Until then, I’m having some fun and I’m posting it here rather than sending a mass email. Hopefully I don’t have a stalker.

June 14 Graduation. Family stuff
June 15 kicked out of Stanford housing, bumming around NorCal for the week (hike, climb, beach)
June 19-21ish climbing in the Sierras (Charlotte Dome?)
June 23ish visit LA
June 25ish visit Flagstaff, AZ and help out on my cousin’s ranch
Early July head up to Park City (stop in Moab! I know, it’ll be hot, but I love Moab), mountain bike
July 15-31 lead a 2-week backpacking trip with NOLS. It’s hard to convey how excited I am for this.
Aug 1-2 family time near Mt Hood.
Aug 3 hike Mt St Helens?
Aug 4ish-14ish kayak the San Juan Islands
Aug 16 – 31 drive to DC via Boulder, St. Louis, maybe Chicago, maybe NYC.
9/9/09 – work!

Let me know if you can join in!
“Those were the best days of my life…”

Maybe it’s just a personality difference, but I tried to explain: It won’t bother me if, in the next few years, I don’t become good at playing guitar. I probably won’t. But it’ll be fun to try to learn.

The trip to Costa Rica was what I wanted it to be. More action-packed stories to come…

The book was written by a man currently practicing politics and still pursuing his ambitions. Unsurprisingly, the book is not critical of anyone whom McCain hasn’t already criticized in public, and it is very positive in its portrayal of himself and his friends.

With that understanding, I found it to be a great read and it offered me a new perspective on some of the recent Balkan and Middle Eastern history I’ve studied. It also offers an informative (though not all-encompassing) view of the modern Republican Party from a mostly-insider.

More than recent history, I enjoyed the personal explanations of what McCain tries to be and how at many times he has failed to live up to his ideals. It’s easy for me to relate to his high expectations for himself and his struggles to resist urges of vanity (which he recognizes as silly). In the book’s epilogue, McCain reminisces about his image in his youth:

It had been enough for a while for people to know me as a fighter and an individualist. But it didn’t seem to give my life enough meaning to justify the risks I took. That was because I took them for myself alone.

He concludes, “Vietnam changed that.”

I’d prefer my Vietnam to be less bloody and on a battlefield of my own choosing, but I definitely feel myself seeking a cause Worth the Fighting For.

I was stunned. I’ve always thought I’m good at appreciating little things, but this kid kicked my butt. It’s been a long time since observing gravity has filled me with a sense of wonder.

Room for improvement…

The second thing was discussing arguments for vegetarianism with two friends from college during a roadtrip (courtesy The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I’m seriously considering reading now). This was the first time I’ve thought critically about a moral issue since I started my job (other than very specific health benefits questions). That also stunned me.

Now that I have a transition and a pause, I think I need to plan a way to continue some reflection and self-critique during my next period of career-submersion — the next one may be a lot longer than 18 months.

On June 21 I start a 1-year Masters of Science degree at Stanford University in Management Science & Engineering. My job here is great and I love Park City, but for the next year there’s no place I’d rather be.

Before that, from May 15 – June 18, I will participate in an Mountain Instructor Course with the National Outdoor Leadership School. This will cause me to miss two of my friends’ weddings but, again, there’s no place I’d rather be.

I’m totally psyched about this next chapter…

I made a connection that seemed profound as I was falling asleep last night and thinking about how fortunate I am.

Don’t stare at the rocks.

This was the first useful piece of advice I received when I was learning to mountain bike. It works like magic. If you see a rock in the trail ahead that strikes the fear of a crash into your heart, your instinctive reaction is to stare at it in horror. If you stare at the rock, your bike will run into it.

Every time.

If, instead, you ignore the rock and stare at the clear patch of earth you want your bike to pass over, your bike will go that way. Every time.

Through work I’ve run into a number of people who are in the self-help/motivational/coaching business. I instinctively dislike the rhetoric involved and the amount of money people make selling the same recycled advice over and over, but I agree that helping someone gain the confidence and motivation to work toward their goals is one of the greatest gifts you can give. So, if it works, great.

For me, the best advice has been from mountain biking:

Don’t stare at the rocks.

But it’s been an exciting day at work.

Can’t really post details of our business to the blog, but let me put it this way.

I’m learning a ton and meeting some cool people (not least my coworkers in the office who are more and more impressive as I get to know them).

