Precious Time is Slipping Away

When my school  absolutely love’s you and your speech, they roar,
but when they don’t, they clap because they have to.
They roared for me

Helvi Heita

I’ve now been caught in rainstorms 2 times in 5 days. Sunday, I was on a long bike ride and about 30 minutes from home when the water came hard and fast. I hunkered down and pushed through. What else is there. I was thoroughly, fully, massively soaked by the time I got back to Brittany’s. I stripped down in the garage and headed for the shower. 

Yesterday I was on the tractor down at Rich’s moving some brush piles and large logs for him. I saw some clouds building but thought I had plenty of time. 1 minute later I was thoroughly, fully, massively soaked. It is a 15-minute ride in the tractor from Rich’s to my house, so Marti and I took our consequences and limped home in the downpour. My phone was wet as I had no place to put it – but thankfully not so wet that it was destroyed. Took a few hours to dry. The tractor didn’t care about the rain. 

I’ve been putting in some miles on the bike. I took a 10-year break from running and biking and now easing back in to both. It’s not easy with my schedule, but I’ve decided to prioritize exercise. Here is an example of how this plays out on a typical day.

Of course the schedule varies a bit if I am in Boston for work or if we are on travel somewhere. Also, my work can flex up or down which contributes to schedule variation.

Not a lot of time for reading or writing so I am behind on those endeavors. Not sure how to make up the time. I do some on weekends when I don’t have too many chores, and also 10 minutes here or there I jump into it. Between mom and dad’s needs, Black Dog Ridge, and my home in Ohio, there is always work to be done.

Plus, Brittany and I prioritize making time for some fun stuff too. Every week; every month.

It’s the life I’ve chosen and continue to choose. I don’t really know how to be bored. Projects present themselves and if they seem interesting and compelling, I do not know how to say no. 

Below is a list of projects currently in flight and actively taking some time each week. Obviously my work that pays the bills takes the lion share.

MYO Movie – (yet to be named). I’m excited about the movie. An approximately 40 minute film detailing MYO through the words of MYO alumni. Technically I am the Executive Producer and of course funding source. Frieda is director. I’ve seen some of the raw footage and it is shaping up nicely. Frieda and I have a WhatsApp video call (sometimes also including the film crew) every other week at 7:00 am. I am considering buying Frieda a camera to get the rest of the footage rather than pay a crew. Cost-wise, this probably makes sense. But there is a learning curve, perhaps some quality differences due to experience levels and we still need editing and sound support. So we working through it. We are hoping to have it finished early 2027.

SV2SA re-write – I am 50% through a copy editing and light re-write of ‘Silicon Valley to Southern Africa’. I want to re-release this book in 2027 (20 years after original publication). I will almost certainly change the name as I’ve never liked the title. I will write a new introduction and a new final chapter which will be a brief history of MYO and some of our successes and challenges. I hope to have this finished in time to coincide with the movie so we can tag team some marketing stuff. Not really my area of expertise so I will likely need to enlist some help.

TOOM – Our mobile app is on the market for Apple users and should be fully released in both Apple and Android by end of September. I currently spend around 5-6 hours a week on TOOM activities including daily meeting with design & development team (3 in India and 1 in Namibia). I am mostly providing input on design changes, testing, working on next gen road map, and now turning my attention to figuring out how to market and scale.

So far, early testers have not shown much enthusiasm which is worrying. The platform is a little clunky but actually not bad. There are some banking and FINAPP limitations that make the user experience less than ideal, but as with any technology, after you’ve run a few transactions the familiarity reduces time to completion by 75% or so. Work to do there and the future is very uncertain. After 8 years of thinking about it, 2 years developing it, we are about to unleash TOOM for general consumption. Within 12 months or so we will know if it can work or whether it will just be a fun entrepreneurial venture that did not pan out. Super cool that Petrus, an MYO alumni, is doing all the Android development. This is much like working with my own son and I love it very much.

New website is nearly complete but below is a link to our placeholder

Webb – This is my grand novel. 75% through first draft. I like what I have. I am not a great writer but I think I am a decent storyteller. I do not have ambitions of critical approval. I’m not going after a Pulitzer of Booker. I do believe this book has real potential for more casual readers who just like a good tale. It is the story of a man and his 10-year old son and how they must reconcile their relationship after the death of their mother/wife. It is set against an environment of a close-knit rugby community so there is a hybrid of action and human relationships. I am currently prioritizing SV2SA and will get back to Webb, hopefully early next year. But I am continuing to update my notes as ideas come through for plot and scenes. I actually envision this as part of a trilogy. The first book is ‘Webb‘, the 10-year old boy.

