You know, like that's I think the real
hustle is like hustle for peace. The one
point I always get back to is we can't
share snacks virtually. Like we got to be
in person for that. So if we've got a
lunar base for a data center like in can
bounce off of that instead of reentering
the atmosphere. Compute can stay
like really in the cloud like oh this is
actually a date. I'm not Microsoft Excel.
I don't get confused about this being a
date or not. Welcome to the Think and
Cursive podcast. I'm Brandon Leonard, and
I'm so excited to share with you my
circle of interesting people and
conversation. Please like, subscribe and
share your comments along the way. It
helps our little channel more than you
know. All right, here we go here today
with my buddy Chris Corriere from Albany,
GA. It's been a long time since the
senior. You're a data scientist, you're a
mathematician. You're a kind of brainy
guy. You're a techie guy. And
I'm excited to talk about play with you,
man. Yeah, excited to be here. Should be
fun. Yeah man. What's what's
top of your mind that you are
excited about in this life right now?
I think we're we've kicked off
fall conference season in the tech
industry. So last week was Atlanta
tech week and I was down
at Render ATL for the week
at a bunch of like meetups
and stuff catching up with people.
Presenting at commit your code comp
in Dallas.
September 3rd and 4th So been hanging out
in Dallas a lot the past few years. Been
doing a lot of. Community research there
just saw like workforce metrics and some
other things. So see a lot of the
same people there. Some some folks that
didn't make it to Atlanta will be in
Dallas and tentatively scheduled to give
a 5 minute talk on a.
Convergent evolution theory called
cancerization, where things tend to
turn into crabs independently in
the fossil record, at a
tech conference in Barcelona in
November. Not, not
100% sure I'm making it to Spain. Never
been to Spain, but I was hoping you're
gonna pick up on that. We'll see you
then. Why not? It should be fun. It's
like it's a little play time. So it's
been it's always interesting with
industry events. I'm sure you can relate
in your line of work on what's like
on the clock, super serious business and
what's like. I can kind of skip
that maybe, but this looks neat.
I, I got to be honest with you, man, I.
That, you know, I did more real estate
industry kind of stuff when I first got
licensed back in 20/17/2018 and then I
just stopped doing all of it and I was
like, I'm just going to do my own thing.
I don't think I really need any of you
guys. And so far I've been been right. I
mean, I, I got to stay in touch with
people and people got to Remember Me, but
I, I kind of feel like I'm on an island.
I, I had this epiphany when I was, I
worked for Atlanta fine homes and. You
know, I went into the office. I wore my
suit and tie. I was like, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna sell this house. You know, I went
in and I'm gonna make my dials. And I was
so scared. But like, I went in there and
all the other agents are there and there
are beautiful outfits and all this stuff.
And I just looked around. I realized
everybody's just talking. They're not
working. And then I would close my door
and then people would come in and knock
on their hey, what did you hear about
this thing? Like I'm working. I had to
put a post it silent door is closed, do
not open. Like I got to get through my
dials. And then I just realized that the
people that are in the office aren't
working. Different, different industry,
totally different. But I can be on an
island and you know, for the most part
it's pretty safe experience. But the
mileage can definitely vary. And there's
I've been in offices before.
Like a couple jobs ago, they had an
Atlanta location that I was not expected
to go to hardly ever. But it was nice
when I showed up. Like, you know,
they're, they're glad to see me in
theory. But I was aligned
with the Chicago practice, is how we put
it. So none of the people in that office.
We're working on things I could bill for
and it kind of puts an odd, put me
in an odd spot of like Chris is in
the office, he could probably help with
this. And then it's like, OK, how long?
Can we talk about this before I got to
cut you off and get back to like
deliverable stuff that I'm definitely on
the hook for?And I guess like.
You, you deal with that some, I guess
like in terms of just looky loos real
estate industry, it's just like how much?
How much water cooler can we can we do
before like this is moving forward and
we're looking at paperwork and it looks
like we're buying or selling something?
But I mean, that's how I've, I've been
running, I've factored it into my
business, just this whole emphasis on
play. That
my first pricing tier through Ecology
Computing is friends and family.
Or a lot of it's just like, can you
kind of show up and be cool and do
the things we agreed on and sort of get
the project moving? Because with tech
projects, especially if you're dealing
with a less technical audience, they
don't always understand things I just
can't do for them. As a consultant.
There's some things like your brand and
your identity and sort of like your
business strategy. I can help. Sort
through some of that and I enjoy doing
it. It is fun to play with maps and
strategy. For me, it's like, well, we can
gamify, but there's that point of like.
I can avoid a lot of headaches just
keeping it, you know, a little flatter, a
little bit more friendzone before, like,
no, you know, usually they hit a point
where it's like, I should probably be
paying you some money for this. Like,
we're like, doing some cool things. And
I'm like, I'm glad you agree. Absolutely.
I I like money. I have bills to pay. Not
wrong. Hey, money is just paper
appreciation, Right. Right. Yeah. To some
extent. By the way, thanks for being
here. This is an unpaid interview.
No, this is a fun one. And I I think to
point the fact that it's in person like
we're like it's an in person.
Podcast and you were like 1520 minutes
down the street and we go way back
because you know we went to high school
together and stuff like no this is this
is a rare breed one like I definitely go
hang out yeah chat it up a little bit
good catch up yeah man with COVID I got
so burned out on Zoom calls I I think I'm
I think I'm just done with them I was
like I'm not doing any more zoom calls so
face to face. Group Zoom I guess
is OK, but podcast is OK, but
I'm not going to do anymore Zoom
unless it's like FaceTime and my daughter
or something like yeah. Yeah, there
is a time and a place for it.
I don't like. I
think like big, like if I'm doing like a
30 minute or hour long presentation, it's
very weird to end the call and just be
back in your house by yourself when
there's like no follow up Q&A, No like
hallway track, like post that. But from
an accessibility perspective, it does
open things up to folks that wouldn't be
able to join otherwise. But
you just can't replicate the same
experience. The one point I always get
back to is we can't share snacks.
Virtually, like we got to be in person
for that. Yeah. And snacks are fun. And
like, I think that like justifies, like
showing up in person. And it's one of
those relationship things. Is it
transactional? Is it money or is it
reciprocal? And a lot of the social
interaction does come back to that
reciprocal nature, you know, buy you a
cup of coffee, get you a beer. You
know, it's like not necessarily keeping
the score of all that, but just.
You know a constraint to make it. Easier
to hang out, yeah.
Yeah, it's wild. I feel like
since since COVID.
I don't know man, I think that. I think
that it's going to be hard to quantify
how impactful that was, especially I
think about people's kids and where they
were developmentally and socially, you
know, a certain age when we're, you know,
being locked up. And I don't know, I'm
sure that you've seen. I don't know,
there's it seems like some people went
into the the the scared hole and never
came out, you know, and they're still
there and they're still just isolating
and kind of just bathing in their own
fear. Then I don't know, man, it it
it is a weird.
Time, you know, all right, so I
graduated, I think I graduated in a year
before or after you. I graduated 02. So
we went through, you know, Y2K, we went
through 911. And went to the financial
crash, you know.
And now COVID and it's wild to see
how many examples there were like. Don't
trust what you hear.
Like, not every narrative is necessarily
true. I'm not trying to like drum
up any conspiracies or anything, but.
Yeah, a lot of them end up just being
history. But.
My big take away is in person, real
present conversation relationships never
go out of style. It's actually the
fundamental thing that makes us human. It
makes things magical and inspiring and
for me, playful. And honestly, it's kind
of the idea of having smart people come
over to my house and, you know, have
conversations in my home made me a little
scared. So I was like, all right, I'm
going to lean into this like, all right,
like that's my thing. I, I want to have
a, a very personal relationship with. And
anything that kind of scares makes me a
little uncomfortable because not a lot of
things do. You know,
I've now been in sales for a long
time and that was really scary the first
time I had to like knock on a
door or cold call somebody. But now, you
know, it's just another day. Well, now I
really don't have to knock on doors or
call people. But I don't know, having an
intellectual conversations are just
personal conversations with people. Yeah,
you've got. Like there's.
