Monthly Archives: June 2020

Corona Diary 12 June 2020

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Ax-man enjoying his writing. His current summer writing project is a Hardy Boys inspired thriller.

A big win for the team => it can be struggle to get him to work on his writing.

I haven’t been following closely but it appears that part of Seattle (#CHAZ) may be attempting to cede from the Union => realistically, it’s more of a highly visible protest. I’d forgotten about a similar situation (on Federal Land) @normonics reminded me.

I think it is helpful for governments to be patient in these volatile times.

Vail Resorts CEO donating ~$11 million of exercised stock appreciation rights to COVID and social justice causes. Whenever I see the CEO, or his team, in the news, they are making positive statements and contributions. Here’s a link to how they are approaching the next ski season.

Weekly initial unemployment claims seem mismatched with the monthly %age unemployed number. It is a very difficult task to gather reliable data in the current environment.

Denver School Board voted, unanimously, to terminate their contract with Denver Police Department. I expect that decision will look poorly in hindsight. Unfortunately, there is a proven need for school security in Colorado. We have too many school shootings and our kids die. Before dropping the current approach, I would want to understand the alternatives to keep kids safe.

Canadians handing out free masks and Toronto making masks mandatory on transit.

Great tweet by NNT on True Wealth. I write about this topic a lot.

To NNT’s list, I would add…

  • The Laughter of Children
  • Hugs
  • Longterm Intimacy
  • Being in Nature
  • The Ability to Demonstrate Mastery
  • Keen Students
  • The Ability to Keep Small Promises to Myself

The US Secretary of the Treasury was quoted as saying we can’t shut down again => this would seem to argue for low-cost, no-downside approaches to reducing virus spread => masks, (but your boss…). Grateful I can be true to myself, perhaps another item for NNT’s list.

Related, it’s reported that you need to sign a COVID waiver before attending a MAGA rally. I wonder if you’ll need to wear a mask.

Our President is gearing up to hold super-spreader events across our country and he needs the permission of your county health department to do so.

Articles in The Atlantic and Washington Post about COVID illness lingering for 60-days in young people. Not good. I wish we knew more about the longterm effects on young people, and healthy 50-somethings!

Market tanked, a bit, yesterday. I didn’t need to rebalance but I did recalculate my bear market trigger points.

Kids loving the ability to swim. Two thoughts:

  • Opening lower-risk activities can get quarantined fatigued people to trade away from high-risk activities.
  • Even good news can trigger uncomfortable transitions. Our oldest was “somewhat difficult” this morning because she felt she was missing out. We’re moving back to a proven technique of Alpha Tween management => rolling 14-day written schedule so she knows what’s coming.

High quality problems.

As I type this, the kids are running their own tutor calls and our youngest has prepared “snack” for everyone.

Progress!

Offline for the weekend.

It’s the only way I swap checking Twitter for reading!

Corona Diary 11 June 2020

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Yesterday afternoon was “can crusher” for Science Wednesdays. Ax-man described it as, “our most dangerous experiment yet!” Kids loved it.

Eggshell Geodes are coming along from last week, but I think we might have used too much food coloring.

Wednesday is also homemade pizza night – the recipe has been perfected and we all look forward.

Arizona, Texas and the Carolinas in the news for COVID hotspots. Colorado doing much better than other parts of the country and no clarity on why.

I saw an article on the BBC about the British PM promoting “support bubbles” – reminded me of my article from April.

Locally, most of our favorite downtown restaurants announced closings. They thanked the community and said they were not viable at 50% occupancy.

Below is a picture of our new downtown pedestrian zone to help local retail/restaurants. The red umbrellas in the distance are on top of what used to be on-street parking.

In the last 24 hours, Axel’s Science Fair project morphed from mountains to volcanoes.

Our math tutor’s husband had back surgery so I was the sub for the last two days. With our oldest, I feel like I’m putting a strain on the relationship each time I have to teach her a new concept => working with negative numbers had her grunting and growling at me!

https://twitter.com/gordo_68/status/1269259873532833792?s=20

Density Duration Overshoot

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As part of my plan to “get sick later” => ideally much later => we’ve been discussing what activities to add back.

