A Goofy Foot in Mouth

Saturday night, Sara and I took the girls to the Kenny Chesney country-fest at Gillette.  We took the bus with some friends and of course had a great time tailgating.

I have to say that overall the show was ok, not great but not awful.  Thomas Rhett was one of the opening acts.  He was actually really good.  We didn’t get to see Old Dominion.  Honestly, I thought Rhett was better than Chesney.  Kenny Chesney is kind of like the George Thorogood of country music.  You can see the influence of Jimmy Buffett too.  He sings a lot of feel good drinking songs that generally have an awesome sense of nostalgia.  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, it’s just really superficial.  When you see his stage show, that superficiality comes through.  At one point he asked us to celebrate with him that it is 2017 and this is his 17th show at Gillette.  The crowd roared.  Come on, really?  What does that even mean? He does a lot of running around and skipping in his ‘dancing’ and he seems to be only able to hold the mic in his right hand and slap his thigh or make a lot of hip-hop hand gestures, and that’s the extent of the show.  The band is pretty talented though, that is for sure.  He rarely plays guitar, but the other guys are solid.

I say all this because it made me think back on an unfinished blog post about the BEST show I have ever seen.  Now granted, small venues are much easier to rock than 60k in a stadium.  But overall I have more respect for the music, the lack of lecturing BS and the creativity in a production.

Back in April, Sara and I saw Squirrel Nut Zippers and Ozomatli at the Capitol Center in Concord.  I am a huge fan of Ozomatli, these guys bring a great blend of what I might guess is the soul of LA and I dig it.  SNZ I have been following for at least 20 years back to when they released Hell in 1996.  I am just in awe of how they fuse styles and produce modern hat-tips to the classics, most especially, Cab Calloway.  I have crappy iPhone footage, but watching the Ghost of Stephen Foster play live, while the video runs on the in-house screens, was just awesome.  If you ever want to know how music can ‘feel’ in a way to balance an image, watch this video.

But what I really loved was how they ended the show, and it was an experience I will never forget.  SNZ and Ozomatli collaborated on a song called “Alley Cat“. Which they played together on stage.  Full disclosure, I like multi-threaded melodies and when you put that many instruments and talented musicians on stage, you get to experience so much complexity that it is over-stimulating in a way that let’s one lose themselves in listening to the music.  That happens for me.

At the end of the song, they pivoted to some drum laced rhythm and all the guys picked up portable instruments and started marching through the audience.  As it was happening, we just figured they would march back on stage like all bands do.  Nope.  They disappeared out the back.  We could still hear them playing but in a distance.  So we headed out.  I would describe the following ‘experience’ as nothing short of spectacular.  These guys all started jamming in the lobby of the Capital Center to a heavily modified montage of Tequila and other classics, literally surrounded by the audience.  It was so much fun.  Blew my mind how they pulled it off.

Maybe it’s impossible for a big time act to have this kind of intimacy with the audience.  But I have no interest to be lectured by some self-absorbed pop star and their thought du jour (read: Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Bono, etc).  I prefer authentic experiences that make me rethink how things can be done, and that includes the simple things, like going to a music show.  So I will continue to buy the music of the big pop acts, but I highly doubt I will do much more to shell out big cash for these shows that always seem to underwhelm.  The smaller acts work so much harder and are genuine.  I like that more.  Those are the shows that amaze me.

There are a lot of problems in this country, both in business and politics.  I think leadership is at the forefront of these problems.  As I see the success and failure of various leaders, I am starting to see a paradox that should concern us all.  Many senior leaders are promoted to their positions based on their confidence which often presents as blatant arrogance when you look at it a little deeper.  But that same arrogance limits their ability to lead in a way that breaks new ground and disrupts the relevant domain.  As Bezos says, “it is always Day 1”.  Which means, you have to always be thinking creatively about disrupting every single thing you do and observe.

I was listening to a talk by Scott Berkun who argues that “All ideas are made from other ideas.”  Nothing is ever really new.  That which seems new just involves leveraging other ideas, combining them in unique ways, and turning the result into something new.  In order to do this you have to listen and learn and ingest the ideas around you.  That fails when you are arrogant.  People that think they need to prove that they know a little about everything always feel the need to talk, when instead they should be listening for the bits of detail that they DON’T already know.  There is no need to continue talking about what you know while listening to someone who clearly knows something different.  You might actually learn something.  I have been dealing with this arrogance for years and I am so sick of it.

