My sweet, sweet 15-year-old: “Dad, I heard this song I think you’d like. Have you heard of ‘Pretty Fly For A White Guy’?”
Don’t quote the deep magic to me. I was there when it was written.
Last week, my employer, Automattic, announced a restructuring. “Restructuring” at Automattic isn’t terribly unusual. Team structures change regularly. This one, though, included a layoff or “reduction in force” in today’s jargon, which is the first for Automattic. We’ve had pushes for improving performance management, which has led to an increase in departures, including sometimes a…
I’ve been on a quest for over 20 years now (whatβ½) to eat a hot dog in every state. I visited DC in 2006, when I scored a DC hotdog at Ben’s Chili Bowl. When flying out of IAD (in Virginia), one sports bar sold hot dogs, so I was set. Except they ran out…
I submitted my resignation as the Travis County Chair of the American Solidarity Party today. Or, well, I think my term officially ended in May 2024, but we never elected someone to succeed. In either case, I’m moving aside to let someone else who can dedicate real energy be involved. The American Solidarity Party isn’t…
At Roman Noon today, Pope Frances named Austin’s Bishop Joe Vasquez as the Archbishop-Elect of Galveston-Houston. What does this mean for Austin? It’s about the same as 2009 when I last wrote about this. Correction from last time, effective immediately, Bishop Vasquez is still the bishop of Austin, but, he is limited to acts of…
Short-form communication hurts. The Texas Tribune published an article about Gov. Greg Abbott’s outrage about Texas A&M’s “sponsoring a trip to a DEI conference”. Taking five minutes, this is just the same stupid political noise that is hurting far more than it is helping. The outrage comes in response to a message on X from…
Life flows through seasons, which feel completely normal while you’re in the midst of them, but looking back, it’s hard to remember what they were like. With that in mind, I wanted to outline the last week and detail the end of the week.