Posted on August 4, 2016
Pain, in the ass
I’ve done it again. Hurt my back, herniated a couple of discs, and have a pinched sciatic nerve. L5/S1 discs are jacked, and I’m in constant pain and discomfort. The feeling often described for sciatica is correct. It’s like someone is sticking me with a knife in my right butt cheek, hip or hamstring.
This has happened before, about six years ago. That’s my x-ray on the right. I was generally not in great shape, stressed with a crazy job and infant twins, and after trying to demo my patio with a sledgehammer instead nearly broke apart my back. The injury 
was worse then than it is now. For a couple days then, my spine was literally crooked. I tried a chiropractor, which worked for a bit but ultimately made me worse. Recovery was lots of medicine, and ultimately an epidural steroid/cortisone injection, plus a few months of physical therapy.
After that, I committed to keep myself in better shape. I’ve done a pretty good job for a busy family guy. Some fitness highlights over the past few years have included climbing Mt. Whitney, training for and completing a mud run, rededicating myself to surfing and snowboarding, swimming miles of laps in the pool, and going to the gym often. At night instead of sitting in front of the TV, I’m typically watching from the floor while doing various core and hip strength exercises, straps and a Bosu ball, stretching and yoga poses to stay loose. All that has worked for seven years. Until now.
Last month we took a great trip to Sunriver, Oregon. While there, we did a day at Lake Billy Chinook where we had a blast zipping around on a speed boat, tubing and (unsuccessfully for me) wakeboarding. So it seems a combo of laying on the tube and being bounced over wake chop at 30 MPH, plus the jarring up-and-down slamming on lake waves while sitting in the front of the boat did me in. I was sore the next day, and then sitting in the car on the 10-hour drive home I knew things were going downhill. I thought my back was pretty strong, and it sucks that something so stupidly enjoyable could damage me like this.
So I’ve been to the doctor, had my MRI, have a shelf full of new pharmaceutical and natural medicine, none of which is working very well. I’m waiting in agony for a physiatry appointment Monday, where I’ll probably get options like the epidural. Then I’ll have to wait for that procedure. I’m hoping that’s all I need. It worked last time and I’ll sign right up to do it again if it’s recommended.
I just got a new surfboard and I can’t use it — that’s driving me crazy. I can’t pick up my kids, couldn’t bounce at their birthday party yesterday, can’t even swim now as kicking and pushing off the wall is too painful. Walking the dog at home and around Los Gatos at lunchtime is keeping me somewhat sane.
The mental challenge is real. The lack of sleep and nighttime pain is the real killer — I’m only getting 3-4 hours of sleep per night, broken up by being unable to turn over and then painfully getting out of bed and stumbling around the house in the dark to try and loosen up. I have reduced movement overall, and I can’t lift my right leg far off the floor unless I’m really loose, like after a long (slow) walk. Stretching is becoming more difficult, but helps a bit sometimes. Getting off the floor feels impossible at times. I can’t sit in the car for more than 20 minutes. You don’t realize how much you need your spine until it’s injured.
With all the sports I’ve played over the years, despite a few broken bones, bumps and bruises, I guess I’m lucky this is as bad as it’s been. And, this is probably temporary — others suffer with chronic pain far worse than mine.
So, my healing process begins again. Just hope I can get back in the water by the end of September for my annual surf trip and to finally get some turns on that new board.
Updated on July 27, 2016
On bleeding purple (or why perhaps red is OK)
Mixed emotions for me — and anyone that ever worked at Yahoo — as Verizon has acquired most of the company, including the media properties in which I spent the most time (primarily with Y! News). They also get the ad business, which I’m also intimately familiar with, and much more.
My Facebook feed is full of stories, blog links, and photos of people and company swag as we “XY!s” look back to celebrate the good old days there. There aren’t many companies around Silicon Valley that illicit such fond memories, which is why this new chapter in Yahoo’s history is particularly painful to swallow, no matter how rocky that history may be.