The other day I met with a VP of Architecture to discuss how I can get my hands on some data.  Our team is charged with finding staff efficiency.  It is a well documented fact that a significant part of an office worker’s day is spent in email.  Fido is no exception.  And so in wanting to get stats on emails from certain groups that we suspect of driving excessive work, this guy starts lecturing me that I really don’t need this data.  Email is not a problem.  Who cares about email.  I don’t spend any time there.  I reply that we have to be thinking about email because it occupies so much time and that we should be considering tools like Slack that get around the inefficient 1980’s mentality of asynchronous communication.

He continues.  Email is never going away.  It is a communication tool.  I use it to communicate with my team and peers and my leadership.  You can just use filters.  I filter out all other email and I deal with it whenever I get time.  Slack is a collaboration tool, it will never replace email.  Email is never going anywhere, it is a communication tool.

[Full Disclosure – I have played with Slack, but it is not supported at work, so I have never used it in a professional context]

I started to argue with this guy and wanted to point out all the inconsistencies in his logic and as a leader of technical architecture, isn’t it specifically his job to look for new technology to find ways to let us be more successful and productive?  But I needed him to help me get a meeting with someone else, so I kept my mouth shut (believe me, it was just as hard to do that as it is for you to believe that I actually DID it!).

Here is where arrogance kills his ability to lead.

1. If a coworker is telling you there is an issue for a constituency you support, how can you possibly argue that it is not an issue because it isn’t one for you?  That’s like “Poverty isn’t an issue for people because I am not poor, why don’t they just do what I do?”
2. One of the marks of a great leader is strong communication, yet this knucklehead specifically filters out communication channels on the one tool that he labeled as his communication vehicle.
3. Subordinates, peers and leaders are EXACTLY the people you should be collaborating with!  Why would you not want a tool to help with that?  Further, the people that you would communicate with (a lower intensity than ‘collaboration’) you filter out of the tool you use for communication?  The arrogance of this nonsense is spectacularly irresponsible.
4. This yahoo interviewed me for a data architect role on his team a few years ago but instead gave the job to someone almost as arrogant.  But he had no idea who I was and started lecturing me on file layouts and my ability to analyze the data I specifically asked for, so I could analyze it.

When arrogance occupies thought leadership roles, it kills any innovation from beneath because that arrogance assumes that it knows more than anyone under them.  It also kills that company’s ability to innovate from that level because these people are incapable of accepting new ideas from anywhere else.  Some people actually do know enough to innovate on their own.  But they get to that point by being sponges to knowledgeable people around them.  Clearly they don’t become arrogant and just decide that they have reached the end of all information and they are done listening to people.  That doesn’t make sense.  Please don’t talk about Steve Jobs.  A logical argument based on an exception, is not conclusive.

You can have the most inspirational visionaries leading a company, but if you pad the levels under them with arrogant people incapable of growing, that organization will die.  And if you seed the very senior-most levels with arrogance, then no matter what talent you have beneath, it never sees the light of day.  Think about the leaders in our country, business, organizations, your friends.  Imagine times when you have seen good ideas around them or from you and what they did.  When you feel they are too preoccupied with what they already know, does that make you feel good about the future?

It’s my birthday.  We have a few traditions but one I almost never miss is to get in a workout.  I had a really good run today.  I put together a pretty cool playlist and went out strong.  I should start every run with John Butler Trio’s Funky Tonight because I was flying.  I decided that I was going to really push myself.  My goal is always 8 miles in 1 hour.  I’ve only done it once, but I got close today.

Last year at 20X, we were pushed to the breaking point.  Just when it looked like one of us was about to quit, the coaches would get in your ear and quietly push you to meet the challenge of the evolution.  They’d say, “Come on, you can do this.” or “Don’t give up now.”  The incentive was, “Let Me Recover You.”  The idea is that they give you the end point, they are telling you that they want you to get to the end so they can let you recover and catch your breath.  They are saying, let me give you a break, all you need to do is push a little harder a little longer and you will be there.  It’s a subtle motivation that can help you push yourself to limits you didn’t think were possible.