The 2nd book is titled ‘Billy‘, and goes back in time to  when Webb’s father grew up in Ireland. That is where he learned to play rugby and he became an international player and star before a career ending injury. I have a lot of the notes and back story already detailed for this book but of course will not start it until Webb is complete.  Also, there is a lot of foreshadowing and detail in ‘Webb‘ as the story unfolds because Billy’s background influences his current behaviors as a parent.

The 3rd book is called ‘Shannon‘. This jumps forward and Shannon is Billy’s grand-daughter and Webb’s daughter. Shannon will have been raised in Ireland but went to university in US where she became a standout rugby player. She will have some challenges and difficult decisions around her rugby career and sexual identity. Jack and Billy will both have proved influential to Shannon but in different ways and of course she must reconcile all her inputs and make her own final choices.

Emerging Namibia – This is the initiative Frieda and I started to highlight young Namibians who are finding a way to break through in spite of all the challenges they face in a developing country. So far we have about 12 stories or so. Frieda and I are doubling-down our efforts now.

Namib Futures – NF continues to plod forward. Felicia is our life saver. She joined as Director of Operations a year ago and we would accomplish little without her. She is our backbone. Our first year we sponsored 3 learners for university scholarships and this year we have 15. We are meeting more regularly now to figure out 2027. Hopefully 15 again but we have to find the money. Always it’s about the money. I am working on some German rotary clubs who have some interest. Also possibly a fundraiser in Chicago where we traditionally have some supporters. I will travel over to meet the Germans in February when they are all visiting MYO (10 separate clubs working together). But we need decisions and financial commitments now so we can make sure we have funds to cover next years scholarship winners. Lots of work to do in order to turn the corner here. But start-ups are always hard and always chaotic, and especially when no one is getting paid for their work. We are all volunteers but also all have our other projects and personal lives.

MYO – The main energy I am putting into MYO these days is continuity and long-term strategy. I have proposed a brilliant young Namibia engineer to join the board (MYO Alumni). Sabtek is super nice and has great energy. He is well educated and a Native Namibian and a professional engineer for 10 years now. This is what I see as our future. As Vera and I age out, we need men and women like Sabtek to lean in and eventually take over. I am also working to document all of our SOP’s, working to help rebalance the workload within our staff to create capacity for Anke to step into more of a strategic role and also want to help more with marketing and awareness. We are upskilling Annelie to take on more management responsibilities and she will get a part-time assistant to pass down some work. Overall MYO is in good shape. We’ve finished construction on the new classrooms and have one more significant upgrade that will happen in 2027 or 2028.

Black Dog Ridge – Distillery and cigar room – The last major construction project for my sprawling campus. This was the original shed that was here when I bought the property. It was just a small pole barn with no sides. It is now closed in and has a floor but no insulation or interior walls. Me and Easton will do the insulation and put in the flooring and walls and add a couple of windows. This is not fine finish work. More like garage party room quality. When that is done, we will hook up my wood-burner and put in a small distillery. It will also be my cigar room for winter months when I can’t smoke outside. 

Laying here in the dark, you’re like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see?
Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
And after all this time to find, we’re just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess to

Running into the darkness, some hurt bad, some really dying
At night sometimes it seemed you could hear that whole damn city crying
Blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down
You can blame it all on me, Terry, it don’t matter to me now

Bruce Springsteen

Why are there hippa type laws for dogs? Why are we protecting dogs health status? Are they embarrassed if someone knows they haven’t had their shots? I personally would like to know if my neighbors dog has shots and is not feral.

My 90 year-old mom called 3 times yesterday. Once to say hello. Once because she was calling to tell my brother hello and dialed the wrong number, and once to tell me a lady I never met had died. She also took the opportunity to tell me they would have liked to go the funeral but no one was there to take them. There it is. Pretty much every call these days. Where are you and when will you be back? I am utilitarian to them now that they can’t drive. 

My darling mother has turned all passive aggressive on me. I get it. She has things to do and her driver is not longer capable. But she is also the first to tell me I should live my own life.

Through my dozens of job and career changes, homes bought and sold, sabbaticals and adventures and international jaunts and years of rugby — mom always supported 100%. To some degree I was living a lifestyle she would have liked for herself if her circumstances did not fence her in.

Tonight is Friday so a Martini will be happening. And a pizza in the pizza oven.

I don’t deserve a life this rich, but I also have the sugar and don’t feel I deserve that either. So we are equal.

Cute little biking video below and photos follow, per usual Martinitime etiquette.

Humbly Submitted
Robert Myres – Flanker, Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club (ret.), writer, nomad, land owner, dog father, comic genius