It’s been a good and busy week in Long Beach. And now it’s 4:45 Pacific and I’ve been up for almost two hours already, sitting at my gate at LAX, ready to fly home. Let’s do this.

CID ✈️ PHX ✈️ LAX

Getting an early start on the work week. Let’s do this.

2026 Reads: The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins 📚

Interesting idea, bad execution.

It is the perfect Iowa spring day: 70F, light breeze, sunshine. Started this morning with a 10k+ run, then came home and mowed two large lawns. It is now time for the patio, a book, and some sports on TV.

It was way too late for this old guy to stay up for, but the highlights from the Cubs-Dodgers game last night are pretty amazing. Sparkling defense from the Cubs and then some big hits to seal their 10th win in a row!

Well, the Cubs made it harder than they needed to, but showed good resilience. Walked it off in the 10th on a Dansby Swanson single. That takes the win streak to 9 and gives the Cubs a share of the NL Central lead!

Stoked to wake up and see that the Dallas Stars took game three in 2OT, in a game that didn’t end until almost 1 AM local time. Not starting the game until almost 9PM local on a weeknight is brutal for fans who would like to watch.

2026 Reads: Breakneck by Dan Wang 📚

Years of church music ministry come in handy: got to the high school for NHS induction ceremony and jumped in to diagnose why the sound system wasn’t working. Success!

Today in health insurance fun: the insurance company’s website has a 10x price difference for one of my kid’s prescriptions depending on whether you type in the drug name in ALL CAPS or all lowercase. Let’s hope the pharmacy can straighten it out.