I’m one of only a couple of people I know of who have once worked for Yahoo and were also scooped up by Verizon in its first splashy Silicon Valley acquisition of Intel Media (aka OnCue). Thought I’d share some thoughts that are both cathartic for me and potentially insightful for any Yahoo that’s about to go through this latest acquisition, although there are many reasons the Yahoo deal will be very different from what I went through.
My entire life I’ve treated jobs as stepping stones, opportunities to grow, to learn and explore myself, meet new people, form new relationships, and get better at what I do. However, my own experience entering Verizon was relatively rough compared with my time at Yahoo.
When I was hired at Yahoo in 2004, it was a major career milestone. I was leaving TechTV, the other best place I’ve worked, after almost five years. We had just been acquired by Comcast and would become the G4 Network, focused on gaming and relocated to LA. It wasn’t for me.
Yahoo was beginning to build and significantly invest in its media group. I was one of a small group working directly on Y News. My plan of transitioning from print journalism to digital media felt nearly complete. I joined as a producer, my boss was the product manager. I quickly became a PM after being offered the choice between product or editorial. I was more interested in developing new elements of the site. It was also clear Yahoo was big on talent development, and moving people into new roles. I wanted to learn more technical skills, and work was hardly work. It was fun. I had creative freedom and the ability to run with new projects. Everyone around me was smart and interesting. We did meaningful stuff including early streaming video curation, spawning new verticals like Yahoo Tech, and developing Yahoo’s first original content projects on new platforms. We were beating everyone in the online news industry and attracting tens of millions of users each month. We were building a name for ourselves.
My affinity for the company goes way back. I became “senders” in 1997 when I opened my Yahoo Mail account while at Cal Poly. I taught myself HTML in part on Geocities. I’ve worked under every Yahoo CEO (only as a contractor under Tim Koogle’s reign) except for Marissa Mayer. In 1998 I got a freelance gig on what may have been one of the first online branded content projects. I was paid a rich $30/hour (!!!) writing copy for a silly Procter & Gamble ad campaign called Hot Summer Relief, where a fictional group of college students spent a summer traveling the world, and for some reason each traveler was in constant need of Pepto Bismol.
Ten years later in 2008, it seemed certain Yahoo would be sold to Microsoft. When the news broke, I remember emailing my nervous family that I didn’t know whether I’d be moving to Redmond or not. Yahoo was getting pounded in the market and by analysts, and most everyone was sure Yahoo was a goner. Jerry Yang would ensure we stayed put, which made us feel victorious yet also seemed like a huge missed opportunity for the company. It never recovered, of course.
I left for a startup for a couple years, and that didn’t go far. I still loved Yahoo and gave it another go in 2010 in a different product role, when Carol Bartz seemed firmly at the controls. The company had new life. Our team, at least, was helping the company make a ton of revenue. Work was fun again, for a while. But the revolving door of CEO and management changes, and the never-ending re-orgs continued to drain and distract me and the company. I left for good in 2012.
I’ve sometimes described Yahoo as a security blanket — familiar, warm and fuzzy, and always there when you need it. Many employees felt that way, for better or worse, as I was hardly the only “boomerang” to serve more than one tour of duty.
Later in 2012, I joined Intel Media, which was known as OnCue, and in 2014 was acquired by Verizon. You might know it now as the Go90 mobile app, as OnCue technology and people are behind the service.
We started off at Intel Media with a clear direction and mandate, doing some really amazing and creative work with a variety of talented people from all facets of the movie, content and digital video industries. When I joined the project was so stealthy I didn’t even know what we were building other than something to “revolutionize TV.” Regular Intel employees couldn’t enter our separated building. It didn’t feel like Intel, but like a rapidly growing startup. The org was very flat. We were releasing beta boxes to users and the service was effectively live — I had one in my house. But after Intel went through a CEO change it was clear Intel saw no real future in set-top boxes.
Enter Verizon in 2014, which most of us knew little about other than the company built mobile networks and ran internet and TV service via FiOS. The merger was fairly well bungled from the start. OnCue went into stasis as we waited, waited and waited for some direction or for anything, frankly, to happen. We watched the World Cup in the office, knowing there was no work waiting for us during or after the games. Employees began to leave. After more than a few months of going nearly nowhere, Verizon managers started kicking the tires. The leadership team began leaving. The HR and employee onboarding/transition process was a confusing mess. We got slow drips of mixed messages about the plan. Would we continue to be OnCue? Nobody knew. To its credit, Verizon leadership owned up to its initial mistakes, and promised to make things right.
