Rob Pickering

Today is Juneteenth.  It has several "also known as" names, including "Freedom Day", "Jubilee Day", and "Liberation Day".  It is a commemoration of Union army general, Gordon Granger, announcing federal orders in the city of Galveston, TX, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were now free.  This was essentially bringing the Emancipation Proclamation to the remotest area of the United States were slavery was still being practiced (even though most slaves were freed more than 2 years prior).  Slavery itself wouldn't actually be abolished until the ratification of the 13th Ammendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865. Just over a week ago we had an all hands at ServiceNow.  I'm sure these types of gatherings...

This weekend, Disney released a new movie for download.  That by itself isn't remarkable.  What's remarkable is that this is a move that was just released to the theaters two weeks prior.  That movie is from Pixar studios and is called Onward.  I'm writing this as my son and I are watching it on March 21st.  That date alone is extremely meaningful to me, as it's World Down Syndrome Day (3/21) and he has Down syndrome.  This movie was released by Disney extremely early, because we're all dealing with something that a year ago we couldn't have imagined could happen. My family and I live in Northern California.  On March 16, 2020 we were ordered to "shelter in place"...

I'm not sure where to start this post. 2019 has been difficult for everyone in the United States, I want to say 2020 will be better...so I will! 2020 is going to be great! This year I focused on expanding my personal horizons and reading books that would push me to be a better person overall. I found that I didn't read a lot of entertainment as a result. It therefore felt like I read fewer books than I might have otherwise, but I found I read almost twice as many as 2018. So, I'm hapy with that progress. I set a goal on GoodReads to read 20 books in 2019 and fell a bit short. In 2020, I'm...

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What a year. My family moved from Cupertino to San Jose, where we purchased a new home (don't even get me started on housing prices). I started in a new role at ServiceNow in Customer Success and Deb took on a new position at Cisco. My son started 2nd grade in a new school, which has helped him immensily, though I worry that this is now his 3rd school in his young life (I was in 9 schools by the 9th grade). We're staying put for the forseeable future. As I reflect on 2018, I spent a lot less time reading, something I truly missed. In reviewing the books I read this year (9 titles, down 60% from the 22...