I am writing this one day before the fifty-year anniversary
of man landing on the moon. On July 20, 1969, I was a 12-year-old watching on TV in glorious “black
and white” – the broadcast was in color but we didn’t have a color TV. Holding my
less than month old first nephew on my lap as the drama unfolded, life was good.
I felt a kinship with all the serious faces at mission control in Houston as “Uncle”
Walter Cronkite guided us through the events of the day on CBS.
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| "Uncle" Walter Cronkite |
I started writing to NASA a few years’ prior to Apollo 11 – addressing the
envelope simply: NASA, Houston, Texas. Every letter I sent got a response and came with a
lot of cool, space related stuff. I am not sure how I got the idea to write
NASA but in a world where most of my info came from the encyclopedia at home or the small library in my
hometown of several hundred people, I think the librarian taught me at about age
eight that if I wrote to the chamber of commerce of any city; they would send
me information. I was a curious kid that figured if the chamber of commerce in
Richmond, Virginia or Huntsville, Alabama would write me back, why wouldn’t
NASA?
The people at NASA were smart enough to know that public support was critical to funding the space program so they were great at responding to even handwritten inquiries written by left handed eight year olds. I was already flying my own model rockets with “engines” containing gunpowder that I “launched” by sticking a thin piece of wire into the bottom and giving the wire a “little juice” from a battery about 30 feet away. My rockets went up several hundred fee and even had a system to release a plastic parachute to bring the rocket to the ground, normally, undamaged. The first video games were still about a decade away but I certainly didn’t feel a void.
The people at NASA were smart enough to know that public support was critical to funding the space program so they were great at responding to even handwritten inquiries written by left handed eight year olds. I was already flying my own model rockets with “engines” containing gunpowder that I “launched” by sticking a thin piece of wire into the bottom and giving the wire a “little juice” from a battery about 30 feet away. My rockets went up several hundred fee and even had a system to release a plastic parachute to bring the rocket to the ground, normally, undamaged. The first video games were still about a decade away but I certainly didn’t feel a void.
Early astronauts had visited my little hometown and skied at
our local ski area while running tests at Bell Aerospace a little more than an
hour north of us. As a pre-teen, I absolutely felt connected to the space
program.
Getting model rockets via mail order or swag by writing NASA
was my early version of Amazon Prime. I had to pay for the rockets but the swag
from NASA was always free. I was doing all this when Jeff Bezos was in pre-K.
On July 20, 1969 the chain smokers at mission control were
my heroes and so were the three men in space and all those who came before
them. I obviously hadn’t been in space but I had flown in a two seater plane my dad kept in a hangar at a local farm. Unfortunately, the fact that I was
legally blind in my left eye DQ’d my long term space ambitions but living the space dream
as a kid was a great part of my childhood.
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| Smoking wasn't a Problem in the Apollo Era |
Now I carry more computing power than put man on the moon in
my IPhone. Fifty years later technology has brought many improvements to life
but, in my opinion, has brought as many negative consequences as well.
On New Year’s Day of this year I wrote a blog post about
taking more time for myself and family in 2019. In January, I did well sticking
to the concept of spending less time working and more time on other things that
interest me. My wife and I flew to London for a couple of days before going on
a tour of Sweden, Finland and Norway. We spent a night in the famous ice hotel
in Sweden, a few nights at a reindeer farm in Finland and more time at a
wonderful resort hotel on the edge of a Norwegian fjord.
Most evenings (which at that time of year pretty much starts
at 3PM) were spent in search of the “northern lights”. During the short days we
hiked, snowmobiled, went dog sledding, XC skiing, wandered in the small towns
and just generally had a good time. I didn’t need to take ice baths when it was
so easy to pop of a sauna or hot tub and into a snow bank. It was a great
couple of weeks but my old habits returned as soon as I went “back to work”.
Over the next four months I logged over 100K flight miles
with visits to Asia, Oz and multiple trips to South America. I wasn’t really
traveling more but I certainly wasn’t cutting back. I wasted way too much time
on Twitter. Don’t get me wrong – properly managed Twitter can and has been a
great tool but it can also be a HUGE time waster. My elder daughter warned me
of the dark side of Twitter long ago but I gradually got sucked in. It was my
mistake to respond to people that baited me. Of course, me responding helped
them gain exposure and followers. It was a rookie mistake that I made too often.
Numerous friends tried to counsel me to “take the high
ground” on social media but the message took a long time to sink in.
In late June while I was kayaking for a few hours in
Vancouver with my wife and some friends, I reflected on my abysmal 2019
performance in balancing work and other activities. I noted my first half failure
and decided that I would focus on doing more non work things in Q3. Like many
in my generation, I often confuse being busy with meaningful work output.
Learning to say “no” is a skill I need to get better at. As a recognized expert
in a niche industry I get numerous requests for comment from reporters,
companies that hold out a carrot of retaining me while trying to get me to work
for free by requesting an “introductory call”, small investor questions, etc.
Just reading the large amount of unsolicited electronic communication takes
time. Although I probably delete more than 40% of my email without reading
anything but the caption; far too often, I try to “be a nice guy” and respond to
people in a meaningful way which probably is a waste of time in most cases.
It is amazing how so many of my followers on social media seem to
think I have an obligation to answer their questions. Most questions that I get
could be answered with a little research by the person asking but they are
simply too lazy to do the work themselves.
In reality I probably have more than enough time to support my
real clients podcast and write monthly posts on the industry which I do as a
public service. Those are the things I want to focus on work wise.
I just need to get better at saying “no” to both myself when
I am tempted to scroll around mindlessly on social media or when the DMs from
Linked In start coming in asking me for “a little time” or “a small favor”.
Probably my all-time favorite request was from a lady in India who emailed me
on five separate occasions pleading with me to tell her “the best Chinese
lithium stock to buy” so her young son could “have a bright future”. She said
she “found me on Linked In”. I responded only once saying that if she read what
I post on Linked In the answer should be obvious.
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| Me, Two Years before Apollo 11 |
I am hoping the remaining 24 weeks of this year are more “balanced”
than the first half of the year. July is off to a good start. My wife and I are
going on daily hikes to prepare for the 112 miles we will hike on the “El
Camino” in Spain over several days in September. I have used both of my Spanish
learning apps every day this month, I finally played more than a couple holes
of golf today and plan to be back on the course tomorrow.
Fifty years after man landed on the moon, life is better in
some ways and less good in others but at the end of the day the problems any of us have with technology
are often self-inflicted. I am a big fan of shopping via Amazon Prime,
banking without going to the bank, working from home, communicating seamlessly
and cheaply with people all over the globe, watching what I want when I want
via Netflix and other platforms. Yet, I still remember the joy when I would get
a package from NASA after waiting two weeks. Something to be said for deferred
gratification. Still pondering that……
