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As we are about to head back to Austin for a few weeks, I wanted to take a minute to highlight one of the things that really brings me joy. One of the great things about our neighborhood in Baton Rouge is all the cats. And for the most part, a lot of them are very friendly. Today I wanted to talk about all my cat friends. This is Asher. He lives in the apartment below us. He’s a very chatty guy. Also, yes, that is a total trap. He doesn’t like his tummy rubbed, even though he will gladly show it to you while he flip flops. He often greets me when I go walking or running in the morning. ...

Wow, I was recapping our trip in the beginning of July and now it’s mid September? The last four weeks have been great from an exercise and nutrition point of view. And now I find myself in Ankara, Turkey! This time of year really is my favorite. As soon as Labor Day passes, college football starts up, and we can start envisioning days that aren’t brutally hot. Well I needed to catch up, so here we are. I’ll hopefully get some more interesting pictures from Ankara.

Carrie and I were lucky enough to get to go to the UK and France recently. I was giving part of the keynote in our NI Days UK conference, and we decided to take advantage of the July 4th holidays to go see the start of the Tour de France in Lille, France. Small villages and towns in the UK are just absolutely lovely. Also, Lille is great. I’d go back to that city in a heartbeat. Here are a section of pictures. ...

Last weekend we had the great opportunity to visit our friends in Jackson, Wyoming. One of the best scenic landings at an airport I’ve ever experienced. You fly in right by the Tetons and over all the lakes. It was truly stunning. We spent our first full day there exploring the southern half of Yellowstone. What a unique place. Between the geysers, the prismatic pools, and bubbling mud, I will definitely not be forgetting that anytime soon. ...

We’re back in Austin. We won’t be headed back to Baton Rouge to live until September. The trip back is always an ordeal, and GiGi was very sleepy last night after we got back. One of my goals this year was to travel. It’s easy for me to sink into habit. But this summer we have a few trips planned, and I’ll share more here as we get closer. I’m looking forward to them all.

Every year when the heat sets in, I feel like one of us learns the lesson the hard way that you have to a) hydrate appropriately and b) get enough electrolytes. This year was apparently my turn. The past couple of weekends on my long runs on Saturday mornings, I have just been destroyed afterwards. A week ago, I took like a 2.5 hour nap after my run and my stress level on my Garmin never went down. This Saturday I felt ok during the day, but when I woke up Sunday I felt exhausted (though staying up to watch Texas lose at baseball didn’t help). I was really wondering what the issue was. ...

I brought my sourdough starter with us to Baton Rouge this trip because I wanted to make some bread. My sourdough starter’s name is Chad. I was given Chad by a friend many years ago, and it has gone through many periods of being asleep in the fridge. But he is back. The first loaf I baked the other day came out… ok. It was too dense. It tasted good, but it just didn’t rise like I wanted. Today I made an olive loaf, and I will bake it tomorrow. ...

I’ve told people before that one of the things that I forget I miss about Baton Rouge and south Louisiana in general is the trees. Austin has trees. But they’re not the same. They don’t get as big. They don’t get as grand. There are definitely some parts of town that have better canopies, but it gets sparse pretty quickly. Heck, they named the soccer team after oak trees, but they don’t compare. ...

We’re back to Baton Rouge for a bit. The days leading up to us switching spots always stress me out, but once we get on the road, it’s crazy, but all that stress just goes away. We got the cats in the cage as soon as we woke up, so that made the process less stressful as well. The drive was good, and it’s always good to be back in Louisiana to spend time with our family and friends. ...

I will post a recap of NI Connect over on LinkedIn, but with that in the rearview mirror, and us heading back to Baton Rouge next weekend, Sunday was the one chance I was going to have get out on the kayak. I headed over to Water E. Long lake (also known as Decker lake). It’s been lowered to work on the dam, so there’s no “big” boats out there, and it’s apparently one of the big kayak fishing places in town. I probably got out on the water finally around 9:30 or 10. ...