The learning spaces, which is probably
not the right. Term to look it
up, but there's sort of like the Green
Zone, which is, you know, general
audiences, calm water.
Like super chill. We move in like, you
know, out past like the first buoy and
you're in like the the yellow zone where
it's not entirely safe. Maybe you can't
touch the bottom, but you can get back to
shore pretty quickly And like that's a
learning space. Then there's the the red
zone where like you're in deep water,
maybe you can't see shore and our.
It's dangerous. Like you could absolutely
drown. That's Malcolm. Jamal
Warner comes to mind. He drowned off the
coast to Costa Rica not too long ago and
is not it was about our age is why I
like it set in with me. It was him, Hulk
Hogan. There was one other celebrity that
went about the same time, but that one
was a drowning. And we've got a parallel
to that with like types of fun. That type
1 fun is just like this is type 1 fun.
We just kind of hang out like, you know,
it's chilled space. Type 2 fund
would be something a little bit more
labor intensive, but maybe we felt a
sense of accomplishment afterwards, like
went on a hike or played a gig or
we went and played like open mic or
something. Then there's Type
3 fun where like you were like definitely
in danger, like you survived and it's a
good story, but you don't want to end up
in that spot again, in theory. And I
think like we know each other well
enough. Like I got way too acclimated to
Type 3 fun. As a kid, there's a level
of chaos I thrive within that I enjoy,
and it's not a learning space for other
people. Yeah. So I think I got to be
mindful of that. Just like, how big of a
group am I with and what are their goals
and objectives? And like, that whole, can
you get me to the airport from here in 30
minutes? It's like, yes, but Are you sure
you really want me to do that? Because
we're going to be shucking it the whole
time, right?
Are you doing? I'll manage this. Do you
do a lot of traveling?With these
conferences, I mean, besides
Spain, yeah.
Like I said, I've been to Dallas a lot
lately, which is not necessarily a travel
destination. I. But there were
just a number of conferences. Commit your
code. The one I'm going to next month is
on that list where there's something
unique enough that drew my attention. I'd
spent a fair amount of time in Chicago.
Where else?Through the
DevOps days events I I've ended up
they they started in Ghent, Belgium like
1520 years ago now and I've been
organizing the Atlanta event for this
will be the 11th one in April.
So I've been to Ghent in Antwerp.
Spoken at events in Amsterdam and
I'm odd amount of travel through
the UK, Scotland and London. The
flavor of. Mapping I do,
I do value stream mapping and I
do flavor dependency chain mapping called
Wordly mapping, Simon Wordly's from
England and sort of my introduction to
complexity sciences through Dave Snowden,
something called the Kenevan framework,
which is an ontological framework for
complexity science, sort of like figure
out how complex of a situation you're
in. And he's from Wales
originally, which is also in the UK, so.
Between there and some,
yeah. Also DevOps
Days is out of London so that that part
of of Europe and the UK.
Never been to Spain before though, so
excited to see. What that's
like, yeah, man, but it's it's
really like, I think interesting to
me just. What makes a
a travel destination and like where
people get excited about going and
places I'd rather not?
And I think part of it is just.
On bring the word ontology up again, but
keeping a flatter ontology where we're in
a less ordered system and there's not
quite as much structure that you're not
trying to get to the bestest trip
possible. Just looking to have a good
time. And I, I was looking at flying into
Amsterdam and taking the train down to
Barcelona because it would be more fun
that way. There's room for me to stop in
Paris for a night. And when I
mentioned this, people went like, they
start playing in this excursion in Paris
and maybe I should stay a few days. And
it's like, I know from traveling enough
that if I stop at the train station,
there's probably an excellent meal within
like a block of there that I could just
stay for a night, whatever random hotel.
And it's not like on the top ten list
for the city, but it's going to be maybe
a little bit more authentic experience
for the time I have available. And I, I
think that's true for Georgia. I just
growing up in Georgia, there's a lot of
random little towns. And places that you
scratch a little bit you can find like a.
An amazing pork chop sandwich or
something that's like in a maybe worth
an Instagram post. Yeah. So yeah, I
got a buddy that I roll with
that jujitsu and he owns the Cozy
Coupe right off Barrett Parkway. There's
one on. Holcomb,
Holcomb Bridge also, but he started this
franchise. He's also like a legitimate
chef. So you think it might just be
a, you know, drive through thing like
ribs and, you know, Nashville fried
chicken sandwich. But all of their food
is cooked in, you know, beef tallow. And
it's it's so good. But it also helps
that I know the guy. He's a good
guy and he's like, I want to support
him. So if I'm feeling snacky, check out
Cozy Coop. Yeah. I will check that out.
Are there any like comfort change you
have, any like chain restaurants you
like? That's been my comfort lately
'cause like I would never go out and
order ribs, but I got a smoker and I've
made him at home and then I'm like,
alright, how do other people do it 'cause
they sell a lot of ribs and I went to
Cozy Coop and they got ribs. I'm like,
these are way better than mine.
That's that's very much the answer. Like
where is good barbecue in Atlanta? It's
like if you're from Georgia, the answer
is like my house. Yeah, yeah, I think
everybody's got through. I just checked
out the lockdown on Canton Rd. Locked or
Smitty's Lockdown BBQ or something. Now I
got to be honest, like, you know, this is
not a food review thing, but. I
was underwhelmed with a lot of their
meats. Not all of them, but. The their
potato salad and the fried okra was like
the best I've ever had. So to nail both
of those and they were teaside dishes to
deliver me in with. Those were like
pretty top team. Dude. It was so good.
And honestly, like, yeah, I got brisket.
I like a sampler like chicken and and
pork and and and chicken tenders and like
the chicken tenders were awesome.
Everything else is kind of like I could
do this better at home, but those sides
were epic. I would definitely give
them. I think they make it all in house
and it tastes like it. It's delicious.
Yeah, it's tough. Like the restaurant
industry is particularly vicious. It's a.
I think in that. That transactionality
piece of it, like we can invite each
other over for dinner and that would be
reciprocal. And, you know, go buck wild,
make crazy meals, I'm sure. Yeah, once.
Yeah, right, One time. But when you're
running it and, like, have to break it
down per plate cost, like you can't,
like, you know, drown everything in black
truffles or like, lobster meat or
whatever it's happened to be a few times.
It's like, this is really good. I wonder
if I could turn this into a business.
It's like I'm charging $150.00 a plate
for tacos and Mac and cheese. It's not
gonna work. No, this is definitely just
like. For fun. This is a hobby for
me. Yeah. And I, I see that a lot where
people go chase their passion and like,
start to turn it into a business. And
that work element that that comes out of
it where it's got to be lucrative and,
you know, you've got overhead to manage
and it can suck all the joy out of the
work, which is unfortunate.
Definitely experience that, you know,
playing music. I mean, you know, music
being a musician full time sounds so
magical and and it really is a lot of it
is. I think there's
way more schlepping gear than people
realize. You're a drummer too. So yeah,
yeah. Which means I got the drum set
and the PA and. But at least at
our level of success and.
But also, you know, yeah, you start to,
it does take the, the, the balance out of
it when you're doing the same. You know,
I remember one week I had like 10 gigs
in a week and that was the most ever.
And a lot of those were three hour bar
gigs. And it just kind of it's like, all
right, you know, when you hit seven sets,
the same seven sets in a week, you know,
it starts to feel real like monotonous.
Mechanical, you know, and.
I don't know, it's it's a whole different
world when you're. You know, you're
just playing and you're experiment and
there's no performance metric, you know,
and like I said, like cooking for people,
like versus no, I have to make ex profit
on every plate. You know, the whole
different mentality, right? Of course you
can control. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not
how I prepare food for my guests. There's
no budgetary concerns because I'm not
that great of a planner.
Yeah, I think about how much money, how
much time, you know, and like I'm trying
to figure out ribs on my smoke. Right.
