the mended fence

A note I wrote yesterday…

Moving day.

We moved into our rental in Nov 2020 after selling our house during COVID thinking we would leave CA.

The next few years had interesting twists…

I was at Parallax doing the WFH thing. My team moved to CO. We all sold our houses at the same time and even used my same realtor friend. In the meantime, we needed a place to stay. The realtor called her childhood friend who she knew had this house vacant.

They agreed to rent it to us. An old groovy Boogie Nights house. It needs (A LOT of) TLC but I describe it as a rich person’s house from 1969. Anyway, we figure it’s temporary. So as things start opening up we visit Denver/Boulder on a majestic weather weekend. Looks great.

We get back home and Denver weather made national news. It was 80 and sunny and they had a snowstorm the next day. I text @Elfonzerelli:

“bruh, the weather?”

Apparently that can happen.

Egyptian blood gets cold feet. I’m out on CO. I myself am a snowflake. I don’t need them in September.

Summer 2021, we travel for about 7 weeks in the US, including a month in TX visiting friends. We spend 4th of July in Austin and on the way back to our friend’s house in DFW area we swing by an open house. We called the realtor on the way to make sure she’ll be there. She warns us there’s 3 offers on the place already. No problem. We are looky loos and it’s next to our friend’s house so we still wanna look.

We step inside, love it immediately and the price seemed cheap (adjusting for coming from CA and TX property tax even).

I ask my friend who knows the market what’s the worst he thinks we could rent it out for. Satisfied we lift the house paying 12% thru ask. As we celebrate that week we tell our friends we will rent it out …but move there in a year!

We return to CA.

So it’s now spring of 2022.

We have the move to TX as this unspoken deadline in the back of our minds. Yinh and I are driving up to Napa. A telekinesis moment as we were driving thru the beautiful valley…I don’t remember who spoke first, the words could have been either of us:

“we can’t go to Texas”

Immediate agreement.

We do love it here. Our family is here. I left work a few months earlier, still not much of a plan, and while TX would have been way better financially, everywhere has warts…dealing with the high cost was the thing we’d rather bear.

We commit to CA then. No more wandering eyes. We sold the house in TX.

[Almost top ticked it but our first buyer backed out the week the market first dropped in 2022. We ended up eventually selling for about a 25% profit and that luck parlayed into more bc we jammed the proceeds into XHB in what turned out to be the low — long-time readers remember this as I wrote about in real time. It was a weird trade bc I got the inkling that year that I wanted to short builders, bc after talking to our TX tenants and their experience with buying a house from a builder I understood how the builders seemed squeezed on both demand bc affordability and supply cost inflation. They were like a broken crack spread. So I wanted to buy puts. But when I looked at the performance of REITs and other RE plays they were all flattish while the builders were crushed. Figuring they were now hated and be it that we were now “short a house” I held my nose and bought them! Anyway, dumb luck. Sold ’em after the 1 year mark from the basis.]

Anyway life again.

In late ’22, we are having “Sunday coffee with neighbors in the shared driveway” and learn that the tenants whose backyard is adjacent to us are moving out. We don’t know them, but our neighbor tells us. We walk to the house, introduce ourselves and discover the house isn’t listed yet. We call Yinh’s sister in SF.

“You have to move here”

This was out of left field.

We badger her and her husband all evening.

They agreed to come see it that week. By Friday they sign the lease. The 4 adults, 4 kids and grandma sharing 2 adjacent homes.

We remove part of the fence. Compound.

When my kids moved into our rental they were in COVID homeschool pods. Pre-K and 2nd grade. Tuesday, they go into 4th and 7th. These were big years. They will always remember the years “when they lived with their cousins.”

I’ve probably lived the best 2.5 years of my life. I’m sad to leave this house. The memories spanned important years (not to mention my own leaving work transition).

But today…the fence is mended.

We sleep in the new house tonight. It’s just around the corner, 3 min by bike, 8 walking. Kid goes to the same bus stop.

