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Summer 2021: Family Fun in Washington, Montana, and Cape Cod

July is one of my favorite months. It starts off with a national celebration, always has nice weather, and my birthday is smack dab in the middle of it. I have a habit of taking summer vacation for the month and this year was no exception.

We kicked things off with a journey to Chelan, Washington for the 4th of July. My sister-in-law, Mya, helps run Tildio Winery and we figured it was about time we did some wine tasting there. My parents joined us and we had a blast!

From there, we returned to Colorado and I journeyed to golf with my buddy Cletus in Nebraska. We played 36 holes in 24 hours and enjoyed each other's company thoroughly. I polished up Hefe for a birthday cruise on the 16th.

Happy Birthday, Jack!

Jack turns 17 today! He's an ambitious kid these days that's interested in going to a hard engineering school for college. He mentioned this morning that he's going to try to and get into some of the harder ones. If you have suggestions, please leave a comment!

Happy 17th Birthday, Jack! 😀

I think you're going to have a fun year being the solo kid. We look forward to helping you continue to be the awesome person you are.

Farewell to the 2020-21 Ski Season

This ski season was interesting to say the least. Because of COVID-19, most Colorado ski resorts required reservations in order to ski. This wasn't too painful because we did most of our skiing during the week.

We recognized that social distancing might be an issue on weekends, so we rented a condo in Winter Park for the season. This allowed us to ski weekdays while working remotely. We didn't have it the whole season, just a week every month.

The ski season started for me on November 24, 2020, with some backyard cross-country skiing.

I was super pumped when I drove our Syncro Westy to the condo and discovered it fit in the garage! My first day on the slopes was Friday, December 4th.

2020 - A Year in Review

2020 was an interesting year. It started out pretty awesome, then came a global pandemic, a renewed interest in social justice, and lots of political news to keep your blood pressure up. Doomscrolling became a word, and I found myself doing it often.

As a person that travels frequently and speaks at a lot of conferences, there were a lot of changes. The interesting thing is I planned for many of these changes beforehand. From last year's year in review:

I'm going to stop traveling in August for a year. Abbie will be a high school senior and I want to be around for her last year at home.

It seems I timed this quite well! However, I didn't expect most conferences to go virtual. I didn't expect I could still speak at them without traveling. I expected to speak less and have more time for writing. I didn't expect to stay home all the time and have everything delivered. I didn't expect to have to stop hanging out with friends.

I'm going to look back on 2020 using the following categories.

• Professional
  • Speaking
  • Community
  • Projects
• Personal
  • Stout the Syncro and Hefe the Bus
• 2021

Happy Birthday, Abbie!

Abbie turns 18 today! Our little girl is now an adult. I couldn't be more proud. 🥳

I can't imagine being a high school student right now in these pandemic times, but she's handled it well. She lost her job at the Gap this spring due to staff reductions, but she's been babysitting a lot to make up for it. She's also back into horseback riding with Trish. They both got back into it this summer at Abbie's request and are leasing a horse from a friend. They've both competed and won in the last couple of months!

Abbie has been applying to colleges for the last year and got an acceptance letter to Colorado State University last week. Her heart is set on the University of Colorado in Boulder, but she's still waiting to hear back from them. At first, I encouraged her to go out of state for college, to get away and explore the world. I reminded her about this a few weeks ago and she brought up that Boulder is the #1 best place to live. I can't really blame her for wanting to go to school in Colorado. I did and I'm still in love with the state!

One of my proudest moments of the last year was reading her essay that she's been using on college applications. It's all about our trip to Devoxx France 2016. Here's how it begins:

As I walked up to the stage of the bustling auditorium, the only sound I remember was of my heart, throbbing in my chest. If I had to define a single moment that matured me, it was my first public speaking event in Paris, France. I was 13 years old in April of 2016, and my dad insisted that I attend the Devoxx France Conference, one of his many computer programming conventions. I was beyond thrilled to experience Paris for my first time and thought nothing of the actual convention… until we boarded the airplane. My father informed me that I would be introducing him on stage. I was an anxious bundle of nerves with fearful thoughts of speaking in front of hundreds of adults from all corners of the world. The previously insignificant convention was now consuming my mind and rapidly becoming the most intimidating experience of my life.

Happy 18th Birthday, Abbie! You're super awesome!! 🥰

Happy Birthday, Jack

Yeehaw - today is Jack's 16th birthday! 🎉 He's been driving a lot in the last year and has a driver's license driving test this afternoon. If he passes, he'll be getting his license next week. I feel like it's a big milestone because a driver's license has the notion of freedom, especially when you live out in the country as we do.

Jack is a sophomore this year and started school last week. Both he and Abbie attend in-person classes two days a week. They do school work remotely the other three days. Jack was just starting to blossom last March when he joined the track team, but they shut things down before the season really got started. I hope he'll try it again — I really enjoyed doing track when I was in high school. He's an excellent boater and happily rowed a couple of days on our Desolation Canyon trip last month.

Happy 16th Birthday, Jack!

For some photos of Jack through the years, see my Jack Turns 16 album.

July 2020: Rafting, Riding, and Relaxing

As an American, have you ever wanted to take a month off like the European's do? I'm guessing you have! For the majority of my career, I've been an independent consultant, with unlimited vacation. Vacation as a consultant means you're not getting paid — so it's not exactly unlimited.

A few years ago, I doubled-down and went full-time. The company was called Stormpath and it quickly morphed into Okta. Okta has an unlimited vacation policy. I felt it was my duty to try to make my kick-ass full-time job as cool as my independent consulting gig. Therefore, I asked my boss to take July 2020 off. I requested this vacation in October 2019. He approved! Randall, you're the best!!

If you'd like to read about our April-June 2002 adventures, see 2019-2020 Ski Season, Quarantining for COVID, and a Graduation.

My month-off adventures started with a family raft trip through Desolation Canyon in Utah. We floated down the Green River with 20 members of our rafting family and had a wonderful adventure.

2019-2020 Ski Season, Quarantining for COVID, and a Graduation

Every spring, I try to publish a blog post about our ski season adventures. As you can imagine, this year was a little different. This year, the ski season ended abruptly in mid-March due to COVID-19. Nevertheless, I decided it'd be fun to write about the ski season we did experience and our adventures since then.

The 2019-2020 ski season started off looking really good. The snow was good enough in October that I enjoyed a day at A-Basin - my earliest ski day ever! In December, I got a few days in. Skiing at Whitefish Mountain over Christmas vacation was a highlight. When I was a kid, it was called Big Mountain and it's where I learned how to alpine ski.

Dell UltraSharp U3818DW 38" Curved Monitor Review

A little over a month ago, I purchased a Dell UltraSharp U3818DW 38" curved monitor. Previously, I had two 27" monitors ‐ an Apple Thunderbolt Display and an Asus 4K. I wanted to return to a single monitor and asked Twitter for advice. Based on recommendations I received, I purchased a Dell UltraSharp U3818DW 38" from B&H on Sunday, March 29. It arrived two days later.

January Jaunts to New Orleans and Jackson Hole

Trish and I started 2020 with a fun trip to New Orleans to meet up with my family. My parents wanted to get out of the snowy cold of Montana, as did Kalin and Mya from Washington state. My Aunt Mary from New York joined us, and we brought the kids. Trish even executed a trip to the Saints vs. Vikings NFL playoff game!

We celebrated "the superiors" birthdays, listened to lots of good music, hung out with our friends Jill and Brian, savored many excellent meals, and enjoyed each others company.