Our kids are the most connected people in our family.

Two concepts have been guiding our thinking: density of the environment and duration of exposure.

  • Walking past someone, while wearing a mask (low density, low duration)
  • Grappling for an hour, face-to-face (high density, high duration)

Using this framework is helpful but I catch myself trying to rationalize exposures that are convenient for me => i.e. anything that gets my kids out of the house!

Now that low-density pools are open, we decided to replace BJJ/Grappling with cycling and swimming.

This week, I caught myself ignoring the density and telling myself that current community spread was low. I’m a sucker for things I want to believe.

The trouble with going down a line of thinking (low risk right now) is I’m not qualified to judge when community spread is high again. I’m also not qualified to judge what constitutes low community spread!

My thinking was a form of market-timing for COVID infection. I’m sure we’re all doing some version right now.

In addition to leaning away from density/duration, we have a family policy that no kid can be in a group of more than three people, outside of the family unit. This rules out other “groups of three” where the kids are in close proximity all day. It’s a simple heuristic that greatly reduces the connectivity of each of my kids.

I’m more isolated than anyone I know. However, I’m one step away from the cumulative exposure of my wife and kids.

Little bit of math => 1% chance of infection in a given period, what’s my chance of not getting infected for 50 periods? (1 – .01) ^ 50 = 61% not infected, 39% infected

For 100 periods? (1 – .01) ^ 100 = 37% not infected, 63% infected

Consider the math for workers in meatpacking plants, farm workers in dormitory housing and airline workers.

I don’t know the infection probability or the number of periods I will have to endure. This does not matter because, in a process repeated over time, the math to “stay healthy” is compelling.

We need to greatly reduce our household risk and limit our collective number of exposure events.

Stay the hell away from high density / high duration. Wear a mask.

Businesses and smart people, in all political parties, are going to figure this out.

NNT got me thinking about this with a tweet (linked above).

Related to Monday’s post, I can get everything I need by studying smart people from a distance.

I read a lot of non-fiction. Stories from believable people can be useful to find my way in the world.

There are a lot of useful stories in The Alchemy of Finance. They are relevant to what we are seeing right now.

Three areas:

  • Overshoot => human systems always overshoot
  • Regulation => political life moves between under, and over, regulation
  • Reflexivity => circular relationships between cause and effect

The difficulties inherent in our political systems can be useful. They reduce our capacity to overreact.

Corona Diary 9 June 2020

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June feels like we’re living through a key period in world history.

Senator Romney (R-UT) marched with protesters, tweeted a couple selfies and told a camera crew he was there because we need to say “Black Lives Matter.” Today, he’s working on a bipartisan bill for police reform.

Separate from the specifics of Sen. Romney’s actions, I was reminded of something I keep front-and-center in my marriage. You will only get a few chances to truly demonstrate your character. When you see the opportunity, take it.

I thought this advice for volatile times was well made:

https://twitter.com/paulportesi/status/1269723484797599744?s=20

Slow it down => far reaching legislation with 2nd/3rd order effects, defunding your police department, banning colleagues for ideological impurity… the flip side of the wisdom of crowds is the madness of crowds (wikipedia and book links).

Too many examples of mob mentality to list. A fascinating environment for studying our reactions under stress and how behavior changes as we scale ourselves (1 => 10 => 100 => 1,000…).

NYTimes – oped editor fired for allowing a United States Senator to write an opinion piece. One of our fundamental family values is everyone can speak, or not speak, as they see fit.

Different, but similar => many examples of Doublethink with crowds being OK so long as the individual feels “their” reason is just. Our elderly collective will pay the price for these individual choices.

All my mentors believe in forgiveness => as the energy comes out of this crisis, we should remind ourselves of the benefits of forgiveness.

The kids went to their first socially distant birthday party. They had a blast. I was told that Axel demolished the piñata.

Worth remembering, even if we aren’t perfect at social distancing… small reductions in R0 are useful.

Home Summer School is going well. Kids are having fun and enjoying the work required to improve themselves.

