Category Archives: Friends

Christmas Update 2024

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Howdy friends, near and far, young and old, those who we haven’t seen this year and those who may feel they’ve seen too much of us,

As I write this update, I’m still optimistic that it will get printed, signed, into an envelope, and finally to you before December 25 rolls around. This feels a bit of an extraordinary hope, given both our last few years’ experience around the holidays and how full these twelve months have felt. (There are, however, still ample opportunities for things to go pear-sideways before our plans bear fruit, so here’s hoping…)

Kris has continued to do great work at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where she serves as the Director of Children and Family Ministries. In addition to the Christmas pageant she’s currently bringing together, some other high points have included: starting a women’s book study, assembling the strongest staff of Sunday School volunteers she’s had yet, putting together several family art nights, planning joint activities with the school, and starting an after-church tradition of families meeting up on the playground after services. On the home front, she’s launched a “Block Connector” initiative under the umbrella of our Neighborhood Association, which has helped equip over 50 volunteers to get to know their neighbors and to start phone trees to keep in touch and help one another as needs arise. Finally, she’s been working hard to take good care of herself, making regular trips to the YMCA gym, starting allergy shots, and continuing to cook creative, healthy, and delicious meals for us and for friends.

Sean has continued at Doximity, where he’s currently building AI tools for doctors and managing a few team members. The band he plays with, The Happy Out, has gained momentum, adding several additional shows and festivals to their regular fortnightly appearances at our local pub. The lads attended O’Flahertys Irish Music Retreat together back in October, and were all quite inspired by 16 hours a day of Irish music over the course of a long weekend; we definitely hope to return! He is also enjoying a couple of monthly board game nights with his brother Chris and some nearby friends, continuing to read a lot, hiking when he can squeeze it in, learning more about audio engineering and production, and also hitting the (home) gym with some regularity. 

Our shared travel this year has included a marriage retreat in Canyon Lake, our annual trip to Indianapolis to visit with Kris’ family, a San Diego visit to visit with Savannah and her beau, a run up to Dallas for Kris’ work and a visit with Liam, a birthday camping weekend at Guadalupe River State Park, and a delightful vacation near Austin with the kids. Kris got the chance to go spend a few days solo with her sister Kim in Seattle. Sean visited San Francisco, Denver, Toronto, and San Diego for work, and made it up to Durango for a special trip with his mom. After all of that, it feels great to just be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

We continue to enjoy and be terribly proud of our young people. Maggie is still providing top-notch care for many of the large mammals at the zoo (Rhinos and Capybaras are particular favorites) and is gardening up a storm at her home. Liam is still in N. Texas, and has switched jobs this year to work for Henry, a company providing medications to folks in need through the mail. He’s enjoying time with his delightful long-time sweetheart Tea (who reliably provides us with superb reading and travel recommendations), and has taken up riding a Onewheel. Abigail continues working as a Surgical Technician, winding down her job in San Antonio as she and Christian make plans to move to Bentonville, Arkansas. (Christian has started managing a program for Walmart to keep medication prices affordable for all.) We’re sorry to lose them in Texas for at least a few years, but are excited for their new adventures up there (and look forward to taking advantage of their guest room). Emily, Xander, and Juniper remain in San Marcos. Xander enjoys being the graphic designer for the city of Kyle by day, and hosts D&D games and plays guitar by night. Emily pours out her creative energy in the home. Much like the characters of Juniper’s favorite show “Bluey” come to life, they are an inspiring family to behold. Juniper loves bugs, slugs, and anything out in nature. We love being her “Granfer” and “Grandma Kris”! Savannah is out in San Diego doing good work managing a Better Buzz coffee and enjoying the west coast life.

We still love San Antonio, and make the most of the opportunities to spend time with all the different portions of our family who are here in town. Our neighborhood has continued to get more lively: good friends of ours are opening a wine shop, and several “third place” cafes and hangouts continue to attract more of our neighbors. The city’s culture benefits from so many interesting historical streams, and we love hearing Spanish around town almost as frequently as English. Our guest room is filled less often than we’d enjoy, so come stay with us, and enjoy what Mark Twain considered one of only four unique cities in the US!

