“The baby is on the roof with an umbrella and he looks like he is about to jump.” My mother tells this story — undoubtedly embellished over the years — about a chillingly calm call she took from a neighbour to warn of the seemingly imminent, tragic death of her younger son. I don’t remember the event myself but if it worked for Mary Poppins, I must have reasoned, surely it would work for me. Besides, I had a backup plan: my satin-edged security blanket tied, Superman-style, around my neck. If Poppins didn’t come through then surely Superman wouldn’t let me down, would he?

Then, in my pre-teen years, there was the control surface from a full-sized aircraft — it was an aileron, I think — which somehow came into my brother’s and my possession. After evaluating a few alternatives, we ended up duct taping it to the crossbar of my mustang bike...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode the RV-6 which is the star of the episode, when it was at Delta Heritage Air Park, in September of 2018. (image: author)

What caught my attention, and that of a few others, was a small article about an amateur golf phenom out of Cypress, California with the improbable name of Tiger Woods. He had just quit the economics program at Stanford University and was turning pro at just 20 years of age. I think I recall somebody saying “he’s going to regret quitting Stanford!” Now I think about it, that could easily have been me. At that time, however, Stanford was already known for churning out soon-to-be Silicon Valley millionaires. It seemed folly that even if Tiger was there a golf scholarship, he had still managed to get himself into one of the most prestigious schools in the United States. “He should stick it out for another couple of years just in case the golf thing doesn’t work out,” I remember thinking, enviously. I also remember somebody else, not me, remarked “do you suppose that he’s going to have a line of clubs called Tiger’s Woods?”

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is by PeetlesNumber1 via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. The image has been slightly cropped to fit the Fireside format.

Notes from a life well underway but nowhere near over.

I had breakfast with a friend of mine not too long ago and our conversation turned to, as it often does with those hovering around the 60 year mark, to the subject of retirement. That started with a passing comment about my father who had recently entered his 90th year, as he fondly and often tells us. “I sometimes wonder,” I said, “if my parents had known they were going to live this long if they would have organized their lives any differently.”

My grandparents were...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (photo: “On The Beach at Newport, Looking West” by Michelle Klement)

It’s surprising what connects you to home.

“Why don’t you just go there and see for yourself?” my boss asked me, back in the Spring of 1998. I was working for an international petroleum well service company at the time.

“What…go there?” I asked, first thinking it sounded like an incredible adventure. Then, I was filled almost instantly with an empty, black dread. “Sure, that sounds great,” I said bravely, “I’ll get right on that.” The IT guy isn’t offered that kind of trip very often. The branch office in Orange County to pull network cabling or training courses in Seattle, maybe. Lightweight stuff with predictable food, accommodation and television. Western Siberia to help decode the turbid electronic missives of the company’s staff over there? Nearly never....

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: Nizhnevartovsk, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Western Siberia in December of 2007. credit: Evgeny Fedorov under CC BY 3.0)

While there is still time, take your kids on a long road trip.

Memories are like roadside scenery glimpsed from a car hurtling down the freeway at 78 miles-an-hour. The driver sees the least, preoccupied by the task at hand. The passenger in the front seat sees a little more but not enough given she spends time looking at the driver, searching for signs of distraction or weariness. The passengers in the back have the opportunity to see the most because they are — literally — along for the ride, blissfully out of control and with nothing but time on their hands. The idle backseat passengers can best see what’s really close up, or really far off, and only then like freeze frame glimpses of washed out Kodacolor photos rescued from a dumpster bound shoebox...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. (image: "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park" by Diego Rivera, 1947.)

An ancient idea that is more relevant than ever.

The metaphorical rosetta stone is better known than the real Rosetta Stone. In any explanation of how one critical document deciphers and unlocks the meaning of all others, that document instantly becomes the rosetta stone of particle physics or computer code or kaizen or astronomy or golf. With the irreplaceable information the metaphorical rosetta stone provides, that which we seek to understand is enlightened and flourishes in our imagination. It’s the single match struck in the stygian void. The light it casts instantly defines the dimensions and nature of our new world...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published concurrently. (photo: ©Hans Hillewaert via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Although I didn’t know it until now, how one great month in my early twenties pretty much ruined my career.

For one brief, shining moment when I was in my early twenties, the sun and stars and all the planets aligned and I was able to bill $5,000 in one month. In 2017, that’s the equivalent of over $15,000 or, if you prefer, $180,000 a year. Through what turned out to be a happy accident, I believed I had officially hit the big time.

It turned out to be a disaster...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was originally published on April 29th, 2017.

The answer to a casual question at lunch, 35 years ago, taught me everything I needed to know about choosing a career.

I knew my father’s cardiologist for a dozen years before my father needed him.

In the early 1980s the medical community was just starting to build applications for patient record keeping using the new personal computers coming on the market at the time. Through circumstances I am totally unable to recall I was introduced to an eminent cardiologist—I’ll call him Dr. Don—whose research work required him to collect data on his groundbreaking coronary angioplasty cases. I wrote a little code for him and it remained an entirely professional relationship except for the occasional lunch at the local tennis club. They were awkward discussions...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. This essay is the story which provided inspiration for The WorkNotWork Show, a podcast dedicated to finding and speaking with those, like Doctor Don, who are living their dream careers. A version of this essay also previously appeared on Medium on October 14th, 2016. (header photo: ©Jim DeLillo on iStock.)

After 23 hours and 57 minutes of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota Gazoo Racing had reason to feel good about their chances of winning the legendary car race. They had been a contender throughout and led it, decisively, for the final four hours. Then, with just a couple of laps to go, their leading No. 5 car inexplicably...

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