I am coming off multiple days of in-person interactions. It has been nice to go from Costco to committees to backyard bbq.
I am tired. I intend to rest and alas because I am doing things in the moment I have had too few moments for even a brief rest. It has been a good time.
My HRV and my RHR are way down and way up respectively. I need that to reverse so I’ll sleep it off.
It’s been a busy week for the MilFred family as it has been busy for many families across the word. We are praying for you.
This morning Alex and I were excited to attend the “Digital Assets Public Hearing” in Bozeman put on by The Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Office of the Montana State Auditor.
That is big job and a large office and an important one even if it may sound a bit dry to the average person. They oversee everything from securities fraud and data breach reporting to Medicare and health insurance markets.
I overstrained myself the last couple of days (Alex’s birthday was worth it) so my Whoop was blinking red but but I wasn’t going to miss an important public meeting on a topic crucial to Montana’s future.
For me, the future hinges on to compute and energy. Montana is well positioned. We secured our right to compute this year thanks to State Senator Zolnikov’s bill. And the work continues to as our civil servants.
On June 13, 2025, at 10:00 A.M., CSI will hold a second public hearing in the Cottonwood Room of the Bozeman Public Library at 626 E. Main St., Bozeman, Montana 59715, to further consider the public’s comments regarding digital assets and possible regulation of such digital assets.
It drew quite a crowd both in person and over the internet as Montana has quickly gained a reputation of being future and freedom focused. And quite reasonably so.
The Commissioner is the statewide elected official responsible for administering the Securities Act of Montana. As part of his duties, the Commissioner is responsible for the regulation of securities in Montana, including encouraging capital formation while also safeguarding Montana investors through mechanisms such as registration and disclosure, as well as antifraud enforcement powers…
The market for digital assets has rapidly expanded in recent years, and the unsettled regulatory landscape at the Federal level has left several questions open. Some bad actors have also exploited the market expansion and the public’s interest in digital assets in fraudulent ways. The public’s perceptions, experiences, and knowledge of digital assets may aid the Commissioner in determining whether rules or definitions regarding digital assets may be helpful for the people of Montana.
The goal is to help the commissioner and his team understand this emerging market and make sure it works to the benefit of Montanas especially as the lack of federal regulatory clarity has been a challenge we are personally familiar with.
We hope we can help Montana can help her citizens flourish with the right tools. In the past we mined “pro y plata” with picks and shovels but in the future we may use Montana energy to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and tokens. So make your voice heard!
Today is my husband’s birthday. He genuinely is a very low key guy and when his birthday falls on a weekday he isn’t into big to-dos. But he said he’d be up for a Costco date.
No surer sign of enjoying middle age than loving the finest buyers club values of Cost. But to be honest we’ve both always loved Costco. And you can really get into Costco when you have a multiple barn freezers and backup power so no apologies for our love of a practical Costco date.
Though it didn’t go entirely to plan. If it means anything to the pulse of America the Bozeman Costco was a chaotic in a “concerning operational decay” way.
Now we noticed a lot of categories completely out. No lemons. Several steak cuts we’d been hoping to get for a birthday dinner. Produce in general was pretty bad. Enough to make you wonder if they were affected by the United Natural Foods hack.
But other things were off. Staffing wise you had to wonder if they fired half the staff or no one planned for managing checkout flow for June in Montana high season? Nothing is as predictable as tourists going to Yellowstone if you’ve got a manager with any tenure or common sense. but maybe they don’t. I have a Twitter mutual who burned out on a Costco job so two strikes guys. Talent is part of the Costco brand.
Alex works New York hours so we got there around 2:30 or so which you’d think would be quiet but is not in midsummer in southern Montana. It was summer high season traffic you’d expect on a Saturday though.
We walked every aisle and there was a lot of fun oddities. Japanese toilets, water bottle drying racks, sound absorbing wall panels. And there were some less fun selections.
There was a disturbing amount of slop packaging products and rapidly prototyped TikTok trends follow ons. Dubai chocolate ice cream bars? The zoomers will enjoy their summers up here I’m sure.
Lots of grouchy Boomers and exhausted families were looking for basics in the middle of the store as we perused the sides of the store for fun. Everyone is in Montana it seems. As we waited checkout I heard discussion of how JD Vance meeting with the Murdoch family at their ranch in Dillon.
We had intended to go end it with a hot dog and pizza slice respectively but it was so intense at the checkout area we didn’t even try. The lines were unmanageable which is how we got so much gossip. Montana isn’t so big that you can fly Air Force 2 to Butte without chatter about which ranch you are visiting.