But this house and compound arrangement needed a tribute.

We hear our new neighbors are empty nesters. Our backyards are adjacent. We own the new place and would happily max lever to make the compound happen again but this time… permanently.

my inheritance was nationalized

First, thanks to everyone who reached out about my dad. This is not a bid for you to do so, I just want to acknowledge that it was deeply appreciated. I expressed that to those who reached out already but I’m mentioning it here to share something that may or may not be obvious — sympathy and empathy are not old-fashioned.

I had multiple friends call me. Some of those calls lasted 2 hours [grindset collective gasp]. I would never have predicted I would want that. But they were nice. So nice I’m still thinking about it. And with some concern — like not predicting that I would appreciate a phone call means I’m a sociopath.

I’ve been doing a lot of processing. It’s not sadness. In fact, I feel uneasy accepting profusely solemn condolences because I’m not sad. I mourned over a year ago after returning from one of my visits. It was heartbreaking. Late-stage Parkinson’s is cruel.

It hasn’t been sadness lately but reflection and to be totally bare — relief. Mercy came for him. And for me. Another failed prediction — how therapeutic it would be to give my father’s eulogy. It was easy to write. Probably because I’ve been writing it in my head for at least a year.

But it was the hardest thing I ever said. It took me 3 minutes to get the first word out of my mouth. I think. How reliable could I have been as a timekeeper in that moment?

I addressed the children of our family. They only remember their gido as frail and sick. I told them who he really was. I then addressed my dad. To tell him things I never did. To tell him the things I’ve been writing to myself as I plead with the mirror “please make sense”.

It resists. It won’t.

But it turns out, it doesn’t matter.

The memorial was a gift — one that eluded me until we came together to celebrate him. To see him without the near-sightedness that distorts love. We celebrate lions but he was just quiet and dutiful and a protector and pursued simplicity. He was just so simple. It’s a way of being that is entirely invisible to modernity. And yet I’m convinced so many people, even some you reading this, are the same way but asked to be otherwise.

This is my way of saying “I see you”.

The repast following my dad’s service was overflowing with joyful stories and pictures. So many stories. I already know it’s a lunch I’ll never forget. Like most people, I relish a chance to hear family lore.

My uncle delivered. I learned that my paternal great-grandfather was emigrated from Greece to Cairo. He figured out you could press cotton seeds, which were considered worthless, to make an oil from which he introduced the first scented soap in Egypt.

His brother founded the Bank of Alexandria.

My grandmother grew up with a silver spoon in a mansion overlooking the Nile, her father and uncle being men of great wealth. She had many suitors but married my grandfather who was a police officer from a humble family. His father was a preacher. My grandfather would rise to hold an extremely high rank in the police (which has military prestige if you know how Egypt works) and a law professor in retirement.

(I mentioned Wednesday that my father, despite going to the police academy, rejected his father’s path.)

Now, I’m sitting here wondering…why is there no wealth in my family?

Turns out when Nasser came to power on a nationalist/socialist platform he confiscated the businesses of foreigners residing in Egypt including my Greek forefathers.

My grandmother was half Greek and a mix of Syrian/French/Lebanese. I remember her red hair and blue eyes. My dad had striking green eyes. I grew up being told I wasn’t as handsome as my dad. They weren’t wrong.

At least I didn’t start greying in my early 20’s. Then again, we all end up in the same place.

As a matter of facts, the Bank of Alexandria story is probably the faintest morsel of reality passed down through a generational game of telephone until reaching this sensational proportion. From the Wikipedia entry:

I do know that my grandmother grew up wealthy in Egypt and I know her father is from a town in Greece about an hour from Athens because my uncle who has a place in Greece tracked down his birthplace. I don’t know how these bits intersect to create the lore.

