Christmas Letter 2011 (Last Year)

Stock Based Comp

Ask me about forecasting stock based compensation expense sometime. It's magical. Pure magic. Ta da

Greyson's Big Boy Bed

Greyson is now sleeping in a real twin-size bed. About a week ago he finally expressed a desire to jump out of his crib (he was big enough to do this about a year ago but thankfully gave us almost one more year!). There he was, straddling the crib. In pain, and a little afraid of the precipice he was about to fall from. That's when we knew it was time to grow up. So a couple days ago we set up the bed. At bed time I asked Grey, "do you want to sleep in your crib? NO. Do you want to sleep in your big boy bed? YES. Okay then stay in your bed or else I'll put you in your crib. OK." and just like that, Grey is now sleeping all the way through the night in a big boy bed. What a sport.

SBUX Store Portfolio Mix Chart

Here is the graph I mentioned earlier: an interesting "Tufte" way to visualize Starbucks' store portfolio mix over the years beyond simple pie charts. All information is publicly available here on the investor relations website.

Instead of looking at information from one year to the next, the story becomes much more meaningful when the entire depth of time is a central axis; and rather than derailing the conversation about the number of licensed and company-operated stores, we focus attention merely on how the ratio moves over time.

Hurricane Isaac and Tufte-style Supercharts

I was impressed by this "Tufte-esque" graph that shows projected path of Hurricane Isaac. Weather seems to provide the four-dimensional data values that makes chart plotters salivate. I'm always looking for ways to go "beyond the pie chart" in my day-to-day data interpretation and presentation. I found perhaps a new way to interpret the portfolio mix of our licensed and company-operated stores over time. Okay, not a "new" way, but different than how I have seen leadership discuss our sizable store portfolio over time. I'll post after I have a chance to edit and show only the historical, publicly available portion.



A Long Week

Excited to see the family. Rachel and the boys have been in Medford, OR for 8 days with Grandma Linda while I've been in Seattle trudging through the annual budgeting season at work. Having been through this a few times I knew to recommend the family take a few days to do something fun that didn't require my attendance. This week I've counted 70+ hours at the office. Doing what I love, mind you, but hard and exhausting nonetheless. that's what she said It's been lonely too. FaceTime is a nice invention but no substitute for giving two little squishy irascible boys a hug. Loving the idea of having them all back today.

My Brilliant Wife, CPA

The other night I was giving Rachel some highlights from my day. At one point I mentioned something like: "I found money that we can include in our company’s annual budget! It’s related to capitalized interest income. It’s very arcane and difficult to explain but I can try. Are you familiar with it?”

Rachel: “Well no, not really. I’ve never worked with it… But… I know that it’s the interest you would charge for your capital projects by multiplying the accrued spend by either the company’s LT debt rate or an appropriate third-party benchmark interest rate. And that as the interest income is accrued at the corporate entity, it is offset by a balance sheet entry at the BU level. And that once the project is placed into service it would depreciate along with the underlying asset over its useful life.”

Rob: [moment of silence, mouth slightly ajar] “Are you freaking kidding me!? You’ve never touched capitalized interest in all of your years of accountancy, and yet you still manage to give the best, clearest and most comprehensive explanation of anyone I’ve come across? You truly are a brilliant corporate CPA.”

My Review of "The Pale King"

I just finished listening to all 16 excruciatingly incoherent discs of David Foster Wallace's unfinished "masterpiece," The Pale King. Recommended as a Pulitzer Award finalist on NPR. Amazingly, even though you may listen to the admittedly pleasant narrators unabridged words for a *mere* 18 hours on audio CD, I was still, on several occasions, tempted to call it quits and throw my hands in the air. But I listened. Hour after hour. To 50 chapters of unrelated stories; 50 virtually unrelated lives; 50 unrelated and incoherent ramblings of what the author and editors call the theme of "Challenging the Notion of Boredom." I listened to every word, I didn't skip a minute. And the end of the book - an odd drug-induced recollection from a work picnic - is just as unimportant and unconnected to any part of the novel as the front of the book - a man's disjointed thoughts about landing in an airplane. And in between we are introduced to utterly forgetful and unimportant characters.