We do hope this finds you well; if you are receiving this, know that we value your friendship and think of you fondly! May you enjoy every blessing you can think of (and some that surprise you), and may our paths cross soon!

Grace, peace, and joy to you,

Sean & Kris

2023 Holiday Update

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Dear Friends,

As the dust settles from this year’s madcap Christmas celebrations, it’s time for us to look back on 2023 and share its high points with all of you with whom we don’t get to spend as much time as we’d like!

Kris invested much time and creative energy at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where she continues to serve as the Director of Children and Family Ministries. She has organized and coordinated all manner of classes and events, and goes to great lengths to shepherd new families into the community there. Of particular note was the Christmas Pageant, which is based on the French carol “The Friendly Beasts” and which features a wide swath of fauna that visit the holy child in the manger. In addition, by dint of hard work, exercise, and the help of a good PT team, Kris’ ribs have now largely healed from fractures sustained on a trip to a nearby waterpark. We’re very glad to have her once again firing on all cylinders!

Sean continues working on software to help doctors and manages a few folks at Doximity. He’s been playing with The Happy Out, an Irish pub band, for a year and a half now, and has delighted in seeing the band’s regular shows at The Cottage (our new favorite restaurant bar) become a meeting place for family and friends. He’s enjoyed a ton of reading this year (though the “to-read” list somehow always grows faster than the “finished” list), and is also getting close to finishing up a board game he’s been designing (with some excellent input from his monthly gaming group). Current topics of study include AI, game design, urban infrastructure and transit, audio engineering, the feasibility of space colonies, and beekeeping. (Nerd!)

We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to do some traveling this year: a marriage retreat to Galveston, a trip to Indianapolis to visit Kris’ family, a Texas coast romp with Sean’s kids, and a little overnight getaway to Fredericksburg. Kris has also gotten to know more of the Texas Hill country, embarking on several delightful day trips with girlfriends, and we’ve enjoyed several wonderful visits from various friends and family. (Come visit! We love guests and playing tour guide.)

Our progeny are doing well: Emily & Xander are still in San Marcos, fully occupied raising Juniper, our adorable granddaughter. Abi finished up her schooling and launched into her Surgical Technician career in downtown San Antonio, where she’s doing a bang-up job. Savannah is out in San Diego, enjoying her work managing a coffee shop and often providing us excellent reading suggestions. Liam works at a software agency in Dallas, where he’s advanced into increasingly responsible technical leadership roles. Maggie continues to work with her beloved animals at the SA Zoo and bought her first house, leaving us with an empty nest. (That took some getting used to!) We are grateful to see them all continuing to become kind, responsible, frequently hilarious adults, and we treasure the time we get with them.

We continue to revel in our Beacon Hill neighborhood, its mix of Spanish and English speakers, the coffee shops, taquerias, restaurants, and antique stores within an easy stroll, the monthly neighborhood happy hours, the community garden, and all of the creative, artistic, and musical friends we’ve found here. What a joy it is to be in such a lively place and close to our San Antonio family! Kris has found homes for several of the feral cats that we had adopted, leaving us with only three in the backyard currently. (They are, however, often joined by raccoons, possums, and skunks — our unofficial neighborhood mascot.)

We are grateful for your friendship — that precious currency in which we count ourselves remarkably rich. As we look forward to 2024, we wish you every blessing, and hope we’ll have an opportunity to spend time with you.

Peace and all good things,

Kris and Sean

Rachel on Addiction

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Rachel is a high school friend of mine who recently got to speak on addiction at a TEDx event . A few years back, we were both in town for the funeral of one of our shared dear friends. We had a wonderful conversation afterwards about the similar ways that addiction had impacted our lives, and the growth and change of direction that came out of those experiences. She has now been fully focused on addiction treatment and recovery for a number of years, and shares here some of the wisdom that she has won on that road. It’s well worth your time.

On the Care and Feeding of a Depressed Friend

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I recently wrote an email to the woman I’ve been spending time with lately. I was feeling depression creeping in around the edges of my mind, and wanted to warn her that it was coming, what to expect from it, and give her a good idea of what I would need during the time I’d be dealing with it. After I sent the message, it occurred to me that this might be a helpful window for other folks who have people they care about who deal with this malady as well, so have lightly edited it to share here. I hope it’s valuable for someone out there.

