Category: Jilly
Jilly and I were out late on a school night to see Pile play at Bottlerocket Social Hall. What a show. They were so tight. This was one of the best shows I’ve seen in recent memory.
Chop wood, carry water
I spent the majority of the weekend working with my hands. It felt good. It felt natural. My mind was clear. I was tired and sore by the end of the day.
When the severe storms blew through last week, we had several trees down. All the limbs missed our house, thankfully, but we were left with a large amount of wood to process. Last weekend was about cutting up the trees and hauling away debris. This weekend was about splitting and storing what the chainsaws diced up last week for our summertime supply of campfire wood.
Before splitting, though, I needed a spot to house the wood so it would stay dry and season appropriately. I could just stack it at the back of the lawn and put a tarp over the pile, but Jilly and I didn’t like the aesthetics of that approach. We wanted something that could dress-up the yard a bit while storing the wood.
Saturday morning I grabbed some pressure-treaded 2x4s and my circular saw and got to work. I am not a carpenter. I’ve done very little construction work, but I decided to just vibe out on the build. Eight feet wide by four feet tall, capped off with a corrugated tin roof. What I ended up with might be laughable to artisan woodworkers, but I enjoyed the creative process of making it with no pre-set plan.
After the firewood rack was complete, it was time to start swinging the axe. Sun’s out, guns out. What a workout. It was warm and I sweat. By the end of the weekend I had blisters on my hands from all the chopping and there’s still more to do.
Throughout the weekend – as I assembled the structure, swung the axe and stacked the wood – I kept returning to the Zen proverb ‘chop wood, carry water.’
Before enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water.
The mundane, foundational work of life is important because it reinforces mindfulness, presence, consistency, discipline and humility. This labor did just that. My work this weekend was a meditation through movement and I’m looking forward to splitting the remaining logs, although that will happen after some well-deserved rest.
A Different Kind of Ultra
It’s been several months since I stopped using a smartwatch to track health and exercise metrics, and it’s an understatement to say this simple act has fundamentally altered my mental state in the best possible way. The shift has completely changed my perspective on the purpose of maintaining good health.
Before I made the switch, I could classify my metrics gathering into two buckets:
- general life metrics like sleep quality, resting heart rate, and daily steps
- workout metrics like pace, weekly miles, and elevation gain
My assumption going into the experiment was that the general life stuff would be easier to let go of than the workout metrics. But to my surprise, I don’t miss the exercise metrics at all.
In fact, not having pace and miles strapped to my wrist – or the pressure to stack miles week over week – allows me to be more present when I’m out there on a run or ride. Not knowing exactly how fast I’m pacing lets me truly listen to my body for cues about when to go harder or when to back off. I can feel my fatigue in greater fidelity, if that makes sense.
For example, I wasn’t feeling 100% after starting this morning’s run, so I decided to power hike the steep inclines of North Park’s South Ridge. In that moment, I thought to myself, “You would never let yourself hike these hills if you had pace on your wrist.” Hiking would slow down my overall pace too significantly.
It’s liberating to be able to run fast when I want to and throttle it back when I feel like I need to. Similarly, it’s refreshing (and sort of weird) to have no idea exactly how far I’m running.
When I returned home from this morning’s run, Jilly asked how far I ran.
“I’m not quite sure,” I told her. “I ran through the woods for about an hour and fifteen minutes, so that’s maybe six or seven miles, but I don’t know for sure.”
She didn’t quite understand why I would run if I wasn’t paying attention to how far I ran.
I think all of this boils down to the phase of life I’m currently in. I’m getting older and I’m okay with that. I’m not chasing paces anymore. I’m not chasing mileage volume. I’m not putting pressure on myself to progress at all costs. I don’t get upset if life gets busy and I don’t have time for my daily run. There are no ultramarathons on my docket.
Things are different now.
These days I’m chasing experiences – I want a unique one with each outing, and that’s only possible if I am fully present during each outing. These days I’m chasing future experiences and a level of fitness that will keep me on this planet for a bit longer so someday in the not-too-distant future I can be active with my grandkids.
That’s a different kind of ultra, but it’s the one I’m training for these days.
