One day during college, my engineering friends, Brad, Carter and I, joked about how difficult it is to be average. The conversation sounded like this. “That guy is incredibly average.” “Yeah, what are the odds of being the exact average person? “Astronomically low really. What an amazing feat.” “Truly an extraordinary accomplishment! His parents should be so proud.” “I wish I could be that...
When Sofie and I first married (1994), I was a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University working on my Master’s degree in acoustical engineering. The first year of our marriage was my sixth year in university studies and the last push through student life, or so we thought at the time. Consequently, we were fully immersed in the character-building phase of the student lifestyle poor...
Like the rest of you, I’ve been thinking about auctions and auction theory because nothing pairs better with a beautiful weekend morning than considering the efficiency of asset pricing mechanisms and writing about it. I’m sure you’ll agree. (I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture to represent the opening sentence. This might be entirely too accurate… minus the suit and tie… and I’m not blue. But...
I have mentored high school students, college students and young adults for several decades, in several capacities. In doing so, I have observed recurring motifs related to the internal struggles faced by modern youth. Young people contend with a smorgasbord of issues. While each young person is unique, careful observation across several decades has revealed meta themes sustained across time...
“Hey guys. Listen up. A plane has flown into the Trade Tower.” That’s all our trainer knew that morning. That’s all anyone knew at that moment. I had been working for Bear Stearns (London office) for about five months but we were in New York City for training during the infamous 9/11 attacks. “You might want to call your family and tell them you are OK. There’s a pay phone in the hallway. Class...
When our children were little, we replicated the time-honored tradition of putting the kids to bed each evening. Once the baby fell asleep, we would often close the door to attenuate household noises, especially the clamor of older siblings bustling about, lest we wake the baby. This brings us to a cardinal rule young parents learn quickly: Rule #1: Do NOT wake the baby. …especially late in the...
When you work in groups, you can’t help but notice certain social dynamics within the group and between groups. Some groups are more serious. Some are more fun. Some groups are hyper efficient. Some take longer to get things done. Groups can do things that individuals can’t do alone. Consequently, at some point, most of us want to be part of a group, to share a collective aim with a collection of...
When I was little, I had an assortment of plastic toy animals – farm animals, a few dinosaurs, a giraffe, an elephant, and some others odd characters… the usual gang of creatures a young child might enjoy. And I did. This motley crew became the bedrock of an imaginary world that could occupy my mind and engross me in solitary play for extended periods. I don’t recall the various adventures my...
“Should I go for 3-of-a-kind or the full-house?” I thought aloud. I was home from college for Christmas break. Between semesters. Final exams behind me. Eight family members gathered around the kitchen table to play Yahtzee (the dice game) at my grandparents’ house. I sat on the end of the table, closest to the door. To me, Yahtzee was an exercise in statistical probabilities mixed with pure...
This blog post has a purpose – to prompt young people to reflect on the qualities they aspire to find in a prospective life partner before they become entangled in love and feel they have found their future spouse. More than a decade ago, I meandered into an airport bookstore in Stockholm and, on a whim, purchased a book for my transatlantic flight. The book was titled Too Soon Old, Too Late...
I needed to test a new microphone. So, just to have something to say for the audio test, I began discussing potential & kinetic energy as a analogy to life… a thought I have been contemplating for more than a decade. I expected the idea would eventually be a written blog post, but I thought the initial rambling in the video was decent, so I just kept talking… for nearly 10 minutes. A...
Summer. 2018. Sweden.
Lightning struck this tree, which subsequently toppled and almost fell on my wife’s head.
It is a strange thing to miss your own father’s funeral. Today is the second anniversary of my father’s death. He passed away while my family and I were in transit to visit family in Sweden. Mom waited until we had completed our first flight and were about to board our trans-Atlantic flight before telling me that Dad was nearing the end. Mom knew I would have stayed, had I known, and she wanted...
The kids and I used to wrestle on the living room floor when they were younger – when I was younger. All three were afforded the same wrestling opportunities, but Soren (my son) seemed to enjoy it more than his sisters. Boys sometimes have extra physical energy demanding an outlet. Because Soren was smaller than me, I wrestled with him down on my hands and knees. This enabled Soren to develop his...
Years ago, I was on the phone with a customer. During the conversation, we spoke briefly about our families, as sometimes happens, especially with long-term customers. “Do you have kids?” he asked. “I do. Three,” I replied. “How old are they?” “10, 7 & 4… girl, girl, boy.” “I remember when my son was four…,” his sentence trailed off as he began to reminisce of things that once were. Nostalgic...
When we say an object is in the same place it was before, we mean, it hasn’t moved relative to some other things, but it is definitely not in the same exact place. In fact, nothing is ever in the same place it once was, including you. For Example, Let’s Find My Book Suppose I ask my lovely wife (Sofie), “Have you seen my book?” A seemingly simple question, to which she might reply, “It’s on the...
In the mid-1970’s, my mom helped care for a Cambodian refugee family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The family had narrowly escaped the genocide of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, fleeing to the United States with the assistance of a Tulsa-based missionary couple returning from Cambodia. Almost 158,000 Cambodians entered the United States between 1975 and 1994. This family was part of the first wave...
For the past three Summers, I have traveled to Ukraine to visit my web developers. The first trip, my wife and oldest daughter traveled with me. The next Summer (2018), I went solo, and missed my wife’s keen sense of direction. Okay, I got lost. But for me, that’s not so unusual. I frequently misplace myself, even in familiar places. But this time, I was walking the streets of Kiev after...