What I’m Doing Right Now

June 30, 2024 •

General

Annie and I celebrated 25 years of marriage last month.
We’re slowly getting unpacked from the huge home remodel we did this year. It’s a ridiculous amount of work.
My office/library is almost complete. I’ll post some pictures when I finally get it all put together. Until then, here’s a list of books.
Sadly, Sioux Falls and the surrounding area suffered quite a bit of flooding in June. Annie and I escaped unscathed, but many neighbors had water damage, and several neighboring communities were devastated. We made the NY Times for all the wrong reasons…

Big news: we’re going to be grandparents! Alec (29) got married last June, and they are expecting a baby in November. He and his wife Taylor are living in Tennessee while she completes her medical residency there.
Gabrielle (22) just passed her nursing exams. She starts work at the local hospital this month.
Isabella (20) is working for the summer before starting her junior year at the University of Sioux Falls.
My Dad and I will be seeing our New Zealand All Blacks play in San Diego in July.

I have resigned from Episerver/Optimizely after five years. I start a new job in July.
I’m still teaching in the Content Strategy program at a university in Austria. My co-instructor, Carrie Hane, and I will teach both the basic and advanced courses from December through February.
Some colleagues and I are slowly working on a plan for an industry organization for content management professionals.

I have also published a more lengthy resume, which includes several areas of research I’m interested in.

The Imagineering Story is a 700-page history of the Disney parks. I absolutely loved it.
Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity doesn’t have much new information than his prior books, but he writes well, and this is a nice reminder of how to get things done.
How Big Things Get Done is a great look at large projects and why they do (or, usually don’t) work.
I listened to a great long-form podcast on The Big Dig project in Boston
I’m currently listening to a podcast on the history of Dungeons and Dragons

Here’s my complete reading list with reviews.

Disney+ has the six-part docuseries on The Imagineering Story, which was apparently the source project of the book.
I finished the entire series of Babylon 5, the sci-fi TV show from the 90s. It was quite good. The CGI was a little cheesy, but it had a nice story-arc.
I watched the entire series of Moonlighting earlier this year. I read an oral history of it and discussed aspects of the show quite a bit in that review.
I’m loving Derry Girls right now. Only 18 short episodes, so it’s low-commitment and high-value.
I watched the Shogun TV series. It’s absolutely compelling, though I did not like the book at all. The show is easier to follow, but I still think I missed some nuance.
Haven’t watched this yet, but I just heard that Neuromancer is becoming a TV series. I read it this year (twice!), and listened to the BBC radio production. I’m really looking forward to this.

A friend posted some guy singing Don’t Stop Believing on America’s Got Talent, and I’ve been listening to Journey’s Greatest Hits almost non-stop since then.
I’m reading Questlove’s Hip Hop is History, and stopping every five minutes or so to listen to the music he’s talking about. I’ve started a Spotify playlist that I’m adding to whenever he mentions notable tracks.
I didn’t love Taylor’s The Tortured Poets Department. It was just okay.
When I read in the evening, I play this “Chill Hop” playlist softly in the background. It makes me feel like I’m sitting in a hotel lobby, and I don’t know why this matters.

My fitness goal for the summer is to break my personal best for the 1,000m row, which is currently 3:22. That PR is fully eight years old, so I set it when I was a much younger man (relatively). To break it, I’ll need to hold a 1:40 500m split pace. I’m working on holding that for as long as I can (I’m at 700m now; I can hold a 1:43 for 800m). When I can hold it for 900m, I’ll take a run at my PR.
For my summer project, I’m hoping to build a Free Little Library, which will be the first one in our neighborhood. I’ve picked out a kit.
Annie and I visited Omaha for a weekend to see Nate Bargatze (again). While we were there, we went to the Lauritzen Gardens, which are just lovely. We also visited The Durham Museum and saw a wonderful traveling exhibit about the life and work of Jane Goodall.

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