And I've maybe tried 3 or 4 Times
Now, not, not a ton, but like I
know I can do a steak reliably. The
ribs, I'm out there so many hours and
I'm like, all right, so this is not
worth it. There's just like there's a
point of diminishing return where like
this meat worship is no longer
sustainable. Yeah, well, and like this is
kind of funny because I from a platform
engineering perspective, I DevOps the
**** out of my BBQ process.
Like I value stream map the whole thing
out and did all the dependency maps and
like a bunch of like physics, mathematics
and stuff. Oh my God, it's got like a
repeatable process that's pretty
reliable. And I went all the way down to
like, how do I freeze this stuff and
reheat it? So it's come comes back out of
the freezer clean. And when I smoked
something, I usually load up the smoker
and we'll just wrap and freeze and pull
from it And it's I, I, I don't have
anything in the. Now, but it's happened
before where randomly somebody wants to
come over, watch the game or something.
I've just got like a bunch of brisket and
ribs nice. And I, I'm honest about it,
but they're just like, if they if I
hadn't told them like they didn't they,
they wouldn't know yeah had been brought
back. But I think the biggest.
Quite. I'll frame it as a question. How
long do you leave him in the rub?
'Cause like if I don't leave it in the
rub for 24 hours, that's like night and
day difference, like even before it gets
in the smoker. Yeah, I don't think I I
think maybe the first time I marinated
him overnight, but not, Yeah, typically
not. Yeah, I do Dalmatian. So it's like
salt, black pepper, some brown sugar,
equal parts of each, and I leave it in
that for at least 24 hours.
Which like that's the line you're
shifting quality left and your value
stream you read like the goal by goal
rat. That's like an interesting
book that gets into like, uh.
Umm, it's where like lean 6 Sigma and
like, uh, theory constraints and that
sort of thing, uh, sort of come from
from a management perspective. And I
think that's what I do is very technical,
but like associate technical. So there's
this focus on the people in the system.
Umm, and I, we've like what I've been
talking about more lately is that, uh,
line of representation that you have the
physical system. Umm.
But. How like your perspective on
it versus my perspective on it, that
moves above the line of representation
into something more abstract. And you've
got interfaces into it as you approach
the line of representation. And it's
actually, I think a lot of what's going
on in AI right now is putting pressure
on more human to human connection because
the the AI agents need shared context
just as much as we do. But the
people have to get on the same page
first. So it sort of
fell out of fashion where people were
doing like architectural diagrams and
some of the mapping work I do is
considered super far left in the process.
But the whole point of those is to
facilitate a conversation like literally
get everybody on the same page, make sure
we're aligned with like what we're trying
to do and where we might run into some
friction along the way. Well, and keep in
mind, I'm not a tech, I'm not a techie
guy. So when you're talking about mapping
out this system, like. Talk to me like
a layperson, so.
As I'm a mathematician so the
system can be literally anything.
There's something I do called social
practice theory where we separate
anything humans do and you could extend
it like plants and animals and bots for
sure. But anything we're doing, there's a
meaning and purpose, like the the
objective of it. There's tools and
infrastructure like the stuff we need to
actually do it. And then there's a level
of skill and know how. So it's
like we're here to talk about like play
as a strategy, like you needed Internet
and cameras and microphones and I asked
for a glass of water. Thank you for the
water. Couldn't have done that virtually.
And then there's a level of skill and
know how on hooking all this stuff up.
Like you got a pretty sweet setup. I'm
super primitive. I've got, I like we'll
take video on my phone. I've got like a
blue Yeti mic I use sometimes. But you
got a pretty sweet setup here. Thanks,
man. Yeah, it's it's fun,
but you know I.
I'm not super technical. I had to Google
a lot of this and see what people, what
other people did. I'm a R&D kind of guy,
RIP off and duplicate. And you know, I
don't know, I just, I just had this idea
of like, if you build it, they will come
And I'm like, all right, what can we
learn? I don't know, I just want to have
people over and pick their brain about
stuff, you know, let me ask you this with
you traveling all over to these tech
conferences, how much of A topic is?
I mean, does AI dominate the conversation?
It has sucked all the air out of the room
for the past few years. I feel like we're
finally getting back. To where I was
before ChatGPT made it out of the lab.
I was doing more classic machine
learning, data science type of stuff, and
we were still feeling like already then
data quality at the data platform level
was a concern and AI showed up in
like what AI meant. Like that term, like
generative AI is different from classic
machine learning. So there's been a lot
of churn around that.
And I feel like we're finally getting
back to a point where we're talking about
data governance and data provenance. So
just like how you manage your data. An
organization and like the chain of
custody is probably yeah of like where it
came from is the provenance.
Which is important internally and also
like what got used to train a model.
There's a lot of all that's like a bunch
of question marks. It's just like really
hard to know what actually got pulled
into a training set for me right now.
Commit your code in a few weeks. I'm on
the cloud track, so I'm explicitly not.
Supposed to talk about AI. There's like a
separate AI track so I'm trying to figure
out how to navigate that coherently.
But the thing I was on
before ChatGPT was quantum computing that
was. Getting better
funding and a little bit more airtime and
you can see I think it's Google has a
chart on like quantum investment and you
can see it like drop out when the AI
stuff got hot and now it's like coming
back online again. And that like both of
those factor into.
Space industry, so I've done the group
out of. The UK we've mapped out
some space tech stuff.
And that's probably, I would say
the. A the hottest
industry right now there's just a ton
of like science fiction stuff coming into
like real world existence there quantum
and still a few years out and
it does play into space explorations
space industry some but.
Well, let me ask you about it. So in the
context of like space exploration stuff
that you're saying, sci-fi, kind of crazy
stuff that's coming out of there, what's
the most interesting thing that you've?
Kind of heard of when you're thinking
about that, what comes to mind so when we
got to mapping with this group and we
followed Chatham House rules so I could
talk about what we talked about but I
can't talk about who's there I.
But we were looking at. Colonizing
Mars. Getting to Mars is like this big
ticket item. And as we got into the map,
it dawned on us that a lunar base was an
obvious dependency that needed to be met,
That it's much easier to get to Mars if
you can get out of the atmosphere.
And from like a data perspective,
we've got compute in space already,
the inter satellite grid. There's like
edge compute that you can run
in space now. But data
is heavy, it doesn't stay in orbit the
same way, and there is a cost in
transmission with going to Earth and
going back out to the the satellite grid.
So if it stays in space, it all
communicates on laser. So it's like speed
of light transmission in a vacuum. So if
we've got a lunar base for a data center
like in can bounce off of that instead of
reentering the atmosphere.
Compute can stay like really. In the
cloud, like so far out in the cloud, it's
not even on this planet anymore. So
that's like that doesn't sound entirely
real, but it is some of there is some
quantum computing happening in that, that
constellation grid. And I think like one
startup we ran across and I'm not going
to remember the name of them.
Is like Skyhook technology where they're
using satellites for you can get global
delivery within like an hour.
From and even in Woodstock, like the part
of Georgia we're in, I think it's.
A couple Walmarts in the area. We have
drone delivery. You can get things
delivered by drone in Woodstock, GA
That's wild, right? So it's this whole
the theme of DevOps stays. Atlanta last
year was living and working in real life
and that seemed to be where the rubber
hit the road with the AI and how much of
A bubble am I in or what I'm saying? Does
it make sense to most people? But if you
go like to the airport or Kroger or
Walmart, you're going to run into a robot
delivering food or cleaning floors or
driving you somewhere. We got Waymo. NNL,
so this autonomous vehicle piece
of we're dealing with like
R2D2 type of intelligence on
a daily basis.
I don't know how much of it's back home
in Albany. Do they have drink delivery
robots down there? I'm guessing so. I
would think so, but I, I have no idea. I
I would have low expectations though. But
globally, if you're hitting a metric like
a major metropolitan area, you're running
into robots now. And they've had to
update the signs at the airports to like
accommodate it like. When they start
changing signs at an airport, you know,
technology is set like, this is a new
paradigm. This is just this isn't a fad
at this point. Yeah. I didn't even know
that Waymo was running.
Yeah, I've been in them a couple times. I
said I've been in. I'm on an island by
myself. I just like, you know, and I got
little kids. So like, you know, like I
said, my world's been just consumed with.
