Category: Life

I just voted in the early caucus for Buttigieg.

Throughout 2019 I was rooting for Warren as a sentimental favorite, bitter by the corporatist slant and the ascendance of the GOP under the watch of the Obama administration. I was unconvinced by Pete’s youth, and harbored a deep suspicion of yet another precocious young white man, quickly climbing the ladder with effortless ease, leapfrogging others with much deeper resumes. However, as Warren’s campaign continued to stall, I became concerned about her political acumen, falling for Trump’s ancestry gambit and a lack of results from the first two contests.

After the results of New Hampshire, I surveyed the field. Klobuchar’s cruel treatment of Myon Burrell as well as her own staffers scratched her off my list. I didn’t need to lose another election to Trump by trying 4 more years of Biden. Gabbard is in her own universe. Tom Steyer does nothing for me other than clog up the Facebook feed. Yang quit. And Bloomberg isn’t even on the Nevada ballot.

I voted for Bernie in 2016, preferring his clarion call of income equality and fearing Clinton’s hawkishness. Even then, I knew I was overlooking the problem of whether the dude could actually govern. I’ll still happily vote for Bernie over Trump, but after almost two years inside the department of “Administration”, I have much greater appreciation for the vast apparatus of government. I suspect the federal civil service is already tottering, and I worry about the lasting damage that may come with a revolutionary firebrand immediately following the current lout. Income inequality is important, but I am one of those dreaded “temperamentally conservative” liberals, so this issue is not my end-all, especially after becoming intimately familiar with the daily exertions of good government.

Which brings me back to the primary protagonists, both of whom I trust will execute fine administrations. Up through this Tuesday, my knowledge was merely a mental collection of memes, vibes, and clips. So I finally decided to listen to their campaign announcement speeches and compare the two candidates as politicians. How did Buttigieg and Warren sell themselves on day one?

From those two speeches, Mayor Pete won my vote – not in policy but in approach. I think the two candidates are headed in the same direction, they are both quite progressive. Warren wants to get there a little faster, which is great, but she is proposing even more fighting as the route to the promised land. As much as I relish the idea of fighting force on force, the Dem’s are awful at direct confrontation with the GOP.

We live in a 45/55 society which has been gerrymandered towards the minority, in the House, the Senate, the electoral college, and the Supreme Court. We can keep banging our heads against power politics, but we’re a diverse rabble running up against the well drilled formations of a conformist political party in the grip of an awesome propaganda machine. The progressive ideals I hold are so self-evident and Trump is so repugnant, I have to believe there must be another way to create an overwhelming majority that could engulf the GOP’s steadfast obstinance. After all, if we can merely flip a tenth of Trump voters we’re in Nixon-McGovern territory.

That said, I’m not pollyannaish about our prospects. I can see the stubborn recalcitrance of most Trump voters, especially as the economy hums along. It is a well nigh impossible task to reframe the current dichotomy to create a new paradigm and convert or attract new voters outside of the polarized mess that is making our mass and social medias stratospherically wealthy.

However, after listening to those two speeches (colored by my feel for the trajectories of these two campaigns) I have come to the opinion that Warren will be crushed by Trump in the general campaign, whether she wins or loses.

If you want a direct confrontation with Trump, you must be ready to battle beyond rules or norms, as he has been happily doing his entire campaign and administration. And even if she wins the general, her victorious path to the White House will have exacerbated the current polarization and enmities. I feel guilty for saying it, but I’m just tired of the prospect of four more years of this siege warfare. I’d rather take another flier on a hopey changey guy who has a shot at outflanking the opposition. Does that make me a sucker?

Yes, I’m betting on a lot of unproven potential. During my short time in government, I have observed the unique difficulties of being an “executive”, though we all must still acknowledge that South Bend is vanishingly small compared to the gig he’s pursuing. I know the guy’s perspective is circumscribed by his white, male privilege, however the recent New York Times article shows an ability to learn, grow, and develop alliances in spite of initial missteps. I know he’s taking money from rich folks, which is not preferable, but not disqualifying in this particular game we’re playing. He certainly loves his rhetoric. Is he also likely to defer too much to the corporations or dawdle in the hope of building a non existent consensus?

Maybe. But if he can defeat the wannabe authoritarian with small hands, advance parts of a progressive agenda, and restore a functioning government, I’ll take the trade.

Will Pete succeed in doing rhetorical jujitsu on Trump’s full frontal assault? Does his celebrated 2019 performance at the Fox News Town Hall translate for the general election? Will it reach the voting masses in swing states, beyond caressing the intellectual erogenous zones of the coastal elites? And if he gets elected, is there any way he can get anything done with an obstructionist GOP, that will likely claim one or both houses of Congress in 2022 if Pete is president?

I doubt it. But at least I can see a glimmer of hope.

So take it for what it’s worth, a tepid endorsement for the youngster out of South Bend and for Freedom, Security, Democracy.

Seven years ago, we were sitting on the concrete pavement in a Buc-ee’s parking lot eating a salad, leaving Houston to our new home of Las Vegas.

Today, I just stamped my first drawing.

Singular. The “set” is just a single sheet demolition plan removing two kitchens at the Desert Regional Center.