4 years removed — a reflection on my biggest bet

Friends,

I was out Monday night in SF with friends from Parallax and we realized it’s been exactly 4 years this week since I left. I gotta tell you, while I don’t miss having the job, I deeply miss the people. I deeply miss being an office (although I don’t miss the commute or the 4am mornings). I reference the film Clerks all the time, but my professional life felt like Clerks. Non-stop banter, friendly debate, and just sharing highs and lows on this little rowboat that we were all paddling in the same direction. Clearly that wasn’t enough for me to stay. The work itself felt stale and my heart wasn’t in. Nobody’s fault. It’s just a me problem. I had a sense that I could always get a job even if it paid way less so it’s not like had the spectre of starving kids hanging in the balance. So it wasn’t a hard decision ultimately. Uncomfortable? Yes. Hard? No. (Many decisions in life thead that particular needle — just think of the last time you had to apologize. You know what you have to do. And it will suck. But the suck passes.)

4 years. The time it takes to go from freshman orientation ice cream socials to graduation as the start date to your first job dancing in your head distracting you from the commencement speech. I can weirdly remember that. Followed by “I better remove the piercing from my chin”. Whaddya want? I was a 21-yr old meat shank. Sue me.

Anyway, it’s been a fair bit of wandering, lots of family travel (highly joyful but also too easy to rationalize), and way more writing. A habit I started and stopped a couple times over the years before having it stick during the last 2 years at the fund.

It was always the clue sitting right in front of me.

Besides being something I’m compelled to do, writing is an instance of something I feel I’m supposed to do. Whether it’s kids or adults, I love to watch others “unlock”. Writing is a way to do that with reach. If I could be useful in unlocking others while enjoying or at least tolerating it, then I figure things will turn out ok. Making it sustainable financially is a challenge but that’s as I like to say a “technical not existential problem”. I prefer that over “I’m making money but my soul feels like it’s piling on debt”.

I can say that because I’m older of course. There’s no shame in doing what you need to do to get ends meeting. In fact, if you can do that, while being stoked, you’re lucky. Congrats — doing what you love and getting paid for it is why we look at musicians and athletes with envy. It’s not the fame and celebrity. It’s the alignment.

Winding (and writing) my way to today

I was stoked for most of my career. Less so in the time before I left. Hence leaving. Writing gave me a clue that I could demonstrate value outside of a niche profession. This might sound like something small. But my close trader friends and I always shared a gallows humor about whether “this year was going to be the one we become realtors”. Trading is hard. The ultimate red queen. And she will likely break up with you before you can dump her. It’s not a knock on realtors, but if you’re willing to start at the bottom with a draw and no benefits, there’s always a spot for you. Our stop felt way below last sale.

But writing led to confidence. A CV that could convey competence by “showing your work”. If you’re looking to change your work, nobody cares how many contracts you’ve traded. It’s all sunk cost. The key was showing that the things that helped you excel in your first career where portable if you abstracted the skills. They’re not necessarily portable at the same price, but when you are taking a step back you’re trying to handicap your ultimate downside, not protect the status quo.

Writing was an instance of what I’ve been doing my whole career. Turning vibes into claims. Bridging observation to proposition. Managing risk, finding outs, reasoning — it’s all creative synthesis. Clear communication is a bridge from impression to price. Debugging statements as you traverse the distance from noise to a fair value. Writing, coding, deciding. They all feel related. The experiment of basically sharing in public brought the relations into focus. The opportunity to do that was fueled by a renewable arbitrage — teaching things one knows deeply to those who don’t by understanding where they’re coming from. My biggest advantage is not being a genius. A hardgainer doesn’t learn to lift from an alien like Ronnie Coleman. Writing, especially the feedback, confirmed my sense that I’m not a journalist or a novelist — I’m a teacher.

Which means that writing is just one form of expression in service of a wider mission. The meetings (most of which are not even about trading), the substack, the app, more recently the videos. It’s all an engine. It’s not mass market stuff. It’s only possible because of the long tail or Kevin Kelly’s idea of 1,000 true fans. Will AI end this approach? Possibly. Might it be strengthened because it’s human in a world of terminator slop? I hope so. It doesn’t seem any less risky to me than any other gig that relies on human expression. If the beta of human judgement gets sold to zero I’m not any worse off. And no matter what I was doing, I wasn’t gonna afford the rocket to immortality anyway. Might as well, ride this one out as a whole person.

