Why We Made Our Kids Help Paint the House

Our house has been in terrible need of repainting. It needed it when we bought it 10 years ago, and well… other things just kept coming up.

This was 3 years ago. Look at the back wall!

That, and we could never agree on a color. I remember two years ago, hiking in India and Jessi pointing out house colors she liked (we had been talking about it for the last year). I dutifully took photos of them, but… I don’t know… they just didn’t resonate with me.

Jessi liked the bottom part. I'd call that brown?

But this summer would be different. The house needed it, we had the time and budget for it, so we had to reach an agreement.

We did the classic things: drove around neighborhoods, looked at houses on Pinterest, and spent way too long staring at color swatches in Home Depot.

Jessi wanted a burnt-orange-ish (almost copper) color; I wanted something blue; Elinor wanted pink or yellow; and Samson wanted a modern white (with black trim).

Oh boy.

At one point, I half-jokingly suggested that each of us could choose a side. The kids loved the idea. Jessi… not so much.

With the clock ticking, we all gave in to Jessi’s choice. But even within that color family, there are an almost unlimited number of shades and hues. It was difficult to imagine those colors on our house, and it felt like we were going to stall out again.

And then we had a breakthrough. We uploaded a picture of our house and the color we wanted to ChatGPT. It was great because we could finally see what it would actually look like.

And Jessi HATED burnt orange because it made our house look like a cabin.

Uh-oh.

But with ChatGPT’s help, we quickly tried a bunch of colors. And it turned out that we all liked green — a color not on anybody’s initial list. I think there’s also something magical about deadlines that forces decisions.

We went to Home Depot, and everyone got to choose a green sample color. We put them on the house and narrowed it down to two. We then put those into ChatGPT, and the final selection became clear.

Step one done. And it only took 3 years.

Now the real work had to begin: preparing the house by scraping off old paint, sanding rough edges, and applying new caulk.

Initially, Jessi wanted to ask a bunch of folks from our church’s youth group to come and help. It probably would have been done in a day, but I had a different idea in mind.

Instead, I thought it would be great for the kids to experience a long, difficult project. I mean, they do projects in school, but this was different. And Jessi let us do it! We got the kids the tools, showed them how to use them, and had them work on the house for at least 30 minutes each day.

It was awesome. Really slow progress. But awesome. The kids scraped, sanded, caulked, and primed raw wood. Jessi helped a lot as well, especially getting the caulk off in higher-up places. I helped scrape caulk one morning and bought an oscillating multi-tool in the afternoon.

It was everything I dreamed of. They spent a month working on it and really experienced a long, tedious, drawn-out project. I had to keep reminding Jessi that it was OK. And to stop working — teach the kids how to do it and let them do it.

Step two done.

The weekend finally came for painting. We taped everything off and prepared ourselves for a full day’s effort.

I set up the paint sprayer and let the kids practice spraying our fence with water. Once they [mostly] mastered the technique, I brought out scrap boards and let them practice with paint. The big lesson: don’t stop moving or change direction while pulling the trigger.

And then we started on the house. I did the upper half and the trickier sections. The kids painted around a quarter of the house. It took 8 hours, and the kids hung with us all day. At mid-morning, Samson asked if he could take a break to play with his friends. I told him, “No. We’re painting today. This is what we’re doing. You can play with them once we’re done.” And to his credit, he kept a great attitude and genuinely helped all day — including helping to remove all the plastic and tape from the gutters (he was more than happy to get on the roof).

And now we have a green house! It’s a fun color, and the white trim really pops. It’s not perfect, but the kids feel a sense of ownership over it, and that’s more important to me than perfection.

At bedtime, Samson asked Jessi when the house had been painted last. Upon hearing it had been more than 10 years, he did some quick math and said, “Oh, good. I’ll be out of the house by then.”

That kid.

What Will Life Look Like in 2276? My Predictions for America’s 500th Birthday

To celebrate the US’s 250th birthday, I traveled to Boston with my brother. It was a fantastic place to celebrate the 4th of July given all the historical events leading up to the Declaration.

