Every so often I'll experience a story for the first time without having any knowledge of it going in. Most recently two stories that amazed me were Nimona and The Wild Robot . There's a perfect level of "knowing what it's about" before watching or reading something, and sometimes that perfect level is "I know it exists" and nothing more.

"Do you know the most efficient superhero today, in terms of lives saved per dollar? ...It's Speedsheet , who can analyze spreadsheets at speeds far beyond those of mortal men. Honestly, I'm not even sure she's really super. She might just be an incredibly boring person." Every skill, sufficiently practiced, becomes a superpower. And don't worry that it will make you boring: having an expert-level skill is never boring.

Scary statistics: US firms have announced 50% more job cuts than at this point last year; the hiring rate has fallen to its lowest non-pandemic level in a decade; more than a quarter of the unemployed have been without a job for at least six months ( The Economist 11/6/2025) . In that environment, I've gotten a lot of "help" on my resume, and I'm not sure how helpful it was.

People don't know that they're going to deliver late. I've worked with multi-billion dollar companies and individuals, and often when someone says "I can deliver that on-time," they genuinely believe it. As project managers, it's important for us to interrogate that assertion and break down the path to completion with enough detail to see when tasks start to slip.

I've never bought myself a new computer. Through a combination of stubbornness and luck, I've replaced my computer several times, but never bought new.

Flying low-observable "stealth" aircraft means near-perfection in maintenance, or the aircraft aren't low-observable anymore. This has implications for a "big-boy war".

In 2024, I read Nikhil Suresh's " I Will F'ing Dropkick You If You Use that Spreadsheet " and I'm probably due for a drop-kicking. I've taught myself some other languages and methods, but the spreadsheet is just so versatile!