Yeah. When I'm searching for information,
it's like, how do I keep my kid from
screaming all throughout the night, You
know, it's like. And that really always,
you know, on my free time, I might
explore stock picks or you know, what
tech is doing, you know, but it's always
through usually an investment lens.
Or headlines. Just juicy headlines.
Whatever, captivate. Yeah, it's
a. You know, it's um.
It gets back to the fun element that that
is like the classic kind of dad blunder I
would make for like taking the kids to go
riding away. MO sounds like a fun side
quest to me. And it ends up there
terrified the entire time. And just like,
I'm a monster forever now, 'cause like
we, we went and rode on a Waymo for
no particular reason. It's, it's always
like, you know, hard to negotiate with
kids sometimes on what they think is
going to be entertaining. But yeah.
Yeah, I I still have some time. Because
I'm still at their minor at the age
where anything can be fun with the right
snacks. You know, but I know that
that's a small window of time. Yeah,
yeah. They do grow up quick. You said
something that I got to be honest with
you, I didn't understand and we were
talking about data being heavy. Yes. What
do you mean by that? You were saying you
know. Data is heavy, it doesn't behave
in a vacuum the same way.
So. When I said it, it means
a couple different things. When I said
it, I meant physically that like storage
is heavy. Umm, if you look at like a
Raspberry Pi or something, like they're
pretty lightweight. Umm, but you add a
hard drive to that, any significant
storage, even RAM, like they get heavy
quick and you also need power and other
things where it's just like if there's
storage capacity, it's gonna weigh more.
There's also this concept of data
gravity. And I'm not going to remember
who came up with that.
Uh, maybe Martin Fowler?
But the concept of data gravity, it's
just like wherever you are storing data,
there's a tendency to put more data
there. And it there's
almost like a black hole effect with it.
And this is true. So AWS, Amazon Web
Services, their biggest. Biggest
availability zone in region is US E
one. It's where a lot of stuff
runs out of. You can get performance
gains if you're running out of US
E 1 because there is Co located
data there. Like from like a speed
of light perspective. There's less copper
between like I'm going to say like
Twitter's API or something or maybe
Wikipedia. But like if you're pulling
data from a third party and you're in the
same cloud provider, you're going to get
a slight performance. Boost they run
colos for day training and stuff in New
Jersey because they're physically closer
to the New York Stock Exchange. So it's
gravity and like how much is like inertia
and actual physics equations map out
versus it being more of an analogy. It's
more of an analogy. Like it's not super
hard in mathematics, but it's pretty
close. Like it's, it's useful enough.
And I, I think that's, that's like
that barrier exists with. The space
tech of your we're going to see a
split between data that needs to stay on
planet because it needs to be accessible
to humans in real time and then.
Things we can send into cloud that need
to churn a long time need longer compute,
but we don't need to look at them until
the answer is done. So we're quantum
computing is coming into this one problem
they want to crack with quantum.
A huge contributor to CO2 on
the planet is ammonia production for
industrial reasons like fertilizer is 1
huge CO2 footprint on it. There's
some fungus or bacteria that can.
Produce ammonia at like room temperature
organically. We have no idea how it
works. And for
us to try to figure that
out with classic compute graphics
processors or like X86 architecture like
Intel or AMD would take decades.
I believe quantum computing can shrink
that down to months.
But we're just not there yet, like
all the pieces haven't been built. We're
still US is farther along on the
processor side, the QPU quantum
processing unit and China Far East are
doing more quantum networking, but those
are. Neither of those are solved
problems yet. You
think Uh. Who
do things win in the race, like whether
it well, I guess there's multiple races
going on. If you're talking about quantum
computing versus like AI. Oh man.
AI is like way ahead because
it is personified like we've
anthropomorphized it. Like you can talk
to Siri or COD or ChatGPT.
But like trying to make the quantum stuff
accessible to in the same way it's most
people aren't going to know it's in the
system they're using. I think it's true
with AI now just because you're not in
with a bot, there's probably some AI in
the system you're using unless they've
explicitly said. This is all
classic compute, it's just sort of the
assumed. Place out which one do
you like do you use any of them or
you like I yeah no I mean I've
experimented a little bit with ChatGPT
and Claude. I haven't tried to like you
know run scripts or vibe code or any of
that stuff, but I could be fun make I
mean I don't know sure it could be you
know The thing is I feel like. I don't
know how to ship my brain around like.
Practical application. You know, outside
of writing a quick listing description
for a property. You know, like I'll
use it for that. Or let's reimagine some,
you know, like image generator, like for
a backyard, you know, here here's what it
looked like with a pool or, you know,
swing set or whatever. That kind of stuff
is super elementary. But like, you know,
I just don't even know what's possible or
practical for me, you know, because and
frankly because like my business works,
you know, I don't have a need to
reinvent myself. I would rather.
Divert my. You
know, extra energy into creating
a podcast then like.
Be more. Of Johnny real Estate
or whatever, you know, like I don't
really aspire to do more deals in real
estate. I just aspire to do better deals
and with the right people, you know,
'cause I, yeah, I flip houses, I've got
investments and then I still help people,
you know, buy and sell property.
So like, I don't know, honestly, the
beauty of real estate is it's so simple,
you know, it's, it's, it can be legally
enforceable on a napkin. You can take
that napkin to court, you know, and like,
and, and you can still execute a contract
that way. And it's just wild how it,
it feels like the Wild West still, you
know it because there's so much more.
I don't know so much more like the art
of the deal versus. Things
that I just I can't keep up with. You
know, I've traded crypto and I'm like,
what is this Monopoly money? Like, you
know, none of it. After a while I was,
I was OK with it not making any sense
to me. And after like the, I don't know,
20th person that I talked to about it,
they still couldn't explain to me
exactly, you know, like I never tagged
into crypto. To your point, yeah, it
didn't. Make sense and I'll admit.
I probably missed some money because,
like, when I first heard about it, people
were still mining on like, local video
cards. Like, it was a very long time ago.
Yeah. I also didn't lose any money
chasing it around, like I didn't. There
were like problems I just didn't get
caught up in.
Then the NFT thing, I think that's when
like, yeah, it finally jumped the shark
and people were like, OK, this is just
like, yeah, how do you think blockchain?
There's Apple, there are good
applications for blockchain, but that's
not the same thing as crypto. There's a
difference there. Yeah. Most people don't
want to do the blockchain stuff, being
honest. So I pitch it when I see the
opportunity. It's just like, absolutely
not. I mean it, it's
exciting and we all want to get. Rich
quick. We all want to get rich quick. You
know, the good people and the bad people.
Like if you're willing to do it for, you
know, the right way or any other way. But
fundamentally, there's a lot of
opportunity for people that need to
conceal the origin of funds.
You know, I don't, I just don't get it
again. And I'm a finance guy like I, I
love stocks and but I don't know the, the
more complex my life gets, the simpler I
think I want it to be.
And like, I don't know,
I I don't necessarily want
more.
Of anything other than maybe contentment,
you know, like that's I think the real
hustle is like hustle for peace.
I don't think AI isn't going to
fix that. You know, it's.
That's the cancerization piece. Like did
you do you know what Claude Bot
is or Open Claw?Nah.
It got popular like a few months ago.
It's probably been longer than that, but
you could download this project and run
it on like a Mac mini mini and
it was like a personal assistant kind of
a deal, but got very popular very quick.
And it was something that the developer
that spun it up did it for fun
and sort of put it on GitHub for
laughs. And like was all of a sudden
getting counted with like vulnerability
findings. And the reason they changed the
name is Anthropic. Like sent them some
kind of cease and desist.
And was like getting hassled for a bug
bounty program and he was like, I don't
like I haven't. Like this is like just
like a side thing. I haven't made any
money off of this. Like not I don't. I
can't buy a Mac mini like they went like
there's like a scarcity problem because
demand went up. He's like, I'm not, I
don't have enough money, like buy a Mac
mini off of this, never mind pay a bug
bounty. But if she's like, oh, we'll give
you a Mac mini, It's like, that's not my
point at all. So I think there's a.