Given all of the looking back, I’ve also found myself thinking about what life will be like 250 years from now (in the year 2276). The difficult part is that we have things today that folks in 1776 couldn’t even imagine. I mean, we’re not even talking about AI, smartphones, the internet, or computers! They didn’t have electricity, the telegraph, cars, or an awareness of germs. So they couldn’t even imagine things like TV or the radio. Having 50 states wasn’t even on the horizon.

But hey, it’s fun to guess. So, here are my wild guesses.

Health

We’ll be beyond the tricorder featured in Star Trek. Not only will we be able to diagnose illness, but we’ll also create medicine uniquely tailored to each individual. There’s also a good chance that there will be new illnesses as people live longer because we understand and overcome today’s leading diseases. It’ll be a game of whack-a-mole with life expectancies slowly creeping up.

I personally want a passive way to do my strength and cardio workouts. Alas... RIP vibrating belt machine. In 250 years, I think we’ll have something that comes close to that goal.

Energy

This seems like a more urgent problem to solve. I can easily see small nuclear reactors inside each home — similar to solar panels today. Those will generate enough electricity to power everything that leaves the house. We’re still new at understanding nuclear power (mostly because of apprehension about building them), so over time our understanding will increase exponentially (similar to the CPU development trend). Is there something beyond nuclear? Probably, but just making it smaller, safer, or portable will be huge.

There will absolutely be battery breakthroughs that make our current storage solutions seem primative. I’m not talking about a 100X improvement, but a totally different way of storing & transmitting energy. This will allow devices and vehicles to either do crazy amounts more, or take totally radical form factors.

Communication

In 1776, information traveled at the speed of horse. When the telegraph was invented, information traveled ~500 miles in a single day. Today, we can instantly video call anyone around the world. Where do you go from there? I don’t think virtual reality (like in The Matrix) is it. Perhaps it’ll be calls where we feel like we’re actually there? Perhaps we’ll inhabit a robot — a cybernetic android? — with all 5 senses connected to us (like in Avatar)?

There are obvious downsides to that, and if social media is any indication, we’ll embrace it, and it’ll cause massive social problems.

Transporation

Flying cars seem inevitable, but it’s felt that way for a little over 100 years (the Wright brothers took flight in 1903, and the Model T was made in 1908). So... as inevitable as it still feels, it’ll have to wait for the energy improvements.

More interesting is long-distance travel. Traveling from Oregon to India takes 24 hours. In 1776, it would be at least a year, assuming you survived the journey... If I assume a straight line of improvement (a bad assumption since improvements were step changes). In 250 years, that same trip could only take 4 minutes! That seems impossible, but I bet 24 hours seemed impossible 250 years ago.

It’ll probably be less about humans traveling, given the improvements in communication, and more about shipping items. So constraints like g-force will be less of an issue. Would I want to live in a world where I ship my android across the globe in 4 minutes so I can “hike” Mt Everest? Something about that doesn’t feel right, but I bet it happens.

Call me a naysayer, but I don’t think we’ll have a meaningful presence on any other planets. It seems like such a huge effort with relatively small benefits. It sounds cool, but I think we’ll still be in the exploratory phase in 250 years.


Work & Wealth

I do NOT see a future like the Jetsons where work is as simple as pressing a button for a partial day. I also don’t see a post-scarcity future like Star Trek where people do their jobs out of noble virtue because material goods are essentially free and energy is abundant.

Instead, I think we’ll continue to experience scarcity and a widening wealth gap. Think about it: relative to 1776, our lives are unimaginably rich. We have indoor plumbing, washing machines, refrigerators, and penicillin — all of which we take for granted! Now I complain when I go somewhere, and my internet upload speed is “only” 5 GB. 20 years ago, nobody had a smartphone, but now we all pay for data plans (along with city water and electricity). Last year, I didn’t pay $20 a month for Claude, and now I do (and likely for the rest of my life to some AI provider).

So yes, we’re wealthier, but in addition to being bad at comparing to the previous generations, we spread our wealth across an ever-growing number of things. Our appetite for more (and better) never ceases. So, it feels like resources are still scarce.

