NorCal Wonderland

With the epic 100-year-type rains we have been having in 2017, we have been spotting critters in our neighborhood and up in Lake Tahoe that we have never ever seen or even thought inhabited either area.  While chatting with friends on our back deck, a very large red tail hawk flew out of a nearby nest and directly over our heads about thirty feet above.  It was quite an awesome and slightly unnerving experience.  And several times this past week, we have spotted a California grey fox pacing across our hillside.  The week prior we noticed a wild turkey lurking at the very top of the hill on our side of the fence.  And during our week up in Tahoe for our daughter's ski lessons, we were lucky enough to see a playful beaver swimming around a marsh near our favorite dog park, amidst the record snowfall.  On the drive back into our parking lot, we witnessed the most remarkable sight -- a very stout bobcat chasing and ultimately catching a small chipmunk under an SUV at the far end of the lot.  The bobcat left with the catch hanging from its mouth but not before glaring straight at us for what seemed like a full minute.  Our little princess doesn't get why her parents were so in awe.  Eye roll and back to her Kindle.  Some day.  Some day.

One Word...

Anyone who has seen the classic film "The Graduate" will remember the now iconic scene where a family friend pulls the young graduate aside and in an almost Zen-like manner, uses one simple word to advise him on the path to a future of success and prosperity.  One word... "plastics".

There is an equally memorable scene in the film "Sleepless in Seattle" where Rob Reiner's character is giving the Tom Hank's character a primer on the do's and don'ts of modern dating.  At the end, he closes by saying that success on any date can be guaranteed, advising with one simple word.  Just one.  The word... "tiramisu".

I'm having an equally poignant moment right now in life, reducible to one simple yet all-enveloping word.  And that word right now is...

"Bombolini".

Look it up.

Foraging in West Marin

A day after hosting friends at our new home, we climbed into the trusty Subaru (just in time for the Sunday morning airing of Car Talk on NPR) and made our once monthly pilgrimage to what has become a very regular day trip locale for us through the years, West Marin. In what was the first truly spectacular day of Spring, we strolled through downtown San Anselmo in perfect 68 degree sun. Had a nice time browsing through the eclectic stores on the main street including a great Midcentury Modern furniture store, a charming bric-a-brac shop with Jonathan Adler dog accessories, an awesome independent bookstore, and some great cafes with outdoor seating. Families were out in force as were countless cyclists. Our little guy was adored up and down the street as kids would point and exclaim "doggy!" and elderly gentlemen would stop and crouch down to stroke his coat. For one morning, he was the unofficial mayor of town.

We made our now very familiar way down Sir Francis Drake to Olema and Highway 1. Today would be a day of foodie foraging in West Marin. Strong coffee and spicy ginger scone at the coffee stand in front of the barn at Toby's Hay & Feed in Point Reyes Station. Browsing the Sunday Chronicle with all the other locals on the picnic benches just outside the barn entry near the pen of baby chicks and the fragrant bales of hay, early sun bathing us in warmth. The air crisp with the scent of fog and ocean spray. Scenic drive up the highway, alongside picturesque Tomales Bay with the shoreline of Inverness and the Point Reyes seashore off in the distance, shrouded in dense fog. The little guy would lean against us with every curve of the road, distracted occasionally by a cluster of grazing Holsteins on an emerald green hillside. We stop at our much anticipated roadside stand. The Marshall Store for a half dozen freshly shucked oysters and de rigeur half dozen BBQ'd oysters on the rickety wooden deck near the pier, about a dozen sailboats moored in the gently lapping waters of Tomales with the inlet to the Pacific off in the horizon. We hunker down on the Adirondacks, gentle breeze on our faces and the sound of lapping water beneath the deck, the early afternoon sun now at full strength. Life is good.

We reluctantly make our way back, stopping to console ourselves with an afternoon snack at Cowgirl Creamery. A scoop of chocolate ice cream for T. A tasty bowl of red beet soup for me. And some meaty provisions from the butcher counter at Marin Sun Farms. We must try their steak frites special next time around.