This morning sometime, I started to feel the Black Dog of Depression nipping at me. It’s not severe yet, and I hope to head it off before it gets there. But, since you haven’t gotten to put up with me during a bout of depression yet, I thought I’d provide a bit of a primer.

Things to know:

  • It’s not about you. It’s not about us. It’s not really about anything in my life. It’s mostly about brain chemistry. Sometimes an event will trigger it, but that’s only the domino that happens to start the chain reaction.
  • I’ll function fairly normally, though I may seem a bit listless and sigh a lot like some 19th century Byronic ninny.
  • Sometimes while a bout is active, it will recede for a bit, but then come back. Usually my depression lasts between a couple of days and a couple of weeks (shorter is more common), and ranges in intensity from “a little bummed out” to “emo band lead singer and songwriter.”
  • I should not be trusted to make any decisions of import during times when my depression is active. It poisons my thinking. Most (but not all) of the time I’m aware of this effect at work and deliberately avoid doing anything important until my head is clearer.
  • Again: it’s not about you.

Things to do:

  • Be sympathetic. Feel free to ask how I’m feeling and about the depression specifically.
  • Gently check on how I’m doing with exercise, sleep, nutrition, and spiritual disciplines. These are the things that seem to help, though at the speed of a cruise ship changing direction. (Playing music is also often cathartic for me.)
  • Perhaps encourage me to get off the phone in time to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep. 🙂
  • Be patient.
  • Offer me delicious food. This is a pretty benign indulgence I will treat myself to.
  • When we’re together, give me hugs, hold my hand, be with me.

Things not to do:

  • Feel obliged to try to fix it for me. I’ve got a pretty good grasp on how it works and runs its course at this point.
  • Take it personally if I act a bit grouchy or withdrawn.
  • Avoid being around me.
  • Expect me to be terribly motivated toward big life goals. Or even little ones.
  • Offer me alcohol. I don’t drink when I’m depressed. (See the “can’t be trusted to make rational decisions” item above.)
  • Be concerned if I disappear into books, naps, movies, or video games for a bit. (More benign indulgences.)

Hope that’s a helpful user guide.

Marvelous Birthday Present

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As all you regular readers of this blog already know, my friend Jason Young and I are rather prone to building things that break other things. For my 40th birthday, we built a potato cannon and used it to shoot down my birthday piñata. For my 41st birthday, Jason used this photo from the 40th:

To commission this original artwork for the 41st:

Utterly freaking awesome, I think you’ll agree.

The best part? As the guy who did the drawing detailed in his blog post, it was not until Jason actually ordered it that he realized the artist, who he had discovered out in the untamed wilds of the Internet, lives two doors down the street from him.

Thanks Jason! (And Ben the artist!) This is now one of my most prized possessions. Great stuff.

Mad Science: Jam Jar Jet

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This past Friday, Jason Young and I got together for a visit. Since Baylor Sing had just wrapped up for him, and I was starting 3 days of unemployment, we decided to drown our sorrows with alcohol.

But, being the mildly destructive nerds that we are, we decided it would be more fun to set it on fire than to drink it. So we printed our William Gurstelle’s excellent article from Make Magazine #5, gathered the necessary supplies, and got to it. Here are the results:

15th Anniversary Weekend

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Kathy and I spent this past weekend down in San Antonio to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We had considered traveling farther afield in recognition of the significance of the milestone, but after recently replacing both our van and our home’s air conditioning system, we decided that something more modest would be in order. Since we love the Riverwalk and being able to comfortably walk around a downtown, we decided that would be a great destination for us.

Our plans to start off with tubing on the Comal River — at 3 miles long, the shortest in Texas — were foiled by the recent flooding in New Braunfels. We instead spent the day lounging about the hotel, enjoying some terrific food, and walking the Riverwalk with Adam, my stepbrother, and his wife Celeste. Since we rarely have opportunity to spend time without a juvenile escort from one side or the other, it was a rare treat to simply meander about and have conversations with actual pauses.