There's this J like joke developers have
about incremental design where you start
off with like a fun prototype in the
garage and there's like a neat thing
you're playing with. And then like you
take your skateboard and like show it to
like a group of investors 'cause it's
like your cool, fun thing. And they're
like, yeah, we're sold. Here's a huge
check and like go get on 285 with it.
You're like, absolutely not. This was not
designed for that. You like to check
cleared buddy like. Good luck, have fun.
Like this is your life now. So like this
cancerization piece, it's like easy for
us to show up and like want to delegate
tasks to like our open claw thing and
have an AI agent like handle agent to
agent communication. So like people don't
have to talk to each other anymore. And
there's, there's certainly a growing
movement of like, you need to log off and
go touch grass, hang out with people in
real life. And I do
think that is a more peaceful existence
for sure. Keep
things a little flatter, a little closer
to home, you know, finding more joy in
day-to-day life instead of.
Chasing the next viral post, you know,
yeah, it's wild how we silently adjust
to. You
know the the incentives that. Whether
it's the companies that we interface with
or the, you know, the software's that
we interface with like.
Like for example, we
generally will.
Self censor, you know, if we don't
desire I don't I don't desire like
creating controversy, you know I.
I value criticism from people that I
trust, but like, everybody else can go
to hell. You know, I'm really good
at disqualifying somebody's criticism if
I don't want it, you know, like,
but that's not how that's not how
algorithms, you know, work for rewarding
engagement on, you know, like social
media, right? I get a lot of.
I get a lot of contact from.
Former or future clients through social
media. Yeah, it's like I'm on
it more than I want to be. And I
think personally a mark of success for me
would be like when I don't engage on it.
But it's it is addictive, it's fun and
it's a great distraction. And
unrealistically when I'm on it, it's for
distraction most of the time. It's very
rarely like strictly business. So you
know, but it's it's just. Yeah,
distraction is a drug. Like there's so
many funny videos out there and.
Like, I don't know, it's, it just becomes
my, my drug of choice in the evenings.
Like, you know, if I can make somebody
laugh or like I, I laugh and then I want
to share it with, you know, my friends.
Doom scrolling is the leading cause of
brain rot. It's it's frightening,
especially when you, you look at it
through. You know, when you see how
your kids respond to a screen and not
even talking about like doom scrolling,
but just general, you know, screen
exposure, it's like, Oh my gosh, there's
zombified immediately. Yeah, mine are
older than yours. Mine are in college
now. So they missed iPads or we just
didn't have them. I think they have like,
but they missed iPads. But we still
caught a little bit of shade for the Baby
Einstein DVDs, which I think. Were had
some educational value to them. Some of
the YouTube content I've seen I don't.
Think is of any benefit
to anyone but it does
keep the kids distracted and
I'm I think we probably.
Fell into similar traps as kids with
like, Remember Cartoon Network coming
online for the first time?
Or even just Nintendo like we would. It
was very like Nintendo would keep a group
of kids busy for all day if the
parents would let them go play it. So
it's like it's, it's not new. Like it's,
it's.
It's it's gotten a refresh, but like
it's, it's things we've seen at a
societal level before. My big push is
always, and I think it's true for.
Kids and adults and it's just generally
easy advice is just like books help, like
getting into reading physical media, go
into the library. That's like an easy
thing to do with kids. There's a ton of
stuff at libraries. And even if it's
raining, the library is still open. I've
got some really nice libraries around
here too. We do. And as one of my
favorite things to do when I'm traveling
is I go play Indiana Jones.
I'll go to the biggest library I can find
and go in the archives and look through.
Like the private collections they have
and you end up learning a ton about like
very old history for the city. And it
usually ties back to landmarks. So then I
can go from the archives to like find
things and sometimes I show up and they
don't know they have the thing I'm
looking for. And I'm quite sure where it
is at least We sort of have to poke
around the the building or the church or
whatever it is until it surfaces back up.
So yeah, it's.
There's a lot of interesting history in
Atlanta and and in Georgia outside of
that. So, and I,
I think people fall into that trap where
it's easy to do these things when we're
out of town, but you never go see the
stuff in the city you live in. So I've
done less library spelunking in, in
Georgia than I probably could have, but.
I think the Andersonville.
Site down in Montezuma is like super
interesting Georgia history and gets
people out out of the city. And
I remember doing that as a kid.
Right. Even if you're not that into
civil war stuff, there's a global POW.
A site there, there's a museum there just
for prisoners of war that covers like a
lot of wars across, like, you know, a
history of time. So The thing is, it
helps build some empathy.
Yeah, get get people out out of town a
little bit. I think that's probably my
spiciest take. I think we got a lot of
issues around rural urban divide that
like growing up in Albany and Albany
being a city center and like we would
complain about it because we thought
there was nothing to do because it wasn't
Atlanta. But we definitely had folks
coming in from outside of Albany. Driving
in to go to the mall and go to the movie
theater that like, you did really think
about it, but it's like, no, yeah, yeah,
this is like we saw it on a smaller scale
down there. But I think, and I know it's
true, like in the UK, there are folks
that really have a hard time going into
London. They live out in the country.
And the opposite truth. So you take city
kids and drop them out in the country.
They don't always know how to clean a
fish. They're not like a level of
outdoorsiness they're just not acquainted
with yet. They can be a little disarming.
I, I think it's good. I think it's
healthier. I think it's an easy
opportunity for folks to get a little bit
outside of their comfort zone and, you
know, explore another way other folks in
their neighborhood or their state and how
they live. Have you by chance
ever been to that, that New Orleans
museum? There's a giant World War 2
museum right there in downtown New
Orleans. I went last last summer, this
summer, this summer. Yeah. It is
fascinating. I had never been. And it's,
it's giant. They've got like, I I guess
they used to build a. I don't
know if they built ships out of that
port. But it was fascinating
as well. If you ever in New Orleans, I'll
have to check. I've never been to New
Orleans. It's on my list. Oh, but the
same thing, I think, uh. There's room
to get out into some some of the
low country cuisine getting out to like
Baton Rouge and surrounding areas.
I know there's like an interesting
contrast there, but I would say, yeah,
World War 2 Museum in New Orleans sounds
pretty dope. I would definitely spend an
afternoon doing that. Yeah, it was fun,
man. Well, Speaking of like getting out
of your comfort zone, what's I guess is
there anything that qualifies for getting
out of your comfort zone in this time of
life, Anything that you are.
Trying to. Explore that makes you
feel like a novice or makes you
feel alive in some way. Besides,
I guess, I guess going to different
cities and talking about these things
with strangers, and that's probably a
little bit of a challenge. Oh well,
no, I'm like way too comfortable talking
to strangers at this point.
I think.
Something friends and family will give me
some grief about.
I've been single for a very long time
now. I was married for a very long time.
I've been single. For a while now, end of
last year is that dinner with some folks
that didn't know me so well. One of them
said I didn't realize you were divorced
and I was like, I don't think of myself
as divorced so much is still single at
this point, but it's really. An
odd thing to negotiate when I can
get pulled into like career development,
mentorship work so much and I'm out
meeting people that it's like any
romantic pursuit is seems a little.
Absurd. I'll say absurd instead of
ridiculous, but like I, I won't, I can't
close it off completely. Like there's
just there, there's a point a portion of
me and folks that know me well, they're
like they don't. You can't just
abandoned. The
room for, you know, that type of
personal relationship, it's a little
closer to home. So I actually like
modeled the whole thing like using
security practices. Oh my gosh.
Just like with this, we're gonna happen.
How would it? Like, you know what's not
getting outside of my comfort zone with
it, but just like setting up some clear
boundaries. But yeah, it's,
yeah, it's it, it, it can happen like I
do. I do date sometimes. Like that's an
interesting word to use for it. But like
what It's like, no, this is actually a
date. I'm not Microsoft Excel. I don't
get confused about this being a date or
not. But it that that's one of those
things where it can be like a very
serious thing. And I'm. Absolutely not
taking it seriously at all. But I haven't
dismissed it entirely either. And I think
that keeps it playful. I think it keeps
it fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will. I
mean, obviously you've been married a
long time. Your kids are grown. You've
gotten a lot of, I'd imagine you've
gotten a lot of the reflective benefits
of marriage because marriage sure will
highlight your your own flaws, right.