The little guy sleeps soundly the entire drive back.

Poop and Scoop

On one of the more pleasant days this year, we took the little guy on a nice walk around Lake Temescal in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. It's a small bucolic sliver of peace and tranquility hidden amidst a busy highway and a bustling commercial district. The ducks and geese are always in residence as are the friendly residents from nearby Piedmont and Montclair with their Fido's in tow. After a mile walk (or more appropriately, strut), he's pooped... in every sense of that word.

Afterwards, we let him nap away in the car, and we treated ourselves to the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ special at nearby Ohgane. The spicy pork was especially tasty, wrapped in lettuce and garlic cloves. Oh god yes. And at $20 per person, it's a real bargain.

Feeling especially nostalgic, we drove a couple streets over to Piedmont Avenue and enjoyed a gargantuan scoop of vintage hand-made ice cream at Fenton's. At 118 years of continuous operation, Fenton's is an East Bay institution, one that I still remember with fondness from my years at Cal. The softball-sized scoop of Rocky Road on a sugar cone is a longtime favorite. Campus standby Yogurt Park just didn't do it for me back then. So much so that I would find ways to lasso friends with wheels to make the twenty minute drive out to Oaktown. Just another excuse to ditch the snoozer "Intro to Materials Engineering" lecture for a spontaneous day trip to the outer realm, orbited by the celestial gifts of Zachary's Pizza and Fenton's Creamery. What an upgrade from the more earthly and pedestrian Blondie's and Yogurt Park. The scoop is just as good as I remember it.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Our new house sits at the base of a vast expanse of hilly open space, so it came as no surprise that our first welcome to the neighborhood came not from the Smiths or the Joneses but rather from the Quails. A group of roughly ten to fifteen California quail make an almost daily stopover in the hillside brush of our backyard. Much like penguins, they prefer to walk and nest in the ground brush rather than in trees. At our island home near Seattle, we would see wildlife every single day. Deer, eagles, hawks, wild pheasant, cormorants, pelicans, otters, sea lions, harbor seals, coyotes, and on a rare occasion, orcas off the nearby beach. Appears our little terrier will continue to have a coterie of critter guests. The tail is wagging mightily.

Adieu 2011

The last year brought a couple of very important changes to our lives. The most immediate is that I am "back" in Northern California, having spent the past several years in the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver will remain very much in my heart. While the market at the SF Ferry Building is nice, it's no Pike Place or Granville Island Market. And let's not mention the coffee issue, Blue Bottle notwithstanding. Something about the water up there. The second major change in 2011 is that we bought a larger spread in a very nice town in the Bay Area, if for no better reason than to allow our precocious Norwich terrier the space to run to his heart's delight. That and we needed the extra rooms to house all the books accumulated over the years from caffeine-induced spending sprees at Powell's and Elliott Bay. Now if we had room for the kayaks... and all the umbrellas.

Now that I am replanting my flag back in the People's Republic of California, the lights on this long dormant weblog have been switched back on. I'll be cleaning off the cobwebs and sanding down the rust from five years of dormancy.

Spring Cleaning

Guess this blog has been in winter hibernation for too long. Much has happened since November. A monumental understatement, for those in the know. But before I dive back into the blogging process and in journaling the noteworthy events of my life from the past six months, maybe it is enough for now to have logged back into the long dormant Blogger account and tapped a few keystrokes. As soon as my waking eyes readjust to the light of early summer, more should follow.

Royal Blue

Read the San Francisco Chronicle account of Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla's weekend visit to San Francisco in all of its granola-fest glory; just look at their itinerary: a farmer's market in Point Reyes, Alice Waters' organic schoolyard garden, organic food purveyors at the Ferry Building, the uber-bohemian theatrical mainstay "Beach Blanket Babylon", and a homeless shelter in the Tenderloin (article here). Talk about a real PR job. Can you tell his staff is trying real hard to get him groomed for the crown by making him a man "of the people"? But they used San Francisco as a stand-in for London, where they no doubt fear he and his former mistress have yet to overcome the "Diana factor". Anyhow, I did notice right away on the photos accompanying the article that Chuck was wearing a standard-issue Cal alum tie, dark blue with a lattice of golden bear logos. The article made note of the same and mentioned that he received the tie as a gift during a previous trip to the Berkeley campus three decades ago. Nice touch, dear chap. Almost endears me to the British crown. Almost.

