• The Three Best Tea Houses in the World

    The Three Best Tea Houses in the World

    As any regular reader knows, I love tea. I drink it almost every single day, and when I’m with my friends it is the activity I look forward to the most. In some ways that sounds dumb, but to me tea isn’t just about some hot leaf water, but it’s about creating the space and…

  • Choosing the Rewards You Respond To

    Choosing the Rewards You Respond To

    Someone in the cruise business told me recently that I should start charging cancellation fees. I have to pay the cruise lines a small amount every time someone cancels a cruise. He is far more experienced in the business than I am, and he is right. I should charge cancellation fees. They cost me hundreds…

  • Gear Post 2023

    Gear Post 2023

    It’s that time of the year again! I think a lot more changed this year versus the previous year, probably because I went fairly travel-crazy this year. As always I think “There’s barely any point in doing a gear post since nothing has changed…” and then I realize that actually a lot has changed. Interestingly,…

  • Sayonara 2022

    Sayonara 2022

    I can’t believe 2022 is over already. Like 2021 I didn’t feel as though as much changed in my life as has changed in many prior years, but this year I feel much less directionless than last year. CruiseSheet Prior to the pandemic my main productive outlet was CruiseSheet. No cruises sailed during covid, so…

  • Conversation Skills Essentials

    Conversation Skills Essentials

    A teacher friend of mine told me that this year students were different. If she asked to see a hall pass from a freshman, they’d give her the finger. They swore at her and were generally rude. The behavior was so out of line that seniors would step in and tell them not to talk…

  • Gratitude 2022

    Gratitude 2022

    Last year’s gratitude post was written largely about my father coming to Vegas to help me with some home improvement projects, so it feels fitting that I’m writing this as I fly across the country to help him with some projects of his own. And, as always, family looms large at the top of my…

  • Believing Anything is Possible

    Believing Anything is Possible

    My friend Brian and I got back to the island for the first time in a year. The owners have various levels of interest and ability in getting to the island and working on it, but Brian and I are generally the two who do the big projects. It’s interesting working with Brian, because in…

  • The Projects I Did

    The Projects I Did

    The last trip I did in August was a trip to Austin, Texas. I stayed with my good friend Noah Kagan, who happens to have two pinball machines in his house. I’ve never really understood pinball, having only played it a handful of times in my life. But my wife and I ended up playing…

  • What I’ve Been Thinking and Doing

    What I’ve Been Thinking and Doing

    One of the downsides of writing less frequently is that I feel more pressure for each post to be impactful (even though readers have pretty consistently told me that they just want me to write anything). This post will be a meandering one without much of a point other than to let you know what…

  • Patient and Decisive

    Patient and Decisive

    There are a few things that I consider to be the most important things to think about and focus on, primarily because they have enormous downstream effects that impact almost everything else in your life. Ironically, they also tend to be things that no one else prioritizes. A few are good sleep, social skills, and…