Each Spring, ACbert and I usually join two soccer leagues and one softball league. All the teams are fun groups, so not only do we enjoy playing, we also enjoy hanging out with the different groups.

I usually only join a team after I’ve looked ahead on my calendar to know for sure that I will be able to make most of the games, which is what I did this season. Even though I expected to only miss a couple games this season, I’ve found myself more often than not responding to the weekly RSVP emails saying, “I’m out.”

It’s annoying and frustrating as I truly enjoy playing and hanging with the various teams, and making a commitment I don’t keep. But the reality of making AlumniChoose successful is that all hands need to be on deck at all times, but when excatly that is, isn’t something I can plan ahead for. Startups tend to flow on a month-to-month basis, if not weekly. Long term planning and startups aren’t the best of friends.

For my 30th birthday, ACbert got me a beer brewing kit as part of her 30in30for30 adventure idea. She had known about my home brewing aspirations for a while, so this was the perfect gift. As soon as I got the kit, I opened the directions and dug in…

Two months later, I finally had the chance to taste my first batch. I twisted open the bottle, took a deep chug…and spit it out. It was horrible. I mean below Miller Lite horrible. It was so bad I had to rinse my mouth out with water.

Similarly, over last summer, we bought a bread machine and I was equally excited to start baking my own bread, so I opened the directions and dug in…

Three hours later, I opened the beard machine lid, tore off a chunk of bread, stuck it in my mouth…and spit it out. It was horrible. I mean Wonder Bread horrible. It was so bad I had to rinse my mouth out with water.

Similar starts and similar ends, but here’s where the two stories split. With the beer, I needed to wait two months every time I wanted to re-test my strategy, whereas with bread, I only needed to wait three hours. That meant for every one beer batch I got to test and improve on, I tested 40+ bread batches. Which one do you think I got better at faster?

Entrepreneurship, especially in the early stages, is all about testing your hypothesis as fast as possible so you can either ramp up successes, or move past failures. The faster you get to test, the better. The longer you have to wait between each test, not only does time slip away and costs go up, but the number of possible variables that might be causing the issue becomes much higher, which makes it harder to know exactly what variable was the issue.

After my first couple batches of bread, I discovered that our machine required more water than the directions called for. Out of all the possible reasons why the first batch was bad, it was easy to pin-point exactly what was wrong within two days. Now, not only do we make great bread each week, but we also love to experiment with new types of bread because we don’t have to worry about the basics any more.

Now it’s your turn. If you have an idea, think about how you can test your idea more like a bread maker verses a beer brewer.

Last month I went on a ski trip with friends to Mount Snow. It was my first time at Mount Snow and only my second time skiing in many years. Growing up in a flat-land state, Illinois, didn’t provide many opportunities to ski beyond the local converted garbage hills.

I like skiing, and now that ACbert and I live on the East Coast, we’re making it a point to get better since there are plenty more opportunities to ski here than back in the Land of Lincoln.

To challenge myself on this year’s ski trip, I went down a blue hill that was narrow and steep. Mid-way down the slope, I braced for a hard fall as I lost control and wobbled on my skis. In my mind I kept saying, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I knew it was going to hurt. Yard sale, here we come!

But then, just as I thought I was going to fall, I caught myself and regained balanced. I was safe.

When I got to the bottom of the run, my legs were still shaking from nerves.

“Oh shit” moments happen when you go past your comfort zone, when you do something that may, or may not go well, but based on your skill level you should be able to successfully complete and live to tell about.

Trying something that is too far beyond your skill level brings you into the danger zone because either you will get seriously physically hurt or mentally/emotional over whelmed with the difficulty of the task that it becomes depressing. In skiing, this would be like me trying a double black diamond slope.

If it were a video game and I just completed Level 1, replaying Level 1 would be my comfort zone, playing Level 2, 3, or 4 would be my growth zone, and anything past Level 4 would be my Danager Zone. If life were a video game, no one would think about sitting around in Level 1, but so many do.