When you are watching your pace on the watch, you get immediate feedback on how hard you are pushing the limit.  I am definitely out of peak shape.  Up 2 of the hills, I almost puked.  But I kept pushing, and a little voice from my subconscious was whispering in my ear, “Let me recover you.”  Get to the next mile, the next corner, the next house, the next plant.  Each milestone brings a catharsis that lets you keep going to the end of the run.  I coached myself, let me recover you.

You can see I spiked my heart rate to 196, I am guessing that’s when I was at the edge.  It feels good to see the success of your effort.  I know that coaching myself, let me push to the edge.  And my recovery felt all the better.

I got a lot of things sorted out in the past month or two.  It’s been satisfying to have a plan and know where things are going.  I feel as if the past few years has been one big workout and I have been pushing myself hoping for a little break.  It is finally hitting.

While in the struggle, you don’t know if a recovery will come.  Hope is not a motivator.  But comparing my life to the run today, I am starting to think that I have the ability to recover myself simply by the act of pushing even harder through the toughest parts of life.  I’m pretty good at handling strife.  I can handle the stress, and I move through it pretty well.  But I can honestly say that when it gets hard, I don’t push myself PAST the breaking point to tackle the challenge.  I’m talking about pushing so hard that you make that experience even more painful, knowing that a recovery is coming.

I’ve never handled my personal life this way before.  But I almost always do when it comes to athletics and physical challenge.  That makes no sense, especially for a guy who hates hypocrisy and inconsistency.  The next 5 months are going to be an intense push toward the big Jan 2 singularity.  Things are going to be hard.  With each new challenge, I am going to push through it harder than I ever have before.  Pushing myself past the breaking point.

Let me recover me.

On the drive home from Maine the other day, the gas station TV had a clip from Robin Meade wishing well to all service members no matter where they are on this 4th of July.  It got me to thinking, is the 4th really a day for the Military?

Veterans day is for active duty and past service members, while Memorial day is for those that gave the supreme sacrifice in the defense of our country.   But the 4th, otherwise known as “Independence Day” celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that identifies the reasons for the founding philosophies of why this nation should exist separate from the English monarchy.  I really don’t think it has anything to do with war, defense, the military or anything combative.  While we celebrate with fireworks, and that is a nice touch probably commemorating the “rockets red glare” as sung in the National Anthem, that actually has nothing to do with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

In fact, the Document was a specific product of a bunch of citizen diplomats who self-organized and formed an intellectual and philosophical argument for a political position.  It was SPECIFICALLY political: “…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have…”  How amazing a time must it have been when politicians actually formed arguments to support a position and even wrote them out and published them?  I have seen “positions” on web sites, but they are all just a bunch of mom and apple-pie goals and no rationale on how to get there.  I miss logic.  I miss philosophy.  I miss reason.  I am sick of the political climate that just yells at each other with half-truths citing fake-news (the original term, not what that a-hole has stolen it for) stories shared from a FB or Twitter post.  Candidate Trump’s health care policy philosophy? “I won’t let people die in the streets.”   As if others actually advocated for death.  What does that even mean?  What is the argument for it?  What are the action steps?

I’ve given up on the idea of running for office.  My brand of formulating an idea and building an argument around it, just doesn’t play in the reality TV world of politics these days.  I don’t form alliances.  There is no drama.  I don’t hate the person because they argue for an opposing position.  I could care less about “winning” as a goal.  But what I love about Declaration Day, is the notion that this country was founded by people who felt strongly enough about an idea that they formulated a rationale for a new way of thinking and wanted to engage in discourse about all of their supporting points.  They didn’t spout off about a wall of naval mines around the east coast to prevent the British ships from landing.  For me, this day will celebrate those of us that use our hearts, emotions and spiritual connection to the world to influence thoughts in our mind that we cogently share with others in the hope that we influence others to think about things in new ways or new directions.  Maybe they agree with us, maybe we see validity in their counter-points.  Maybe we work together to find a common ground whose sum total is more than either argument in isolation.  My political hopes may be dead, but I will never give up on the notion of creating and sharing ideas.

While we were theoretically “independent” as of the 4th (or the 2nd, read the story), celebrating something that is theoretical seems to cheapen the day for me.  I prefer to celebrate the declaration, the sharing of ideas.  That was the monumental achievement of the day.  For those of you producing new content, new ideas, fact-based analysis, waxing philosophical without yelling, or generally just sharing your rational based thought with the world… this bud’s for you.  Throw some bags, grill some meat, drink beer, hit the pool/boat and envision the explosion of new ideas in each flash of color in the night sky heralding the birth of knowledge.

