https://youtu.be/Aj1mijAlG70

1. Car is ours to own and control 100%
2. He has right to use the car by paying us the monthly interest we would have expected to make on the purchase price.
3. When the car is sold he will pay the difference between the purchase price and the sale price and if he sells it for more, he can keep the profit. If it’s less, he has to cough up the difference. Part of the money from the sale of his old car will go in a separate account to help with any deficiency.
4. He will pay the cost of full coverage insurance and maintenance
5. We will continue paying a reasonable monthly gas allowance for his commute to school since we would be driving him to school things anyway if he wasn’t driving himself.
6. There are various other things in a written contract regarding behavior, grades etc. but those are the basics.

This keeps the monthly amount REALLY low for him while not “giving” him anything and giving him incentive to take care of the car and feel like an adult.

To say he is thrilled with the arrangement is probably quite a bit of an understatement. Here’s to hoping he has as good a luck in the new one as the older one and that all goes well with the new job. This semester is going A LOT better than the last one.

#Kauai
#2026

https://youtu.be/CeqmBwbUymU

Paraphrasing Book of Genesis 3:17–19:

“…Cursed is the ground for thy sake… Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee… In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Whether I’m pulling weeds, trimming plants, growing things, or building something, these verses stick with me the entire time. Like most difficult tasks, I usually dread starting. But about five or ten minutes in, acceptance sets in—and then something strange happens: I begin to enjoy it. Unlike sitting in front of a screen, I feel like I’m accomplishing something of primal importance. I notice the sky, the clouds, the sunset, the mountains, the birds. My thoughts seem deeper. I feel gratitude and humility. All of this exclusively happens when I’m working hard outside.

At first, I focus on the curse and the sweat. But without fail, I’m reminded of the phrase “for thy sake.”

Many of us work hard when we’re young so life will be “easy” when we’re older—meaning we won’t have to sweat or deal with proverbial thistles anymore. Some of us probably reach that stage. If I weren’t so cheap, I could easily hire landscapers, construction workers, and other laborers to do the sweating for me. In a way, I’m glad I don’t. Then, only they would get the true blessings of the labor. Experience has taught me that hard physical work is for my sake—even though I still dread it almost without fail.

People today spend more than ever on shrinks. Looking at the modern industrialized world, I sometimes wonder whether rising levels of bat-shiz crazy are at least in part due to our ability to avoid hard physical labor. It seems plausible that a life spent entirely removed from the land can leave something essential underdeveloped. I’m not suggesting that physical work would solve every mental health challenge, but I would bet the bank it would solve a whole lot.

We are part of the land, and the land is part of us. When we separate ourselves too far from our origins, the outcomes don’t always seem healthy. Personally, I’ll take thorns and thistles over endless concrete, asphalt, and screens any day.

A few weeks ago, my 12-year-old (McKay) was all signed up for a basketball league with about nine other kids and was set to play—but there was a big problem… no one would step up to be the coach. Increasingly desperate emails had been going out for weeks to all the parents, asking for volunteers. It got to the point that the coaches’ meeting was missed because we were about a week away from starting and still had no coach.

My wife had bugged me about it repeatedly, but I had never played outside of church and playground ball growing up, so I refused to volunteer, saying, “Surely someone else will do it.” After all, when I was young and team captains were picking players, I was usually picked somewhere in the middle—but I was always just glad not to be dead last (because that did happen a few times). Despite my best efforts and a strong desire, I’m not good at basketball—which is even worse when you’re kind of tall. I don’t even know all the little rules. I never played competitively and wasn’t very good… definitely not coach material.

At some point, it became clear that it was me or nobody. I assumed all the kids knew that too, so maybe they’d cut me some slack. I volunteered at the very last second and, by some miracle, my wife talked her brother (Trent) into helping us out too. He had the same reservations as I did because, even though he had played in high school, he had never coached anything.

We were supposed to have access to indoor gyms through an online signup, but the city got my email wrong. To this day, I still haven’t received a gym reservation email from them—even though they were supposed to have corrected it. Because of that, and the fact that we had missed the coaches’ meeting, we held our first practice in Trent’s driveway. I figured it would at least make it easy on him since he was kind enough to help.

I knew I couldn’t teach all the finer points of basketball because I didn’t know them myself, but I could at least teach some obvious fundamentals I’ve noticed throughout my kids’ leagues: fast, accurate passing; staying in front on defense; not being afraid to shoot open shots; aggressive defense; strong rebounding; good sportsmanship; and friendly teamwork.

