At the beginning of 2013 I wrote about my goal, theme and challenge for the year. I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year but want to take some time now to review them more in depth. 2013 Goal: Create With My Hands Self Grade: 8/10 Going into the year I believed that there was value in creating things myself and that often they also would better serve my needs and/or last longer than mass produced alternatives. After building a number of items, I have only strengthened my hold on those beliefs. There is a joy of craftsmanship. Each time I use one of my self-made items I feel a sense of renewed accomplishment. Here are the five projects I completed this year: Surfboard Cribbage board Sleeping/storage platform for my truck Tool storage dolly Wetsuit glove drier 2013 Theme: Grow As A Leader Self Grade: 8/10 Just to be clear,
Today was almost the day. Over the last month I’ve gotten back in surfing shape. I’ve been surfing a few times a week so my arms are strong again. I’ve been running & doing my breath drills so my lungs are too. I even took a few poundings in OH surf just to make sure my nerves were solid. I got the automated email last night. The report showed 10-15 ft waves at Mavericks. My exact target range. As I took my bright yellow gun down from its wall racks the excitement and nervousness of a two year goal began to set in. I got up early and drove down early to see what the conditions were like. A solid groundswell, sunny morning and offshore wind combined to make what seemed like the perfect day. As I drove the coast I saw hints at what to expect. I had that feeling
Last August, before fantasy football season started, I came up with a strategy to approach the auction draft my work league was having. My season is now over, I didn’t make the playoffs, so I want to take a look back at that strategy to see what I can learn. The important part of this analysis is figuring out how much of my poor performance I should attribute to my draft strategy and how much to other factors. Streaming Defenses & Kickers The first thing I want to evaluate is my decision to ignore defenses & kickers in the draft. I instead focused my draft strategy around skill players; QB, RB, WR & TE. I did this because I planned to employ a method called streaming. This involves picking up and playing people based on their match-up each week instead of relying on one team. Over the 13 week season
I found out today that a number of stores are starting their holiday sales on Thursday. This upset me quite a bit. Why am I upset? First and foremost because 6PM on Thursday Thanksgiving dinner. Stores that are open at that time not only tempt people away from cherished family time, but keep their employees away from it as well. Second, the concept of Thanksgiving is to reflect and be thankful for the blessings we’ve received the previous year. The attitude behind Black Friday shopping is the exact opposite of being grateful. It is an attitude of selfishness an excess. Even where gift giving is the reason – though I doubt a majority of it is – no gift is greater than time spent. Finally, the focus on shopping puts a strain on many that aren’t in a position to bear that load. Spending is an important part of a
Miles is a young boy battling leukemia who lived out his dream of being a Batman thanks to Make-A-Wish and the city of San Francisco. The story has reached around the world. It even drew responses from the likes of President Obama & recent Dark Knight actor Christian Bale. The day designed for Miles was nothing short of awesome. I got to watch for a bit as the adventure took him to the Giant’s stadium – right next to my office. I was amazed by the generosity shown to make this wish come true. From the Lamborghini Batmobile to the hours of coordination and service. The best part though was the cheering crowds. There were thousands of people at each of the stops – all of us there because we felt touched by the story. I watched San Franciscans cheer and hold up signs. I heard the crowd chant ‘Batkid!’ as he saved our mascot from the
This is part 3 of a 4 part series – you can read the rest here: Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 1 Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 2 Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 4 Continuing where I left off. Previously I stripped down the old broken board, shaped the foam into something new & now I’m ready to put the finishing touches on my recycled surfboard. Surfboard artwork has always been a place for expression an individuality. From back when islanders would carve artwork into their giant wooden plans, to the pre-war era surfboards with paint to contemporary sticks graffitid with spray paint and Sharpie. How a board looks shouldn’t affect how it rides – but I defend that it does. So much of how a session goes is built on momentum that the good vibes from the parking lot compliment to a paddle out conversation can all
A long summer of mediocre waves, strong winds and lots of slop all but removed surfing from my routine. Riding waves was relegated to a vacation activity. Limited to a few trips to Santa Cruz for south swells, a road trip to So-Cal and a camping weekend up north. Far from the daily habit it once was. As a result, two and a half months from the end of the year, I am basically back where I started. No where close to being ready to surf Mavericks. I can hold my breath for just over two minutes, I’m not in great cardio shape and my arms don’t have the strength they need to get me in and out of giant waves. This isn’t where I wanted to be at this point in the year. This is where I am. Thankfully the fall, a glassy head high jolt of electricity, has
This is part 2 of a 4 part series – you can read the rest here: Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 1 Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 3 Recycling A Broken Surfboard – Part 4 Picking up where I left off about a month ago – this weekend I continued to work on recycling my old broken longboard. The next step of the process was shaping the board. The foam was still pretty rough as you can see from the picture below. The top had a lot of soft spots and divots, both of which can ruin the long term resilience of the board. The Shaping Room Shaping a board is a messy job. As layers of foam are carved away using planers, files & sand paper, sticky foam dust escapes. The easiest way to have it all contained is to do it in a shaping room –
I made a few tweaks today that I thought were needed before setting the ad campaigns live. The first was to add a logo up top. It is just a new font & icon but I think it adds a bit of legitimacy to the whole thing. The second was to add a ‘How It Works’ section. I thought that would help set expectations & further increase trust. With that done I created Google & Facebook ad campaigns using ad credits I had sitting around. Tomorrow I’ll drive $100 of traffic to the site to see how it does. I’ll make some adjustments next week and spend another $100. Friction The one thing I know is going to create friction is the form. Normally I want as few fields as possible. Heck, I’d be ok with name & email to litmus interest. But I’m going to wait to see how
The idea is simple. My wife enjoys fresh flowers. I like my wife and thus want her to be able to enjoy fresh flowers. But I never think about flowers apart from anniversary’s, valentine’s day & her birthday. Surprise Flower Club solves this. The service will deliver flowers on a somewhat random basis to the specified receive. Getting Started I think this is a great idea and I would sign up myself. There are a ton of questions surrounding the whole thing though: Does anyone else have this problem? Would anyone else use a solution like this? Will they value it enough to pay me for it? What does a streamlined process look like? What is the cost of acquiring a customer? What is my churn rate? What price point does it need to be at to be viable? What are the margins? How do people solve this now/ who