Too few people push themselves into “oh shit” growth moments because it’s a lot easier to not. But growth, and thus life, happens during the “oh shit.”

My wife continues to dominate the print media with yet another article about her job as a Ghost Twitterer. Her last media cameo was in Wired Magazine. This time it’s for a Swiss newspaper with a full page headshot! (full image)

On the grand scheme of things, I’m very much a marriage newbie as I know couples who’ve been together for 30, 40, and even 50 years! But like everything in my life, I love learning, getting better, and then helping others to do the same. Marriage is no different.

An interesting self-reflection, and probably shared by many male minds, is my desire to fix what I can see is broken. If a chair screw is loose, I want to tighten it. If a bulb is out, I want to change it. If a gas tank is empty, I want to fill it up. It’s easy to fix what I can see. But what about the things I can’t see? Intangible things are harder to fix because they are harder to identity as broken or not.

Love and marriage, in their entirety, are intangible things. Beyond the tactical actions of love and marriage, there is no physical gas tank to know if things are getting better or worse, and since my mind likes to work with tangible objects, one trick I’ve created is called “The Love Plant.”

A house plant that hasn’t been watered in a week will probably die. But if you give it water on a regular basis, it will continue to be healthy and grow. The same is true for love and marriage. Both need to be watered to be healthy and grow. So I now have a virtual plant in my mind that represents my relationship with ACbert. Every day I check in with my Love Plant to see if I’ve taken the time to water it or not.

By turning an intangible into a tangible, I find myself taking the extra moment to write her a note in the morning with her tea and in those little moments our marriage continues to grow and be healthy.

Without a doubt, ACbert and I have the perpetual travel bug. I suspect she has the bug more than me because she enjoys all the planning leading up to the actual trip. Much of the fun for her is in discovering the perfect location at the perfect price. I just like the trip.

Our trips, however, aren’t how most people travel. Instead of a vacation, we call it a relocation. Instead of seven to ten days of solid vacation where we say goodbye, unplug, and turn on our email vacation auto-responders, we bring our laptops, only rent places that include internet, stay much longer, and continue to do work as usual, except our “office” view is much different and breaks/evenings/weekends are filled with adventure. Even little things like buying cereal are new and exciting if you are in a different country. You’d be surprised how remote you can get and still get internet. While in the past we’ve done an eight month relocation, the last two trips were a month each and that feels about right.

One of our life themes (kinda like goals but more a way of living verses an end point) is what we call The 3-2-1 Traveling Plan. What it means is that every year we do three extended weekend trips, two week trips, and one month relocation.

We’ve already started 2012 off strong with our January relocation to Utila, Honduras and an extended weekend trip to Vermont to ski with friends and another extended weekend trip with friends in the works.

So now back to Utila. It’s a tiny island off the coast of Honduras. Roatan is its bigger brother and where most people who come to the area go. We went one step further by riding on Captain Vern’s catamaran to and from Utila. The island is only seven miles long but has some of the world’s best diving and snorkeling. We spent the majority of our time about two miles outside of “town” in a tiny 250 square foot hut with 280 degree ocean views, and sounds, waking us up and putting us to sleep. We had more adventures than I have time to write about, so instead, below is a list of our highlights. If one sticks out to you, next time we see each other, ask and I’ll share.

