The ride on the crowded R train was a little warm, particularly in my regular work attire of slacks and a button down. My fellow commuters were in their quiet rush as they exited the subway and then headed up the stairs to the busy street. I crossed Broadway and went into the office. It was a normal day. As I walked into our work area, Brian, my colleague and friend on our consulting project, was the only other one from our team there. He immediately said “we need to go up t

I was in the backroom of a weathered, wooden bar with low ceilings. It was a fairly tight space. Cigarette smoke floated in the air. That wood had soaked up vast amounts of beer. Combined with the cigarette smoke, it gave the place a familiar and permanent scent. Odor might be a better word. Booths lined the walls, and the sounds from the neighboring pool tables were in the background. My two friends, Kevin and Colby Logan, were playing acoustic guitars and singing from the

Howdy. Hope this finds you doing well, wherever and whenever this lands with you. The last post I wrote kicked up some good conversations about death and dying, conversations I think are pretty healthy to have. The topic of death can be one that we want to avoid, for obvious reasons, but I think that's a mistake. What could it look like to have those conversations in way that is life-giving? A while back, I read My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman, and it hit me in all the rig

The past few weeks have put a few unwanted thoughts in my mind. Last week, as part of a clinical trial, I went through a procedure called Bronchoscopic Microwave Ablation to treat a tumor in my left lung (surgery was on my right lung). And it all went great! Much simpler than lung surgery for sure - in and out in 4 hours. Unwanted Thought #1: there are still new tumors popping up, which is very consistent with metastatic colon cancer. I participate in a couple of online gr

As best I can, I quietly get out of our creaky bed. I’m up before everyone else, already looking forward to my morning ritual. I tip-toe into our bathroom where there is the least chance of being disturbed by others as they wake up. I grab a drink of water, light a candle, and pull out the cushion from the closet. I open the window, letting in a slight breeze and the sounds of crickets, birds, and the neighborhood. Sometimes I leave it open, and sometimes I don’t. I grab the

I think I shared this story once before, but there’s more to add to it. After Mom died in 2023, I was back in Austin shortly afterwards and was taking a walk through our neighborhood. There’s a trail through the trees, alongside a creek bed that’s dry 99% of the year. It’s a well-shaded walk and a regular path for me. And there’s a bench that’s tucked in there where I often sit, stare into the trees, and listen to the life all around. My time on the bench that day included a

I stepped out of the air-conditioned car and into the Texas heat and humidity, which offered…relief. Off and on, I had been chilled for the last couple of hours. It had been that way for the last two weeks with regular fevers and chills. I slowly walked past the six-foot bronze beaver welcoming me to the singular madness of the Southeast’s favorite gas station, Buc-ee’s. It was already past 2:00pm, so we were overdue for lunch. Though I still wasn’t hungry, I was going to ea

Stacey and I squeezed our way into a couple of available seats in the crowded waiting room. The waiting room, probably designed to hold around 20, had about 30 people waiting. And the shared knowledge in the space that many of us were headed to get some chemotherapy didn’t necessarily boost the overall mood…despite the free coffee. I looked up and made eye contact with another person nearby. Her eyes smiled back, and I said hello. And I’m so glad I did. For a good stretch o

Well I’ve got the date set for lung surgery. I’ll head down to MD Anderson for surgery on April 30th where they will remove 80% of the right lower lobe of my lung. I’ll spend 10-ish days down in Houston, including pre-op and post-op stuff, and then head back to Austin to recover. We are ridiculously grateful for the family and friends jumping in to help us pull this off. The fancy name for the surgery is a basilar segmentectomy. (I’ve learned to listen a little more closely

In the past few weeks, I’ve been lucky to be in some great conversations, all with long-time friends. “Old friends” might be an apt descriptor - we’ve known each other a long time and we ain’t getting any younger. These are all folks with whom my path overlapped for a significant period of time in our past. And we’ve continued to stay in touch regularly, even if our paths have gone in some different directions. But with that shared history, conversation is easy to jump righ