How I Used AI Today
My son is having a birthday and graduating from high school in the span of five days, so Jilly and I thought we’d do something special and get him a joint gift to celebrate both occasions. He’s very much interested in photojournalism and will be entering university in the fall to study communications. We thought a nice DSLR camera would be a the perfect gift.
I don’t know much about cameras or lenses, so I asked Claude for some help. My initial prompt:
I want to buy my son a DSLR camera for his birthday/graduation. You are an expert in photography and photography equipment. Could you help me select the right camera, lenses and bag? I’d like to spend about $X total.
Claude and I then chatted about my son’s photographic interests, his current level of expertise, and several of my purchase preferences/requirements. The output of this conversation was a tight list of three potential camera bodies w/ corresponding lens pairings.
I then asked Claude to find the best deals for two of the options and it returned the top three online retailers for both based on price, service and customer reviews.
After validating some pricing details, I made the purchase. In total, I estimate this approach saved me several hours of research and analysis paralysis, which I am known for when making purchases like this.
The camera kit arrived two days later, we gave it to him on his birthday and he used it for the first time last night to cover his school’s WPIAL title baseball game.
Note: This post is part of an ongoing series called How I Used AI Today, inspired by friend and former colleague Beck Tench who does something similar over on LinkedIn. I’m starting to believe the thinking and narrative around generative AI is becoming too binary. The intent of this series is to keep me publicly honest and intellectually responsible with my use of this emerging technology.
Rearviewmirror
As a pre-teen in the early ’90s, few things lit me up like the newly emergent Seattle grunge scene. I had been playing guitar for several years by then and most of those early years were spent idolizing hair metal shredders and learning Guns N’ Roses solos note for note. But then at some point in 1991 I heard the four-chord intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit and my life changed.
Those four chords showed me that music was meant to move you. Forget formality. Forget the polish. Those four chords opened up a new world of bands who wrote songs with raw emotion and intensity. One of those bands was Pearl Jam.
The first Pearl Jam song that hooked me was Alive. That intro lick was (and continues to be decades later) so fresh. Shortly after hearing it, I bought the Ten cassette and played it on repeat. It was in the walkman. It was in the deck of my parents’ 1988 Dodge Caravan. I played it in my room over and over and over learning the hard-panned guitar parts played by Mike and Stone. Pearl Jam had become my favorite band.
When the lineup for Lollapalooza ‘92 was announced, with Pearl Jam playing in the 2nd slot between Lush and The Jesus and Mary Chain, I knew I had to find a way to be there when the tour came to nearby Scranton, Pennsylvania. Being only thirteen, getting there would not be easy. I had no friends that could drive and my parents were not keen on the idea of dropping their thirteen year-old son off into a grungy mosh pit.
I’ve written before about how supportive my dad was in my musical endeavors. After weeks of badgering him to go to the show, he relented and agreed to go with me. It wasn’t the coolest thing to go to a rock show with your dad, but nothing would stop me from being there.
Long story short, the concert was located at Montage Mountain Ski Resort in the Pocono Mountains and the parking situation was a nightmare. We couldn’t park near the venue and needed to park several miles from where the concert was taking place. Concert organizers were bussing attendees from remote parking locations up to the base of the mountain where the bands were performing. It took us several hours to get from where we parked to the location.
As we stepped off the yellow school bus at the base of the mountain, I heard in the distance the familiar sound of one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, Porch. They were already playing. Back in those days there was no setlist.fm so I had no idea how far the band was into their set. Turns out, they were pretty far into it. By the time we got to a vantage point of the band, they were well into Rockin’ in the Free World, which would be their final song. I was bummed to miss most of their set, but to this day I feel extremely fortunate to have caught a glimpse of their brilliance at that stage of their career.
Fast forward 33 years. Between 1992 and 2025, I never had the chance to see Pearl Jam again. I continued to follow and admire the band, but getting to a show just never worked out. That all changed last Sunday night.
Earlier this year when the band announced a pair of Pittsburgh dates, I made it a mission to attend. The tickets were hard to get (thanks Ticketmaster) and a bit pricey, but I would not be denied. I scored two upper level tickets, and Jilly and I circled the date on the calendar.
