"What happened to you, man? You used to be vegan."

Somebody asked me that yesterday after I posted the cheeseburger I had for lunch.

And a tasty cheeseburger it was.

But what happened to me?

I had to think about that one for a minute…

From a childhood trip to the beach, I remember a wooden board that I saw in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. It started out as just a regular board, but someone had painted it over and over for every day of their life.

Day after day, with a different color, another layer was added until it was hundreds of times thicker than it started. As a kid, I was fascinated by all the layers of paint that you could see because they'd cut the board in half.

Today, I'm fascinated by the level of persistence it took for that person to paint that board, day after day, for all those years…

By the top of the 2nd inning, we were up 7-0, and my son, Samson, was shutting down the home team's batters as quick as they stepped up to the plate.

The final score was 18-0, and I couldn't help but wonder how that happened.

How could the difference in scores be so dramatic?…

Yesterday a few people asked me where I find the time to exercise the way I do.

"How do you do it?" they asked as if it was a secret.

"I make it a priority."

And then they gave me the "Yeah, buts."

"But I don't have the time."

"But I don't have a gym near me."

One guy said, "But I don't have any trails like that near me."

Y'all, seriously?

That's all a bunch of bullshit…

A split second before I tripped, I'd thought about how easy this section of the trail felt.

At Francis Beatty Park, the trail has a lot of roots.

A LOT.

And some of them, I swear, were specially designed to catch your toes and put you on the ground.

But it makes for an interesting run, even if you have to pay more attention than you do when running on pavement…

Last night may have been the last time I'll have seen an incarnation of the Grateful Dead.

Not that it was a Dead show, exactly.

With only two surviving members of The Grateful Dead on stage, it would be disingenuous to name Dead & Company for anything other than what it is: a cover band…

T Minus 30 [Days] --> Work-Life balance doesn't work.

The Super Epic-Super Pacific Road Trip is fast approaching and starts in 22 days when our adventure truck is loaded onto a car carrier.

While All-Star Shipping delivers it to California, we'll have another six days here in town to prepare.

One of the Ten-Ten-Ten objectives is ten days of travel per month, and we're taking a massive bite out of that one on this trip…

The view from The Top Of The World is awe-inspiring.

And terrifying.

You get there by chairlift, traveling over terrain that, in the winter, is blanketed with soft and forgiving snow and covered with hordes of skiers. In the summer, the snow melts, exposing the rocky surface of the mountain, and the skiers give way to mountain bikers.

I'm in Whistler Mountain Bike Park in British Columbia.

We're standing at the top of the highest point in the park, looking down at a two-foot-wide path snaking down the side of the biggest mountain I've ever seen…

My wife, Julia, likes to travel.

There was a time when she could throw a few things in a small backpack ten minutes before walking out the door for a five-day trip and have everything she needed.

That time was before I met her.

And though she speaks of it fondly, I have never witnessed such behavior.

Case in point: we're set to depart for the Super Epic - Super Pacific Road Trip in about a month, and she's already planning for every type of weather…

Yesterday was the 34th day since we submitted our package to the planning department for permits to build Optivīv IV Therapy in the space where the brokerage used to be.

Today, we got those permits.

Recent experience told me it would take about three months, so the alert that they were ready to pick caught me by surprise.

The reason for the speed?

I have no idea…

I don't usually get excited about shopping carts, but I am this morning.

This is my friend Kelly's grocery cart - she sent the picture last night.

In Florida a few weeks ago, she said, "OMG! You look like Adonis! An absolute God among mere mortals! Your biceps could be the boulders from which masons carved your chiseled abs! You appear as though you'd been Michelangelo's inspiration for David. . ."

OK, fine, she said none of that.

But she did notice I was a bit trimmer than last fall when I saw her in Nashville.

"What did you do?"

My answer was as simple as her grocery cart.

"I ate real, whole food."…

Over the weekend, I picked up the stock tank to build our cold plunge.

These are commercially available if you want plug-and-play, but, as Julia tells everybody, I'm nothing if not custom.

So I'm building mine from scratch.

I bought the tank from Tractor Supply on Saturday and sent Julia a picture…

As I said previously, this isn't about the money.

Of course, we all need money. And, having not been born with it, my only option is to earn it.

So, in that sense, it is about the money.

But it's not about the money, per se…

So if it's not about the money, then what is it about?

I'll get to that, but first, let me answer a question someone asked yesterday.

"Last week, you talked about everything you're doing, businesses you've started, and others you want to start, which just sounds like a different kind of rat race to me.

So, how does that get you out of the Matrix?"…

Last week I mentioned Ten-Ten-Ten, which has been simmering in my mind for a while now.

Two, maybe three years.

Until last fall, it didn't have a name. Since then, I've not said anything about it because it still feels a little crazy to me.

Silly, even.

Audacious, for sure…

A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of refinancing one of our rental properties. When he pulled my credit, my mortgage broker forgot to press the magic "no-spam" button, and all hell broke loose.

Equifax and Experian sold me out, making me a target for the guys who run their mortgage business like a telemarketing company. For days on end, my phone rang incessantly.

Over 50 calls each day for the first few days, finally trickling down to 15 or 20 per day until it ended about two weeks later.

Maddening, of course…

When listing houses, my favorite clients were always those who'd first hired another Realtor who did not sell it.

By the time they call me, they've had enough of the double-speak, smokey mirrors, and lousy marketing that's so common in the real estate business.

When Julia started her medical aesthetics practice, I knew little about what she did. But when I took a closer look at the industry, I predicted that Botox would become a commodity within a decade…

Years ago, in what now feels like a whole other life, I worked for several startups as a computer programmer and project manager.

Back then, I thought it was great.

I was fresh out of college, and I earned a lot of money relative to my expenses at the time.

I traveled frequently and spent an entire summer in Austin, TX working at a large company where the 40+ managers had all bought matching Porsches (and moved to a larger office so they had a parking deck to put them in). That office was insane, too - pool tables, ping pong, foosball, and dozens of vending machines that didn't require any money.

Later, I worked at another firm where I could travel back and forth between offices in several cities. I had a large staff, an expense account, and all the trimmings that come with it.

In between, I worked with other startups, sometimes as an employee and other times as a contractor.

In every case, life was great.

Until it wasn't…

This was the question asked by the friend I was talking to on my way to the airport last week.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you closed your company, right? I thought you retired."

Based on this question, I could have done a better job of telling you guys what I was up to when Lloyd and I closed R.W. Price & Associates last year.

And I understand the confusion. I, too, thought I would have more free time after closing the brokerage.

After all, the driving force behind closing it was my Ten-Ten-Ten goal…

"In and over, now!" I heard the coach yell for what must have been the hundredth time - and it was only the 5th inning.

There's a bare spot in left field where the grass no longer grows. There's a spot just like it in the center and right fields, too, from season after season of kids standing in the same place waiting on the next play.

That spot, however, is not where the coach wanted #12 to be yesterday…