If I wanted to make it sound more impressive, I could say the project manual was also stamped. All 28 pages of SPWD boilerplate with 2 pages of technical specifications – 02 41 19, Selective Demolition.

And technically, I actually stamped our home remodel a couple years ago. But anyone is allowed to sign drawings for their own house if they’re the homeowner.

So this is the first time that “counts”.

It’s not much, but hey it has been twenty years in the making. I’m going to do my victory lap.

Happy Valentines Day!

I saw a post complaining about the lack of free time after working, cooking, cleaning, and exercising, even as a single person. So I decided to do some math.

Hmm interesting….

• 55 hours for a full time gig (factoring in a quick 1hr breakfast / morning routine, 1hr lunch, and 1hr commute)*
• 15 hours for six meals cooked at home (if you cook from scratch I don’t see how you would spend less than 2.5hrs cooking-eating-cleaning. Also I’m defining “often” as more than half of eleven meals – five dinners during the week and six during the weekend)
• 8 hours for the other five meals not eaten at home (a little more than an 1.5hrs each, including travel)
• 3 hours of exercise (CDC recommends 150 minutes per week)
• 56 hours for sleep (CDC recommends 7hrs or more for adults per night so 8hrs to include an evening routine)
• 4 hours for cleaning (this one seems a little short, but let’s go with a small apartment for a minimalist, so we’ll say it’s half a workday.)

That list totals up to 141 hours out of the 7×24 = 168 hours in a week.

This leaves 27 hours (or 1,620 minutes) to enjoy your off time. It’s odd number that feels simultaneously small and expansive….and I just spent 30 minutes writing this post!

*footnote: I am of the belief that a 40 hour week gig will only maintain your current position in life. If you have dreams of advancement, add another 8 hours for honing your skills – either at the company or on your own….so now we’re down to 19 hours of free time in a week.

**footnote: If you have young kids throw all this out the window. Hmm, maybe I should do this for myself….some other time!

In 1998-99, I had worked closely with him as an editor of Process, a Journal of Student Work. The books were eventually printed but it was a good lesson in how bleeping hard it is to get anything done. Indeed, it was such a painful experience that I had of blocked it out of my memory, but as I write, I can pinpoint this experience as the beginning of my Project Management career.

A year later (two decades ago from this year), I came back from spring break to find out he had committed suicide. It was utterly devastating. So devastating that I roped in a couple friends to do Process a second time. Which was yet again a grinding experience that overshadowed my senior year in college. I doubt it was a very good idea to volunteer for such pain and suffer, but in retrospect it was most likely good to do it twice, to learn that experience will make things a little easier, but not much easier.

The biggest payoff from this second run is that I became close to my two fellow editors over that crazy year, and I still telephone one of them every month or so. I’d say any effort that nets you something like that for the next 20 years is pretty damn good.

In any case, I spent yesterday morning looking up the grad student who had passed away in 2000. The internet now claims maybe he isn’t dead. It is a bit odd, because he has managed to have zero digital footprint, except for an award nomination in 1999, an exhibition announcement from 1998, and in the meeting minutes of some planning commission that noted he had passed away in 2000.

This wasn’t a man who could have laid low for twenty years. I suspect the internet is mixing up two people….but maybe not.

Even though I’m generally quite proud of my internet searching skillz, I’ve hit the end of the line – at least without spending a little money or significant time.

So I’ll try again in 2030. If the dude is alive but wants to stay deceased, I should respect his will for at least another decade. If he’s actually dead, there should be more free information available in the internet to confirm this loss.

And as a final little nugget, here is a photo myself (from 2006) that I came across while trawling through old emails. This had nothing to do with him, but I wanna post it somewhere!

On Monday, I heard that local artist Alexander Huerta had passed away.

It was crushing.

He was one of the first people I met in Vegas. My wife and I went to the Arts district for a first Thursday, his studio was open, and we had a long conversation that night. I was taken by his Vintage Urban pieces on black scratch board, as well as his earlier, brilliant explosions of color. For the past seven years, I’ve followed his work with its twists and turns. Always unique, he never settled.

But beyond the paintings, I deeply respected him. He told me of his first life as an alcoholic, and how he discovered painting on his own. Painting saved his life…and so thoroughly enriched ours.

Life and kids got in the way so I didn’t get to hang out with him very often, but every time I’d drive by his second story studio on Charleston, I’d think of him. More often than not, his window was open. He was legit. He put in the work.

He was a pillar in this small town, an institution who showed up every day and gave us his true art.


Dude. I miss you.




Coda. A groundbreaking ceremony was held at Nevada State College for their new School of Education building this Wednesday. One of his pieces is displayed on the third floor of the Roger’s Student Center. It was comforting to say hello before and after the event. He left us some great work, but damn I’d rather he stayed.

I was going through a bevy old photos that had been stuck on a sundry of devices and found this old shot.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular photo has already been uploaded here. But I thought I’d post it again as a reminder at how quickly four years has passed.

One day you’re halfway through the decade, and in a blink of the eye you’re thinking about writing a retrospective on your blog.

My wife took this lovely photo in the parking lot a few months ago.