Axel’s Music teacher wrote him a note. An extract,

“What a strange trip to NYC I had! Going there – no hotels or restaurants were open yet. Coming back, they were open but we couldn’t stop in Cincinnati or Chicago as planned because of riots. I am personally counting on you three to help make our country better. “We Shall Overcome!” – Ms. O.

Science Fair topics are coming along.

  • Our youngest wanted to make a laser pointer cat toy. When I told her I don’t understand how to construct a laser, she was a bit disappointed. Instead, she will teach us about cats.
  • Our oldest continued her campaign for dog ownership, by saying she’d teach us about dogs.
  • Axel isn’t sure but thinks he might present on mountains.

Lots of reminders that kids are programed to follow what they see around them. Bella preparing snack, Axel working on his writing, Lexi riding bikes.

Colorado moving sideways at ~200 positives per day. Florida at 5x our rate. Arizona concerned their ICUs will be overwhelmed (they opened two weeks _after_ us). Alaska nearly got to zero but outbreaks in their fishing industry (faulty pre-trip quarantine protocols) have them rebounding.

Developing world blowing up

Brazil reported to have stopped updating data by order of their President. I think that’s going to get everyone with a Brazilian passport banned from emerging Green Zones.

A tweet on reopening Vegas:

https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1269517561692971013?s=20

Nasdaq closed at an all-time record yesterday. SP500 closed back at pre-COVID levels.

Despite everything happening outside my bubble, front page of the cyber-edition of our local paper was a dog rescue on a local trail – heat exhaustion – hope to see more of these sorts of stories. When I lived in New Zealand the national news would often carry similar stories. Simpler times.

What would make a second lockdown more enjoyable than the first? We’re taking steps to make ourselves even more robust. We don’t get to decide when we’re done with COVID.

Pools are open again. Huge for my wife. She’s at a local pool, with our kids, as I write. Pools are by reservation only.

After a couple weekend “on” electronics, I’ve decided I need my weekly time off.

I was thinking better and reading more with the weekly break.

Slow it down.

Dealing With Really Difficult People

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To offer my very best to these four people, I say “no” to drama

Over the course of your life, you will be sucked into many unnecessary arguments.

With the stress in our societies right now, I thought I’d share some hard-won wisdom.

Something I do well is deal with extremely difficult people.

Difficult people tend to divide into two camps.

  • Someone who is nuts, addicted or abusive => your best outcome is a clean exit
  • Somebody who is very comfortable with conflict => your best outcome is a mutually beneficial relationship

It is essential to know the difference => are you seeking a relationship or an exit?

Remember, it only takes one side to make a relationship completely impossible. You might never get the chance for a relationship. Likewise, no one can create a relationship without your agreement.

Keep your desired outcome front and center.

For the merely difficult, the best resource I’ve found is a book called B.I.F.F. => BIFF stands for Brief Informative Friendly and Firm.

BIFF is how I deal with every email in my life => when it spills into my marriage, or my family, it can get me into trouble. Still, on balance, it’s a winning strategy.

The BIFF method has saved me thousands of hours of hassle. You might not realize the psychological, and energetic, cost of the difficult people in your life.

Quick read => $10.

The book helped me see my own role in the conflicts that follow me around. The BIFF techniques work when applied with myself => Time to move along & What’s important now?

It takes discipline, and training, to avoid spinning my wheels with people, and situations, that have no good outcome (other than an exit).

With the Buddhists in my life, I joke, “that situation might need to wait for my rebirth.”

With the secular folks, “I have realized there are going to be some loose ends at the time of my death. This situation might be one of them.“

So… onto times when you desire an exit.

Once you’ve decided your best outcome is an exit you need to constantly remind yourself of your goal.

Beware of the tendency for self-sabotage via:

  • Self-justification => forgiveness can come later => you don’t need victory or the last word => you need an exit
  • Helping => unless you’re a board-certified medical clinician, working in a professional capacity, you will not sort this person out => you need an exit
  • Obligation => this is a big one for people caught in a multi-year abusive relationship => you might feel that the person’s place in society (boss, relative, child, spouse, priest, coach, doctor) requires you to put up with their abuse => hell no => you need an exit

I struggled with the above in my 20s, so it’s probably going to take you a few years to get it right.

