A Rare Blossom

Purple lights, music, delicious food, awesome art, and most importantly, friends. That was the scene Friday night at the Fifty Fifty Party, a celebration in food, fun, and philanthropy of the life and art of one of my best friends, Farooq Karim. It was a wonderful evening that reminded me of something I need to…

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No Temple Made With Hands

Last week, among the granite walls and centuries-old trees of the Yosemite Valley, I found myself thinking about connections. Seeing trees that are older than our civilization and a sky full of stars that are quadrillions of miles away, I felt small and insignificant. We worry about trivial things every day. Buildings, organizations, plans, accomplishments.…

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Honest Hearts, Honest Actions

When I walk in the morning, I pass a house where a cat lives. Most mornings, the cat comes out to greet me. It rubs up against my leg and seems to be glad I am there, but this is not the most likely explanation. Cats love to rub up against people and things. This…

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Nothing In The End

He that is hard to please may get nothing in the end. Aesop I like dogs. We have two, Roscoe, a mutt we found on the street, and Dixie, a pit bull mix we adopted from a shelter. Both have their oddities but also have a trait common to most dogs; they are easy to…

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True Leaders Gone

True hunting is overNo herd to followWithout game, men prey on each otherThe family weakens by the bite we swallow          – “Three Days”, Jane’s Addiction I watched a very disturbing thing happen on social media recently. A post by someone I know and care dearly about became the subject of a…

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Into The Storm

What are you afraid of? Not the small, temporary things. I’m afraid of spiders, but that doesn’t alter the course of my life in any real or meaningful way (unless not being willing to go camping except in winter months is meaningful). I’m talking about the big things—unanticipated change, being alone and lonely, failure, rejection,…

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Grateful Vigilance

A great friend of mine recently left a lucrative job because the person they were working for was “ungrateful, unreasonable, and unfair.” That first word, “ungrateful”, caught my attention. What is so important about gratitude, and why do we find the lack of it so distasteful? We just observed the Fourth of July, Independence Day…

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Getting To The Top

Mean people don’t climb mountains. I have yet to meet someone on a mountain that wasn’t pleasant, friendly, and helpful. Above the tree line, the climate and topography are trying to kill you, so people must stick together. Every year while on vacation in Colorado, my kids and I summit at least one fourteener. It…

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Purpose Built

The Mercedes W12 race car is arguably the best Formula 1 car ever built. On an F1 track against other F1 cars, it has proven to be nearly unbeatable. However, you could not drive the W12 to your local grocery and back without severe difficulty, if at all. My Mercedes is exceptional at running to…

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What Am I Meant To Know?

I am a data junky. I love to know things. How things work. How things came to be. How things are made. I want to know. This is not a bad thing in general. Knowledge can be good when it enables us to move ourselves and those around us in positive directions. Knowledge can lift…

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