I hope Costco has made some margin on selling gold bars to happy men like my husband. We also found a few other things
It’s a gorgeous breeze June Sunday in Montana. It’s the sort of day where you go to your favorite bakery for an exotic little pastry, maybe get lunch from a favorite restaurant and then go for a hike or a bike ride to marvel at the majesty in wonder.
As I am working through a new physio routine to improve compensatory pain in my trapezius muscles I was a little nervous. I wanted to adequately test that I’d found new corrective instincts without overdoing things.
I walked a favorite two mile circuit with a stead inclined of hills that eases back out into the flat valley. I felt terrific. The sun was shining but the breeze kept it cool. Truly paradise on earth.
And then within an hour or so I got an awful headache. Had I failed at reworking my compensation so badly? I checked fascia and muscle points and found my shoulders relaxed.
Then I checked my upper cervical spike and yelped. I had swapped one compensation for another and gave myself a killer headache in the process. But I didn’t have the same pain pattern or headache type and that is a win.
As I was going about doing “prepare for the worst so the best may come” set of chores I chose to brag about our travel pharmacy packing.
As Elon Musk leaves government service there has been a flurry of media hits. I don’t know anything about his personal medical situation nor is it my place to comment but I found it comical to suggest that 20 drugs in a daily medication box was nefarious.
Those are to put it mildly “rookie numbers” in the biohacking business. And it’s barely a dent if you practice the kind of global chaos preparedness that we do. So I bragged about it and showed one of our global travel kits.
Ray Kurzweil isn’t making it to the singularity on less than 40 supplements a day so I sure as heck ain’t setting out into emerging economies with anything less than a full set of bacterial, viral, and gastrointestinal remedies.
And as we care about things like being first responder trained and able to render aid to our community, we joke that you really can’t be a pro-social prepper if you don’t carry an AFAIK kit.
As I was being snide about our the value preparedness, outside in my own backyard we were being tested. And as soon as it happened I felt completely unprepared. Pride does indeed go before a fall.
We have a beautiful red fox that has for several seasons lurked around our property. We also keep laying hens. Alex has hardened the chicken coop to make sure they did not have a chance to get in. Nature and domestication co-exist uneasily.
We have never seen the fox out in day save in the dead of winter. In the spring we rarely ever see the fox.
So whenever we let the chickens roam generally we keep a keen watch on them. We’ve gone a few seasons with this working but letting your guard down can get you.
Alex was walking down our long drive to retrieve a trash can and let the roaming chickens out of his sight for less than five minutes. In that time the fox raced out from behind foliage and took one.
We caught it all on camera. Having taken one (we could not find her) the fox came back not more than ten minutes later and tried to grab another chicken which point Alex saw and intervened. The fox dropped her but she has a puncture wound.
I finally hear the ruckus and come outside. I see feathers everywhere and figure it out as soon as I see feathers. .
I’m pulling out my phone and asking the LLMs how do we care for an injured chicken. Turns out it’s not that different than human.
I run to find the supples for cleaning and disinfecting. I find the topical antibiotics. It all takes much longer than I think it should. Alex cleans her up and she seems fine. But wont know how she recovers for a bit. Now I will do a review of our supplies and their locations as I am reminded that there is no such thing as too prepared.
It is so beautiful today in Bozeman it almost doesn’t feel real. It’s warm but not hot. It’s sunny but we have fluffy clouds breaking up intensity. Cool breezes waft in and out without ever really turning to wind. I hope our entire summer has this weather.
Because of the holiday weekend the town has fully switched into “seasonal” mode from daily New York flights to way more availability at restaurants and service. One of Alex’s friends from college is headed into Yellowstone with his whole family from grandparents to kids.
Mountain towns make as much money in the summer as they do in the winter so you always wish for fluffy snow and cool clear summers.
While Yellowstone is worth the travel, I appreciate being able to work and hike all flavors of public trails from city to state in Bozeman.
On days like today I want to fully throw myself into a Bryan Johnson super adherence biohacker as I want to be able to enjoy as much of our summer as I can outside.
We had a rainy couple of days in Montana which is naturally all anyone can talk about. On our side of the continental divide it’s dry and sunny more than not. We are used to fluffy snow and full sun and screw the in-between. Mud season sucks.