That feeling won’t go away in 250 years.

But at the same time, we’ll make life easier for people who don’t want to work. It’s mostly the right thing to do, but I have a hunch we’ll take it too far. I’m also almost 100% certain we’ll have some sort of universal basic income, housing, and healthcare. That will enable this group to simply hang out (and entertain themselves). Will they take fancy trips and get the latest medical advancements? Probably not, but they’ll be OK with that. Unfortunately, it’ll disincentivize people who could contribute to society. But I already feel that way about social media.

Another group will want to continue competing and striving for more (while claiming a righteous high ground...). They’ll continue working long hours, increasing their productivity through automation and technology. You’ll see more and more small business owners with zero to 5 employees, with a few amassing unimaginable wealth, because they’ll be the ones driving the changes mentioned above.

This seems like a human nature trap that we won’t escape in 250 years.

Government

I still think the US will be around in 250 years. I know this current political climate feels contentious, but that started during Washington’s second term. You could almost replace any reference to Jackson with Trump, and it would be hard to tell the difference. We’ve always been a country with intense differing political beliefs.

Part of what made the Civil War happen was that fundamentally differing beliefs on slavery were clustered in two regions (the North and South). So, it was physically possible to separate. As far as I know, there aren’t any differing political beliefs (worth splitting away from) that are regional.

Having said that, I think our founding fathers would be SHOCKED by how much power is with the executive branch vs. Congress. And I think we’ll be similarly shocked looking ahead 250 years with how much it’s changed. It’s a kind of death-by-a-thousand-cuts, slowly-boiling-pot situation. Increasingly, we’ll see Living Constitutionalism winning out over Originalism.

Final Predictions

I feel like I painted a rosy picture, but that’s because life today is SO much better than it was 250 years ago. I mean, virtually unlimited clean drinking water is pretty hard to beat! I'm reading about the Wright Brothers at the moment, and their dad is constantly harping on them to watch out for contaminated water.

I'll finish with a favorite quote from George Box: "All models are wrong but some are useful." I know I'm wrong on my guess, but hopefully some of these ideas are actually being pursued.

The Fastest Sports Fan Conversion I've Ever Seen

Our house has World Cup fever. Well... Samson and I have it, which has been a blast!

When the tournament kicked off (pun intended), we printed off a schedule of the group stage and the knockout rounds. Samson has been dutifully recording match scores.

He also decided to root for whichever country is closest to us. I thought that was a fantastically objective way to choose. He asks our echo device which team is closer — pretty smart (though, not always the most accurate...).

In game 1, Mexico beat South Africa, and he was elated. In game 2, his team, Czechia, went up 1-0. But late in the game, South Korea tied it at 1-1, and then scored another goal to win it 2-1. Samson went to bed SOBBING over the loss... for a team he didn’t know existed a couple of days ago!

Talk about passion!

It reminded me of two Super Bowls ago when the Chiefs played the Eagles. Samson was all-in for the Chiefs. He wore his red gear and cheered for them. The Chiefs struggled early, and Samson became despondent. I was rooting for the Eagles, but tried to play it cool when I saw how upset he was.

At halftime, he went to his room, changed into a green outfit, and declared he was now rooting for the Eagles. He changed his attitude instantly and genuinely celebrated the Eagles' victory. It was borderline: "The Chiefs are dead to me because they let me down."

It’s whiplashing at how fast and intensely he changes.

Back to soccer. Jessi asked me what we should do about our sobbing son after the game. I voted for exposure therapy: watch as many of the 104 games as possible to show him that life goes on.

It seems to be working. He hasn't been upset about a single outcome since. Though now he also looks up the winning probabilities along with their distance. But his attitude is closer to “let’s see if the stats are correct” instead of rooting for a specific team.

Except for Argentina.

He wants Messi to win it all. He is, of course, excited for the US, but it’s not the same. If they get a chance to play each other, I imagine his emotions will run hot again. It's wild!

For now, I’m enjoying watching lots of soccer with Samson, talking about amazing goals, and swapping stats.