Launching a product is tough. Most days you work your butt off and don’t really make any progress that you can measure. Today we made very tangible progress on all three of our main products. Sweet.

So here’s the scoop:

• Beginning of man through 1944 – health insurance is just like car insurance, homeowner’s, life, etc. If you want it you buy it.
• 1945 – Roosevelt fears postwar inflation (think Weimar and WWII) so we have wage controls, but the economy is booming. Workers demand more $$. So they compromise by allowing employers to give unlimited health benefits in addition to wages, “under the table.” From this point on, employer-sponsored health benefits have a 2-to-1 tax advantage over the indivudual market.
• By 1980 – over 80% of U.S. jobs offer health benefits. Individual policies are unaffordable and no one has one.
• 1980-2004 – health costs skyrocket, mainly due to advances in technology and better access to care.
• 2005 – for the Fortune 500 as a group, healthcare costs exceed profits. Healthcare costs are growing at >15% per year. Companies like GM question whether their business model even makes sense (must grow 15%/year just to break even!).

By 2006

• Fewer than 60% of U.S. jobs provide healthcare.
• 46 states have liberalized their individual insurance markets.
• Tax advantages are extended to individuals for self-employeds and for others in the form of HRA’s.
• 16 million Americans have individual health insurance policies.

By 2015 – At least another 50 million Americans will have individual policies.

The only people who know what individual health insurance is are the people my age – no longer covered by mom and dad, and can’t get the jobs with benefits (or think working for a big corporation is lame).

But soon everyone will know.

In 2005 about 2 million Americans filed for bankruptcy. For half of them the primary cause was health costs. Get this: three quarters of those people had health insurance! Health insurance they lost when they got so sick they could no longer work. That is F’ed up.

“A broken health care finance system is bankrupting middle class America.” (Steffie Woolhandler, Harvard Medical School)

The only real insurance you can get is on the individual market, and in 46 states it’s sensibly priced — depends on your health record, just like car insurance depends on your driving record. If you’re diabetic or otherwise uninsurable, you get yourself on state-guaranteed coverage (“The best-kept secret in America” says that old guy on TV) and us taxpayers take care of you, just like we do the 42 million Americans in poverty (Medicaid) and our 48 million elderly (Medicaire).

We all know America’s healthcare system is an embarrassment. Everyone deserves affordable healthcare. The way to get it is to purchase an guaranteed-renewable individual health insurance policy while you are young and healthy, and keep it for the rest of your life (they can’t raise your rates for illness or injury).

And that’s why I’m working on StuHealth. 90% of students are young and healthy. My challenge is to make them think about this and get affordable permanent coverage while they’re still young and healthy. Before they become a bankruptcy statistic.

Every year it looks like fewer of my loved ones will be living in Claremont, but then I meet more amazing people. OA the last two years was great because I knew most of the leaders and they were some of the coolest kids in the world. Somehow it seems like I’m still friends with most of them, even if some were in junior high when I came to Pomona. There’s nowhere I’d rather get up at 8am to teach leadership techniques, explain all of the 50 items in a first aid kit to 90 different people, go over the medical history of all 387 incoming students, and then get back to the office at 9pm to write computer code for four and a half hours. I’ve put off leaving for a year and a half, and there’s still too many people here I’ll miss. But I think I’ve done well at making the most of it, and it’s time for a change of venue.

I’ve listened, laughed, and cheered through five convocations and three graduations, and for the first time one of them actually means I’m moving on. Few people have ever had the freedom and opportunity I have now. I think these will be the most exciting years of my life. I will make the most of them. And I’m willing to bet everyone else is still as nervous as I am.

What else is new? I turned down a grant to do research here this summer in favor of getting paid (a little) to go to Park City, Utah for 3 weeks and hang out with other math nerds. Should be pretty sweet. I’ll be in Claremont most of the rest of the summer coordinating OA yet again (best job in the world).

Next year is still up in the air. I want to apply to Operations Research Ph.D. programs for 07 or 08 (in rough order: Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, USC, or UBC if I get into one of those). If you know someone who wants a really smart, really awesome math/computer nerd to do some kind of challenging work for them, preferably in SF or LA, let me know.

Yep, college has been the best five years of my life. Peace.

If you’re interested in public education drop me a line. Between three and eight years from now I’m going to call you back. Promise.