semaphores were used for rapid communication across distances, and proved highly valuable.  My curiosity led me to research the statue, which brought me to the realization that old Claude’s statue was one of the many casualties of World War II.

      Statues are all around us scattered about in parks and town squares and cemeteries.  They’re installed to honor some person from the past who accomplished something notable or won the birth lottery.  Most of these statues are just background noise to the masses of people who scurry on with their lives.  Common people rarely get statues, but do get gravestones or monuments marking their final resting place.

      I’m not interested in having a gravestone, and I haven’t earned a statue.  Perhaps I’ll warrant one in the future, perhaps not.  My way of being remember is to be a positive influence in the world and let that positive ripple mitigate the impact of those who would bend the world to their will.

      I take a lot of pictures of statues, I visit graveyards, I try to walk in the footsteps of history and dance with ghosts.  I’m almost as saddened to learn about the 17,000 statues that were melted down as I was to read about the casualties of a battle from the same time.  I’m not saying the worth of a human life is no more than that of a bronze statue, just that I mourn the loss of both.

    • Axial Tilt

      Axial Tilt

      I’m told that 4.5 billion years ago Earth had a collision with a massive object that knocked the planet off kilter and broke off a chunk that became the moon.  These two things in turn created the seasons and tides, our filtering system that built and sustains life as we know it.  The Earth is currently increasing in obliquity, meaning our seasons will be more moderate during this period.  Cooler summers, warmer winters.  I’ve read about much colder winters than we have today and wonder if climate change or the change in obliquity is moderating our winters.

      I’m not a scientist and don’t care to think to deeply about obliquity.  But I know that the axial tilt is roughly 23.5 degrees, and during our trip around the sun that makes the days shorter or longer, colder or warmer, and infinitely more interesting than the alternative.  So in December our sunset is way off the mark of where it is in June.  And that’s an interesting enough point for me to dwell on for this moment.

    • Faraway Places

      I’m looking at an app showing the best locations right now for viewing the Aurora Borealis.  One of the best spots at this moment is 1,063 miles away from where I sit in Labrador.  Seeing the Northern Lights has grown to be a priority for me.  Something I’d like to do today, or at least before the end of the year.  Alas, responsibilities trump dreams.  Which makes me wonder, who made these rules anyway?

      “But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go.”
      – The Beatles, You Never Give Me Your Money

      I’ve got plenty of places to go.  Plenty of reasons to stay too.  I’m not going to roll out The Clash’s lyrics now, but it’s a real battle taking place.