Hi there. Hope this finds you and yours enjoying some spring starting to show up. It's a rare moment in Austin when the weather is not too hot AND the mosquitos aren't yet a problem. That's made for some good back porch hang-out's and hammock time. I was at MD Anderson this week to get a CT scan, labs, etc. and then to review those with my oncologist there. Of all the possible outcomes for that conversation, we were happy to get some good news! There is no evidence of any new

I’m down at M.D. Anderson this week for scans and doctor visits to figure out our path forward. Nothing to report yet on that, but will share an update when we have one. I keep returning to an experience from last week, right after I had my chemo infusion. The drugs mess with my head enough that it’s probably not the best idea to drive, so Stacey usually picks me up for the ride home. I’m now one more person in our house, in addition to our kids, in need of transport to stuff

Hey there. It’s been a minute so I'm sharing an update on the health stuff. The quick summary is I’ve completed 5 of 6 chemo infusions before we head back down to MD Anderson to see how things look. I was scheduled for chemo on Tuesday of this week, but I ended up with some sorta funk that knocked me down over the weekend. At this point, no telling what it was with everything going around (apparently some bad peanut butter going around too??). Anyway, my system was in no co

I’m both fascinated and thoroughly confused by the field of theoretical physics. And even as I attempt to write about it here, I know I’ll shortchange the ideas and get some wrong or incomplete. But I do appreciate that about the act of writing - it reminds me of its own limitations and my own. Anyway…back to theoretical physics. From a layman's understanding, the field of theoretical physics points to ideas of profound interconnection of all matter and energy. Things like q

I’ve been thinking more about the message and work of Martin Luther King since the official holiday a couple of weeks ago. It’s because the world seems so violent to me right now, though I know there is violence happening all the time, woven into the long history of humans human-ing. Sadly, at times I become numb to the violence because it’s so constant. But the violence is landing in me differently these days. It’s because I’ve been experiencing a kind of connecting, resona

Written 1/11/26 The back door was kept busy as the kids went back and forth to the trampoline, deeply immersed in some game I could not figure out. And maybe that was the point….no purpose, just play. Ages five to fourteen, all tangled up together. And we knew they would get hungry, likely soon. We needed to act before the hangry kid mob wrecked the gathering. I gathered each kid’s order for P. Terry’s, our go-to for quick and easy burgers. The five-year-old clarified at le

I’m late to the Stranger Things craze. But my daughter is a huge fan, and is now making her second pass through all the episodes while I’m still in season 1. There’s a sequence early on where a kid, Will, goes missing, and the mother, Joyce, is, of course, distraught. She has this very real-to-her experience of knowing Will is still alive, and that knowing comes through some hard-to-believe interactions with lamps and Christmas lights. (The show eludes any brief explanations,

My friend, Jeff, and I have known each other now for over thirty years, having met back in our college days. When my wife and I moved to Austin in 2008, Jeff was the first friend I reconnected with. Ever since, we’ve managed to keep a pretty consistent schedule of meeting up for some physical activity and/or dinner. And though our wilder days are behind us, we are still able to regularly find some good laughs. Back in November, the news of the most recent metastasis of my co

There’s a thought I often come back to during these cancer experiences. It’s something like “I wouldn’t wish this cancer experience on anyone, but I do wish people could _________________( insert a certain gift received via cancer experience ). And I’ve also heard that from others who have taken this journey or similar journeys. I was recently texting with my old friend, Steve Plunkett. I’ve known Steve since our middle school days of playing basketball, skating, and roaming

Hope this finds you living well. I know a lot of us are bracing for some weather to roll in. Good luck at the grocery store and with your house prep. I went on Tuesday for my fourth infusion of the latest chemo protocol, and everything went according to plan. It seems like we’ve figured out the right dosing that allows for my various blood cell counts to recover from the previous infusion. As I’ve mentioned to some folks, it does seem like this chemo’s side effects kick in q