Some Days I Feel Like a Phony

A few days ago, I was working on the listing for our new vacation rental. The photos look great, the descriptions are written, and the unit is ready. And yet, running a short-term rental is new for me. I know there will be bumps in the road, and I find myself worrying that people will realize I don't fully know what I'm doing.

I’m not certain this is the correct term for how I feel, but I sometimes (often?) struggle with what’s called Imposter Syndrome. It’s when you feel unqualified to be doing something (a “phony”), and you fear that people are going to figure out you’re not qualified to be doing that thing.

Apparently, there are several forms of imposter syndrome (I just learned this while double-checking my definition was correct):

1. The Perfectionist: Sets crazy high goals and feels like a failure even if they meet 99% of them.

2. The Natural Genius: Feels like a fraud if they have to work to master a skill. It should come... naturally, right?

3. The Solist: Feels that asking for help is a sign of weakness. So, they must do everything themselves to prove their own worth.

4. The Expert: Constantly seeks more certifications/training, feeling they’ll never know “enough” to be truly qualified.

5. The Superhero: Pushes themselves to excel in every role (worker, parent, spouse) to cover up perceived insecurities.

Jessi (my wife) and I often fall into the first type: perfectionists. Actually, one of the things I appreciate about Jessi is that she sees the flaws. Not because she's negative, but because she genuinely wants things to be better. When I ask her for feedback, I know I’ll get her brutally honest thoughts and a clear map of where to improve. There’s a time and place for cheerleaders, but I’m finding them less helpful. Don't get me wrong, encouragement is nice, but I often want accurate feedback.

I appreciate the harsh truth from others, but it’s potentially destructive when done to myself because I see all the imperfections. Even if something turns out well, I can nitpick the process and my mindset. Yikes!

As a small business owner, I find myself regularly wading into the unknown and fighting perfectionist thoughts (and the natural genius... discounting years of practice to get to where I am today). For example, as my property management business grows, I keep wondering when people will realize I’ve never scaled a business before. It regularly feels like we’re just staying ahead… which is a classic imposter syndrome feeling! Of course it feels that way — growth, by definition, puts you into inexperienced territory.

Another example: I can no longer keep every unit and tenant in my head. Things fall through the cracks, and we’re building new processes (and ways to store/access info) while still maintaining daily operations. I keep thinking, “We just have to stay ahead for a bit longer… then it’ll be OK.” But, according to owners I respect, it’ll still be hard; it’ll be a different hard, but still hard.

The more experienced I get, the more I suspect most adults are just making it up as they go. Parents are raising kids they've never raised before. Managers are leading teams they've never led before. And business owners are solving problems they've never encountered before. The people I admire most aren't the ones who always know what to do, but the ones willing to move forward despite not knowing.

I suppose this is more of a note to myself to remember that, even though I sometimes feel like a phony. I still have things falling through the cracks, I still disappoint people occasionally, and I still find myself thinking that if I can just stay ahead a little longer, I'll eventually feel qualified. But perhaps that's how this works. Maybe competence isn't the absence of uncertainty (and mistakes). Perhaps a large component of competence is continuing to move forward despite the errors.

So, on the days I feel like a phony, I'm trying to remember: I may not be perfect, but I'm not starting from zero either.

The Baker Tower Penthouse Vacation Rental

Last year, we bought the Baker Tower and have been waiting for the top-floor tenants to move out so we could turn it into a vacation rental. Well... they moved out, and this last month we furnished the place — and it looks awesome!

I’m... shall we say... designed challenged. I care about functionality and have virtually no eye for what “looks good.” So, I hired an interior decorator to help. I gave her a video of the place, a budget, and let her loose on the IKEA website.


She picked out everything, and we had it delivered right before we showed up to assemble it. It was her and one of my investors (who gets credit for introducing me to her) who put it all together over a weekend. Then the following weekend, I returned with another friend (and real estate photographer) to do some finishing touches and get the photos below.

The Airbnb listing isn’t live yet because we still need to do a test run and identify missing items. But I’m too excited about it not to share it.