Making things more awkward, we were stuck on the Intel campus for months while Verizon purchased and furnished a new office building in San Jose that we were to move into. Slowly, execs began visiting and getting involved, trying to understand our strengths and detailing how we’d go about working together. Without going into too much detail, I’ll simply say that the transition was challenging, rocky, and made many on the Intel team pretty upset and confused. Ultimately, I didn’t fit in, the product I was working was no longer interesting to me, and so it was time for me to move on. Learning experiences, right?
Today I hear many of the issues I experienced have been ironed out, yet plenty of challenges remain as the company continues to evolve. I was gone when the AOL acquisition was executed, though as I was leaving in June 2015 I knew it was being discussed. With AOL running media, I thought there was some hope for the remaining OnCue crew. Now Verizon and AOL has Yahoo, which for AOL must be some kind of sweetness, snagging the company that always thought itself superior in most ways.
I’m hoping now that OnCue was Verizon’s learning experience in how to go about acquiring talent and operating in Silicon Valley. Yahoo’s like an ex-girlfriend to me now. You know you’re not right for each other anymore but you just want her to be happy with whoever she’s with next, and you hope she’s treated well.
Given all the analyst and media chatter over the past few years, I’d assume a fairly large Yahoo layoff is coming, especially as there are likely plenty of overlapping roles within AOL (oh look, synergies!). What gives me some hope for Yahoo is that AOL heads up most if not all of its digital media and advertising, it has played in the Valley since it bought Netscape, and will be a better natural fit for Yahoo than OnCue was for Verizon. It knows content and advertising, as does Yahoo, so they ought to be able to operate together.
It’s worth noting that there are plenty of good, caring, long-time Verizon employees here in the valley and beyond that are genuinely excited about the company’s buying spree and perfectly happy rolling with the changes. In many ways, this venture into digital content is the most exciting thing that’s happened to Verizon in years. I’ve seen joking about whether Verizon employees “bleed red,” but I know that there are hundreds if not thousands of proud employees that think the world of Verizon. The difference I’ve seen, in my travels through the company, is that many of their sites are relatively isolated and if your gig has to do with cellular or TV infrastructure, there are only so many places in Texas, Virginia or New Jersey you can work. Yahoo exists in ultra-competitive Silicon Valley, and so the pride and loyalty to the company we all felt was fairly unique. Maybe only the likes of Google and Facebook as big companies carry such clout with masses of employees nowadays.
Verizon does a good job retaining, developing and keeping people, even if by most Valley standards its operating MO felt strange to me. There were plenty of stories about how people at Verizon HQ in New Jersey only wore slacks and ties to work before they acquired OnCue. Once we started showing up to meetings in untucked shirts and jeans, the culture shift was rapid and apparent. It’s a huge company learning how to reinvent itself, and that’s a good thing for longtime and new employees.
I can’t imagine how Yahoos are feeling now, but assuming the onboarding and org changes go more smoothly than they did for me, there’s probably some very good potential ahead. Verizon is a 170,000 employee behemoth — it isn’t going anywhere. It has a massive cell network and will be expanding its TV footprint over time with IPTV, another vestige of OnCue. Video and monetizing it is the company’s focus. You’ll get attention, resources, and more scaled technology to do great things. The company is amazingly nimble for as big as it is. Credit leaders like CEO Lowell McAdam and SVP Marni Walden who are really smart, passionate and personable people. Hopefully you’ll get to hear their vision firsthand, as I was able to. It’s compelling.
Having seen where Verizon was going from the inside and knowing AOL was on its radar, it was fairly obvious Yahoo would be next. After OnCue, it was clear Verizon was hungry for more digital content and the ad networks that help fuel it. After all, more eyeballs on content — and especially video — means more data being consumed on Verizon’s network. Verizon gets access to nearly a billion Yahoo users on top of the content and advertising businesses it’s purchased. That’s a lot of devices on which to serve a lot of content. And it’s well documented that it’s spending like mad to secure rights to exclusive and other content. There’s no doubt it’s serious about being a player in the space.