Shine them back at you. And.
For better or worse, you know, grind you
into a different person. Sharpen you.
That sounds a little pessimistic. Grind
you into another person. But.
In the best way possible to sharpen
you, hone you, refine you. That's a
little bit more gentler, little. Yeah.
That's funny. Yeah, it's, it's figuring
out how to grow together, Uh.
And like providing some structure for
that to happen. And I think it's entirely
healthy to acknowledge when it's like.
We're we're done with that now, like
we're trying to grow different directions
and like caring enough about someone to
respect that and just try to like enable
the next chapter of things to come. I
think that's true. Yeah, it can
be true. The romantic relationship with
the job, with a band, like an artistic
endeavor. There's a point where it's just
like, we need to like, stop doing this,
like go play with other people for a
while. And I think it's it's easy to get.
Too comfortable on your
own?Like
trying, trying to keep something in the
mix of it. It's I, I think it
gets back to just like that boundary
negotiation piece and. You know,
making sure that's that's being done
intentionally. And I,
you know, a lot of people just don't know
what they want. As another conclusion
I've come to, I think it's funny to me
and I've seen it in tech and you've
probably seen it in real estate because
you can make a lot of money very quickly
in real estate like I hear.
But it's funny to me when people sort of
level up and they get the new house and
the new car and they're able to travel
some and like, it didn't solve any of
their problems. Like, really. Like,
they're like, back. It's like the coyote
catching the Road Runner. It's like, what
do I do now? Yeah. And. And that
usually springs back into more, like,
inward reflection.
So you could always start there. Yeah.
Sort of gauge expectations as you go. I
know it's funny. Every time that I'm, you
know, helping, it's usually like a young
couple buy a house and.
So many people come to mind. I could see
their faces, you know, yeah, young
couple, they're engaged and they want to
go and buy a house, not even married yet.
And they're like, you know, maxing out
their budget. And I'm just thinking, what
a great way to start your marriage with
crippling debt, you know, it's like, and,
and also I've, you know, with, I don't
know, 400 houses now sold. I've had
enough financial transparency to RC, you
know?Where people's debt to income
ratios and whatnot to realize a lot of
people. Are just seemingly OK carrying
all this debt and to me as
self-employed person, I'm like, well,
that that feels like a prison, you
know, it feels very constraining. But you
know, everybody wants the house that
their parents have like for their first
house, it seems like which their parents
had to work really hard for a
long time to get that house, you
know, and. But we watch
HGTV and we're like, oh, well, I should
have that, you know? And Chip and Joanna
said that's only $150,000, you know,
like, where are you buying these houses
for that?But
I don't know, man, it's, it's, it's wild
to see how many people jump right into
that. And you're right. Then a few years
later, you know, it's a divorce and if
people only spent that much energy.
In their marriage, they did like a
choir on the wedding or acquiring the
the things you know, And I'm not
judging because hey, I've been divorced,
you know, I've been my own errors.
And. But, you
know, we're all so flawed and, like,
everything in life is so circumstantial.
You know, I'm the lesser version of
myself when I'm hungry and hadn't had a
nap. You know, it's like maybe just like
so many problems. You just have a sip of
water, have a snack, go for a walk
outside. It's like, it's gonna be OK.
Yeah. Take a lap, take a lap. I'm big on
taking a lap. And. And I I guess the
other angle I look at it.
If if you can if. Younger couple, I
was the boat I was in, looking at what
I was paying for an apartment and
comparing that to the mortgage payment.
Like it made sense to get into a house.
And I think like the other, your timeline
was also not today when you bought a
house, it was before things got crazy.
Both of them like happened like I did it
a couple times and I I think the other
piece. And
I don't know if it's like a city kid
country kid thing maybe, but like I just
know how to fix stuff. Like I can work on
my HVAC and plumbing and electrical and I
can fix like dryers and dishwashers and
garbage just like I'm I'm handy.
So I don't run into costs there that I
think a lot of other first time hunter
owners do where they don't know how to
service anything. I think that's a big
differential that if you're paying for
like all the maintenance and OpEx on a
house out of pocket. Yeah, and this
is what I'm struggling with now because
you've you've seen my house, my lawn
is very unnatural. I rewild it and
let it. Go back
to a grassland for the pollinators in the
spring. Which is, you know, a fancy way
of saying I'm too lazy to cut the grass
unless I absolutely have to. One of the
neighbors has started doing it because
they gotta help yourself and like, I
should like make them some BBQ or
something. But I
it's, I also have aquaponics systems
where I've raised tilapia and grown
vegetables and strawberries and other
stuff. And like, I think I'm to a point
where I need to get a lawn care service
to handle the boring stuff I don't want
to do so I can go. Play in the garden
when I went to. Yeah. And just like
acknowledge it. And like, this is the
cost of the, the gym membership
effectively. Like if you want to do
jujitsu, there's like, you got to spend
some money to do it. Yeah. Like to run my
yard the way I want. Like, I can't, I
need, I need to pay somebody to come help
me with the, the stuff I don't want to
work on because not any fun for me. And
they could use the money. Yeah. And you
can, right. And I can afford to do it.
Correct. It's like I, I do like care
about the pollinators deeply. I think
there's several feral cats living in my
backyard at this point. It'll be sad when
it gets cleaned up. Winter is coming.
It'll sort itself out, right?
That's funny. Yeah, I remember your
aquaponics system. I thought that was
pretty cool because now I'm thinking
about, yeah, I mean, I guess probably
everybody after COVID, well, not
everybody, but a lot more people thought
about, hey, if my grocery, you know, you
know, groceries are are interrupted, I
can't get them. Like what am I going to
do? And you know, I think with the grow
tower you can get, you can have produce
like not quite year round here in
Georgia, but probably close to it. I
guess if you had a greenhouse, you could
probably do it year round. I've got stuff
to build a greenhouse. I haven't
done it yet, which would let me run
year round. I think the.
The bigger epiphany I came to with it is
how much of what humans grow. It has like
little to no nutritional value at all.
Umm, and like when you've got your system
set up for sustainability to feed you,
umm, you're growing like kale and sweet
potatoes, uh, and uh.
Yeah, it's a holy serious.
Brassica. Kale,
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower.
Like a bunch. Of different vegetables
come from this common, there's a
phenotype of like a wild cabbage or wild
mustard seed. So like Maya systems are
set up to grow a bunch of that,
which is like nutritionally dense. But
I'm pretty sure if I set up a
stand giving away free kale and sweet
potatoes, like it's like the demand for
it's pretty low, like what people want to
grow when they set up a garden.
Or tomatoes and Peppers and onions and
garlic and ginger and it makes it taste
all taste great. But it will not keep
you alive. Yeah, if you think just about
like, how much human effort is spent on,
like, turning tomatoes into sauce
globally every year. And it's like.
It's, it's just for fun. It's there's a
little bit of lycosene in it, but it's
like, it's not gonna like feed you. You
will starve to death. That's all you have
to eat. Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking
about spending like 12 hours on ribs, you
know, like, all right, or 24 if I'm
marinating them today ahead of time. So
yeah, the amount of freaking time spent,
is it active time or is it wait time
there 'cause that's the thing, if it's
wait time, I can go do other stuff. The
problem is it's always way more. Or wait
time than I thought even when I got those
ribs from the barbecue joint, they were a
little tough. I was like, I think they
just need to cook longer and they did and
they were great. I just threw him back in
the oven. So the trick I do for the cook
time and a lot of people will like love
to argue with me about this and they're
just wrong.
Meat can't take more than about 5 hours
of smoke. You're gonna get as much of A
bark on it as what? And then it's usually
when it hits the stall at the same time,
so I put it in the crutch. I'll wrap
them in tinfoil and if I'm not I usually
do like a I'll throw like a shot of
bourbon in there. Apple cider vinegar to
like get it to braise.