Vancouver, British Columbia

The past couple of weeks, T and I had our first real vacation since our Paris honeymoon, a ten-day excursion to Vancouver and the various small islands off its coast. I say "excursion" with some purpose here. We wanted to "backpack" across the lower coastal area of British Columbia relying only on foot, ferries, and public transportation to get around. We even purchased a mountaineering-style pack for our trip and pared down all of our clothing and travel items to that one pack. Definitely a freeing experience, traveling on foot with only one backpack to worry about.

Terrorist Scare

We had some drama early this morning in the San Francisco financial district. Apparently, there was a large explosion at the Crocker Galleria, a popular shopping arcade in the heart of the area. The blast was so large that it shook skyscrapers within a three to four block area. T phoned saying she could see smoke blowing downwind to the Citibank Center. While on the phone with her, I could hear the emergency sirens whizzing by our offices headed in that direction. Since a bomb could not be ruled out, all of the neighboring buildings were evacuated including Schwab's headquarters. Now that the smoke has cleared, literally and figuratively, it appears the blast may have been the product of a blown underground electrical transformer. Thank you PG&E for the Friday morning drama. With echoes of the recent London bombings, you could definitely sense the nervousness and anxiety on my floor and across the whole of the financial district. Here is a news account in the San Francisco Chronicle of the explosion (including a photo of the now burned and gutted Ralph Lauren store) (link): "...Among [the evacuees] was Tom McGibben, who works at Thomas Weisel Partners at 120 Kearny, which evacuated its employees. 'We saw the lights flicker at 9:50 a.m. We felt a pretty good shake. At first, we thought it was an earthquake. We saw smoke. The alarms in our building came on. At around the 20th floor you could smell something. At that point, we began to think it could be something worse than a quake. There were flashes to 9/11.' Tim Keenan, an employee at Charles Schwab, said he was evacuated from the 17th floor of the same building. 'I saw a flash of light. I looked out of the window. I saw people running and screaming,' he said. 'Our floor warden then asked people to begin to evacuate. To me, it sounded like a big boom of thunder.'" Hard to believe the fourth anniversary of 9/11 is just around the corner. Judging from the collective jitters felt throughout the financial district this morning, September 11, 2001 was apparently not that long ago.

Suisun Valley and Larry's Produce

This past weekend, my parents pointed us to a hidden little pocket of the Suisun Valley, located on the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge dividing Solano and Napa counties. It's a real gem of a place with acres of working farms surrounding a dusty hamlet of matchstick community buildings. One building had an aging wooden sign above the front door with the words "Nissei Club" barely visible, evidence no doubt of the area's long history as a Japanese-American farming community. Our destination was a rustic but thriving roadside produce market, Larry's Produce, at the northern end of the valley. The seasonal selection was immense and the prices were incredibly cheap. Apparently, all of the produce is sourced within the valley and oftentimes on that date of sale. We purchased a large crate of fresh veggies and fruits for a meager twenty dollars. Definitely a well-kept secret amongst the locals here and in the neighboring wine country. I suspect more than a handful of the chefs in Napa come here to source their "locally-grown and seasonal" ingredients. If you're interested in an offbeat alternative to Napa or Sonoma, here is the Suisun Valley community website (link).