My girl came up with a fun silly game at lunch.

If she said GO, we would race to raise our left hand. If she said STOP, raise our right hand. Whoever raised it first got a point.

Naturally the person calling out the word would normally win the point, but not always. And it a bit mind bending when you’re facing each other so the opposite side is shooting up.

I added another level of difficulty by changing the words to LEFT and RIGHT, but mapped onto the wrong hands. That one was just a total train wreck.

The “Ping Pong” comes from passing “serve” after 5 points with the winner at 11 points.

And here’s an easier holiday version: HANUKKAH and CHRISTMAS. In this case raise up both arms when HANUKKAH is called (like a menorah), and clap your hands above your head when CHRISTMAS is called (like a tree). The clap adds a nice sound element to the game.

One year ago, after some prodding from Seth Godin, I started a “daily” blog. Ultimately I wrote about four days out of seven, making up the missing day with various binges of multiple posts.

After a month, I decided to reassess every solar event, and upon one full trip around the sun, at the autumnal equinox, I decided to call off the experiment.

It has been an enjoyable run, a nice written record of my first year as a public architect, and of the first year of life with the boy. However, continuing this blog just isn’t worth the effort entails.

With two little kids, the biggest issue is a lack of time. As have been noted multiple times, I have a habit of waking up early, and this is the only alone time I have outside of the office.

This blog is a good use of such time, far better than my usual demon of surfing the web, but I have become increasingly aware of how little exercise I do.

Over the past year, I’ve learnt that I only get one priority every morning, and with a regular blog it means I sit down in front of the computer as the first and often only thing. That just isn’t physically sustainable since I am not getting my exercise in later in the day.

Before I sign off of regular blogging, I pulled up an old post I wrote two weeks into the experiment but never published. It still encapsulates what I hope to get out of the exercise, but sadly, I don’t think the potential gains were realized. My writing has improved slightly (albeit at a much slower rate for than at the start), but I’m still always fighting the demon of Facebook and I’m not sure I’m getting any better at thinking than before. I have some nice slice of life observations which is nice to have on record on my own platform, but I never really got around to doing much with web publishing.

Now that it has been a couple weeks into my newfound hobby, I thought I’d do a quick assessment on the few things I think I’m getting out of messing around with this blog for an hour every morning.

The most obvious thing is that I am getting better at writing.  I guess that should be obvious, especially I am at the start of the cheap and easy steep part of the learning curve, but the payoff of this increase is not to be seen on this blog.  It is found in my work emails.  I find myself typing up those memos faster and editing them better. Unlike these blog posts, where I’ve been saving a draft and then polishing and posting the second day, these things have to be written and sent at a moment’s notice.  And the leisurely practice here is definitely helping in those pressure moments there.

To make time for blogging, I have indeed drastically cut down on my Facebook time.  The main way I’ve accomplished this is by very rarely actually typing anything on that website.  Aside from being the product on that platform (each of my keystroke is ends up in for Zuck’s bank account), I’ve become disappointed in how few deep conversations really get started on that platform.  When I type out something deep, I usually find that I waste a ton of time refreshing the FB page and in the hopes getting the rare thoughtful response back.  It just isn’t a good ROI on my time.  Furthermore given how ephemeral and unsearchable any single comment is in that universe, I am convinced that it is much better to just spit in the wind by myself to my self here instead.

The main goal of why I started the blog is to think better.  And I believe that is also happening.  Partly because I have gotten off of the worst of the FB hamster wheel, but also because I’m now having to publish every day, I now have more brain space to just ponder.  This blog is currently unfocused, and I suspect it will stay this way for a while, but having to produce (even for my current audience of one) does sharpen the mind for the task at hand.

And finally, I get to poke under the hood of how the internet works.  I just signed up with mailchimp and added a facebook page. I’m not sure if I’ll do any real campaigns, but it is interesting to experience “social” from the other side of the looking glass.

I had tried to do a regular blog six years ago with a focus on the industry.  As such I felt pressure to produce at a respectable level of quality, which resulted in the attempt fizzling out in a month or so.  Now with this government gig, I essentially have tenure as long as I don’t screw things up.  So we’ll see if this run can last as long as that previous month long run, but so far so good, two weeks in and I still enjoy waking up every morning and typing away.

I won’t lie, if a following had developed over the past year, maybe I would have kept it up longer. Everyone has an ego, and I’m a sucker for an audience, but it never materialized and most likely its for the better. One of the recurring themes from this past year is that life is a series of tradeoffs and along with physical exercise there is a good amount of bookkeeping that I have been neglecting.

So here’s to healthier habits and getting organized, and I’ll be around only occasionally.

I know its been the hot thing for the last couple years now.

But lately I’ve been waking up at four am with my mind spinning about life or work.

Nothing particularly dark, but just revved up and ready to go.

It wouldn’t be that big of a problem if the rest of the family was ready to sleep at 2030 so we could all live on the same daily cycle.

But we don’t. And it is not good to be to be so out of sync with everybody else.

Maybe it’s time to whip out the mediation book I read a long time ago and get it on.

Or maybe rock some Tai Chi!

Yeah, something like that.