My company, Emotiv, was actually born in San Francisco in October 2005, which means we're six years old. Holy smokers! Back then, I had a lot of confidence and excitement that I was starting a really cool and necessary business. I was a dude in a "truck" (sedan) out to save the planet. Success was destined to blow-in on the winds of booming real estate, skyrocketing energy prices, consumers' growing sensitivity about Mother Earth getting raped. That was my business plan, stripped of all the math, anyway.
I envisioned forming deep relationships with my customers, such, that after six years of hand-holding, we would have retrofitted their houses into high-performance energy ass-kickers and would by now be cutting their last ties to the grid, selling our franchises by the dozens, and harvesting squash out back. But things haven't exactly gone according to plan. Emotiv is now solely doing business on the astral plane, fighting the forces of evil in non-conventional-profit sorts of ways, while I do similar energy gymnastics for Sol design + consulting.
When I look back on it, I realize my biggest mistake was that I didn't do one...damn...thing...perfectly. I did many things adequately, many things 95%, many things I enjoyed, but too many that I didn't enjoy. So for now, Emotiv is just kinda haunting this One [blank] blogosphere with it's spirit until it finds a new materialization.
As a tribute to my wise, hilarious, sincere father-in-law, Ben, who celebrates his 70th birthday this month, this reflection's for you. You're the youngest 70 year old I've ever known. Thanks for teaching me about the "one thing".
One thing. Period!
This week's One Thing
Fixing my water leak with my brother Matt is integral to my own "one thing" this week.
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| This spring's record rainfall found its way into the house above the fireplace. |
"Maybe the flashing is loose at the chimney?"
"Negatory. We've got bigger problems with the chimney's brick and cap."
How bad is it?
OK-- I'm not training for anything. I can be training Karate Kid style.
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| Matti about to pour the new chimney cap. |
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| Chimney finished-- the 8th wonder of the world. |
This week has been uncharacteristically hot and dry, which means we haven't had a chance to see what this baby can do in a storm. I trimmed back the branches that were in danger of touching the house, which should also help future-proof our casa. Matti's been tuck-pointing the brick too over the past couple of days. What a talented guy! Now we just have to re-plaster the wall and ceiling above the fireplace and we should be home free. Oh wait!!!! This week's One Thing turned into two.
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| 25 years is about 3 times the life expectancy of a water heater. |
Our water heater died. It was actually the ideal week for it to happen if there is such a thing. There is nothing worse than cold showers to stress your marriage. But we were able to go the whole week without losing our stride. Susie just showered at the gym and I just took cold showers after my evening runs.
Luckily I had done my homework on a model that I thought would be both a good temporary fix as well as a good segue into my solar water heating system that I have almost all the parts for. (I just need a large storage tank).
Of course the new water heater is just a bit taller than the old. This made the flue slope downward, which is a dangerous situation. So, I had to open a new hole in the cement block wall and chimney. You really get in touch with your manhood in a deep way when you have to bash a hole in your house with you wife watching.
Whatever the DIY books and the internet sites estimate as the amount of time it takes to complete a project, I normally just multiply that by pi to budget my time. But this project took 10 hours when it should have taken 30 minutes of work and 60 minutes of logistics and prep. Note to self-- when you go to the hardware store and they ask, "Would you like some help?" when you decode those hateful words, what they are really asking is, "Would you like a red herring and all the wrong pipe threadings?"
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