Crashing the Tour de Peninsula

Needing a break from my studies, I convinced, or more aptly, suckered Wag into riding from my place in San Mateo, down the Mid-Peninsula through Woodside, Palo Alto, and the Stanford campus, all the way to downtown Los Altos. Early on, riding up Crystal Springs Road to the Half Moon Bay turnoff near I-280, we encountered a massive throng of riders. There must have been three to four hundred, all with race numbers tacked to their backs. It soon dawned on me that we were riding on the same day and for the most part, on the same route as the annual Tour de Peninsula (link). While the race organizers were busy distributing water to the racers, Wag and I snuck past the cones and into the mass of riders. Yep, we crashed the race. No, we weren't trying to pull a "Rosie Ruiz" (see here). Merely trying to avoid having to ride through a longer detour route. Unfortunately though, we jumped in at a less than ideal spot, at the base of the climb up to Sawyer Camp Trail. A long tiresome climb that gets steeper as you get further along. More than a handful of riders had to stop midway to take a breather. I was very close to being counted amongst the casualties. It only got harder from there. Two equally nasty climbs on the way up to the Canada Road approach. My upper legs were burning with lactic acid, my heart was pumping at full throttle, my lungs were panting for oxygen. The sweat from my brow was dissolving the sunscreen lotion into my now stinging eyes. Mental note, don't apply sunscreen to the forehead before a ride! With all the pain and effort, I still got a high from riding with so many cyclists around me. Maybe that's why marathoners get a performance boost on "race day". Group pressure. It definitely helped me through a tough stretch of the route. The best part of the day was lounging on a chair in the shaded streetside cafe along Main Street in Los Altos on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. By then, I was numb to the pain.

Canada, Oh Canada!

Several weeks ago, I finally purchased my first road bike ever, an entry-level Raleigh Cadent (link). Didn't want to blow the bank account by going overboard on a two or three grand commitment. Fairly happy with the purchase given the entire bike weighs less than my laptop bag. For the past couple of weeks, I have been cajoling T into riding with me along Crystal Springs Reservoir. Our first ride from San Mateo down to Woodside along Canada Road and the Reservoir was actually very pleasant (link). Sixteen miles roundtrip with moderate climbs, amazing scenery, and very light traffic. It's no wonder the route is popular with road cyclists. On weekends, Canada Road is a colorful parade of jerseys emblazoned with various corporate logos, all moving in unison in rapid pacelines. It's quite a sight. On reaching our destination in "downtown" Woodside, T and I planted ourselves in the parking lot at Roberts Market (link), the local cyclists' watering hole and rewarded our efforts with a hearty roast beef sandwich. Between that and the buckwheat flapjacks across the street at Buck's (link), we may be biking this route more regularly.

105 Degrees

This past Saturday, we drove out to see T's parents' newest home in Danville, Arizona... I mean, Danville, California. And while it's only forty minutes away, psychologically it seems a state away. This was only exacerbated by the extreme climate change. A pocket of dry arid heat that was sitting over the Tri-Valley area on Saturday. 105 degrees at midday. We got out of the nicely air-conditioned Subaru and the second we felt the rays, my skin began tingling. I had flashbacks to my childhood and the harsh summers of Northern Texas.

Best in Class

Found this amusing article, "Best in Class", in the most recent issue of The New Yorker illustrating just how cut-throat competitive it is nowadays to become a high school valedictorian (article link here). Having been one myself, I can relate to many if not all of the issues discussed including whether it is fair or desirable to reward those who "game" the grade point system. However, in my case, because I and the other four "in contention" for the top award were all fairly close friends, having been in the same classes since primary or middle school, there was always a feeling of camaraderie present that trumped any need or desire to one-up each other. And it helped that our school district maintained a twelve-point GPA system (instead of the customary four-points) making ties less of an issue. Anyhow it seemed as if it was all for naught as the luster of being a valedictorian was soon wiped away; during the first day of freshman orientation at Berkeley's College of Engineering, the Dean asked for a show of hands asking how many had graduated at the top of their high school class. More than two-thirds raised their hands. Two-thirds! I still cringe at the thought. It was like a bucket of cold, wet reality thrown smack at our faces. In the span of a single summer break, we all went from being in the top one-tenth of one percent of our peer group to being simply "average". That was my first lesson as a wide-eyed freshman at Berkeley. Not a lesson in math, science, or engineering, but rather a lesson in life, of the value of being grounded and never taking yourself too seriously. That alone was worth one year of tuition.