To say Sunday night’s show was worth the wait is an understatement. It was the final show of their Dark Matter world tour, and the band blew the roof off PPG Paints Arena to a more-than-capacity crowd. The air was electric – a mix of die-hard fans who’d seen them dozens of times and people like me who’d waited decades for this moment. You could feel the anticipation building as the lights dimmed and the crowd roared.
Early set highlights included an urgent & powerful version of Why Go that folded perfectly into Deep, two of my favorite tracks from Ten. Elderly Woman… was amazing as well, especially when Eddie turned over vocal duties to the crowd for the outro. Hearts and thoughts, they fade away. Chills. As expected, Even Flow whipped the crowd into a frenzy for the remainder of the first set, which culminated in a frantic rendition of Rearviewmirror that left the crowd dizzy.
The band left the stage for a few minutes and came back to play a 10-song encore that included unexpected songs like Hunger Strike (dedicated to Chris Cornell) and Crazy Mary, setlist staples like Alive, Lukin and Yellow Ledbetter, and covers of Rockin’ in the Free World and Little Wing, which closed out the night.
Eddie’s voice was so good and the band was super tight, seemingly firing on all cylinders. The energy was electric. It seemed like they were actually having fun. That’s rare to see in a band nearly four decades into their run. Pearl Jam is something truly special.
Reflecting back on this experience, I think it was worth the wait. It’s pretty cool that 33 years after I first saw the last bars of Rockin’ in the Free World at Lollapalooza, I got a chance to see the full version at a distinctly different stage of life. I lost my dad a long time ago, but Little Wing was one of his favorite songs of all time and I can’t help but think the universe was smiling at me at that moment. He would have loved to hear Pearl Jam’s version.
I’m not sure if I’ll get the chance to see Pearl Jam again. To be completely honest, I’m not sure I want to. The experience from Sunday will be a lasting memory and part of me wants to leave it at that – captured and catalogued alongside the 1992 memory for decades to come.
Mother’s Day 2025
We had a wonderful day honoring and celebrating Jilly. First, we made our way to the South Side to check out the Neighborhood Flea. There were tons of vendors and people out and about, largely due to the splendid weather. I scored some artisanal Ginger Beer and the Jilly scored some prints from a local artist.
Next, we took a ride on The Gateway Clipper. We’ve been living in Pittsburgh for 25 years and have never done it. It was fun, and again, the weather was absolutely perfect. As we were deboarding, we even saw a beaver on the river bank. All the years I’ve been running through the woods, I have never crossed paths with a beaver. But the first time I take an urban cruise, there he is. Super cool.
We closed the day with a fabulous meal at Nicky’s Thai Kitchen. Pineapple Fried Rice for me, Pad See Ew for Jilly and Thai Fried Rice for the kids.
Happy Mother’s Day Jilly! We love you.
Jilly and I have a tradition of taking off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and grabbing a boozey brunch at our local watering hole (that flips their decor to full-on Xmas overnight), before heading home and preparing the house for hosting 20 guests for Turkey day. Cheers!
Finished reading: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano 📚
I really enjoyed this one. It’s definitely not a light-hearted story, but I found myself identifying with the protagonist and his post-traumatic journey. I also found the narrative flow to be engaging. Thanks to Jilly for recommending it to me.
I was digging through an old hard drive today looking for something and I stumbled upon this pic from the night Jilly and I got engaged in 2003. Pre-cell phones. Pre-selfies. This was at our hotel on 48th & Broadway, I think. Notice the vintage Juliana Theory patch on my bag. Good times.
While we originally didn’t think we were going to make it, Jilly and I were able to see The Lemonheads last night at Mr. Smalls.
What a strange show. Parts were brilliant and parts were a complete disaster.
Lots of fun exploring Savanah, GA, while on our way to Florida. The kids had never seen a phone booth before and I had the most amazing Father’s Day brunch…chicken and waffle tacos!