And if I'm not grilling, if I'm not
smoking enough meat, like feed a wedding,
like it's not like that's got to stay on
the smoker outside, But if it can fit in
the oven, I'll put it in the oven at like
200 on warm and leave it in there and
like I can go watch the football game.
Until it's tender enough to eat and the
physics on it like makes sense. Like
it's, it's holding the temperature, it's
got all the flavor in at that point. Um.
Right. And that's true with.
Bringing it back from a freeze as well.
That a lot of what?Matters in
systems, they can handle more change than
you would think as long as it's
introduced gradually. Even like
temperature for tilapia is like a wide
range but if you move within that range
too quickly it will kill all the fish. So
like if a cold front comes in and it'll
kill the fish even though I'm within the
range for them to be alive still.
So even bringing back the BBQ like taking
it from freezer to refrigerator and then
leaving it on the counter before it gets
into an oven and bringing the temperature
out gradually. But like
it. That's how you avoid things like
freezer burn and like the plastic taste.
You know where you can tell it's been
reheated? Yeah. But it does take time.
Like that's that's one of the, if you're
not hitting, if it's not hitting you in
the the pocketbook that you didn't spend
a ton of money on ingredients, getting
prime beef and all that. There's the time
investment with it. Yeah. But if it's
wait time, I can work around it. Yeah, I
think that's the trick. It's just having
the right expectation up front, right?
Yeah, yeah, I'm done inviting people over
for barbecue and barbecuing that day. I'm
like, I'm going to do it in advance
because it's just not working for me. Or
don't do ribs. Just do something faster,
you know? No, that's the right approach
always. Like, cook it ahead of time. Like
when you go out to eat BBQ, what you're
getting was pretty much not, mate. Like,
I can pretty much guarantee they did not
make it that day. They probably brought
it back up to temp in a water bath.
Yeah, or deep fryer. They like to drop
deep like ribs in a deep fryer to bring
them back up to 10 before they serve
them. Which makes
them delicious, but it's not something
you would like think to do in your house.
I don't have a deep fryer. I do Not a big
one. I like. Fit one ribbon in, maybe?
That's funny. Well, let me ask you this.
What? What does Chris 10 years from now
look like? Like? What's your life look
like?Yeah, at if you're, if
you're my age, I don't know. 10 years
from now, I don't know.
I'm, I'm probably doing a lot of the same
thing. I think I've gotten into that
rhythm of.
You know, staying on top of tech trends,
trying to like have some impact at a
societal level with it. DevOps days in
Atlanta has turned into. Sort
of like a, a private research group. We
sell tickets. It's a smaller conference.
There's only about 300 people. The theme
for next year is data SEC OPS, which is
in this governance and provenance
problem. So we're bringing in speakers
that I, I want to hear what they have
to say about this in April of next year
specifically. So there's time ahead of it
and we sort of drum up and continue like
this year long research around it.
I'm also trying to hand off the
event and bring in new organizers just
because I've been doing it a decade
plus and that's a long time to
do anything and I think. That
difference between like having a routine
and getting it right and what you need
to change up to keep things like fresh
and reinvigorated. And it would be like a
huge accomplishment in my opinion, like
to have another group like sort of take
the reins and run with it. It's hard
to find people that have the stomach for
all the pieces 'cause it is like very
visible. There's, you know, 6 figures of
money involved with like doing a 2 day
tech conference. So
I think that's, I see that sort of as
a broad goal for a lot of people is
like, can I leave something behind that
sort of like kept growing after I walked
away and I can sort of show up and
take pictures and hang out and be cool
and not have to do the legwork anymore.
So edit I'm not sure if DevOps stays
Atlanta will still be around in 10 years.
That would be like super cool. But there
will be something there's. But
still be a tech industry in Atlanta in a
decade and 10 years from now. I mean, you
could be a a young grandpa, You never
know. Your kids are in college now. But
10 years from now I could, I could like
I'm not out of. But
like range of like being a father again,
I like, I'm not planning on that, but
like I have to acknowledge the
possibility that would be a shocker.
Knock, knock on those things. I don't
know if you're knocking to happen or to
not happen. I don't know.
Maybe you'll adopt A dog or something.
What about you man? You got like 510 year
timeline?Yeah, I
think in five years I'm going to be a
purple belt in jujitsu. I may at least
not I, I don't know. Let's see, I I right
now my world just kind of spins around my
kids and my marriage. That's.
Such a big chunk of it. I mean, I guess,
uh.
One thing I want to breakthrough
is not being geographically restricted to
my income. So,
you know, real estate is, you know, it's,
it's a microeconomic, you know,
geographical world that I just kind of,
I, I work in. So, you know, if I
just up and move to another city, I got
to start all over again.
So who knows, maybe this little podcast
leads me to more opportunities to invest
or start new ventures with. People
I, I like to, I would like to
invest in whether I'm starting a new
business or buying a business or just
investing into some sort of business 1
per year for the next 10 years. That
would be, that's aggressive. But that's
my, one of my big goals. So I
like to, I like to, yeah, start new
things and then see him go and then
let him keep running, you know, spin
things and watch him watch them all.
And, you know, I, I, I just want to
keep pouring into the people around me
and. I don't know, be a
little bit more disciplined every year.
Probably eat less ice
cream. I think more ice cream you
don't want to eliminate ice cream. I
don't want to eliminate it. You are
right. I don't want to eliminate it.
Think I saw, but I'm also like, did you
give me a pint? Like the pints going
down? There's no, I'm not I'm not a
delusional like, Oh, I'm only going to
need a half. I'm pretty moderate with it.
Well, I'm not and in a little secret,
like behind every like fit person is an
inner. Fat kid piggy that like
I, you know, I just well dude, run across
country. And college and high school
where like I could eat endless amounts
for five years. Like there was just no
bottom. You know, it's like, it's
probably the worst way to develop my
eating habits because I'm like, I I
couldn't, I couldn't eat enough. See,
I've got the post wrestler physique. So
like, I, I'm fine carrying a little
weight, but like, I'll all fast like
water only for three days. Yeah, I did
that. That'll rock your world. Great.
It's a. But that
real fast, right? You've learned to
appreciate things you realize, like what
you don't really need.
And like, you know, let me ask you about
it. So in fasting, do you feel like, I
mean, when, when I've experienced it, you
know, excruciating hunger pains and
feedback or headaches for the the first
two days and then like on day three, I've
got this clarity. Do you like, I don't
know, I always, I always have like a
revelation, but. Do you feel more mental
clarity after a couple days of not eating?
I don't. Not
not anymore, I would say. I think I've
I've played with it enough that it's.
There's sort of like a comfort zone I get
into it where I'm sort of over the hump
and I think I phase into it well where if
I'm going to be doing extended fast, I'll
start. Like eating one meal a day and
cutting carbs and making sure I'm
drinking lots of water and that sort of
thing before I do the hard drop. A lot of
people do the opposite where they'll like
go out with the Fat Tuesday day and do
like a complete rager and then try to cut
everything. It's like that. You need like
a couple hangover meals to like come back
from that. So I
I think there's that experience with it.
But yeah, there's a peacefulness, I would
say, that comes along with it. And I
think it's weird when it surfaces, 'cause
like, I don't even have to be in a fast
at the moment. One spot with traveling is
if I've got a layover or I'm in an
airport. There's a lot of psychology
baked into airports to try to get you to
go to shopping and spend money while
you're waiting on a plane. Yeah, and sort
of like when they'll dropped and
realizing I don't need. Cold Stone
Creamery at 8:00 in the morning because
it's right next to my gate.
And I don't have to eat this terrible
pizza just because it's, like, here.
Yeah. I had one morning flying
back from New Jersey where they were
supposed to. They had coffee in the lobby
the entire trip starting at like 4. It
was like super early and the day my
flight went out they didn't have coffee
in the lobby. And I was like I'll get
coffee at the airport and I get to the
airport and there was no coffee. Like the
Starbucks was down like under repair.