Social Entrepreneurship

For three months, I and about twenty fellow MBAs participated in an experimental seminar offered by the business school in conjunction with Silicon Valley's Tech Museum of Innovation (link). We were enlisted to apply our business knowledge for a select group of "social benefit enterprises", all of whom were chosen for the Tech's annual laureate award. "Social benefit enterprises" are a new breed of nonprofits, often aimed at the developing world, that rely on innovation and employ modern business techniques to achieve (1) self-sustainability through some profit-making activity and ultimately, (2) scalability to reach the most number of people with a nominal level of resources. It is revolutionary because of the importance placed on innovation both technological and process-based and on profits for the long-term mission of the organization. The field of social benefit enterprises or "social entrepreneurship" is cutting edge and is just now gaining traction. The b-school at Stanford is a pioneer in the field (link), as are a number of its alums including Jeff Skoll, one of the founders of eBay and now an active contributor to social benefit enterprises through his foundation (link). There is a very strong link between the Valley and the small community that is developing around the field. One reason is that they are oftentimes one and the same group. The more enlightened members of the generation that came into the Valley during the tech boom and became instantly wealthy are now searching for ways to use their money and their knowledge to make a difference in the world. But rather than revert to old-school "contributions", this new generation of donors is demanding results and greater accountability and have transferred their culture of venture capitalism and startups to the stodgy world of nonprofits introducing their standard toolkit of business plans, metrics, return on investment, strategic partnerships, and exit strategies. Our instructor for the course, Eric Carlson, is a prime example of this nexus. Besides being the longtime mayor of Los Gatos, a wealthy enclave in the Valley, he is very well-connected in the Valley having managed and led several established tech firms including a long stint at IBM Research; he, like a number of his peers, is now employing his expertise for the good of society through social entrepreneurship. One of his friends, Walt Jones, dropped by during the final week and advised us on fundraising. In his previous career, Dr. Jones helped found and lead GE's medical devices division for a number of years and was one of the highest ranking executives at GE by the time he retired. As a volunteer, he now heads fundraising for CityTeam Ministries (link), an organization that cares for the poor and homeless in major cities in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Commendable and inspirational. It was a real pleasure getting to know both Dr. Carlson and for a brief moment, Dr. Jones. They helped me focus on the task at hand. My particular contribution to the seminar was to evaluate the business plan and funding proposal for Gram Vikas based in Orissa, India (link). For the past decade, Gram Vikas has been providing housing, clean water, and sanitation for hundreds of thousands of rural villagers in one of India's poorest regions. They are now launching a second initiative that seeks to reach a quarter of a million by 2009. Hope they get something out of my forty page report and presentation. I revamped their business plan and recommended some concrete steps they could take as an organization to ramp up their funding. During the course of the seminar, we learned quite a bit about some other notable social benefit enterprises including Ecosystems based in Kathmandu, Nepal (link) and Freeplay based in London and Capetown, South Africa (link). The former constructs wire bridges for peasants traveling between remote villages in the Himalayan mountains, and the latter distributes hand-crank powered radios to the poor children of southern Africa for receiving broadcasts of vital education and health-based programming. It would have been ideal to have included two organizations of personal interest, Unitus (link) and Greenstar (link), both based in Seattle. Unitus is involved in a promising subfield of social entrepreneurship called microfinance, essentially lending to the underserved in developing countries to promote private enterprise and self-empowerment. The high repayment and low default rates are quite amazing when you consider how poor and impoverished the loan recipients are in the urban slums or rural villages of the third world. Many get by on what is the equivalent of a few dollars a month. But the dignity that microlending instills in them produces the desire to make something of the loan and motivates them to stick to the repayment schedule. Amazing. Anyhow, I just heard that PBS will be airing later this month a special four-part series, The New Heroes, hosted by Robert Redford which introduces the field of social entrepreneurship to a larger audience by profiling the work of fourteen influential social innovators (link). Very sweet. And what timing. I'm looking forward to watching all four segments.

