One Sunday evening this summer we happened onto this party in a neighborhood restaurant. Our neighborhood is Skid Row Adjacent in Downtown LA and provides a whole lot of contrasts. Research shows that Downtown LA is 25% White, 25% African American, 25% Asian and 25% Hispanic, which makes for interesting parties. This young lady is dancing to a radio DJ off screen on the right. I think this event was 1/2 birthday party and half community group meet-up. There was a time when I wasn’t the oldest person chronologically in every place we go. My current goal is to not be the oldest person attitudinally:)
I don’t know what Satchel Paige was worried about, but I feel the same way. Something is gaining on me: ) James Bond advised that “a moving target is harder to hit,” advice that I try to follow every day.
Our first Westie, Lotus, never let anything slow him down. Even after two brain surgeries and going blind, he kept prancing down the street. When he trotted into a tree, which he did quite often, he shook off the stunned feeling, and kept walking along.
It’s getting harder to keep moving. A couple of months ago my right knee started hurting. This is not a good thing since there are a lot of stairs in our lives (loft apt, stairs up the hill to Corona, and four floors in Corona). I thought maybe exercising more would do the trick, but nada. My doctor recommended some magic cream, which kinda helped. Mostly, I just think about Lotus and shake it off:) And keep moving.
Each year is pretty much the same, which for us means everything is always changing. We’re still “temporarily” living in an 800 sq. ft. apartment in downtown LA and we have a house in Mexico. Karen has reached Super Host status on both AirBnB and VRBO. I pretty much go into the office every day, but am coming home earlier. We’re still thinking about buying another place in New Mexico or… And, of course, we’re traveling about the same as the chart below shows:
(I’m not sure there will be another 2015 )
Karen and I have been traveling by motorcycle since 1991. On the very first long trip we took, we had “the discussion” about crashing. I told her that its likely to happen and that the most important thing to do when it does is not to tense up during the fall. On our last motorcycle ride three weeks ago we had the same discussion again. I don’t think talking about crashes jinks us. Rather, I want her to know that riding a m/c is a calculated risk, a calculation we both make knowing what could happen. What we don’t talk about, because its a given, is that I’m 100% on the case when KR and I are riding and determined to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Every time I think about hanging up the spurs and really getting serious about travel, some project or event comes along that I get really excited about and before you know it, I’m at the desk by 7:30AM again. We’re starting to do a lot of consulting with cities on how to harness innovation to drive their economies. We’ve worked with 20 small cities in the Inland Empire region, Logan City in Australia, Orlando, Mexico City and with UNIDO’s smart cities team. Along the way we’ve developed the “NGIN Innovation Ecosystem Model” with its Seven Elements as well as the hub and spoke method of building an innovation hub which we now call a “Distributed Innovation Ecosystem” I’m doing more and more speaking engagements and workshops (I’m writing this in an airplane over the Atlantic coming back from a conference in Sweden that I was speaking at). The work remains interesting.
So, here’s a toast to everyone keeping moving. As you all know, a toast wouldn’t be a toast without a Corona.
Cindy, Karen, Carly, Squirt and Bogart enjoy a drink at the Cold Spring Tavern on one of our weekend RV trips. We spent the night camping in their parking lot.
RV trip somewhere north of Santa Barbara in a church parking lot. Who says I don’t go to church on Sundays?
Another RV park close to Ojai, CA. Here, Bogart stands guard. You can never be too vigilant.
Another trip, another crew, another bar: ) Jill and Sam in Lake Rugby, South Carolina.
Sam volunteers picking up trash in a state park. We were recruited into the effort.
Karen wanted to go to the Capital on one of my DC trips. This is in the Rotunda.
Puerto Vallarta in 1960. Our house still didn’t have any electricity.
PV in 1997. Hard to see Corona in this picture because of new structures.
PV in 2018. Pretty easy to spot Corona now.
Karen, Chuck and Yvonne outside a local restaurant in Puerto Vallarta.
Party on the roof. From the left: Bill, Yvonne, Maryann, Chuck and KR.
How often do we get to laugh out loud? Someone probably suggested that I get a hammer and fix something: )
The best part of PV is just laying around with friends and having fun.
The Fall brings ominous clouds late every afternoon. This is a view off our deck toward the hills behind us.
Big changes in Chonchos: LBS gets new walls, new closet and new roof. What’s left to fix? I don’t know buy it’l break soon.
A different Mexican bar in… downtown LA. I go where Corona is served. This bar, La Ciudad, is in downtown LA among the skyscrapers.
View out the front door.
Inside Riverside’s City Hall. Here we’re hearing about the “one stop shop” approach to real estate permitting. Riveting.
In Orlando, checking out their “innovation assets.” Like so many places, they have great research labs, but they’re not well connected to markets and the greater community, so they are very underutilized.
The next week I was in Sweden. This is on the way from Malmo to Lund to speak at a conference. Note to oneself: Sweden in October is a bit colder than LA.
The Grand Hotel in downtown Lund. Lund is actually a pretty charming place if the words “charm” and “Sweden” were to be in the same sentence.
Worst nightmare. The warm up activity at this conference was…a team effort to put together an IKEA book shelf. We came in about third, proving my point that I’m better at supervision than actually doing work: )
Cindy and Peter standing in front of a piece of neon artwork in LA’s Grand Central Market. Peter and I eat oysters and drink beer. GCM is close to lots of different bars, all of which are walkable.
Two blocks away from the GCM is this place: the Redwood Room. Don’t know why its called that as its motif is totally seafaring. Great fish and chips while listening to Indy bands.
This is one of the most famous people in Silicon Valley: Dr. Whitfield Diffie. He won the Nobel equivalent “Turing Award” for his work in cryptology. This is at a reception for the “Silicon Valley Meets Big Data Valley” for the participants in an annual trip to China to meet about Big Data.
Our neighborhood in downtown LA. Down the street in the center of the pick is LACI’s La Kretz Innovation Campus.
Band playing in the Resident, a local bar/restaurant/night club.
A good friend of mine, Keith Frohreich, held an event to celebrate publishing his first novel, “Blackberries are Red When Green.” It’s a pretty interesting story of coming of age in Indiana. Interesting backdrop for a Midwest story.
Different kind of trip. This is the “Horizons Unlimited” meet-up for adventure bikers. This is our one-time-a-year to camp.
Bogart and Squirt are always up for a trip, as are we.