Jilly and I made it into A People’s History of Pittsburgh
Launched in April 2014, A People’s History of Pittsburgh invited the local community to share their personal photographs and stories online and at scanning events throughout the city. A wide range of photographic processes were submitted from large format black-and-white portraits dating as far back as the 1880’s to color polaroids of the 1970’s to camera phone photographs in the 2010’s. From 2014 to 2015, the project grew into a digital archive of over 1,500 images, illustrating the ways in which the conventions of snapshot photography are used to document ordinary, everyday lives while more broadly, attempting to unearth a city’s cultural history through the photographs of it’s inhabitants.
My Fifteen Minutes
When Jilly and I were considering a move to Pittsburgh in the winter of 2001, we came into town for the day to explore the city and its many amenities. The first place we went on that fateful day nearly 15 years ago was the Andy Warhol Museum.
I’ll never forget my first experience there. Seeing the work first-hand was of course amazing, but more than that I found the artistic narrative and the immersive environments created by the institution to be truly impactful. To me, the museum breathes cool. It feels fresh and somewhat elusive (like Warhol himself). From that first moment I was hooked on the ethos of the place.
That initial visit to the Warhol Museum was a big part of our decision to reside nearby on the city’s North Side. It was also an inspirational keystone for me to focus my professional work on the intersection of art + technology.
My personal relationship with the museum developed over the years through countless exhibitions, concerts and one photo-booth wedding announcement. Today I’m happy to report my professional relationship with the museum is just beginning.
On November 3rd, I will join the team at the Andy Warhol Museum to lead digital engagement efforts and help continue the great work already being done there. The museum is lucky to have a great foundation, built by extremely smart and capable predecessors. I am beyond excited to dive into this dynamic institution, learn as much as I can and begin work on some truly remarkable initiatives.
It’s strange, but in a way, it feels like I’m returning home.
Viva la France
Jilly and I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days in Paris. One of the things we love to do together in a new city is set out early to walk, eat and drink our way through the unfamiliar streets. We usually tackle a different direction or neighborhood each day. This approach allows us to get a feel for the local culture and discover the pockets of communities that give a city its life. It’s amazing how quickly the streets become more familiar.
This recent trip to Paris was particularly wonderful. We were celebrating our ten-year wedding anniversary, the weather was perfect and some good friends from London made the trip across the channel to hang out for a bit.
I kept my camera close the whole time, and these are a few of my favorite shots from the trip.
A morning view of Cité, with the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
The Louvre was too crowded to enjoy or spend any quality time with the collection. This image captures that sentiment well. We saw the Mona Lisa because we felt we needed to, then promptly left to check out some other museums.
I didn’t realize how massive the Eiffel Tower was until we were underneath it. I mean, I knew it was big, but for some reason I was surprised by its delicate enormity.
I love this alley for some reason. It was super quiet and lovely. So Parisian.
The street art was great. Interesting stuff everywhere. I spotted these octopus pieces in a few neighborhoods throughout town. Anyone know who the artist is?
By chance, we stumbled upon 59 Rivoli, an amazing artist residence/squat in the beautiful neighborhood of Le Marais. There were so many great and friendly artists working when we stopped by. Reminded me a bit of the Mattress Factory.
A portable art gallery on the street of Montmartre. What a great part of town. It was quite a hike (we walked the whole way!), but well worth it.
And the Sacré Coeur! So beautiful. Quite a reward for making it all the way to the top.
The entire set of images is up over on Flickr. As usual, everything is CC BY-NC-SA.
Word of the WeeK - Enthusiastic
Now I feel really old. Elliott brought home his first-ever homework assignment. The word of the week at preschool is enthusiastic and he was tasked with completing several statements describing how it feels to be enthusiastic. Jilly transcribed verbatim, but all the responses came straight from his mind.
When I am enthusiastic my eyes… feel loose. When I am enthusiastic my mouth… smiles. When I am enthusiastic my tummy feels… really loose. When I am enthusiastic my muscles feel… like they are jumping. When I am enthusiastic sometimes I… jump, dance and fall. These things can make me feel enthusiastic… the zoo, Chuck E. Cheese, hanging up Christmas decorations, computers and Dylan. When I am enthusiastic I can calm down by doing this… take a deep breath.