The book cover and synopsis say it all in flagrantly unambiguous language: 'This is a book about boredom.' As you read it, you become bored. You ask yourself, "why am I reading such a boring book"? And unless you are one of the people who responds, "Oh! How brilliant! I am reading an utterly exhaustingly boring book about boredom. I feel like I'm a party to an utterly drove and bourgeoise inside joke! Huzzah!" then you will be one of the people who says, "This is by far the most pointless book I've read in my life. I award myself no points for gaining knowledge, or for bemusingly passing the time. And may God have mercy on my soul."

Can't Get Enough of These Two

These boys are getting older. More mature. Looking into the distance absent mindedly as if posing for an album cover. This picture currently graces my work laptop. Makes me want to head home and snuggle with those pudgy cheeks.

Grandpa's Celebration of Life

Nearly the entire Mardock clan is in Portland / Salem to celebrate and mourn the passing of the Mardock patriarch (Marvin Mardock).

Relatives flew up, and over 100 friends and family attended the memorial. Dad gave a brilliant 20 minute tribute titled "My Pop." Uncle Mike, Aunt Gail and Jennifer added wonderful and touching stories from their childhood. Much more to add in a future blog post about my grandpa, a true world changer. I miss him, I'm sad that there are so many stories I haven't heard, but I'm blessed to be one of the "older" grand kids who has three decades of memories.

"Husband for 62 years, father of 3, grandpa and great grandpa of 40, pastor, evangelical leader, world traveler, PhD, professor, NAIA track coach of the year in 1980 at Azusa Pacific College, cancer survivor, author, poet, humorist, professional musician, gardener of giant pumpkins... Given the gift of life and maximized it to its fullest. A world changer."

Day with Dad

With mom taking a personal spa day with her sister down in Portland, Jude and Grey got to hang out with their dad. And no, thank you very much, dad doesn't just turn on the TV and drink root beer while the kiddos squabble. Oh no... when dad is watching, fun things happen. Today we woke up, ate a hearty breakfast, and headed over to the Tacoma Children's Museum, where both boys played and Jude made an "art catapult" (literally a catapult made of popcycle sticks and rubber bands that shoots ink onto the wall). We then walked over to the Tacoma Glass Museum, walked down the ship canal area, and headed home. Then after naps we're heading to Kandle Park so they can visit with their little friends, 3 yr old Thor and 1 yr old Vann (yes, Thor is his real name and he has quite a similar disposition as well!)

Day off

Taking a random vacation day today. Unfortunately it's just a "work around the house" day. At one point I took Greyson to Lowes and he was a barrel of laughs and smiles. Here's a fun example from our trip back to the house:

A couple of fun pics

Not sure how these photos will come through on this new Blogger app, but below: 1) Jude, dad, greyson, and mom at a mariners fan appreciation day... With moose. 2) Jude and grey being a cute couple of hams in Jude's new upstairs bedroom. 2) Jude and grey helping dad put together an Ikea dresser for Greyson's new upstairs bedroom.

New Blogger App / a-da

Trying out the "official" Blogger App. So far, eh. Anyhow, what I attempted to say a couple of times tonight is simply that Greyson is adorable. He manages to convey an impressive array of thoughts and feelings by speeding his one word: a-da. Like The Smurfs, a-da can be used in many situations, such as: "hey there! I want that," and "here you go." I'm being called away again. This just isn't the night to update anything...

Lame-o

I'm dedicating this blog post to my lame blogger app that froze after I had invested 20 minutes into a pleasant recap of the last few weeks. Thanks lame app....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New upstairs, new rooms

A couple of weeks ago we got fresh new carpet installed upstairs. I pulled out the old carpet and moved furniture... And painted, prepped, cleaned up 20 yr old cat, dog and human pee. Yuck. Anyway, brand new fresh smelling carpet. It looks beautiful. We moved the boys' room from downstairs so that they both have their own rooms upstairs. We installed a couple of heavy duty swiveling baby gates. The kids haven't slept better in their lives. They no longer wake each other up and sleep in much longer. Rachel and I are loving our new home. Their old room downstairs is now our office. Everything looks great and is much more "feng shui."