Now

Today I get to stay engaged in markets but can think a bit more long-term rather than fight for pennies. That’s awesome work but it had a season for me (although I’d never rule it out entirely — selling tails at zero doesn’t compute).

I think of my “portfolio” as what I can work on to create lasting value plus a core asset-allocation where I trade around the edges whether it’s short-term stuff, or angel/advisory. It’s a lens to the world at large, a sandbox, and a canvas. Options are the shading pens. The moontower app is empowering finer discretion. There’s a trader inside that isn’t going away just because I gave up a seat.

Holistically, being able to unlock others, practice, share publicly, fully own my effort [and failures], plus not have an alarm clock works for me. As paranoid as I can be about the random number generator (option traders are damaged goods), I believe the world vibrates back what you give it. That’s the existential bet underneath it all. The biggest bet.

The recipe:

Listen. Try hard. Own when you suck. Cut off the tails on bouts of inevitable stupidity (like face piercings instead of face tattoos).

It ends up looking like service. If you skim a fraction of the surplus, you can sustain it. If you create a lot of surplus, you can go to Sizzler. And you will always be able to sleep at night.

Recently, I’ve been fortunate to receive some thoughtful feedback from readers in light of the different modalities (writing, video, app). These testimonials, all shared in the past few weeks, highlight how ideas can connect theory to practice, spark new perspectives, and even accelerate the learning curve for those in the thick of it.

It I was overwhelmed when they came rolling in via quote-tweet, text message and DM after I shared that I got this note::

I need to compile every message where someone tells me about a prop firm telling a junior to go read🌙🗼 .

I never take it for granted that the “stoner dad” letter namesaked by a beer bust scene is read by the hawks of the trading world.

I was in the final round for CitSec and was recommended Moontower as a great read! I have been enjoying it ever since and would love to connect and learn more.

A few replies:

Very flattered to be the contra on these notes I received after that thread:

A Senior Trader’s Take

Originally posted on X by @CedarsHill

“I noticed this post from Kris earlier in the week and it has stuck with me. This is one of the most elegant implementations of Bayesian logic to trading options I have seen in my career. I worked at SIG and learned a lot of this stuff years ago, but it just sunk in at another level.“

(Referring to this thread)

From a Young Options Market Maker

“Hey Kris, your recent post walking through the probabilities/‘stabilizing & destabilizing moves’ implied by the NVDA call spreads really stuck with me despite zero relation to the single stocks world, mostly because it felt like a very visual way to grasp the intuition (and I usually suck at this kind of mental abstraction/visualization). Today by chance I was walking through skew on the desk with someone who isn’t really vol savvy (and in a totally different context, FX), and at some point I realized I was mostly borrowing from your logic about how it balances the odds between different areas of the distribution—I could literally see it ‘clicking’ for the guy (and he said so too). And in a way it ‘clicked’ for me too as I went through the concept with these new lens! Figured that was nice feedback to pass along as you recently posted about your work being recommended to juniors and trading desks…I can say from personal experience it would have made a hell of a difference in speeding up the learning curve back when I was in that position.

When I asked the trader if I could share this as a testimonial he replied:

Feel free to share it however u prefer. I can give you the full version of the praise—I’ve been a reader I think probably since year 1 (!), back then I was in my 2nd year on a vol desk (enough so it’s past that point where you feel like everyday you’re fighting not to drown, but not nearly close enough to really ‘seeing the matrix’ so to speak). The stuff you write is literally in the realm of professionals but explained in ways that anyone could eventually understand. There were multiple topics on which I would read your pieces and think ‘ok that condenses in a very intuitive way what I felt it took me many months doing the hard work of trading, controlling position spreadsheets, doing P&L attribution, before figuring out how it really is traded in practice, what are the thought processes, what are the practical pitfalls’. When I started I took the more difficult route of going through the tougher theoretical books first (like Rebonato’s) before getting to the more practical/intuitive ones (like Bennett’s) and before getting to the useful corners of ‘vol twit’ (and then your blog). For someone starting from scratch (and learning on the go) a bunch of stuff was really, really difficult to grasp—Moontower would be literally the first required reading I’d recommend because of this bridge between theory and the practical reality of its applications, there’s really no book or other blog that I know that offers that. For a few years now I don’t deal with vol stuff directly, but once you learn to see the world through options lens it’s the type of thing you can never ‘unsee’ afterwards, and I still don’t miss 1 post.”

From an Option Market Maker with 20 Years of Experience

“These videos are a really authentic sneak peek into the mind of a real options trader, must be neat to watch for people that have never sat on a desk. I watched that first one you posted and your Excel tool reminded me so much of the production pricing and risk management sheet I built over many years and traded off of from xxxx-yyyy.

Your content is amazing, consistently a must-read. So much of it resonates in drastic ways and makes me think hard about my life and my choices (which I already do, but enlightening to hear it framed by someone as thoughtful, humble and self-reflective as you).”

To the next 4 years. More usefulness. More unlocking.

Thank you for reading this stuff. I’d be a really bad realtor.

[I could just see myself…”You want me to get what for your house? Sold.” I’d never get a listing.]

Stay groovy

☮️

Look Left

Random personal thing.

I’m not a car guy and find vehicle shopping to be a mostly utilitarian exercise. No real taste. Car and Driver gives the car a high rating. Fine, whatever, put it on the short-list.

I actually love the aesthetics of cars and will go to car museums and car shows if it’s convenient. And sometimes when it’s not. On my birthday last year we went to Petersen’s in LA. I especially dig American muscle cars from the 60s and 70s. Ford vs Ferrari is one of my favorite movies of all time.

My mom claims when I was 4-years-old I would sit on the stoop in Brooklyn and be able to name the make of every car that drove down Avenue Z in Sheepshead Bay.

But path dependance interjected.

The summer before my freshman year of HS, on the way back from 6 Flags in NJ, I was asleep in the backseat. I awoke mid-spin. I can still remember what felt like a dream just before crashing into a telephone pole.

Confused I was feeling around and felt something moist.

It was my shin bone.

I was 13-years-old and panicked, throwing the door open, falling on the grass. The first responders were there quickly. I was in shock. But we were in a convenient location — the hospital was a mile down the same road. Apparently we were t-boned in the middle of an intersection where 3 nurses, late to work, ran a red light.

My mother was driving. She was fine. A close friend was in the driver seat, no seat belt. Unscathed. My sister was concussed and talking gibberish. I learned later my mother was most concerned about her since my sis’ behavior was really erratic and I just had a “cut”.

A 9” cut that took over 2 hours to thread with over 60 stitches and a summer of being on crutches but ultimately just a cut. (The skin on your shin is thin — the culprit was the pizza cutter shaped hinge that opened and closed the center console in the car.)

6 years later I was again asleep in the back seat of a car. It was about 7am. Me and a few college friends were driving from a Paul Oakenfold show in Montreal after being awake all night to Toronto for a rave the following night.

The driver fell asleep.

The Ford Taurus struck the median, ricocheted across a 4-lane highway to rest in the opposite shoulder. Every car behind us at 110 k/h dodged the “best-selling car in America” giving us all another day on Earth.

I tell my kids all-the-time, the most dangerous thing we do every day is get in the car. Maybe one day I’ll have a refurbished 70s Blazer as a beach cruiser. But the Ferrari posters on my teenage walls were the dreams of (literally) unscarred youth.

Peter Attia cited a stat that 90% of fatal car accidents happen at an intersection by a car coming from the left. That is exactly what happened to us that night coming back from 6 Flags. If today’s post does nothing but make you think of that every time you get to a 4-way, then I’ll never top this issue.

