Tag: family

The Long Way Around

On a recent cross country road trip with my daughter to see family in the Midwest US, we had a lot of ‘captive audience’ time to chat.

Lots of breaks too, as we took my EV — and while that’s incidental, I can confirm that experience was very manageable, and less fatiguing by far than similar trips in an ICE vehicle.

In discussing our generational perspectives (dad @ 52, kiddo @ nearly 16) topics came up that included music taste, plans and hopes around driving & cars, having kids of their own, how they’re thinking about college and the career path following… and AI.

I want to zero in on a moment when we had moved to discussing AI in her educational experience — from 3rd grade to being a rising sophomore in high school.

We’d talked a bit about her concerns for her classmates tempted to cheat and take the easy road. About their failure to learn how to think for themselves and learn how to learn well. About whether college will pay off for those that take that path. About whether her parents will find good jobs once more.

She’d gotten quiet after I’d asked how much she knew about the positives, the potential upsides that come up in global AI discussions… and I let the silence continue, giving us both some space. Then she said something that simply floored me with her reflection and wisdom:

“Dad, you had your whole life to learn things the old fashioned way, manually. You got to make mistakes and learn from them. You learned from books and from people and from experience. I want that for myself.”

I felt the earth shake. I may have teared up a little — but that was probably just dust in the air. We were driving through an area with nothing but fields of corn and beans, after all.

“That… makes a lot of sense, kid.”

Gumbo, Cast Iron Cornbread, and the Best Kind of Christmas Gift

For Christmas last year I asked my wife for an experience instead of a thing.

She turned it into a choose-your-own-adventure. I could pick almost anything — a class, a trip, an outing, something I’d been curious about but hadn’t made time for. The only rule was that it had to be something I’d actually do, not something I’d intend to do and reschedule into oblivion.

I chose a cooking class. Specifically: New Orleans. Cajun. Creole.

The class ran three hours, and it was excellent — hands-on from the start, no standing around watching someone else cook. We moved through several dishes, learning technique and building flavor as we went. The instructor knew the cuisine deeply, not just the recipes.

A couple weeks later I locked in two of the recipes at home: a proper gumbo (chicken, andouille, shrimp — the roux done right, low and slow until it’s the color of dark chocolate) and honey butter cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet. Both turned out well. The gumbo especially — there’s something satisfying about a dish that rewards patience and can’t really be rushed.

I’ve got a few more dishes from that night I haven’t tackled yet. I’m looking forward to them.

We capped the weekend with a family walk at a local park — one of those early spring days where the trees are still bare but you can see the Smokies clearly from the ridge, and the lake catches the light just right. A good reminder that this area has a lot going for it.

This young-at-heart GenX hubby and dad had a pretty good weekend.

If you’re in a gift-giving rut with someone who doesn’t need more stuff: ask them what they’ve been meaning to try. Then make it easy for them to actually do it. That’s the whole trick.

Originally shared on LinkedIn.