The view is amazing! It’s the tallest building in Oregon east of the Cascades. And on the 9th floor — the penthouse — the nearby Elkhorn Mountains look incredible. And now we have an interior to match.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. Check it out:

I Built An AI Agent. It was Both Amazing And Underwhelming

Good news, kind of. I think it’ll be a while before AI starts taking over swaths of jobs and displacing people, or at least I think it’s true at the small-business level.

I've been playing around with different AI tools recently, trying to figure out ways to incorporate them into my business, and it's been an interesting adventure. On the one hand, there are things AI can do that are helpful, and I think most of us have experience with: drafting messages, summarizing large documents, and creating cool images (like above). It's genuinely useful but not transformational.

So I've started experimenting with more agentic types of processes, specifically using lindy.ai, and the experience has been interesting. The basic idea is that you can create a workflow that's based on a trigger. It could be off a timer, an incoming message, a webhook, or whatever. If you’ve ever used Apple Shortcuts, it’s the same idea. Here’s a simple example:

Every morning, my team discusses ongoing maintenance and tenant issues, and then we create a plan for the day. We record those meetings, transcribe them, and save them in a Google Drive folder.

Now, every Monday morning at 9am, it grabs all the new transcripts from the past week (that’s the purple loop) and compares them against our existing knowledge base (KB) articles. In the final blue-circled-magical-AI step, it looks for gaps and missing information and sends me an email with suggested article topics.

At this step, it's not fully written-out articles; it's just internal and external topic ideas. Eventually, Lindy will write full articles on approved topics, let me edit them, and save them to our KB. The KB, by the way, is what we use to automate message replies (therefore, in the long-run, saving time while keeping a consistent communication style).

But here’s the deal: this “simple” flow took me an hour to build. And really, it started with a prompt to Lindy’s Agent Builder, which took a first (second, third, fourth,...) pass. I had to enter some manual data (like my KB’s API Token), but most of the time I copied/pasted errors from a test run and the Agent Builder to try to fix them.

At one point, the Agent Builder told me:

“I need to stop and be honest with you. We've been going in circles for a while, and the core issue is clear... [reasons why it’s not working] .... The real fix is a different architecture. Instead of a separate LLM node, the analysis should happen inside an AI State node — which DOES have context accrual and can see all upstream data naturally.”

You see, that magical blue box used to be four separate steps that didn’t work. Which, for the record, the Agent Builder created! This current version works, but it was a process to get there, and it’s still not what I fully want...

AI Agents Are Both Amazing And Underwhelming

On the one hand, creating this was amazing because I just typed in a prompt for what I wanted, and it made it (eventually). Without the Agent Builder, I would have struggled to even get started.

On the other hand, it's a strange combination of doing something fairly simple, but in an overly complex way. It reminds me of Adobe’s Dreamweaver in the early 2000’s. Sure, it was a drag-and-drop website builder (easier to make vs coding), but in an effort to match your design exactly, it fixed everything in place with a ridiculous number of nested elements. It easily doubled or tripled the file size of a “human-made” version while being less responsive (yikes!).

I get it — there’s a balance. Dreamweaver enabled more people to build websites, but those websites were fragile. Lindy feels the same way (and Make, and n8n). It enables normal people — like me — to automate workflows, but it’s not as robust or flexible as writing code in my own server environment.

And to be clear: this is just an automation; I wouldn’t call this an “AI agent” (I mean... I will, because it sounds cooler, but strictly speaking, I don’t think it is). There’s no feedback, learning, or figuring out its own path. It’s funny, the Agent Builder feels like AI, but this output doesn’t.

I’m fairly certain it’s worth my time to create these automations, but it’s not an obvious win. It’ll partly depend on the maintenance requirements, but it’ll mostly depend on how close it gets to my quality requirements. Is it worth the eventual productivity gains if it’s only 80% as good? What about 95%? It probably depends on the process.