Happy Declaration Day!

I started following Jocko Willink on Twitter a year ago after I heard him interviewed on the Tim Ferris podcast.  He is pretty intense and inspirational.  He posts a lot of pictures of his watch at 4:30 am before his workout and then the results with sweat all over the floor under a barbell.  Hooyah.  I’ve had a few workouts like that, but not every day.  Yesterday I stumbled on a TED talk where he talked about the nobility of “Extreme Ownership” (which is also his book title), how it is affected by the fog of war, friendly fire and owning your mistakes.  It’s 13 minutes and a must watch for anyone in business.  I wish I could get the Fido senior leaders to watch it.

At work, I always take responsibility for my mistakes.  Several years ago we had a project come in pretty late and I got dinged for it.   But I owned up to the fact that my estimates for designing the solution were far understated and when things started going bad because of extraneous factors, I did not raise awareness.  One person got fired.  Others moved on.  I stayed and it hurt my career for sure.

Under heavy pressure, we took a risk.  If you take a risk and you get punished for admitting a mistake, then that is not a place you should work.  Jocko just made me realize how poignant that fact is.  I didn’t blame a lot of people who deserved blame.  We tried to hit an aggressive timeline and we missed.  No one died.  Yet in the most severe case, in a truly life AND death experience, in the military where people are always held accountable, he took ownership and was not penalized.  What does that say about where I work and the mentality of “stretch” goals, taking risks and working hard?  With only modest positive results for a successful risk (aka hitting your goals) why would I ever take a risk again?

As obvious as the work case, you have to take Extreme Ownership in your personal life too.  Last year in the midst of a rough time, I learned that I was not REALLY taking responsibility for all my actions.  I always felt that I owned up to things I did and said or often said incorrectly.  But what I noticed is that I very frequently used the expression “I’m sorry if…”  I want you to burn that expression into your consciousness.  Listen for it when polititcians apologize.  Or when you do.  Or colleagues.  What I learned is that no matter what you intended, you actually DID something.  There was a result of your action.  Cause and Effect.   The “if” becomes a copout and negates the apology.  It’s blaming something else, something intangible.  It puts the responsibility somewhere else.  You aren’t owning anything when you use “if”.  Often “if” is followed with “you”.  How often have you heard “I’m sorry if you were offended by…”  That puts the ownership squarely on the other party.  That is wrong.  There is no “if”.  As Jocko put it, taking Extreme Ownership should hurt.  It hurts your ego and your pride.  But if you are a person of character, you own it.

What punctuated this concept for me is that Jocko noted that when you do it correctly, Extreme Ownership has benefits up and down the chain of command and those around you.  His men took full responsibility for their individual actions.  Most importantly, what he enabled was them to do their job without the burden of being the leader and being responsible.  The ultimate responsibility was on him.  Up the chain too, his commanders recognize that he was actually doing his job, in the good and the bad.  He owns both.

For friends and family around you, when you take Extreme Ownership of your actions and their result, regardless of intent, I promise you, people will believe in you and trust you and care about you in ways they never have before.  Don’t spread blame.  Own it.  Check your ego at the door.  I constantly have to watch my words and the impetus to say “if” is strong.  The game I now play is in noticing it in others, and when I hear it, I see them as weak.  I see them as petty, looking for an out.  Be strong, play the game.  You will find that you win, when you take ownership of each loss.

I was listening to a podcast talking about where people find their creative time.  For some it’s the shower, cooking, running, driving, etc.  I was talking with Eric and Sara about this on the trail the other day. Eric noted that when life gets hectic, it could be anywhere as long as you find a place that gives your mind the ability to wander and explore topics.
For me it’s mowing the lawn while riding on the tractor. Not a push mower.  I’ve done both and the push mower just doesn’t cut it (nyuck nyuck). As we talked some on the trail, I started to narrow in on what I think might be the reason and a strategy.