So old foes Yahoo and AOL are joined together under the umbrella of a massive, shifting telco. I remain impressed by Verizon’s realization that it needed to pivot to mobile services and content — it’s a strategic move that makes perfect sense and it’s doing what it said it would do. Time will tell whether it works out for everyone. And since I’ll always be a Yahoo, I’ll always be disappointed that the company I loved couldn’t carry on independently. That it’s finally sold is the right thing — time to rip off the Band-Aid.
I only hope AOL and Verizon will do its best to ease the transition of people from a once very proud company. There’s probably a good future together if all sides want to make it happen.
Updated on March 24, 2016
Snow’s good
This year has been pretty epic for skiing & boarding, not just because of El Nino and the fact that there’s plenty of snow, but also because my oldest has really advanced this season. Stoked! Here’s a short and badly produced clip of some recent fun. Maybe it’s time to finally break down and get a GoPro.
Posted on January 1, 2015
2014: The Big Year in Beer
At the beginning of 2014, I took a pledge to participate in the Big Year in Beer. Part contest, part endurance effort, and all fun, I had no idea what I was getting into.
Here we are on New Year’s Day 2015, and suffice to say I lost the contest worse than Florida State lost the Rose Bowl. But it doesn’t matter. I tasted, quaffed, hoisted, sipped and sampled 642 unique beers last year. That wasn’t easy.
I learned a lot about my own tastes, and gained a ton of knowledge as a homebrewer about all kinds of nuanced flavors and elements I can apply to my own beers. This next year, my new beer’s resolution is to make more and buy less.
Oh and as a bonus, I lost about five pounds in 2014. Training for a surf (and beer tasting) trip helped, it turns out.
Top takeaways:
– Yeast is underrated. If you’re ever in the San Diego area, you must visit White Labs. It’s part scientific laboratory and purveyor of fine strains to home and pro brewers alike, and all beer-nerd nirvana. Their tasting room is incredibly interesting and the menu is amazing, offering variations of beers made of different yeast from the same wort. In other words, you can have a flight of IPAs that are all essentially the same base beer but they’re fermented with different yeast strains, thus making the each beer taste very different.
– Tasting is fun. You don’t need to have 12 ounces or a pint to have a beer. Variety is a virtue, especially in this day of brewer experimentation and ABV boundary-pushing. You can’t have many full glasses of 12% imperial stout.
– I re-discovered old friends. Beers I had largely forgotten about like stouts, porters and Belgians came back with newfound appeal, largely thanks to the tasting-friendly format of the contest.
– I like new stuff. I already liked tart beer, sours and wine-barrel fermented farmhouse ales. Now I love them and have a renewed appreciation of them.
– I still love pale ales and IPAs. I gravitate toward hoppy beer. It helps on trips to San Diego and Portland which are hophead capitals of the west coast.
– I made my best-ever beer this year. Not to brag, but I made a killer citra pale ale (twice – once with oak added) and a great imperial stout at the end of the year (also a split batch with half of it on oak). Exploring beer through tasting and pushing your own ideas about what makes for great beer helps you make better beer.
My favorite beers? That’s tough, but let’s give a few shout-outs:
- Not a beer, but a tasting room. Base Camp Brewing in Portland, Oregon is the most beautiful and inspiring brewery and beer tasting room I’ve ever been in. It’s not to be missed. And yes, they also make damn fine beer.
- Sante Adarius Rustic Ales is my favorite brewery in the SF/Santa Cruz Bay Area, though I knew that before this year. They’re doing unique stuff and killing on all levels, from IPAs to sours. If you’re in Capitola, do stop in. It’s always a great time and communal vibe.
- Pliny the Elder is still the best DIPA I’ve ever had, but some honorable mentions exist: Knee Deep’s 138 fresh off a tap is excellent, Bear Republic Apex is probably my second-favorite, and Calicraft’s The City is a bomb.