That’s Why AI Isn’t Taking Your Job Anytime Soon

For these reasons — it’s hard to implement/upkeep and fragile — I don’t see AI taking thousands of jobs this year. Instead, I think it’ll continue to be a solid multiplier on existing efforts. And let’s be honest, no healthy company is going to say, “let’s just do the same with less.” Instead, they’ll use the efficiencies to tackle new opportunities (because if they don’t, their competitors will). That’s what happened with calculators, personal computers, and smartphones.

Over time, automation tools will get easier and more robust, just as Squarespace does today with drag-and-drop responsive websites. But it’ll take a while to get there, and chances are good that healthy companies will adapt along the way.

My Trip To Uganda Taught Me About Active Patience

I recently returned from a trip to Uganda to visit some missionary friends. It was my first time in Africa, and while I loved the sights and people, what stayed with me most wasn’t the experience itself  — it was what I learned about patience.

I expected to be inspired by my friends’ big vision of a new retreat center. What surprised me instead was their attitude toward failure.

One person we visited moved to Uganda 32 years ago, and she’s a legend! She brought peace between warring tribes through her veterinary work. It’s incredible! (There’s even an Adventures in Odyssey episode about her.)

Her vehicle, which helps people know it's her.

During the trip, we visited three places that told the story of her life’s work:

• the location of her first assignment, where she regularly washed her hair in a waterfall,
• her (and her husband’s) current home and ministry,
• and the site of their future retreat center.

The retreat center is just getting started. A few small buildings stand now, but their vision includes a massive A-frame space that’ll serve as a training ground for mission training, veterinary education, and farming instruction.

The retreat center at night.

But working in Uganda is hard.

For example, the land they purchased is being contested by the seller’s son, and title protections aren’t the same as in the US. They also have to deal with antics like neighbors trying to plow their land to claim it as their own. At one point, they built a fence, but raiders stole the fence materials. So they hired a guard, bought all new materials, and built another fence.

It’s regularly two steps forward, one step back.

What struck me most wasn’t their vision, but their patience. Yes, they have enormous goals, yet their daily focus remains simple: take steps each day, even if it’s a repeat of yesterday’s steps. Again and again, they spoke about trusting God’s timing and finding God’s purpose in setbacks.

How many dudes does it take to fix a broken tractor?

Be Patient

Reflecting on their work reminded me of something I had read many times but never fully felt: the steady faithfulness described in the book of James.

Unlike some early followers, James stayed in Jerusalem through decades of hardship. His letter was written to believers scattered by persecution: people facing loss, poverty, and uncertainty, wondering how long their suffering would last.

In response, James points to a farmer:

'Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.'

James 5:7-8

The image would have resonated immediately. Most were from agrarian communities in Palestine and knew there were two rainy seasons: planting and harvest. The farmer couldn’t control the rain, but he could prepare the soil, sow the seed, and wait in trust.

The farmer’s patience wasn’t passive. It was active.

He worked while he waited.

Digging up a root to make medicine for a sick goat.

James, like my friends, knew this firsthand. He led the struggling Jerusalem church with limited resources and many trials, including political tension, famine, and persecution. When he writes:

' Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. '

James 1:2-4

He isn’t offering theory. He’s describing a life shaped by endurance.

Growth takes time. But waiting isn’t inactivity. The farmer tills, plants, and prays. In the same way, James calls us to active patience: a quiet trust combined with faithful action. Delays aren’t signs that God has forgotten, but signs that He is ripening something precious in time.

Burn dry grass to make way for new grass when rain comes.

Count It All Joy

Just as the early church learned to persevere through hardship, and just as my friends continue building despite constant setbacks, we are invited into the same kind of patience.

Most of us aren’t building retreat centers in Uganda. But we’re all waiting for rain somewhere.

Maybe it’s a business that’s growing slower than expected. A relationship that feels stuck. A calling that hasn’t produced visible results yet. A season where faithfulness feels repetitive and progress feels invisible.

Active patience means doing today’s work well while trusting God with tomorrow’s outcome.

We prepare the soil.

We plant the seed.

We keep showing up.

And in time — often longer than we’d prefer — the rain comes, and the harvest arrives in ways only God could produce.

I can't believe she washed her hair in this waterfall...