Short On Miles | Thoughts on life, travel, and fatherhood

August 11, 2020 / 0 Comments

There’s No Going Back

Tuesday August 11, 2020 // Afternoon Nap

It’s been ::checks calendar:: nearly six months since I’ve published on this website. That’s a lie.

I did publish an article. I think this is the first article I’ve ever straight-up deleted from one of my websites. It was pre-COVID chaos about COVID and traveling with the little guy. We had a trip planned back in May to go to Los Angeles, San Diego, and Denver. In early March I published something about how we’re still going to go, we can’t be scared to travel, yada yada. Whoops.

February 13, 2020 / 0 Comments

Pure Laughter

Thursday February 13, 2020 // Past Bedtime

Extremely short post.

Tonight for a solid ten minutes I shook at half-drank (drunk?) Gatorade bottle in front of my son and he laughed harder than I’ve ever heard someone laugh before. Which in turn caused me to laugh harder than I’ve ever laughed before.

February 11, 2020 / 0 Comments

Forever

Tuesday February 11, 2020 // Bedtime

I’m sitting here rocking my son to sleep. Most nights he’ll fall asleep on his own but tonight he needed a little extra help. I’m sitting here, staring at him, knowing I can put him down at anytime and he’ll stay asleep but I don’t want to.

February 3, 2020 / 1 Comment

What the Parenting Books Don’t Tell You About: Dishes

Monday February 3, 2020 // Past Bedtime

I want to talk about something the parenting books and blogs and coworker with six kids doesn’t warn you about enough — dishes. The sheer amount of dishes one does as a new parent is mind-boggling.

Dishes take up about 4% of my waking life. How’d I get to this calculation? I’m awake from approximately 5:30 AM – 10:30 PM. That’s 17 hours or 1,020 minutes. I spend roughly 40 minutes doing dishes each day. 40/1020 = 3.9%. How can I be a 100% father when that much of my day is dedicated to a sponge?

January 23, 2020 / 0 Comments

What is Important?

Thursday January 23, 2020 // Lunchtime

What is important? I’m not talking about the “urgent vs. important” topic that always comes up in discussions about productivity. I’m talking about life.

What’s important in life?

As a new father, a lot of my thinking is directly related to parenthood.

January 7, 2020 / 0 Comments

Can I Tell You a Secret?

Tuesday January 7, 2020 // Past Bedtime

Can I tell you a secret? It’s deep and it doesn’t want to be shared. It’s the kind of secret you have no problem keeping to yourself. There’s zero temptation to let it slip out to your friend or even your dog.

December 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

Art or Work or Fun

Saturday December 28, 2019 // Morning, Still Asleep

Moments ago I was in another Chrome tab attempting to work on a blog post for my other site. Work began on it two weeks ago. There’s a couple hundred words written and I’m still not to the “meat” of the post. It feels…forced.

A common monster I’ve battled over there is trying not to have it feel like work. It’s a side project. It’s supposed to be “fun” or at least not like work. It shouldn’t be soul-sucking or tax some part of my creative brain making it feel like it’s selling out or not providing value or not creating “art.”

December 21, 2019 / 0 Comments

Quick Reflections on the First Six Months of Fatherhood

Saturday December 21, 2019 // Morning Nap

My wife is out running errands and the little guy just fell asleep. A shot of espresso is in my system and the dog is content with a bone. As long as the nap holds, there’s no better time to attempt to write than this very second.

My son will soon be six months old. Wow. They’re right. Time flies once you become a parent. The first ~two months are kinda slow because it’s all so new and you’re exhausted. Since then though, it’s gone by faster than I could have ever imagined.

December 9, 2019 / 0 Comments

Groundhog Day Parenting

Monday December 9, 2019 // Bedtime

It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in. I haven’t forgotten about you. I’ve been buried under a mountain of work and emails and bottles and laundry. Too far buried to think about sticking my head out for even as long as Punxsutawney Phil would.

Being a working parent is rough. I knew it going into this whole thing. I wouldn’t trade it for the world (well, maybe working part and the dishes part). But I sure do wish it wasn’t 9:30 PM every night and I’m looking around thinking, “where did the day go?”. Every night. Tonight is no different.

October 19, 2019 / 0 Comments

Blank Canvas

Saturday October 19, 2019 // Evening Nap

I came across something the other day that’s stuck with me from one of those inspirational tweets or Instagram posts that magically appears in your feed without you asking for it. The exact quote escapes me but the gist of it was this:

Imagine your to-do list is blank. Literally nothing on it; like it never existed to begin with. Nothing from the past matters. Nothing you told yourself that you’d get done at some point matters. You can choose anything you’d like to work on. What is it?

This idea has been sitting with me, fermenting in the back of my brain over the past few days.

What would I work on if there was a blank canvas in front of me?