You mean, besides the reason that everyone else has one, and everybody who knows me knows how much I want to follow along like a lemming? Ha ha. No, I’m writing this for a couple of reasons – one is that I actually love writing and I’ve had enough people tell me that I should do something other than a Christmas letter every year. I also know that I, and we, do a lot of interesting and sometimes crazy things, and have some rather fascinating stories, and, just so you know, I don’t actually succeed at everything I do. In fact, I have a rather healthy relationship to failure!  I have some interesting views on life, and on people, and I have no trouble being straight, and actually telling one on myself.

I also see that there are many people who hear what we do and want to know how we took off 3 weeks to do a bike trip in Alaska, or how we got into knowing something about wine, or what we’re going to see in Japan this summer. This might sound corny, but I’d actually like to inspire some people into trying something new, maybe even something kind of “scary” (at least, a little scary to them).

Lastly, my father was a writer and an editor, and my sister and I grew up reading incessantly. He’s not around anymore to see the fruits of his labors (he once corrected me when I was 10, about writing “lite” versus “light” and I’ve never short-cheated a word since!) but I know he would have been proud to see me writing publicly.

This is for you, Dad – thanks for everything.