8.12.2017

Caroline and I got married at The Diamond Horseshoe in New York City on Saturday August 12th and had an AWESOME celebration with our close friends and family (and an excellent band!). 

Monday morning we were off for a two week honeymoon in Africa: we saw Victoria Falls by helicopter, walking, and bungee jumping, spent several nights in Kruger National Park, a night in wine country and then rounded out the trip with a stay in the beautiful city of Cape Town. 

The wedding and trip of a lifetime! 

On a safari (I borrowed this classic early 1900s safari hat from the lodge)

Rainbow over Vic Falls

Wine tasting in Stellenbosch

Sports

To break up some of the more serious posts I’ve decided to intersperse some lighter, lifestyle ones. This one is about sports :)

My dad was never into watching sports on TV so I wasn’t in the habit of constantly watching games and checking scores apart from what I discovered on my own.

The first sport I fell in love with was soccer. I was 8 during the 1994 World Cup in the US and watched it obsessively all summer. Alexi Lalas was my hero. Like me, he had red hair and played guitar. The only difference being that he played for the New England Revolution and the USA National Team and I did not. I actually got to meet him during a soccer camp a few years after the ‘94 World Cup and he commented that he “liked my red hair.” I now play in a competitive men’s soccer league on the Lower East Side in NYC with 8 guys that grew up in Ithaca with me. We all happen to live in the city and call ourselves the Ithaca Lightning, our childhood team name from 15+ years ago.

The second sport I fell in love with was baseball. The New York Yankees are my team and I fell asleep listening to games on the radio almost every night. I’d rush down to check the box scores in the morning. I played on a team called the Belle Sherman Yankees in elementary and middle school and remember seeing the world champion team in 1996 at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade the one year we went to see it live. After our Series A funding announcement and move to NYC we were bombarded by vendors of all stripes selling us black car services, short term housing rentals, and anything-else-you-can-think-of. The only good vendor call to come out of that period was the Yankees trying to sell us a box. Of course we had to sample it out so we got sweet seats and a tour each of the next few years as we considered buying a box for a season.  

The next sport I got into was football in college. My high school football team literally did not win a single game when I was there and Cornell and Ithaca College weren’t much more fun to watch. Growing up in Ithaca people are usually fans of Buffalo, the Giants, or the Jets. I never watched the NFL too closely until college when my friends and I would go to Northwestern games every weekend and I still watch regularly. Now that I live in NYC and can watch football on most Sundays (instead of going into the NBS office) I’m all about the Jets. Caroline grew up outside Philadelphia and is all about the Eagles. We got to go to Jets vs Eagles last season and bought jerseys.

To recap my allegiances:

• New England Revolution and now switching to the new NYCFC team. We went to the NYCFC team opener at Yankee Stadium but they finished at the bottom of the league their first season (they are doing MUCH better now).

• NY Yankees

• Northwestern

• The Jets

Momentary Heroes

There are people we come across in our lives that are so extraordinary, so connected, so put together, or just so cool that we can’t help but be impressed. If you had to trade places with someone in your universe tomorrow, who would it be? That’s what I call your momentary hero.

These momentary heroes can often cause jealousy but I prefer to channel this into a declaration that “this person is my momentary hero” and use them as a model to study for myself. What exactly do I like about them? The things they’ve accomplished? People they know? Their organization or intelligence? The way they carry themselves socially? What can I learn and take away and implement myself?

I’ve had many of these people throughout my life. The soccer star and popular kid in high school, the big student leaders on campus, startup founders and venture-backed CEOs, large company executives and many others. The “momentary” part of the title recognizes that we are all humans and sooner or later, if you are close enough to your momentary hero, they will make a mistake or do something you wouldn’t want to emulate.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on the lookout for these personal heroes and exercise the self-awareness to take their best attributes for yourself.

The Siren Song of NYC

“I like to visit but I could never live there.”

“I need to move to NYC.”

Moving from Boulder, CO to NYC four years ago we got only two reactions. Most people living in Boulder said, “why the hell would you leave here to go to New York City? This is paradise and all people do there is work all the time?!” It would quickly come out that they themselves lived in NYC or SF (or both) for over a decade before settling down in Boulder. The other reaction we got was “don’t tell anyone but I secretly want to move to NYC and I’m just trying to figure out how to make it work.”

New York City is a very polarizing place. People either have to live these or can’t possibly fathom making their home in NYC. My current Manhattan address reveals that I fall into the latter camp. There is something about this city, I just felt pulled in. I remember visiting every month or two from Colorado for sales trips. I was incredibly jealous of my friends who got to stay here week after week.

There is an energy I get from just walking around the streets. The speed of the pedestrians, the ebb and flow of the traffic, the familiarity with the grid-system. Exploring new neighborhoods and side-streets and the incredible diversity of the people on the trains and busses.

Being within two blocks of every single type of food and store is also something that spoils us about this city. I always have to get used to being in other cities and states where things shut down at 9 or 10pm (or midnight at the latest).

One of my favorite parts about NYC is that everyone is hustling, you can’t afford to live here if you don’t. From the cab drivers (licensed and otherwise) when you first step out of the airport, to the front-desk workers at the hotel, to the baristas, bankers and everyone in between, almost every single person you come across is pushing themselves and working hard. I find it inspiring.

Cocktails

To break up some of the more serious posts I’ve decided to intersperse some lighter, lifestyle ones. This one is about drinking :)

I’ve always been a fan of whiskey but never drank it much until moving to Boulder. My entire “bar” would consist of a bottle of Maker’s Mark. I was always intimidated by the large price tags on the bottles of liquor but finally realize, now that I have a fully stocked bar, how long each of them lasts!

I’ve become proficient at making a few cocktails, here are my four most-common:

• Old Fashioned
• Martini
• Negroni
• Manhattan  

I’ve taken a few cocktail making classes with Caroline and gotten a few books on the topic too.

I even became a Maker’s Mark Ambassador, an absolutely free program with no qualifications and zero responsibility. They send periodic letters to my residence addressed to “The Ambassador” and each holiday season they send me a miniature scarf, earmuff, or other cute prop to keep my bottle of Maker’s warm and cozy.