tl;dr —📣 I’ve joined Grok Ventures as an Operator-In-Residence to work hands-on with their portfolio companies, most of whom are focused on tech that helps with the challenge of climate change.

The Journey

In June, I was approaching the anniversary of my re-entry into Australia after my worldwide sabbatical and decided to take stock of what I’d done in the last year and what I wanted to do next. I’d written An Update on Chapter 2 to help catalog what I’d been up to over the last year.

Working with a variety of entrepreneurs last year had been amazing — they’d taught me so much: They’d been great at helping me understand where I had helped them (and more importantly where I hadn’t!). And entrepreneurs are quirky and just a ton of fun to spend time with. …

Immune Suppression Social Distancing

While during lockdown, the NSW government had asked all residents to limit travel and stay local, and our hikes along the paths in the Eastern suburbs had become overcrowded.

I’d become a little paranoid about all the people in our neighbourhood. People around the beaches hadn’t shown the best sense of judgement when the pandemic began. Being a kidney transplant recipient, I take drugs (drugs!) to suppress my immune system, so Leigh and I were being extra careful. The one study on the mortality rate of transplant recipients was scary (28%), though I know I’m much healthier than the average transplant recipient. …

Since returning to Australia in July (yikes, almost a year ago) I had embarked on Chapter 2 of my life, which meant “1) advising clean tech startups and 2) working with advocacy groups to change the economics of climate change”.

While I’m largely on the same trajectory, a lot has happened!

Shortly after I wrote the “Chapter 2” blog post, a number of things fell into place, and I made a number of key decisions:

1. The number of startups that I could work with simultaneously was no more than 10. Oh, wait… no, more like 6 or less. Okay, actually, it’s 4, with each getting 1 day per week. …

Brace yourselves. An onslaught of “20/20” vision jokes are about to unleash themselves upon humanity. Expect an eyeful of visual humour, with reflections on the old year, gazing into the future, and myopia about how trite the metaphor is. Will 2020 have a blind spot? Will we be seeing double? Will we focus? Will the year rush by in a blur? Will these questions ever end?

2019 in Review!

Let’s rehash the past, because we’re told it’s good for us instead of just burying it deep into our poisonous-cotton-candy-filled psyche so we explode at inopportune moments like when Google Pay refuses to cooperate with the PayWave machine, and we start hitting the card machine screaming “contact this!” …

Since I’d first visited Cradle Mountain National Park during my second year in Australia (with my sister and my nephew Ben), the Overland Track had cemented itself near the top of my Oz Bucket List. The terrain reminded me of Alaska, and the mountain trails felt like home.

My Nephew Jon and wanted to do a multi-day hike together, and this holiday season seemed like an ideal time for him to visit Oz and tackle the Overland Track together.

Day 0 — Sydney to Tassie

We flew into Launceston, checked in at the hotel, and headed to Kathmandu since it was the only outdoor store open past 5:30. Their fuel canisters only worked with their stoves — what? Given my recent experiences at Kathmandu, it’s pretty clear: nice employees, really bad gear. It’s not the REI of Australia. It’s the backwards, expensive Walmart of outdoor gear. …

Two years ago, I drove up the East Coast of New South Wales and into Queensland.

Over the first nine days of December, I repeated parts of that trip, for four distinct reasons:

1. I wanted to think about where my “home” in Australia could be.
2. I wanted to visit three good friends of mine.
3. I was running a leadership offsite for a company I have been advising.
4. I wanted a contrast to my trip from 2017. While I returned in 2017, telling myself “it was an amazing trip,” that was only half the story. …

I’m almost 50 years old and I’m still not as open about some subjects as I’d like to be.

The ‘tricky’ subjects in life for me usually relate to childhood, family, or relationships, and certainly religion is deeply connected to the first two.

I don’t really want Mom to read this, not because I want to hide my beliefs from her, but only because I know it may hurt her to read this. But I’ve warned her about this blog, and of course it’s her decision whether to read it or not.

In fact, for most people who enjoy what I write, this is quite a departure, so feel free to just skip this. It’s not particularly well-organised, and it’s almost entirely devoid of humour. Maybe you should go watch a basketball game, or play some backyard cricket? …

This is the first work of fiction I’ve “published” since I was in high school. Here goes nothing.

Back Entrances

It was always back entrances now. Jake wondered when the next time he’d enter a building from the front would be.

The last six weeks, the same routine. A black, American-made, government-issue SUV, complete with suits with earpieces, and him. The three suits with him were the driver, the guy who was always talking into his earpiece, and the one who just watched Jake. He couldn’t pick them apart out of a lineup, even after six weeks. …