The Temple Rave

I saw Nine Inch Nails last Sunday night at the Greek in Berkeley. (Between Leon Bridges last week and the upcoming King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard show I think I’m asking to be swallowed by the Earth. The Hayward fault runs beneath Cal’s football stadium and the theater. At least I’ll be in my happy place when the worms eat me).

I never owned a NIN album but since I’m alive I know like 6 or 7 songs. Any preoccupation I’ve ever had with Trent Reznor revolved around him renting 10050 Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills — the home where the Manson apostles murdered Sharon Tate and her celebrity friends. The recording studio in the house was called “Le Pig”, a reference to a song on the Beatles’ White Album from which Charles Manson inferred a lot of craziness. The killers smeared the word “pig” in blood on the home’s front door. Downward Spiral and Broken were both recorded at Le Pig. The music video for Gave Up features images of the house and studio. (Not to be extra creepy after I already used the word “serial killer” once in this letter, but the house I used to own here in CA looked similar to that infamous abode before we renovated it).

But I must admit. NIN is in the running for best show I’ve ever seen (n of roughly 200). The gulf between the recorded & live experience is indescribable.

The Greek felt like a rave at a temple. In black t-shirts.

Nine Inch Nails at the Greek in Berkeley with @drunkengrass pic.twitter.com/v488aa3CC0

— Kris (@KrisAbdelmessih) September 12, 2022

Uploading vids from NIN last night.

I need to go back but there's only a few dates left. Flying solo this week with kids otherwise I'd want to make the Vegas show in a few days 😔 pic.twitter.com/KPlHnv0sea

— Kris (@KrisAbdelmessih) September 13, 2022

Cousin Camp

Cousin Camp finally happened. This was one of the best things we’ve ever been a part of. I think the 8 cousins (+2 close friends) will have an amazing memory of this week. The kids ranged from 5 to 12 years old.

Schedule

7:30am-9am: Breakfast, making beds, getting dressed

9am: A chess coach would come teach for an hour.

10am-noon: Our boys amazing preschool teacher Jen came and led the kids through thoughtful activities.

Noon-2pm: Lunch break and play

2pm-4pm: Second session with Jen

4pm-6pm: Swimming pool (lots of Blind Man’s Bluff with Fish Out Of Water rules), Nerf battles, badminton, feeding the neighbor’s cat, and games like Throw Throw Burrito and A Fake Artist Goes To New York.

6pm til bedtime: Dinner, play, and music rehearsals for the open mic we went to in town Friday night. [A piano and group vocal cover of Ed Sheeran’s Perfect and a piano cover of Vanessa Carlton’s Thousand Miles]

A few additional notes

The theme of the week was communication. Being an active, empathetic listener, looking out for each other, making sure your tone matches what you want to project into the world. Jen is a master teacher and our first call for behavioral questions. She is another hero I try to emulate. Her touch balances firmness and love. Toughness and understanding. An example is when one child hurts another she doesn’t force them to say “sorry” because she knows it’s an empty sentiment when done at gunpoint. Instead, she facilitates a dialogue between the children that surfaces the “why” of the action and the victim can express how they feel. Most of the time, the offender apologizes genuinely because you can see them really perceive the other person’s POV.
Dinner was Yinh’s favorite part of the week. She would lead some pretty thoughtful discussions about how we treat each other and act generally. The kids one by one describe the day’s highs and lows and the reasons for that. They are asked to point out which actions other kids did were helpful or considerate. It’s truly awesome to see what kids notice. If anything, it’s a reminder to give them lots of credit. Their observational skills often surprised us to the upside.A moment I want to memorialize in case I read this in 10 years. Maddox thought his treatment was a result of his “reputation” and that was something Yinh really unpacked with him. The gist of it — you don’t need to conform to the expectations of others. It was insanely mature for a 10-year-old best known for bouncing around the room to realize that some of his actions were guided not by what he wanted but by his “reputation” and being freed of that was a moment of unlocking in his eye. And that’s the point. He’s so much more than a boisterous 10-year old and that wildness is a feature not a bug. Maybe some adults could benefit from realizing their reputation doesn’t need to define all aspects of their life. There’s more to existence than expected value or being smart or being able to do X. Maybe allowing yourself multiple identities relieves pressure.
Some of the activities:Building boxes that they had to drill together and pain before creating a scene inside. Some kids made things like a labyrinth or pinball machine.
Bridge building contest like you did in science class

Kids would each pull an “Angel” card in the morning. The card would give them a trait to be extra mindful of for the day.