I started cutting lawns when I was 10. The first riding mower was this late 70s Ariens riding mower (10hp, 32″) with no back support and a weird ‘bar’ for steering. We picked it up at a yard sale and nursed it for a while. But I didn’t start seriously cutting lawns until we picked up a 1985 Wheel Horse (pre-Toro) 417-8.  This was a negotiation as I wanted to upgrade my lawn cutting capacity and dad wanted a legit garden tractor. We agreed on a ‘business loan’ over several years. I loved that machine.

At my peak I was cutting 24 lawns a week. It paid for college and I racked up over 4K hours on that machine before it finally got to be more work repairing it than it was worth.  I sold it around 2006. When you cut that many lawns, the act of mowing becomes brainless, I don’t even think of the most efficient patterns anymore. I can completely zone out for 2 hours.

And here is where I think we found the key insight. Finding something that occupies my body but at the same time does not occupy my brain, is where I find my ‘thinking’ time.   I wonder if that is the universal consistency for everyone looking to find their most creative space.

There just doesn’t seem to be a clever way to talk about setting your kids free and releasing them to the world.  I am not there yet, but I am starting to catch glimpses of this eventuality.  I have to admit, while I am excited to see them mature, it is a little scary.

We spend so long preparing for this event that you become numb to the fact that preparing, teaching and protecting is all you do as a parent.  I have been in protector mode for the past 17+ years.  Switching to a mode of pushing her out of the nest and trusting all my efforts that she has learned to fly, is a little nerve-wracking.  I am definitely not doing this well.  Sara has pushed me pretty hard to let Taylor prove herself, but I am still slow to adapt.  To her credit, Taylor has stepped up over the past 6-9 months and I am generally feeling more comfortable with her abilities.  Don’t tell Sara, but she was right.

Two events over the past month really let me see that the end is coming and there is nothing I can do to slow it down.

The first was Taylor going to prom with her boyfreind Keith, Sorry, but that all around just weirds me out.  I mean, I remember prom.  And while I was proud that they were responsible and didn’t drink that night, it’s still pretty surreal.  I definitely don’t remember any prom dresses in 1990 that looked like this.

The second event is much easier for a father to handle.  In fact, this one gave me the chills.  A few weeks ago, Taylor was appointed as Commander of her JROTC unit in high school.  It is a real honor and one that makes me happy to see happen for her.  When she first told me and that she needed to write a speech, my mind ran wild with all sorts of ideas.  One night she dropped a piece of paper on our kitchen island with the text of her speech and said, “OK go ahead and rip this apart.”  It took me a day or two to get into it, but honestly it was better than anything I was thinking.  And I loved the sentiment in what she wanted to impart on the cadets.  I made only modest suggestions of word choice and grammar (although I did just notice that we missed an error).

Seeing her on the stage, deliver her speech, and pinning her new rank insignia on her lapel was one of the proudest moments I have had to date.  I am starting to realize that she is completely capable of being on her own, and it is startling.  But when the moment comes, I will probably tear up a bit, wish her the best, kiss her on the forehead and then push her out of the nest for the last time.

This is where I am right now.  I’d guess that about age 12, middle school, is when things really start to change.  Puberty is kicking in.  Emotions and hormones are running crazy.  Kids start to realize that they know stuff.  We are leaving them home alone.  We give them autonomy and trust.

Along with that comes the attitude of “I dont’ really need you.”  It totally sucks.  Your baby no longer really sees you as a necessity in their lives.  You struggle to remain ‘cool’.  You search for relevance.  If you ask, “How was school today?” there should be no surprise at the inevitable one word response.  My new favorite expression?  “It’s fine dad.”

I’m certainly no expert here and I fumble through each day trying to make myself useful, just like every other parent.  But what I have learned is that you can find a way to be part of their lives by cultivating the thing they love.  In some cases you do that in exchange for the things you love yourself.  After years of giving, this is just one more example of how we happily keep giving to our kids.

I have talked about this in other posts.  You can try to find a way to be a coach.  Since we most likely do not know as much about their passion as they do, you have to leverage what you know and meld it into something they are doing.  Use what you know about something else, to help make them better at their thing.  Examples…

• For Taylor, my interest in exercise and healthy living has translated nicely to her desire to be a great soccer player.  Coming back from her LCL tear, we did a lot of work on strength, speed and stamina.  It’s great for me whe she talks of hitting goals, how she feels stronger or when she can do more push-ups than kids on her team.  Last night she was the only cadet to win the silver level award for presidential fitness in her JROTC unit.  That means she is top 85 percentile in the country.
• Recently Haley has gotten excited about strengthening her core and legs specifically to give her more strength for riding. It’s awesome how she has taken to this herself.  She is now doing situps, pushups, squats and supermans daily (actually more than I can do… sshhhhh).  She and I have also talked a lot about breath control and visualization skills.  We have practiced when she is in the saddle before her riding classes.  I believe it has helped to get her mind in the right place.

