"What about y'all?" a friend asked recently after during our nightly Zoom call. He'd just introduced everyone to his newborn baby and shared the birth story. "What's new with you?"

"Ummmm..."

"Errr...."

"What's... new with me?"

It's the lockdown. No one had much to report -- and certainly nothing that compares to birthing a quarantine baby. Finally, I said, "Well... I found a box of my old clothes from high school and middle school in the barn. They're in really good condition, and I think they still fit."

Sometimes, something is said -- and without validation, it just becomes widely accepted as fact. For example, variations of, "Money can't buy happiness." Or, "Beyond [arbitrary number of dollars], money doesn't increase happiness." Or, for the truly wedged, "Kids who live on dirt floors and have nothing are just so happy.​" (If you really think that, you are wrong, and seriously need to check your privilege.)

#WorkFromHomeDay!!!

Privilege is real. When I first graduated from college, I was definitely not in a position to "start my own thing." I had few savings, I lived in an expensive area, and I needed a job that would pay me now. I couldn't afford to "start something" that would probably fail, and definitely not be profitable for at least few months.

So I took a job at a startup. It was a daily deal site, like Groupon. And, like Groupon, it spent a lot on advertising. My daily ad spend was $13,000 -- and I didn't even know enough to know that was absurd. 

By the time that company ran out of runway, I had enough savings that I finally was in a position to "start my own thing" -- and it's been awesome!

In many ways, Palo Alto, CA, is a paradise. This wealthy Silicon Valley town is built on the backs of tech companies like Google, Facebook, Palantir, and countless others. But with the explosive growth of these companies have come some serious problems.

Housing is unaffordable to all but a few. Traffic is horrific. And many people get terrible cell coverage, because Palo Alto lacks the infrastructure to sustain its population. 

There's a common myth in popular psychology that money doesn't buy happiness. 

​It totally does.

Author’s Bio: Ron Smith is a Critical Thinker. He holds a Ph.D. in physics and is a retired engineer, manager, and senior executive from the high-tech industry. He serves as a Trustee of Gettysburg College and is a philanthropist to multiple institutions of higher education, including within the University of California system.

A famous idiom dates back to the first Democracy in ancient Greece: “Actions speak louder than words”. For U.S. presidential candidates, this idiom applies when candidates’ past actions are vetted against their campaign promises and positions. But unlike the other candidates -- and despite a 44 year career in politics! -- Bernie Sanders has received very little vetting of his actions against his campaign promises.

I recently wrote that one great goal for creative types (and aren’t we all creative types?) is to follow the 80-20 rule: consume 80% of the time, and create the other 20%.
 
This is important for two reasons:

The Stanford Marching Band once scattered from POTATO to NOTATO during their infamous field show, "These Irish, Why Must They Fight?" at the University of Notre Dame. The joke, while hilarious, did not go over well.

Turns out the potato famine was devastating and killed millions of people.

The good news is! Scientists are working on a modified potato that is resistant to late blight (the cause of the famine), so nothing like that will ever happen again.

The Economist recently published Envy at 30,000 Feet - Resentment of first-class passengers may be a cause of air rage. In it, the author reports, 

"Passengers in economy class are 3.8 times more likely to become unruly if the plane also contains a first-class section. If those passengers have to walk through first class to get to their seats, their odds of experiencing air rage double again." 

I've written several times about how much fun it is to travel alone (see also: Advantages of Traveling While Female; 8 Super Awesome Ways to Make More Friends While You Travel; and Feeling Alone? The Solution May be to Travel... Alone). But after several years of dating the best travel companion EVER, I spent very little time traveling alone... and I began to wonder, Do I still feel that way?

Well. Here's where I am, RIGHT now, as I write this post: 

Traveling. Sola. In Costa Rica (and possibly Nicaragua and/or Panama, eventually). 

​And I absolutely still love traveling alone. (Even though, technically, I've spent very little time actually being alone.)