There is one shop selling it and one of
their coffee pots was shot and I just
like the line and everything. Like I was
like, I'll get coffee on the plane
because you get the little cookie and
whatever. So we're waiting to leave and
the there is a leak in one of the
bathrooms at in the sink. And they
couldn't be, they couldn't, we couldn't,
we're not clear to take off until they
fix this leak and we're waiting on
maintenance and maintenance is backed up
and they're looking at like having to
like deplane us and the rest of it. The
solution they came up with was to dump
all the water out and just not have water
on the flight. That got us cleared, but
that meant they couldn't make coffee on
the plane because they have any water for
it. It is like times like that, I feel
like the universe is like thumping me in
the ear and being like, yeah, there's
another thing you're still attached to
that you can let go of that like you
forgot about. And
like a humbling experience, like getting
into the airport like 4:00 in Hartsfield
and like, just like chugging a Grande
Darkhurst from Starbucks be like, Yep,
yeah, I got things to work on still like,
noted. Don't wait. Yeah,
I'm taking it down a notch like that.
Like I heard, heard Chef. Yeah, That's
funny, man. So I I think, yeah, just
what counts as, like, lunch? When do I
need to eat?
What counts as like reasonable?
Overnight accommodations, I think in when
you're on the road, sometimes you just
like have to deal with it.
So it's like traveling will will expose
some of that. I think it's.
Everything kind of goes out that well. It
can go out the window real fast when
you're traveling, especially traveling
with kids. I think when you've got, have
you done like the big family? When's the
last family trip you took? We drove to
Illinois and back in July and that was
hell. That's not good. They're good
stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, you make you
get a plan, right? You get all the
snacks, you get the diapers, you got the
wipes, you get all the stuff that you
didn't have to worry about. You took just
took travel for granted, right. And then
kids and then you can't control when
they're happy and when they're sad, you
know, and I got to, you know, one year
old and a 3 1/2 year old and and then
things that you don't plan on, it's like,
OK, we're driving down and. Up. They're
working on a bridge. You just can't go
this way. And there's no real alternate.
You just got to wait for a couple hours.
It's like, all right, I already had a
nine hour drive, which I shouldn't have
done. That was my stupidity. I shouldn't
have tried to drive 9 hours with kids.
That was on me. Lesson learned. But you
know, is insult to injury with like, OK,
you just can't get around this bridge
that all the interstates are blocked and
you know, finally, you know, found a a
workaround added an hour or something to
it, but. Yeah, lessons were learned.
I remember coming back. From Thanksgiving
one year, I think it was.
And like watching your kids and someone
else's house is always like an additional
challenge because there's not, it's not
kid proofs and it's not your stuff
they're going to break. You all know,
like the pets in the house, like there's
a lot of like other variables you didn't
think about. So it had been like, you
know, it was a good catch up with
everybody. But like, it had been a, a
long trip for everyone. We were ready to
get back home and trying to like drive
home. The kids were getting a little. A
cabin fever. So we pulled into a Cracker
Barrel because it's pretty noisy in
there. You know, they got a little shop
with the snacks and stuff. So there's
room to walk the kids around, like let
them play, play, play a little bit like,
you know, look around and point at stuff
And we, we sit down to eat, like finally
break from the road and give. And I've
got we got twins at the time that were
toddlers. They were very young. They
decided to play a game where they hit a
resonant frequency between both of them.
What?It pierced like
the entire conversation layer in the
Cracker Barrel and brought the entire
building to silence. Just like, all
right, go boxes we got. We got to
leave now. They thought it was hilarious,
and I'm glad they didn't remember that
trick again. Yeah, but. It's Yeah,
I guess that's type 3 fun. Like we didn't
plan for that and like it didn't want it
to happen again. Good story to share. Now
that's funny. They can't surprise you if
you you'd ever take them out and suddenly
loose anywhere. Yeah, that's true. It is
an adventure. I I recently saw this
interview. I think his name is Zach Bush
on Joe Rogan. And then he was this this
doctor, he he worked for a long time as a
Hospice Dr. And it's just this
fascinating concept that he was talking
about how, you know, when you see
somebody about the. Go over to the other
side. Over and
over and over again. There's this just
moment of pure bliss when they realize.
All of these failures and these
hardships and all of these things,
they were actually perfect. It's all
a perfect element of the human
experience you can't experience.
Beauty without despair, you know, there
is no bliss without sorrow, you
know, it's all. It's all like
a spectrum. Yeah. They're known as
near enemies sometimes.
And it's it's about that contrast.
You know it needs.
A little dimensionality for there to be
some tension and some perspective with
it. And I think it's.
With like, it's all, it's all part of the
drill. I, there's, there's a Ram Dass
quote like that. He talks about it a
little bit, but it's just like, are all
part of it. And what type of karma are
you trying to burn off in this life? And
some people have like super spicy life
just with where they're at with things
and people have like very chill
existence. And yeah, it's
it's you got to play the hand. You don't
for sure. And I I think a
piece that comes with that is just the
narrowing as we get older.
That you can do less things.
And are presented with different
challenges and some of those come sooner
in life for some folks, some some of it
comes later. And
and having that concept of like it's,
it's an improv, like you've done any
improv. It's like the well, I've done a
whole lot of improvising on a microphone,
Not in a improv comedy. We do, we do send
people in tech to improv classes like
it's like good team building stuff. But
there's this like yes, and is always the
prompts. So it's like. OK, so that
way, like the Zen story about the student
coming to a teacher and looking for the
true nature is in and the teacher says
something like, you know, if you're
attached to your arm, then cut it off.
And like this Joker actually goes and
cuts his arm off. What? We weren't like,
we just like, that's not the point of
the story, man. Like you took it a
little too literally. But there is a
truth there that like, there's still room
to live. Like a fool then a very
fulfilling and complete life if you only
have one arm or whatnot. Most of us are
not in that spot. But like it can happen.
Like you never know. I've spent some time
in a wheelchair. I don't know if you knew
me when my leg was busted up. I don't
know if we crossed past then. But like I
was a different person. I had to be a
different person for a little while.
That's all temporary man, Life can change
really fast. Yeah. Yeah,
well, dude, it's been good catching up
with you, man. I'm super proud of you
and I'm excited to see what the next
10 years brings us. Both purple belt.
Yeah, man, how long you got?
I don't know a whole lot of more
beatings. Do you think you could take
Jenna Hill?
I don't know. I I think he's, I don't
know what he is. I think he's a he's, I
think he's still this was been going
around. Instagram,
but I will tell you people, the
people that. Say how
good they are. Generally aren't the ones
you got to worry about, it's the ones
that are really sweet and kind and are so
humble and then have no ego cause the
guys that can just smash me are the
nicest guys. Yeah,
there's the ability that comes along,
Yeah. But who knows, man, It's just fun.
I just want to be playful in my
motion, playful with my mind, playful
relationally. That's kind of my.
My my big thing man, I want the fruit.
Yeah, for me, faith for the Spirit.
Peace, joy, patience, kindness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,
kindness. Yeah, I put that in there
already. But that's what I want my
life to emulate. And.
I don't know, Jujitsu is just so Dang
fun. I just don't this whole idea of, ah,
we're too old to do this or that, like, I
really can't. I snuck out. I've snuck
back out onto a mat a few times, but I
got spine issues. I'm really nuts for his
to roll anymore. So I'm a little bit
jealous. Keep doing it for me because I'm
like, I don't need to to be on the mat
anymore. Well, it's all temporary. Yeah.
Enjoy it while you can. Yeah, Yeah.
Enjoyed being here today. I appreciate
you having me on man. It's been good
catching up. Appreciate you man. Chris
Corriere. Thanks, brother. Yeah, we'll do
this again. Ecology Dash, chris.com if
you're looking for my socials and blog
and DevOps days, devopsdays.org. Yep.
Back at the Historic Academy Medicine in
Midtown, April 20th and 21st, 2027. Nice.
Let's go. Let's do it. Thanks for
checking out the Think in Cursive
podcast. Please give us a like subscribe
and your comments along the way. They're
so important to us. For all things
podcasts or real estate, you can find me
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