Moontower #253

Friends,

A message for the 5th year in a row:

As always around the holidays, Moontower is taking the next few weeks off and returning in January. We can all use a bit less stimulation at the end of the year. Play boardgames, go to sleep late, binge some shows, gain a few pounds. Laugh so hard bourbon eggnog comes out your nose. Shower your loved ones with attention. You’re not missing anything, including Moontower.

This break will be chill. After Thanksgiving’s Egypt trip, we have no travel plans and look forward to staying put, playing games, hanging out and watching the boys in their holiday hoop tourneys.

Random personal bits:

I’ll break out the game Ra out of the shrink-wrap it’s been in for the past year. It came out over 20 years ago. A game-obsessive former SIG director I was chatting with called it the best auction game he’s ever played. He thinks it’s Reiner Knizia’s masterpiece. RK is on the Mount Rushmore of tabletop game design not just for quality but relative to his field might be one of the most prolific humans ever. He’s designed over 700 games.
My 8-year-old Max likes guitar-driven rock and metal. I took this as tacit permission to buy him a cherry red Fender Squier for his size to put under the tree. I’m desperately trying to manifest a musician in my house. I got to play a bunch of songs with some friends Friday night. Max’s favorite is Bring Me To Life because he likes “when the music stops and suddenly the guitar goes chug chug chug”. My personal favorite from the evening.
It’s giving season. Don’t forget that donating stock is like the most tax-efficient hack ever. Apt timing for a reminder since 2024 made some big-risk takers newly rich lol. In general, most of our giving is concentrated in a few orgs we care about (as opposed to spreading it widely). They are mostly local which offers the chance to be more involved than just giving funds. Just sharing what we do because I know a lot of readers here have giving on their minds.
Besides an amazing start to moontower.ai’s life, 2024 was also my busiest year of writing. I nearly doubled my output from last year because of the Thursday posts and the educational writing for the software. Part of this holiday break will involve outlining a book. I kept toying with the idea but my friend
Paul Millerd

gave me advice that seems obvious once he said it — “just start outlining and as it comes together if you get more excited than you’re supposed to do it”.

Finally, I just want to say thank you for reading and supporting this whole moontower thing. It’s a privilege to have a direct relationship with an audience scattered around the country and the globe. As career landscapes shift I suspect as valuable as I think this is, I’m probably still undervaluing it. Maintaining it requires staying trustworthy, curious, and industrious to remain useful and relevant. Which is a reminder — everything is hard, but if you’re lucky to match to your work you are at least excited for Mondays.