Kids would be expected to clean after every module and by Day 2 they were doing this unprompted. They’d close the pool, put away all the toys, set the table, and take out the garbage.
Date nights. That’s what the other parents got to do while the kids were with us all week. They were all sending us pics of the restaurants and bars they were enjoying every night. Yinh and I even fashioned our own dates. We’d play Wingspan every night after the kids went to bed. I have yet to beat her. Grr.

Finally, it’s worth remembering it takes a village. My mother-in-law was a saint, prepping all meals. More than half the kids were her grandkids which made the week extra sweet. Seeing all the plates laid out, all the kids crammed into bedrooms on makeshift sleeping arrangements, and those beautiful in-between moments when the kids scattered all over the backyard, front yard or in various rooms just organizing their own fun. Even the oldest cousin’s bunny, Olaf, had a great time getting love from so many little hands.

Cousin’s Camp Year 1 was a massive success and we can’t wait to do it again next year.

Start Of Summer

Yinh and I have covid this weekend and the timing couldn’t be worse.

Our first inaugural Cousins Camp was supposed to start today.

We were scheduled to have 8 nieces and nephews staying with our kids this week. We hired a teacher and chess coach to guide enrichment programs from 8 until noon every day. The kids would do crafts, write and perform a song, play games, and present/public-speak. Afternoons were left open for play, sports and pool time. 80’s summer kid mode.

Our plan is to rotate this every year at a different family’s home (the other parents are going on mini-vacations without their kids, so this is a win-win for everyone!). We decided to do this because it will be a great series of memories to gift both the children and the parents.

We had a different version of this idea in 2020. Boardgame Week. A local parent offered their amazing backyard as a site. I was planning a week of PTO to host 14 kids (I wasn’t charging so it was oversubscribed amongst our parent friends before Yinh finished typing the text message) for 3 hours a day of gaming and then play time.

Covid blew it all up and then last year we traveled all summer so I was so stoked that we were finally going to pull this off. Until yesterday when it became clear we had to cancel because we and some of the guests have covid.

[I’ve had chills, fevers and razor blade throat since Friday night but it’s all been manageable. I took a my 3rd covid test in 3 days and finally tested positive. I was getting nervous that my sickness could somehow be not covid and that I was going to get covid too.]

Anyway, I’ll be back in your inbox sometime in July. I’ll still be around on Twitter a little bit and you can always email me.

Enjoy the start of summer. Summer is for memories. Spread kindness. Make joy a priority for someone else and it will just as easily be your own. A little intention goes a long way. Whoever your they is, they will remember.

Stay groovy!

Kris

Postscript

In a crazy coincidence, I just hung out with the family that rented our house before we leased it (they are tight with our neighbors and visited from the East Coast). Apparently, they did this same camp idea with their family and friends at the house we live in now! They showed us a video of the finale performance the kids put on and pictures throughout the week. The mom couldn’t believe we randomly settled on a similar plan. She’s an artist and said something to the effect of “there’s just something about that house”.

Our house is a 1950s 3/2.5 CA ranch that looks straight outta Boogie Nights. Mirrors, bricks, and cabin interior. Everyone would be piled up on each other. I’m too cheap to put the A/C on. And everyone gets chores. If there were movie props on the premises you’d think I was recreating the commune on Spahn Ranch. Without the sex, drugs, and ya know, murder.

Although you might hear some Brian Wilson in the background.