I had an idea that on Saturday we should do something truly grand. We started with a game of Carcassonne, got some mexican pastries and a huge glass of horchata to share (yum!), chatted with a photographer we met, did a little shopping for gifts for the kid, and then went back and took a nap. Given how much we have going on around the house most days, the luxury of being able to have a snooze at the same time was a nearly unprecedented delight.

We ate some more wonderful food that afternoon, went out to Mission Concepción for a bit, and then prowled the Riverwalk some more, reveling in the unhurried pace and the chance to soak in each other’s company at length.

Sunday saw us heading for St. Thomas Episcopal Church for a Jazz Mass service, at which our friends Barry Brake, Darren Kuper, and Greg Norris (a.k.a. The Jazz Protagonists) provided the music. We were delighted to also bump into Paul Soupiset and Jason and Erin Young, who had come down for the mass as well. The service was terrific, the music both organic to the service and thoroughly delightful. We afterwards enjoyed the afternoon with the Youngs, Barry and his wife Catherine, with a too-brief stop to visit my dad, my step-mom, and my sister Meara before finally heading back home for a happy reunion with the kiddos.

Our excellent, unhurried, relaxed weekend, full of good friends, good food, and beautiful places was just what we needed. Many thanks to all with whom we got to visit over the weekend, and especially our dear friends who were gracious to take good care of our spawn while we were gone: Faith, my Mom, Steven & Christina, and Sam & Alba. You guys are great, and we deeply appreciate the generosity and love you showed us and our young ones.

Tweeku Launches

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Congratulations to my friend Greg Pierce, who launched Tweeku today, a super-nifty iPhone app he wrote for composing Twitter messages and other short-form texts (including haiku)! I’ve been testing it off and on for a few weeks, and am really impressed with what he’s done with it. Here’s the company line:

Tweeku is a twitter writing tool. Do you tweet Haiku? Short-form poetry? Or just care about improving the quality of your status updates? Then Tweeku is for you!

Tweeku is not a traditional Twitter client. It does not download your tweet stream, or show you trending topics. Tweeku lets you focus on writing. Store unlimited drafts, and tweak them until you are ready to post.

Go beyond character counts! Tweeku analyzes your text, counting lines, syllables, mentions and hashtags — and provides easy two-click Thesaurus lookup and word substitution.

Features

  • Write notes, save drafts, online or offline. Publish later when you are ready.
  • Not just character counts but line, syllable, mention and hashtag counts.
  • Easy Thesaurus lookup and word substitution.
  • Multiple accounts, publish to multiple twitter accounts.
  • Connects with Twitter OAuth, no need to store your password in the App.
  • Email your drafts.
  • Send drafts to Tweetie.

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My Favorite 40th Birthday Party Ever

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Over the weekend I celebrated my 40th birthday along with a pile of family and friends. The party was terrific — everything I had hoped that it would be and more. Thanks to all who attended and helped to make it such a delightful, memorable time!

I had a magnificent surprise shortly after the party got underway: my father, who is still in a wheelchair from an accident three weeks ago, turned up along with all of the family members who had schemed and conspired to get him up for a visit. I had just spoken to my stepmom the day before, who had confirmed my suspicion that they wouldn’t be coming, and then was wracked with guilt for the next day at leading me astray to preserve the surprise. What a delight to have them all there together! Special thanks to my brother, who found a van with a wheelchair lift to make that possible.

I had decided a few weeks before the party that, per our family tradition, I wanted a piñata. I didn’t, however, want to do the usual boring thing of hitting it with a stick. My kids are getting too big for it to last long under those circumstances, and adults rarely get to participate. Thus was born what I suspect may become another family tradition: the birthday party piñata potato cannon.

My partner in crime Jason and I got together the week before to cobble together a cannon for the occasion. Because the circumstances would be a bit less controlled than those under which we usually fire such things, we built in extra safety features: a smaller-than-usual air chamber, a shorter barrel, the ability to break it down into smaller, harmless parts when not in use, and electrical safety triggers that required two buttons to be depressed simultaneously to fire the thing. Even so, we were hyper-careful the whole time that it was assembled, with at least one of us standing right next to it guiding its use at all times.