Some family systems train their members to put up with abuse across multiple generations => break the chain, if not for yourself then for your children.

Protect your exit – there will be many attempts to pull you back in => block, filter, never reply, don’t answer unknown calls, don’t open letters, don’t post your travel schedule, change your mobile number… whatever it takes. I’ve done it all.

The craftiest manipulators will use people close to you to advocate for them. These people will be happy to do so – in the hope that they will successfully pass the abuser off to you!

I defeat these attempts by asking an advocate, “Do you want more of XXX in your life?” and noting “I don’t have any interaction with them and that is plenty for me.” We then share a smile and move on.

Over time, there will be fewer and fewer attempts to rope you in.

It is no fun to “play” with a person who never responds and you must remember, never respond to sociopaths.

Don’t poke the bear.

I use similar rules on Social Media.

One strike you’re out => mute button on twitter, unfollow on FB => much less triggering than blocking, allow difficult people to move along to their next obsession.

How do they make you feel? Some people bring out the worst aspects of my personality => politicians, of every political stripe, do this on purpose => mute them down. Don’t water the worst seeds of your personality.

Discipline is freedom => execute my advice and pay attention => Is your life better without the drama? It is easy to develop a habit of engagement, of not leaving well enough alone.

What are you trying to achieve? Don’t rope yourself into a mess, just to give yourself something to do.

Fill your life with something more than emotional highs from justified rage and lows from sadness.

Corona Diary 6 June 2020

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Saturday morning at the Byrn Academy of Personal Excellence!

Good news on unemployment => the May numbers came in far better than expected. I hope we can see a string of months where millions of jobs are added. May unemployment was 13% vs 19% expectation.

Unemployment figures were a clear example of the impossibility of predicting good, or bad, news in these unprecedented times.

The stock market was up strongly this week. I sold into the rise and rebalanced. SP500 closed the week just under 3,200, up ~43% from the bottom in March.

Family movies we’ve enjoyed recently: Rio 1 & 2; High School Musical 1, 2 & 3; and The Adventures of Rufus. Still working our way through Clone Wars – kinda violent, by the way (but better than cable news).

Yesterday marked 12-weeks since we locked down. Colorado has been gradually reopening for 5-6 weeks, depending on your county.

Here’s the testing chart.

More tests, stable positivity and positives.

Another example of the impossibility of predicting what will happen. Our state stable, other places declining, hotspots continuing to pop up.

The President noted in a speech, “Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country.” George was choked to death by his local police force.

Many of the people I respect from the Administration have left. Some are starting to go public with concerns over the President’s character and competency.

The graphic below made me grateful to have a job where I can be true to myself.

Imagine working for an organization where you choose to sell that message.

Plenty of good people seeking de-escalation.

The above was useful perspective from outside my bubble.

A friend asked me, “why?”

Because there is a part of society, a part of you, a part of me, a part of the government… that is resisting accepting their right to life.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Make a friend outside your tribe.

Knowing How To Screw Up A Marriage

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All-time greatest hair!

My daughter and I are doing a summer essay project. I wasn’t able to get this quite where I wanted before hitting my writing duration limit of two weeks. So I’ll pull the key points to the start and publish:

  • Marriage is an agreement to never knowingly hurt each other. Digging deeper, this implies a promise that I will take the time to absorb my spouse’s value system.
  • If you’re not sure then wait. Wait until you are willing to constantly offer yourself. Getting out of a poor marriage is awful and being in a great marriage is fabulous. Choose wisely.
  • Renew vows every morning. Every new choice provides the opportunity to leave the mistakes of the past.
  • You have a hidden superpower. You have the ability to create your spouse. First and foremost by who you become in the years ahead. Secondly, in the aspects of your partner you choose to support.

Finally, your relationships, your life => it only needs to make sense to you and your partner.

There’s a paradox. My current marriage, which works very well for us, depends on a path of going through my first marriage, which ended in divorce.

Success via failure.

Marriage Life Cycle

With each passing year, the “getting married” becomes less of a factor in my life. As we near fifteen years together, the “staying married” has been stable for a long time. These days, where I focus is the enjoying of marriage.