Another manifestation of this thinking is to co-opt a life experience by doing something that they love as part of things you would do anyway.  Taking vacations is a great example.  Most likely you wanted to take a vacation anyway.  But you can theme the trip around something they are passionate about.  I’ll elaborate on the point with a few recent examples of things that we did that went over well.

• Two years ago as our ‘summer vacation,’ Taylor and I went to Canada to see the women’s World Cup. It was a weekend full of soccer. I was able to put a little spin on it, by purchasing tickets to the Jazz festival in Ottawa. Overall the focus was soccer, though I think even Taylor would admit that we saw some good shows.
• Last year Haley and I took a vacation and went to the Rolex Kentucky 3 day event. I even got tickets to the Hunter Hayes show (I am not much for country music). But as with Taylor, I was able to put a little spin on the trip as we drove around the University of Kentucky campus. Haley felt excitement for college in what I felt was palpable for the first time. Of course we stopped to pet every dog on the show-grounds. (side note- The weekend turned into a nightmare for travel reasons, but we were having a great time up until then.)
• This summer Tay, Sara and I are turning a trip into a joint vacation, college visit & soccer camp to the Air Force academy (we did last year too).
• Sara and I are also looking for horse shows near a lake or beach to try to take a few days that we could all enjoy.

I think that the notion of being a coach in the Cultivating phase is the most important one.  Part of being a coach is seeing the bigger picture of what possibilities can come from the thing they love so much.  Despite all the challenges, moodiness and emotional rollercoaster, I admit that this is my favorite time in their lives.  Being a parent is much more rewarding when you share your life experience with your kids and get to see tangible results.  Parenting is hard, but it starts to be more rewarding when you see that you can affect real change.

I love the over-riding theme in the movie High Fidelity where they keep naming the top 5 songs for some given circumstance.  I listen to a lot of music, but I just couldn’t come up with music lists that easily.  Besides, I don’t really remember lyrics.  I focus more on genre and the artist, being critical at random times.  You’ve seen the 4-Song Set rules, I can be pretty critical

But I do know movies.  And so I thought I would list off my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

1. Grosse Point Blank – I am a big Cusack fan, and this dark comedy is nothing short of brilliant.  The movie has action, comedy and romance.  What more can you ask?  Not to mention, this is my dream life 🙂  A hit-man goes home for his 10 year high school reunion while one of his ‘competitors’ is trying to unionize the assassin industry.  I can watch it over and over
2. The Matrix Trilogy – Movies that make you think are awesome.  And I am a sucker for SciFi.  If you ask me, the Wachowski’s redefined everything with this one, and not just because of bullet -time.  (side note- props to them for coming out)  The subtleties, the twists, an amazing soundtrack, the way this movie, the MMORPG game and the back story videos all come together, is the future of entertainment.
3. Indiana Jones – When a movie combines the real world, history, archaeology, religion, mystery, science, math and obstacle course-like adventure…I’m sold.
4. Forbidden Planet – Of course you haven’t seen it.  My dad might be the only one I know who has.  I use the reference “monsters of the ID” all the time, but no one gets it.  Leslie Nielsen in a straight role?  Awesome.
5. The Family Man – In all seriousness, this is closer to my dream life.  I love this story, and Don Cheadle kills.  But yes, Tea Leoni is what does it for me.  I’m a big fan.

I know the girls will ask why I don’t include Holy Grail, Red, Top Gun and Mr Right (their favorites).  Holy Grail, Top Gun and Point Break (the original one) were on the list at some time or another.  But have since dropped off.  I watch a lot of movies and I think the movie is an enduring form of entertainment that will continue to stand the test of time.  You can learn a lot about people by the kinds of movies they like.  While I want to revolutionize the experience, the core of telling a great story and visualizing the experience, makes it something that I will always love doing with friends and family…and Sara’s precious popcorn 🙂