Because we were practicing outdoors on an unlit driveway in the evening, I bought some construction lights and brought an extension cord… a real ghetto setup. My son was mortified that I would be the coach. When I explained my rudimentary plans, he gave me all sorts of grief, telling me none of it would work and that I should just stand there while they did whatever they wanted. I told him to grab some extra basketballs to bring, and he told me that was stupid. In short, he gave me a hard time over every little thing—to the point that I may or may not have lightly smacked him upside the head after he exhausted my patience on the drive over. He was crying, I was running late, and I wondered why the heck I had ever agreed to this.

Before we got out of the truck, I told McKay that this wasn’t what either of us ideally wanted, but it was happening because I had committed to it. I told him it could be a good experience or a bad one—but it was happening either way—so we should start fresh when we got out and both try our best to succeed. He seemed to think that was a better idea than crying in front of his new teammates, so we got out and put on our best smiley faces.
As the kids showed up, I figured the first thing we’d do was make sure everyone was friends and knew each other’s names. I noticed we definitely had a couple of shorter kids, a couple who had never played before, a really shy kid, a kid who would be out for the season because he had broken his foot the day before, and a kid who couldn’t make practices because of other commitments.
On top of that, as an obviously severely disabled kid walked up to the court, I heard some mumbling among the other kids: “Oh my gosh, that kid’s on our team?” I tried to shut that down immediately by asking his name, patting him on the back, telling him I was glad he could make it, and lining him up like he was just as much a teammate as anyone else. More than anything, I didn’t want things to ever get ugly.

Admittedly, none of this seemed like a great omen.
Trent and I had them do some shooting drills, including free throws and layups. What I witnessed made me think maybe I was qualified after all—meaning these kids could barely make a layup. I quickly transitioned from my ambition of winning at least half our games to, “Let’s just make sure everyone is a good sport, makes friends, and has fun.”

I had ordered pizza for everyone after that first practice. We repeated each other’s names and answered “get-to-know-you” questions to foster a friendly atmosphere. I’ve noticed that just one mean kid can poison an entire team, and I absolutely didn’t want anyone being ostracized or treated poorly. I made it clear that none of that would be tolerated.

Our first game was the very next day. I warned the kids that I was a yeller—I’d be calling out each of their names as encouragement and directing traffic on the court. I was hoping for the best, but after that first practice, I thought to myself: We have a bunch of kids who can barely make a shot and at least one pretty questionable coach. I prayed the game wouldn’t be too embarrassing—like, that we would at least make a single basket.

FIRST GAME NIGHT:
I don’t know how to explain it, but this ragtag team completely transformed on game night. They ALL came out strong. The kid who couldn’t make it to practices turned out to be really good! When we coaches barked instructions, they actually listened.
They weren’t just okay—they got better as the game went on. They made shots, grabbed rebounds, and played aggressive, solid defense. They had learned each other’s names. They had embraced the disabled kid.

And we WON!

Granted, we’re talking about 12- and 13-year-olds playing city league basketball—but it felt really good to be part of that.
We’re heading into our last game next week, and it’s been amazing to see what these kids have done. We’ve only lost one game—and I think it was by just two points if I recall.

The shy kid now calls for the ball and plays aggressively. The kids who aren’t great dribblers set screens, get open, pass well, and play very good defense. The shortest kid—who had never played before—is a great ball handler and shooter and plays extremely aggressively. One of the other shorter kids has gotten hurt several times in games (pretty badly once) but has just played through the pain and been a huge contributor as well. We didn’t realize how bad his ankle was until after the game—and we made sure he knew he doesn’t have to do that! Some of the better kids only seem to have improved and grown in confidence. The disabled kid is actually amazing on defense with a little helpful reminders. Whenever we ask who’s tired and wants to sub out, NO ONE ever volunteers. They’re there to fight hard and play as much as possible.

Everyone has found their place and makes a valuable contribution in their own way. The disabled kid has practically become our mascot—the one we all rally around and try to get a chance to score whenever we can. They root for each other by name—and extra hard for him.

I can honestly say that whether we win or lose our last game, this has been one of the most rewarding little experiences of my life. These kids showed up, listened, were kind to each other, showed great sportsmanship and tried their best. That would all be true whether we won all our games or none of them, but let’s be honest—it feels a lot better to win and I’m glad they get to experience that, because they earned it.

A huge thanks to Trent Snow for being our competent coach—even though he’s a young guy with no kids anywhere near that age, already busy with his young family and working hard to grow a new orthodontic practice, along with all the time-consuming business responsibilities that come with it. There’s no doubt that without Trent and all the kids bringing their A-Game, we wouldn’t have had the success we did. It sure wasn’t me.