Getting => Staying => Enjoying

First baby

The Search

Prior failure is painful evidence that I might not be as smart as I think I am or, perhaps, I’m not in the right spot to find what I’m looking for.

But…

Can I articulate what I am looking for? If I can’t articulate my needs then I’ll default to a set of criteria outside myself, outside my true needs. This is the old advice to start with the end in mind.

A kind companion with whom I enjoying sharing all aspects of my life => that might be a good starting point. Sharing “all aspects” has a decent shot at enduring through the stages of life and reflects a core value of openness.

For me, the step after that was to park myself in a place (two places, in fact) where there were a lot of people who shared my interests.

First vacation

The Getting

Arriving at a point where I had a shot at success was an achievement.

However, even at that point, my relationship CV was horrendous:

  • Five divorces in my immediate family, including my own
  • Blindly heading towards financial ruin
  • No sustained success in relationships
  • No proven ability to stay put
  • Addiction, alcoholism and mental illness throughout my family tree

All of the above were extremely useful as I gradually inverted my personal history => with a crystal clear idea about how to screw up a marriage => just do the opposite.

July 4th, 2005 => I embark on my second marriage with a clear thoughts on:

  • What I didn’t want in a relationship.
  • Where I didn’t want to live.
  • What it takes for me to ruin a relationship.

It was easier to figure what I didn’t want, than what I did. Most importantly, the pain of my prior mistakes left me motivated to change.

Where is this behavior, this choice, likely to take me?

I knew where my past choices had taken me – not where I had wanted to go!

Caring Enough To Change

Being motivated to change is not unique.

I’ve met many people with a passionate drive to overcome themselves. Often, this drive is applied towards conventional success => monetary wealth, power and sexual partners. I was this person. I had an opportunity to achieve a world-class marriage but decided to apply my energy elsewhere.

Our prior mistakes do not need to be renewed each morning!

The starting point in my own transformation was giving up on relationships. I spent 1,000 days seeking to make myself the absolute best (athlete) I could be. The physical outlet of this pursuit let me burn away a prior life of achieving what others valued. Extreme fatigue was a useful way to peel the onion and figure out who I wanted to be.

The Staying

Marriage is journey:

  • across time
  • facing common challenges
  • about which you have limited experience

Time => success is very different at 25, 50 and 75 years old.

Stress & Adversity => across long time horizons you are guaranteed to face adversity:

  • Parenthood
  • Babies and toddlers
  • Near death experiences of kids and each other
  • Death experience of parents and grandparents
  • Financial ruin
  • Alcoholism and addiction
  • Menopause, cancer, dementia, heart disease
  • Mental illness

Stuff happens to everyone, regardless marital status. We face these major events largely clueless about how to deal with them. How you handle stress, within your relationship, will have an outsized impact on outcome.

How To Love is a great resource on this topic and will help you increase the odds towards relationship success.

The Enjoying

How do you get to a marriage that is better than you ever expected?

Wait until you are ready to continually offer yourself.

Looking back, I think my first marriage was driven, at least in part, by an unwillingness to be alone. However, I am cautious about memory because I am an expert at fooling myself and back-fitting a coherent personal narrative.

On the other hand, the failure of my first marriage was absolutely due to an attitude of what I was going to “take” and a disregard for bringing anything, other than money, to the relationship. It’s an attitude that followed me for many years, in many different parts of my life. It didn’t serve me well.

What would I tell my younger self, or my kids, about marriage?

There’s no rush, rather than searching for what you think you need, turn inwards and work on becoming the person you want to marry. Once you are married, you’ll be able to apply this habit into supporting your spouse. Together, you will each become better partners.

Create your spouse => I look for ways to support anything that builds my spouse into the person I’d like them to become.

Often when I read advice on how to love, it centers on what to avoid in a partner. Rather than avoidance in others, seek to self-cultivate the traits you want to receive.

Corona Diary 4 June 2020

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What a week.

As I type, additional fencing is going up around the White House to protect the President from the people.

Far different than the fall of the Berlin Wall, a better wall-memory.

The President, who I think has done a good job of reducing external wars, threatening to use the military internally. In April, when I wondered why we weren’t using the military to assist with COVID response, I didn’t expect we’d be debating declaring war on ourselves.