- Newest loved variety (according to me): Imperial red ales. A mashup between IPAs and red ales, these were made by many but mastered by few including Santa Clara Valley Brewing Co. and Speakeasy.
- Favorite beer (maybe): Duvel Tripel Hop. A saliva-sucking hop-filled IPA combined with one of the best Belgian beers in the world for a special edition ale that was unlike any other Belgian beer I’ve ever had. And I had it in a NYC Belgian beer bar which made it all the more special. My next batch of homebrew will be a Belgian pale — I’m inspired by the yeast.
So that’s it. Here’s my full list with a handful of tasting notes. Thanks to friends Chris Dodge for starting this crazy thing, and Chris Wilder for pushing me into it. I lost, and yet I won. Everyone won. The real winners (Dodge and Wilder) are iron men.
And right now I’m enjoying a glass of grenache to ring in the New Year.
Updated on September 16, 2014
Surf Trip 2014: The Bigger, Badder Staycation
I turned 40 this year. So did my friend Scott. For 20+ years we’ve been adventure-seeking friends. For the past 10+ years we’ve gathered each fall for a weekend camping and surf trip to catch some waves and have some fun around a campfire. They’ve all been great trips.
But this year we wanted something worthy of our 40th birthdays. It seemed right to try and do something bigger and better this year. We brainstormed and had just two requirements: warm water and waves. We wanted to pack light, a la the Endless Summer suitcase scene (quote): “Packing for the journey was important. Six pairs of trunks, two boxes of wax, some modern sounds and in case of injury, one bandaid.” That’s us.
Thinking of relatively easy West Coast destinations, we kicked around locations like Hawaii, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico. I wanted Mexico. But we each have jobs and wives and kids, so it’s tough to think we can get on a plane and fly somewhere and have enough time to really score some surf. All that travel would limit our water time. We’re certainly not able to fly around the world and chase waves. The Endless Summer this is not.
Then Scott suggested he was in the market for a new board (I just got one, too), and wouldn’t it be cool to just go down the coast and surf all the great spots in California that we’ve never been to before?
At first I scoffed. The water’s not warm enough, I thought. We have surfed so many great spots over the years — who cares if I haven’t surfed Rincon? What are the chances of getting it now? In trunks? The LA traffic and the crowds. Why bother?
But later I came around to the idea, and I’m convinced it’s going to be awesome. The water temp in San Diego is hovering at around 74 degrees. The SW swells have been as good as they’ve been probably since the El Nino fall of 1997, when I surfed my ass off during my final year of college. I bought a 1.5mm neoprene top from O’Neill a few weeks ago (the water’s almost warm enough in Santa Cruz now for it). I’ve been swimming and working out as much as possible. I’ve been surfing as much as I can. I’m as fit as I’ve been in years and ready to tackle 2x/daily sessions for a week if need be. I’m so ready for this.
We’ll get Scott’s insane new board from the Almond shop. We’ll check spots like Swamis and Malibu. The SoCal surf shops. The San Diego breweries… oh the breweries.
We leave this weekend, heading down HWY 101. The plan is to beeline it to La Jolla, but we might have to make a pit stop in SLO, check the surf at Palisades in Shell Beach or the Pismo pier, and definitely at some secret (to us) spots along the Gaviota coast.
Hopefully we’ll make it to La Jolla in time for some evening glass and a couple of beers. Hopefully there will be some surf after what’s been a solid run of fall swells here in California.
We’re going to wing it from La Jolla, spending the next four days meandering up the PCH and 101 with a car full of boards and music through Orange, LA, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and SLO counties. We’re taking camping gear just in case. Places like Sand Dollar can be amazing in fall. California is world class and Scott was right: we don’t need to get on a plane to experience it. It’s the state’s best time of year for weather and surf, and we’re bound to get some.
I can’t wait. Trip updates to follow.
PS: Huge thanks and love to our families for allowing such shenanigans to occur.
PPS: A shout-out and hug to Justin who unfortunately has to miss this year’s trip. We’ll hoist pint glasses in your honor and will be on it next fall.