It was a tremendous hit. We ended up with a big crowd (standing at a respectful and safe distance) watching and cheering lustily as the magnificent tank-shaped piñata Kathy had found for the occasion gradually disintegrated under the starchy fusillade. My brother fired the decisive shot that finally peeled the top from the tank, causing the crowds of children to charge in and finish it off.

In spite of my insistence that no presents were needed, a few folks went renegade and brought some anyway. Maggie had bought me both a pair of hilarious “Happy Beerday” sunglasses and a wonderful “I Love my Daddy” frame with a photo of her months-old self. Abby came up with Ned Flanders’ book of wisdom. Jason and his wife Erin gave me a Maker’s notebook, with many pages of graph paper and conversion charts for the budding mad scientist — the perfect complement to the subscription to Make magazine that Kathy provided! (Hopefully she won’t come to regret that gift over time as my ridiculous projects become even more extravagant.) Dad & Lana gave me an astonishing pop-up book of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, and also joined forces with much of the rest of the extended family to provide a bagpipe! (With a meerschaum in a ziploc as a proxy at the party.) With my daily walk through the cemetery on the way to work, I’m sure I’ll be tooting out Amazing Grace to the great annoyance of my neighbors very shortly. Or hyperventilating in the attempt.

Other highlights included some great conversations with wonderful friends, seeing a big circle of folks enjoying a round of my friend Barry’s game-in-development “Prince Carl”, enjoying some terrific food and drink, and reading all the birthday cards together in bed with Kathy after all of our guests had moseyed on.

Thank you again to all of you who came by and helped make this occasion such a joyful one for me. I am immensely grateful to have such a wonderful collection of friends and family to celebrate with me the achievement of this milestone, the reaching of the next decade in my life as I turn 40 years old.

Now, get off of my lawn.

Honor Roll

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Kathy and I are just back from a 10 day trip to Switzerland which was alternately the most amazing and the most harrowing experience of our recent lives. I’ll write more on the trip itself later, but wanted to post immediately about the extraordinary kindness and care we were shown by a variety of people over the course of this trip and to publicly thank the folks involved:

  • Thank you to my brother Chris, who stayed with our kiddos for the first half of the week, and to his wife Becky for being willing to share him!
  • Thank you to my mother Diane, who took several days off from her pediatric private practice to care for our kids the remainder of the time we would be gone. When we missed our flight out of Switzerland, she  stayed another night to make sure the young people got off to school OK the next morning.
  • Thank you to Karl, the proprietor of Transcom Accommodation, who came in after hours to check us into our rental apartment and was extraordinarily friendly, patient and helpful when the B&B where we were supposed to be staying lost our reservation. Thanks also to Eva, his neighbor, who invited us into her kitchen while she called around and found Karl after hours.
  • Thank you to Boris, the CTO of Magnolia, and his family. Not only did they make us feel very welcome in Basel and give us some great ideas for things to see and do, but they also had us over for dinner and treated us to a delightful evening of excellent food and conversation. It was one of the high points of our time away.
  • Thank you to Daniel and again to my brother Chris, who surreptitiously did an entire garden installation in our backyard while we were gone. We were astounded to find two large raised beds and an irrigation system (complete with a new water supply line) installed, with Bok Choy, lettuce, and Swiss Chard (appropriate!) already sprouting, where the remnants of our pool had been when we left. Amazing!
  • Thank you to Mike McGinnis for picking us up from the airport when we came in a day later than anticipated and bringing us home.
  • Thank you to all the friends who offered thoughts, prayers, and words of reassurance while we were on the road. They meant more than you can imagine!
  • Thank you to Leslie for staying with the kids after school on the day we were returning and greeting us with a big hug and a bigger Mexican food meal — just the thing to make us feel well and truly back home. (Thanks also to Charles & Lydia, Faith, my Dad, and the other folks who offered to help out that afternoon!)

We are amazingly humbled and grateful to have friends who are far better than what we deserve. Thank you all for your love and your very concrete support.