Rain and wanting to get back home after a week-long family road trip meant it was a quicker visit than usual, but marked off my 32nd trip to an FBS football home stadium today with Akron at Bowling Green.

Best MAC facility I’ve been to so far. Including a bucket of mini donuts!

Photo of the author and son at a Bowling Green college football gameFlags spelling BGSU being run across the field in pregame at a Bowling Green football gamePhoto of the author and family at a Bowling Green football game Doyt Perry Stadium pregame at Bowling Green State University

Ran my second 5k this morning - right down the road at Fort Ben State Park.

Shaved three minutes off my last one, but still a little bit to go before I break 30 minutes.

Had never run before I started in March - and will keep at it. Maybe next year, I’ll run the half marathon here …

🏃🍁

Post-run selfie

Howdy from stop 31 on my quest to see a game at every FBS football school. Settling in for a weeknight game of Jacksonville State at Middle Tennessee State.

Second CUSA visit (WKU), second TN visit (Vandy).

Next trip: Out west.

Photo of pregame for an evening game at MTSU. Photo of the author pregame for a Middle Tennessee State football gamePhoto of the author pregame for a Middle Tennessee State football gamePregame at Middle Tennessee State

I started running - for exercise at first, and increasingly for fun - earlier this year.

I spent some time NYC last week, and running there - up the East River Esplanade and under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in my case - is kind of magical thanks to the views and the surrounding bustle.

🏃🗽

Went on a trip, finished reading “Station Eleven”. Got kinda sick, tested positive for Covid after all these years.

Now watching “Station Eleven,” because that tracks.

Hi from West Point and stop 30 on my quest to see a game at every FBS football school for Delaware State at Army.

Of note: Highly recommended pregame. Nice to have access to military hardware for such things …

Selfie of the author at Michie Stadium at the United States Military Academy.Selfie of the author at Army’s Michie Stadium in West Point, NY

Doing a lot of trip planning lately - trying to cram in the family vacation list now that we have one kid in high school - and finding AirBnBs to be a bad deal these days.

Hotels are better and cheaper almost always.

Greeetings from sunny San Diego and Snapdragon Stadium - stop 29 on my quest to see a game at every FBS college. Tonight’s game is Idaho State at San Diego State.

Self of the author in front a pregame football field at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California, USA.Players warming up on the field at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California, USA.

I’m now rotating four different notebooks on a daily basis:

I would try to consolidate - and might combine some of this - but I also like each of things having their own home and purpose.

I bought a notebook recently, intending to try writing Morning Pages - three pages of whatever first thing in the morning.

But the notebook was so handsome that I couldn’t bear to fill it with never-to-be-read drivel …

So, it’s for Evening News instead. At least one page a day of how the day was.

What we call AI today is basically scalable Fiverr. About the same quality, just faster and cheaper. Pretty much the same work tasks, too.

Reflecting on visiting Gettysburg as a grown adult with kids in the year of our lord 2023

As a kid, we visited Civil War battlefields like some folks hunt Pokémon. We stopped at the ones along the way, and the ones that were a bit out of the way. We did the Shenandoah Valley, all four near Fredericksburg (Federicksburg, The Wildness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Chancellorsville), Shiloh, Vicksburg, Brice’s Crossroads, Antietam and any others which we ran or planned across. My Dad subscribed to Civil War Illustrated. Ken Burns “Civil War” series was a hit on PBS.

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Things I’ve said lately that seem to resonate with people. Some of these might be stolen, but I can’t recall from where:

I began running on a whim - running between electrical poles.

I ran in rain, cold, with knee pain, through therapy for that knee, and everything else before running my first 5k this morning.

Each time, I take a selfie when the run is done.

This is first and last of those.

Think I’ll keep doing this.

Every time I visit NYC, I like it a little more. Had a great weekend with my daughter, even with the rain.

Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚 reminiscent at times of Kavalier & Klay, but slighter. Or perhaps just my memory of K&K

Finished reading: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine 📚… Fun to revisit these characters and environment. And great themes around colonization and collectivism.

I’ve been trying to get three runs - still kind of walk/runs for now - a week.

First this week was rainy. I went anyway, and did 2-1 run/walk (best ratio yet).

This morning was cold, but I went anyway. I went longer, still 2-1 for 3.75k … still building for a 5k in April/May.

The Shipping News

One of the more powerful things I do at my new job is at the end of the week I update a running document I call “Shipping Department News”, which is a list of all the stuff we deployed to production in the week. It’s a bulleted list, and each item has a little description of what it does and why it matters. Sometimes, there’s a screenshot or two or a humorous aside.

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I’ve been doing a daily meditation lately. Not long, but helpful to me.

Mostly to keep me from burning bridges which I emotionally wish to burn, but ultimately does no one any good - even me.

So. Many. Bridges.

So little good.

I notice the urge, and let it go. So it goes.