Mattis breaking his silence to compare the Administration’s tactics to Nazi Germany, among other observations, including three-years of non-leadership at the top.

Chairman of Joint Chiefs falling in behind the constitution (letter above).

FOGOs, current and retired, penning opeds critical of the administration. Discussion of “lawful orders” in those op-eds. Too many to link but this from a retired four-star Marine General.

Secretary of Defense breaking with the President over the use of the Insurrection Act.

Related, Texas declining military help, with grace => Texans will take care of Texans => pure class.

Take the above and it seems to be a “no, thank you” from the military for taking action against Americans.

When I made the choice to become a citizen, here’s what I signed up for:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Equal justice under law.

Unemployment trending “better” (?) with 1.87 million new claims announced this morning => over 42 million now.

Markets up => SP500 over 3,100 as I write this.

We had a lot of fun with the birthday party – most of us dressed up. I wore my favorite mechanic’s shirt=> Poison Spider in Moab. I wonder how long until I get back to the desert.

Bella looked great wearing a set of her great-grandmother’s costume pearls.

Eggshell geodes featured on Science Wednesday. HUGE HIT.

We are waiting for the water to evaporate and the crystals to form.

I have been sleeping lightly (listening for burglars, thinking about things I don’t control).

Lack of sleep, and the toughest bike workout I can remember, had me blasted for most of yesterday. 45-minutes all out does a lot more damage at 51 than 33. 🙂

Up early this morning, a skills ride then hitting my strength program.

Life goes on – reaching for better.

Getting To Better

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Here’s three things to try.

1/ Acknowledge I have no idea about what it is like to be you.

When I have this mindset, I am much more likely to help a situation. All day long, I remind myself… I know nothing about what it’s like to be you.

I’ve written about this in Unmet Needs (we have many in our country right now) and What To Do, when you don’t know what to do.

2/ Try to be less of an asshole.

I’m a repeat offender – most certainly inside my head.

It can be funny, it can provide a personal release but it seldom makes things better.

Just try to be less => compounding works down as well as up.

I’ve been working towards less for 20+ years.

3/ Make friends outside my tribe.

One conversation at a time.

Some of us have trouble speaking to the out-group. Try this book and use the techniques to make friends with your fear.

As for your friends (old and new) => It’s OK to disagree, I’m not going to put a relationship on the line because of my opinion.

I’m going to feel different later.

We are likely to have plenty of time, and material, for this type of work.

A final note, I’ve studied enough history to doubt we are more divided (than ever).

The message of division primarily comes somebody trying to sell me something, capture my attention or raise money.

Conflict is an enduring aspect of human societies.

Remember… there has always been, and will always be, a need for people to bridge divides in order to get stuff done.

Be the change.

Corona Diary 2 June 2020

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George Will made some fair points in a recent editorial – foremost being the President has a capacity to make things worse. Unfortunately, from my vantage point in Colorado, he’s being doing just that, daily.

In the news yesterday => the President tear-gassing Americans so he could walk to a church and pose with a bible. As America burns, I am reminded of the benefits of a parliamentary tradition.

“Some people aren’t worth the potential downside” is a rule I apply in my personal and business life.

At the Federal level, I’m ready for better. I’m ready for a change in approach.

Learn and iterate.

Science Bob had one that amused my kids for an hour during lunch. Cleaning Pennies with Vinegar.

Flagstaff Star above our house was lit for the last time until the winter.

Our governor modified the “safer at home” order to encourage everyone to recreate outside.

Bolder Boulder – the largest event in our city each year – was cancelled for 2020.

Luke Skywalker coming along, gradually.

Early in the crisis a Navy Seal I follow made three points that caught my attention. I pay attention when experts advise me to do something and I can’t figure out why…

  • Gas up your car
  • Pack a week’s worth of clothes
  • Don’t support any action that will result in the National Guard being deployed – you do not want them running your neighborhood

The underlying logic appeared to be: things can get a lot worse than you can image; it can happen here and it’s worth preparing for your worst case scenario in advance.

Here’s this week’s training plan.

Working towards better.