Personal Projects & Interests is my sandbox for life outside the office—where spreadsheets, sensors, and code tackle real-world chores and passions. Here you’ll see data models guiding gear buys, DIY automations that make the house (and gate) smarter, endurance training logged like an experiment, and reflections that tie it all together.
Ever wonder why fund managers can’t beat the S&P 500? ‘Cause they’re sheep — and the sheep get slaughtered. I been in the business since ’69. Most of these high paid MBAs from Harvard never make it. You need a system, discipline, good people, no deal junkies, no toreadores, the deal flow burns most people […] read more
As we enter the Christmas/holiday season, I’m asking lots of friends how they are doing and how their year has been. Almost everyone says “it’s busy”. This takes many forms, from “crazy busy” to “absolutely busy” or “scary busy”. Since words often lose their meaning, I’ve thought about a scale we could use to better […] read more
I’ve always been intrigued by the story of the Harvard applicant who penned a three word answer to an essay prompt of “what is courage?” The myth has that he was accepted. I like the story because it highlights the risk and reward trade that we calculate in all our decisions. read more
When I work with WordPress, I am still a ruby coder in a PHP environment. I spent several years doing PHP only and have watched the language develop nicely, but still like to focus on Concept/Design, CSS3, Ruby and JavaScript when I’m doing web development work. In the hope that someone might benefit from my […] read more
One of the most undervalued skills is the ability to set a routine and stick to it. Modern workflow is constantly inundated by distractions which can knock us off our game. I know a lot has been written about email, how to shut it off and keep tasks and priorities aligned, but phone calls, and […] read more
I love to exercise. It gives me an excellent chance to relax and preserve my overall goal of maximizing my physical strategic margin, or keeping maximum function as long as I can. (I want to be able to wrestle with my grandkids as long as I can.) I also love data. I love to track […] read more
In a meeting last week, I had a moment of clarity that put a question directly in front of me that I’ve been dreading to answer: How much of my heart should I put into my work and at what cost to my family and other work interests? You see, the meeting ended abruptly at […] read more
I have always believed in compensating for my lack of experience through leveraging my modeling background. With the right tools, I can hone my intuition and help my lack of experience through careful planning. I also need tools to communicate to my family, friends and any contractors my exact plans. In the past I had […] read more
The challenge is how to get ERSI shapefiles into a full json format. I had MATLAB fired up and was going to generate this originally. It turns out a lot of the data are already there. Experience matters *a lot*. It took me two weeks to do this before. This time it took about 5 […] read more
Yes, pretty much a full day driving, but a great chance to catch up and enjoy each other as a family. read more