Heard the Word of Blog?

Paris, je t'aime

Oui. Paris is and will always be our favorite city in Europe. One reason we chose it for our honeymoon destination. Grand, incredibly vibrant, always relevant, and genuinely foreign. The language, culture, architecture, food, all combine to imbue a "local color" that is truly unique and endearing. Anyone who sits in a streetside cafe along the Seine river on a clear day in Autumn, explores the crooked alleyways of historic Montmartre as the bells of the grand Basilica de Sacra Coeur ring in the distance, or dines for the requisite four hours within earshot of native Parisians arguing politics or literature, will no doubt agree. Don't get me wrong, London is great. But London, like much of the Commonwealth, is just a tad bit "familiar" to most English-speaking Americans, especially amongst Anglophiles like myself who have been raised on the BBC for more than twenty five years via PBS. It doesn't help matters that Brits love and embrace American culture and commerce; it's apparent on any random walk through central London where you can pass the same billboards and storefronts as you would find in New York or San Francisco. By contrast, Paris shuns such cultural and commercial dependencies. One of the reasons it holds a special place in most travelers' hearts. Rightfully so. And soon, there will be a cinematic tribute to this love of the City of Lights. A film project entitled Paris, je t'aime (link) is underway involving twenty well-regarded directors each assigned to one of the twenty districts (or arrondisements) of central Paris. Each director will be creating a five minute vignette that captures the essence of their respective arrondisement. The final product should be spectacular given the vastly different styles of the directors (e.g., Jean-Luc Godard, the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne, Gus Van Sant) and the respectable lineup of actors and actresses (e.g., Juliette Binoche, Natalie Portman, Willem Dafoe, Orlando Bloom) that have signed onto the project.

Field of Dreams

Had a great evening with the equities and commodities traders from the floor who procured the Wells luxury box suite at the Oakland Coliseum for last night's Oakland A's-New York Mets game. There were fifteen of us in the room elevated just above the spectating "sweet spot" between home plate and first base. For the three hours we were there, the catering service kept busy replenishing the food and drink bar. We had a fridge full of premium beer and a side table stacked with a variety of hot and cold food including pulled pork barbeque sandwiches, steamed dimsum dumplings, large bratwurst sausages, and tasty steak fajitas. Now that I've experienced "first-class", I'm not sure I can go back to "sitting in coach". Sat for an inning next to the Executive Vice President for our business group. After seeing him stuff his face with jalapeno poppers and down a bottle of Hefeweizen, I definitely see him in a more human light. Definitely look forward to doing this again, possibly at SBC Park. And yes, the A's won 3-2 with the winning run coming off a dramatic bottom of the ninth, two-out hit by a player traded away during the offseason by the very same New York Mets (game recap).

Embrace the Good and the Bad

While the Jobs speech (separate entry below) is quite serious and high-minded, this one given a while back by Conan O'Brien at his alma mater, Harvard, is decidedly less so (link here). But once you get past the humor and lightheartedness, he does share a nugget that is infinitely more practical and useful to those listening, about the value of taking the good with the bad, of accepting that failure and success go hand in hand, and of not being timid for fear of failure or rejection. In other words, "don't be afraid to fail because failure is a normal part of the process" and "don't be handcuffed by success if you're ready to move on with life even if it means leaving the comfort and safety of the 'cocoon'": I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

Find What You Love

With the buzz of university graduations around this month every year, there is typically a handful of commencement speeches that get some notice usually because of the celebrity or cult status of the speaker. This year, it was Steve Jobs' speech at the Stanford commencement (link here). Thought it strange and ironic that a college dropout would be asked to speak at a graduation ceremony, at Stanford no less, but then again, he is Steve Jobs, founder of two of the hottest companies around, Apple and Pixar, he is a billionaire, and he conveniently lives just a few miles down the road in Woodside. His speech was not your typical feel good kind of message; rather, it was a cold bucket of reality with the central message being "you're going to die, so find what is important to you and live life your way": When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that your are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.