noise from a dad & operations wrangler
What if. What if I asked you to change your way of thinking. From building to do to building for what you’re not going to do? What if, instead, I asked you to build for lazy? What if you decided you want to spend every moment at the beach? Not…
Continue reading →Dear Amelia, We’ve been married for 15 years today. I thought about finding a mariachi band to celebrate. I thought about looking at homes and having the realtor tell me I have commitment issues. I thought about going to an orchid show with you. I even thought about arguing over…
Continue reading →Citrus × paradisi The Grapefruit is one of my favorite fruits, second only to The Strawberry and tied with The Gelato (which, for the sake of this argument, I’ll consider a fruit). The Grapefruit also has the distinction of holding the title of My Favorite French Word: Pampelmuse. Perhaps it’s…
Continue reading →Embrace the unexpected. It might be the best experience ever. Back in December I was at a leadership retreat. I had the chance to stand in front of a group of people and practice story telling. Somewhere in the middle of telling that story, the ending changed. Expect the unexpected.…
Continue reading →Son, A decade ago you entered my life. A decade ago you fundamentally changed me. I thank you for that. A decade ago you turned one horrific date – September 11 – into a celebration. I thank you for that. You make me realize every day that I am a…
Continue reading →Those who don’t follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn probably don’t know this. I have a new job. That’s right. I’m joining the team at Lookout on Monday, September 9. I can’t be more excited! Getting ready For the past two weeks I’ve been reading books and putting thought into…
Continue reading →I never had a lot of friends in high school. Senior year was somehow different. I don’t know why but by graduation I knew and was known by those I considered the “in” crowd. I’m a believer in recognizing those who do good and as I read George Saunder’s convocation…
Continue reading →I set a goal for myself during the past nineteen days while we were all on vacation: Read a bunch of books. And while I didn’t hit my goal of 9, which, let’s be honest, was pretty aggressive, I did finish four books and am half way through Hemmingway. Here’s…
Continue reading →Last Wednesday, July 31, I left Mozilla as a full time paid-staff. Seven years at Mozilla has fundamentally changed how I operate. It’s redefined my values and helped define my personal mission & purpose. The impact I had on Mozilla and on the Mozilla Project extended far outside Mozilla IT…
Continue reading →“I’m not afraid to fall; it means i climbed up high to fall is not to fail; you fail when you don’t try” ~ Superchick “Get Up” In the middle of a long text message conversation on my way home on BART I made the comment, “Half the stuff I’m…
Continue reading →A little more than 7 years ago today, I was at a park in Aliso Viejo with my then 2-year old son when @dan_portillo called. Mozilla was looking for a Network Engineer. A little more than 7 years ago today I was interviewing in Mountain View. I carried a cell…
Continue reading →Last night in Barcelona and I find myself in El Argentino listening to a single saxophone, my second most favorite instrument after Spanish guitar. Quite a spectacular way to end. It bookmarks two of the most amazing things I’ve ever done with Mozilla ~ one in Buenos Aires and one…
Continue reading →[This is a little old, probably written sometime in 1993.] I think of the stars in the sky how lonely they must be, so far apart from each other. I think of a candle without a flame, missing that which makes it whole. I think of the winter trees with…
Continue reading →I wound up taking most of the day off from work yesterday to drive 200 miles to help a Friend. It was a long and exhausting day. This is a person who ten months ago I didn’t even know, let alone care about. But this isn’t a post on what…
Continue reading →I turned 39 this past Sunday. My daughter and I share the same birthday (as does @selenagomez!). Over the years this has turned into a fun game of arguing over whose birthday it is. And over these years my priorities of what I want on my birthday have changed. Farrell’s…
Continue reading →[This is a short story written in 1991 while at UIUC. Lyric quotes are from some Enya song, name escapes me now.] He stepped out into the cold, glad to be through and glad to be out. The cold winter wind slapped him in the face as if scolding. He…
Continue reading →I’ve lived most of my life with very few friends. Growing up most would say I was a shy introvert and while I did have childhood friends in school, outside of Facebook, I don’t really keep in touch with any of them now. For whatever reasons, those friendships didn’t seem…
Continue reading →(This post is pretty delayed. Had hoped to post this shortly after I got back but life happened and here I am a month later.) I just got back from a little more than a week in Paris. I went mostly for work but since I’ve never been to France…
Continue reading →I’m posting this in the hopes others who find themselves in this predicament will find this online and find it useful. I certainly found comfort in this guy’s tale. I took a side trip to Hungary this past weekend and inadvertently lost my passport. So now what? This all happened…
Continue reading →This came up the other day and it occurred to me that not everyone knows why I call myself what I call myself. Why mrz? It’s not short for Mr. Z.Shortly after moving out to Mountain View in 1996, I worked at 3Com. I worked in the engineering division that,…
Continue reading →Last week, for eight days, I was able to step outside my normal role managing Operations and wear an entirely different hat. I had an amazing opportunity to interact with the vibrant Mozilla and Open Source community; I got to interact with those who I help from the shadows every…
Continue reading →My son has a vague concept of what I do at work. He knows I work at “Firefox”, knows the dino and knows I “fix computers”. He knows that if he wants to get online he has to double-click on the Firefox icon and then on the Kidzui icon: He…
Continue reading →NSID 2008 had to come to an early close for me today. I leave Monday for my sister’s wedding in Chicagoland and while I would have loved to hold out till the end of the month or even a few more days, that just wasn’t realistic (something about looking presentable).…
Continue reading →I have some pretty fond memories of my Dad, a math teacher, bringing home one of the (or maybe it was the) Apple II computers from work when I was in first or second grade. That’s how I got introduced to computers (and where I learned how to spell catalog).…
Continue reading →This is far from my normal Mozilla related posts but worthwhile enough that I feel like sharing it. I took my two children to the California Academy of Sciences this weekend. I wasn’t sure what to expect but since it’s new (or newly opened) and I enjoy these types out…
Continue reading →I had the opportunity to skip out of work this afternoon to see Al Gore’s keynote at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. First time seeing a Nobel Laureate in person! Regardless of your political feelings, seeing Al Gore on stage was electifying. Funny too! Gore spoke about emerging green…
Continue reading →(This would have been posted earlier this week but I’ve had no end of problems trying to get iframes in WordPress-MU working.) I wrapped up my second century this year over in Lodi, CA this past Sunday doing the Delta Century. Total ride time came in at 6:29. Ride had…
Continue reading →While most of the country spent the weekend in Super Bowl mode, I spent this past weekend at the first annual Solvang Training Camp at Zaca Lake. It was actally closer to Los Olivos. Spent three days cycling with 60 miles on Saturday. Saturday’s highlight, if you may, was cycling…
Continue reading →198.77 miles, ~10,000 ft of climbing, three counties, at least four area codes and 14,000 kcalories. Total time 17:29 with a moving time of around 14:30. After failing to complete a single century last year, I set my sights on the daunting task of completing a double instead! The Butterfield…
Continue reading →This ride was hard. 100 miles, 9,000+ feet of elevation gain. Many hours on my bike.
Continue reading →I’ve been thinking a lot about Saturday’s race and what I could have done differently. Two things come to my mind most immediately. At the top of Jack Rabbit trail, I should have just taken off my shoes and socks and ran through the big mud “lake”. I would have…
Continue reading →I came. I saw. I got my butt kicked. 74.32 miles in 6:55:41 with 9,237 feet of elevation gain. That works out to an average speed of 10.7 mph. Yeah, I know – not a century. I missed the checkin time by 30 minutes at Pass 3 and wasn’t allowed…
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