El Jefe y La Chamaca

Japanese Curry, Christmas Lights  Understanding Ichi-go-Ichi-e        Something in my gut told me not to leave the bigger baby shower gifts behind, so I made a few trips to my truck in the parking garage and loaded everything up. My coworkers had thrown me an excellent baby shower and we feasted on Hawaiian BBQ to celebrate. I took one last look at my desk, conducting a mental inventory to make sure nothing was forgotten for the day. I grabbed my thermos and started saying good night to everyone just like all the days before that one. I didn’t know it, but that would be the last time I set foot inside of SpaceX. That was 640 days ago. That night, in the produce aisle at a grocery store, with a bag of salad in my hand, my wife called my name and when I turned to her she told me her water just broke. I calmly put the salad back on the shelf. I never said goodbye to my friends at work. There is a tradition at SpaceX that when someone on the team leaves, they receiv...

Finding Style Charles Bukowski once said,  “To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.” I think about that quote a lot while I eat my french fries and sip a crisp blonde ale by the window. Sheets of rain continue to storm down as street corners begin to flood with ankle deep water. Chamaca is hypnotized by the rain too, and without looking at me she says, “ french fry”. I maintain my gaze out of the window and blindly hand her another fry. We sit there together, entranced by the San Francisco rain and the sounds of a busy restaurant. There is a strange dance happening between the wind and the trees, Chamaca and I are both stuck in the rhythm of this rainy November day. I sip my beer and glance at my watch. 11:30am on a Friday on the corner of 46th Avenue and Taraval and peace washes over me in a warm embrace. Galinette is the kind of restaurant that feels like an escape, a rip cord on a...