Weather is of course the common ground of embodied society. People who live in their heads that don’t notice the weather must live someplace without seasons or manage to live somehow beyond its effects. Which isn’t how I want to live. I enjoy some of friction of seasons. More of winter than summer but it’s nice to have variance.
Pop songs have a lot to say about love being heaven on earth. I also happen to think heaven is definitely is a place on earth at the right time. For me it is full winter and full summer in the Rocky Mountains. A little mud is a fine tradeoff.
Nevertheless we have seasons such that outdoor furniture takes quite a beating so best to not put out fragile stuff till the season changes. It’s just not meant for the in-between.
Today was a fine sunny day and Alex brought out a new piece of furniture acquired from Costco. It is a giant umbrella that required sandbag filling and water and was a giant production requiring a second man in good shape to get it set up. But it was worth it.
Being outside and doing some reading and some internet (I’m online it’s a material condition) while underneath a very sturdy umbrella is a lovely afternoon. We had sun and a sudden thunderstorm that left us so quickly we had rain shine. Best to enjoy the high fidelity version of reality when you can.
Bozeman is host to The Montana Festival this week. Alex and I are small donors to the festival as we are neighbors of one of the organizers Padden Guy Murphy. It’s a celebration of Montana’s many industries and people as we work together to build a better future.
Montana Festival is an annual celebration bringing together the top entrepreneurs, architects, business leaders, startup operators, innovators, artists, investors, culture creators, designers, community builders, movers, shakers and policymakers from across Montana and around the world to forge new friendships and catalyze Made in Montana ideas, projects, companies, and policy solutions to positively shape our shared future.
It has alas been raining to beat the band since the event started. At the welcome party last night literally the sound of the rain beat the sound of the band. This didn’t stop the band or anyone else from having a lovely time. Just raise your voice and have a good time.
Thankfully I’d taken Benadryl and some mold kickers as I’d been concerned I wouldn’t make the party with the weather as it was. I hope it clears further for Friday and Saturday as the intellectual and business events wrap up and it’s time for our outdoor events to kick off. If you are around consider registering and coming out.
I’m not sure where my mother picked up the slang “God willing and the creek don’t rise” but I had it regularly to suggest a thing shall come to pass a “if nature and God” are willing.
It’s it’s got a hint of Appalachia in its origin story and then tumbles over into a Johnny Cash cover of a Jerry Reed country tune (probably where my mother learned it as she loves Cash) before settling into a Spike Lee documentary about the water engineering challenges that have brought such misery to New Orleans.
It’s been pouring in Gallatin County all day. Our already high rivers are looking like they may cause troubles. Friends who fish were concerned the muddy headwaters weeks ago when I was caught in other unexpected spring showers in Colorado.
I am afraid the moisture is kicking up mold in our house. We’ve spent months remediating the problem so it weighs on me to consider the possibility. I woke up covered in hives and eczema.
I took antibiotics and Benadryl and it kept getting worse. I showered with nothing but unscented Castile soap hoping to mitigate the outbreak. That did more.
I have an event I’d like to attend this evening along with a houseguest who I very enjoy much enjoy so it frustrates me when the creek sees fit to rise against the banks that contain the river of my life.
We don’t live as rural as some people might think. While we very much live out in the county and not the town, we do have a small land grant university town within a reasonable distance.
When you are more rural you come to appreciate how that kind of town provides many types of amenities that a comparatively larger but less diversified city might not.
Academics, outdoorsman, small farmers, military veterans and engineering firms draw from the town’s signature appeal of new young people. That we have incredible natural beauty is hard to beat.
Bozeman is a very different place than my hometown Boulder but Rocky Mountain towns with public universities have a lot in common. The opportunities bring a deeper base of people which means we have more to offer to existing residents and newcomers. We offer a future.
I believe in the comparative advantage of a diverse community with diverse offerings and different types of employment and housing are the bedrock of that. I am very publicly for building denser housing but also more choices for housing, as I saw what zoning regulations did to push my generation out of Boulder and out of Colorado.
If we can’t manage to provide housing for newcomers we can’t keep those who find themselves offering services. Until recently we’d been hiring a young woman to handle our house keeping every few weeks but as she is quite capable her business has grown and she’s hired more people.
Thriving places require all kinds of people to provide an economic base. As Montana prepares for a quickly arriving digital future, our innovation depends on the hard work and just rewards of all us.
And I certainly hope I can do my part to contribute to that. Because I am a terrible housekeeper but I have other useful skills to exchange. Comparative advantage is a beautiful thing.