If you ever get a chance to coach kind of thrust upon you, don’t wait as long as I did. Just step up and take it even if you’re not qualified. Just like it doesn’t take a great actor to know a bad one, it doesn’t take an expert player to notice obvious issues and help correct them…. and my two cents: Be a (encouraging) yeller. I’ve noticed that when coaches don’t have any enthusiasm, players rarely do either.

Also, make sure you show all your kids various volunteer coaches some appreciation. I have a lot more appreciation for them after doing it. It is a bit of a commitment… not huge, but surely not nothing either.

Finally, if you or your kids need orthodontic work, help a good brother (in-law) out and go to Snow Snow Family Orthodontics —just like McKay does and my younger son surely will as well 🙂

Did you know the name “Sooner” as in the “Oklahoma Sooners” was actually another name for a cheater? 🙂

I was watching basketball the other day and the Oklahoma Sooners came up during a break and it renewed my curiosity about that weird name. In April of 1889, the US government executed the poorly conceived idea of having a “land run”, kind of like getting your seat on a Southwest flight, but with way more people, way more stuff, guns and the promise of FREE LAND and lots of it. Apparently people were supposed to wait at some sort of start line and then literally RUN and pick out land at a designated time. Well, some people snuck across the border “SOONER” than they were legally allowed, claiming the best land before the official start. They hid in the grass or wherever they could overnight and then acted like they had run there from the start line. Of course lawsuits and fights broke out and they used the term “Sooner” as an insult for cheaters. The U.S. government later rethought the process just like Southwest finally has, but I’m sure that anyone who has experienced a land rush or seat rush will remember it forever 🙂 Oklahomans later reclaimed the name, turning Sooner into a symbol of boldness, initiative, and state pride—most famously as the nickname of the University of Oklahoma. So there you go.

Like many in the gilded age, they felt the need to show that wealth in the most visible way possible: enormous homes.

The most famous is the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Built in the 1890s, it is still the largest private home ever constructed in the United States. The house alone is about 179,000 square feet and has 250 rooms. It was originally surrounded by roughly 125,000 acres of land. Biltmore They built many others. The Breakers and Marble House in Newport. Multiple massive mansions on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At one point, ten Vanderbilt mansions stood on that single street. Today, some of them don’t even exist and only one is still owned by the family, but not lived in. Biltmore was opened to the public in 1930 to bring in some money, but it didn’t even turn a profit until 1968. While it now generates a lot of money, its upkeep is extreme and the income is tiny compared to the historic Vanderbilt empire. Furthermore, profits must be split between A LOT of people.

Those palaces weren’t built to produce income. They were built to be a massive show of consumption… and consume, they did.

The Vanderbilt fortune didn’t collapse overnight. It faded. The original fortune was split among many children. Then split again among grandchildren. Then again. Each generation received less, but spent as if the money were unlimited. Maintenance, staff, taxes, parties, renovations. The costs never stopped. At the same time, the family stopped building businesses. The first couple generations focused on creating value. Later generations focused on lifestyle and status. Railroads declined. Taxes rose. The economy changed and the money couldn’t keep up.

By the fourth generation, most of the fortune was gone and by the 1970s, the Vanderbilt name was still famous, but the wealth was simply not there. At a large family reunion in 1973, it was reported that none of the descendants present were millionaires. One of the richest families in history had essentially run out of money. Today, Vanderbilt descendants live normal professional lives. Anderson Cooper, a direct descendant, has said publicly that he inherited little and built his wealth through his career. His mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, created her own success in fashion and art. When she died, her net worth was estimated between 1.5-10 million dollars. That’s a lot of money, but a pittance compared to what could have been if early funds were invested instead of consumed. In fact, if it could have been done, $200 million invested in 1880… just spread among all stocks in the market at the time and rebalanced among new companies as they emerged and then, just in the S&P companies (list started in 1923), a conservative estimate of that wealth today would be 3-6 TRILLION DOLLARS… $3,000,000,000,000! If you put that much in a bank account and only made 1%, that would throw off 30 BILLION per year. If you left it in an S&P500 fund, it would continue to generate $315 BILLION per year. The Biltmore generates some money for descendants, but it is breadcrumbs compared to these figures.

The Vanderbilts show that wealth creation and preservation are different skills. Spending money is much easier than growing it. Big palaces are meant to feel permanent. They’re not. Famous names feel permanent, but they’re often not…unless kept alive as a cautionary tale. Money without structure and discipline doesn’t last. The Vanderbilt fortune didn’t disappear because of bad luck. It disappeared because succeeding generations were not taught the importance of wealth management.

One could take all this in several ways. My take is this: Children should be taught that entitlement is among the worst of vices. Children should be taught to live by the basic (once) common-sense principles of faith, loyalty, gratitude, personal responsibility, hard work, fairness, humility, discipline and integrity. They should be taught to intelligently invest AND give in a sustainable way. If they aren’t going to be taught that or aren’t going to listen, it’s just as well they disburse all their wealth and power back into the greater economy as a whole. One of the worst possible outcomes is for stupid, irresponsible, selfish, lazy, dishonest, entitled people to wield enormous power.

A while ago I picked a woman up at the airport who said she was meeting her husband at the hotel we were going to as he was here in town on business. I asked what he did for work and she said, well, he owns the hotel.,. or more accurately the hospitality holding company which owns that hotel, the one just being finished next door (which he was there to open up) and others in Utah and surrounding states like Colorado, Arizona and Idaho. As usual, we traded the abbreviated life-history and discovered we had kids that were about the same ages and did some of the same things and figured we were about the same age too. She was really nice, down-to-earth and normal looking. Honestly, she looked like she could have gotten her clothes at Costco just like us and it sounds like they enjoy a pretty normal, albeit comfortable life like many people I know. We had similar upbringings and early backgrounds, but one person was going to their 50-70 million dollar double hotel property (educated valuation guess from A.I.) and the other person was driving an Uber 🙂 Life is funny that way.

It strikes me that most of the extremely successful people I’ve encountered usually look really……boring. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Some of them drive unique cars they are interested in or have nice houses or jets, but more often they have pretty average homes and cars, fly coach and they almost never wear designer clothes or fancy jewelry/watches. It seems like that showy stuff is reserved for wannabes or TV/social media grifters trying to sell you something or trying to sell themselves for one reason or another. Really well-off people just don’t seem into the whole flashy lifestyle package.

You really do meet the most interesting people when doing rideshare. Anyone willing to talk at all usually has a good story to tell and 80-90% of people are down to chat. Depending on which way the conversation goes, all sorts of different things come out. The other night I was talking to a guy named Sergio from San Diego that I picked up really late at the airport and he was super-appreciative since there weren’t many drivers out. We had a good conversation about our families, travel, work etc. As often happens with business travelers at the airport, he deduced pretty quick that uber-driving must not be my primary source of income and that we actually had quite a bit in common. It’s amazing how quick you can become friends with a complete stranger when they’re trapped in a car with you for 20-30 minutes 🙂 It sounded like he was pretty high up in Yum! Brands, specifically with “Habit Burger & Grill” and was in town to check up on the local locations. We traded a summarized life history and advice on raising teenagers until we got to his hotel.

Once there, he confirmed how many people were in my family and then gave me a business card with a handwritten note and we shook hands knowing we were unlikely ever to meet again. The card said to present it at the register of any Habit restaurant and they would give us whatever we wanted for 5 people! The Uber fare was already pretty decent, but he also gave a VERY generous tip which isn’t at all uncommon either. Today we used the business card he gave us and the manager asked how I knew Sergio. I told her that I was his Uber driver and the employees looked incredulous as they rang up nearly $80 for the whole family and said they wished THEY were his Uber driver 🙂 It almost always pays to listen to people if they’re in the mood to talk, but sometimes it actually pays too 🙂 I don’t know how high up the food chain he was, but the manager seemed to know. Either way, like so many others, he was a cool dude. Thanks Sergio!

I just drove a guy who is in town from Oregon on a delivery/install job for garage cabinets. I asked him as politely as I could why would anyone hire somebody from Oregon instead of somebody local? He explained that it’s pretty high-end stuff and he goes all over the country. The garage cabinets were $250 grand and the install is $18 grand. That’s wild that somebody would pay more for garage cabinets than some homes cost elsewhere in the country, but once again I don’t have a problem with it. Someone else being able to waste that much money doesn’t hurt me at all and in fact it helps me because I drove the guy that’s getting the contract to do the cabinets who paid for the delivery truck and the freight and all the materials and all the employees and subcontractors and everyone in the supply chain. All those workers involved in producing, marketing and transporting ridiculous garage cabinets mean that many people who I don’t have to pay for their SNAP benefits because they have an actual job that pays well. As far as I’m concerned that’s capitalism for the win again. 👍

https://youtu.be/S7XUNTeEQaE

https://youtu.be/gh_-VnkSbcE