• Taca Airlines Breakfast Service
• Seat Upgrades?
• 2 Hour Wait for Captain Vern
• Expat Robert Johnson (sand flies, cocaine, and toothless)
• Captain Vern’s ‘Front Row’ Seat
• A Whale!
• NYC Cable TV?!?
• Bogart The Cat
• R.J.’s Bar & Grill
• Booze Hound R.J.
• Another Rumanade Please
• The Locals
• Kid Golf Cart Drivers
• Caskets And A Dental Check Up
• Doh! Forgot the Kindle Cable
• Cheap Beer is Cheap Beer
• Imperial Wins Best In Show
• The Island Costco Run
• Country Music Shopping
• The Wednesday’s Boat
• Avocado Everything
• The Bootleg Library
• Island Mas
• Island Annie
• Mary Lee’s Tuk Tuk
• Morning Sunrise
• Bed By 9, Up By 6
• The Bug Infestation (Chuckie)
• “Are we over 500 Lemperia?”
• Eastwood the Eagle Ray
• Paloopa The Dog
• “Paloopa, Don’t Eat My Throw Up!”
• Paloopa Walking To Town
• Sally? Her Name Is Sally?
• $150,000 For All Tradewinds
• Plastic Washed-up Everywhere
• Cocktails On The Palapa
• Icabad, Ebob, Half-Tail, and Petey The Iguanas
• Jingle –> “Annie Colbert Expert Iguana Spotters”
• Tom’s Wealth Of Iguana Knowledge
• Land Crabs
• The Broken Sandal Walk
• Our Electronic Hiding Places
• The Moving Ghost Chairs
• Random Power Outages
• Joshua’s Camera
• Island Time
• Gill the Gecko
• Gecko Poop
• La Hucho Gang
• Bat Swram
• Instagram it!
• The Electrical Shower Handle
• Hopeful Hitchhikers
• Me Casa, Su Casa (Private Property)
• Too Many Drinks At El Picante (John)
• NPR Is Sponsored By The New School and Porgy and Bess
• Toasted Tortilla Shells
• Finally Natural Peanut Butter!
• The Biggest Chip Bag Ever
• Sh*t Mas Says
• Sh*t Annie Says
• Millie The Macaw
• “Is The Water Calm Today?”
• Butterball Turkeys
• Baby Crabs On The Curb Scramble
• The Water Shortage
• Where The Heck Is Coral View!
• The Secret of Coral View
• Societal Division At The Public Beach
• Hammock Work Day
• Oatmeal Mask
• “I Just Got Stung 3 Times, One In The Lip.”
• Roundtrip Private Island Snorkel #Fail
• The Pelicans Are Taunting You
• “Banana Spiders Are Harmless.”
• Jellyfish Killed My Wife
• Haircut On The Palapa
• Plata, The Local Rum ($2 Liters)
• Our Prisoner Passenger
• Let’s Play, Where’s The Shotgun?
• Stained White Diving Shirt
• “Can Glen Adopt Me?”
• “Now That We’re Heading Home…”(Cockroach & Spider)
• Bu-Bye Utila, Hu-Low 200 Student Leaders (Pace University)

ACbert and I are now 26 days into our month long “relocation” in Utila, Honduras, and I thought it appropriate to share another edition (here’s Part 1) of the joyful oddities of this island paradise.

1) Country Music Serenade

The main grocery store in town is owned and operated by locals, but don’t expect to find any local music playing while shopping. Instead they will serenade your ears with classic recordings of country greats like “Waltz Across Texas” by Ernest Tubb and “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” by Waylon Jennings.

2) Cornflakes Meatballs

When I think of all the wonderful ways to consume cornflakes, meatballs and salmon loaf might be somewhere near the never part of my list. But FANS doesn’t think so, so they printed the recipes right on their box. Between Part 1 and Part 2, you’d think I was hating on FANS, but turns out they are a modern company and even have their own website.

3)  Cruising The Strip in a Pimped-out Golf Cart

Utila has one main road with zero traffic signs and no legal driving age. Couple that with the fact that people own Golf Carts to get around and you now know what most of the kids in town do for fun. They cruise the strip in their pimped-out golf carts. Ok, their carts aren’t pimped out, but ACbert and I would love to bring the pictured cart above to Utila and cruise the strip in style…

4) Paloopa our Friend

She’s (actually might be a hermaphrodite) covered in ticks, will bite your feet, go crazy after touching salt water, and might have a mild case of rabies, but if you can get past all that, she’s extremely cute and loving. She comes to check on us 2-3 times a day…every day. She just wants love. This picture is the only time during the whole trip she wasn’t moving so fast that we couldn’t snap a picture! We named her Paloopa on our own because we didn’t know her real name, but yesterday, I met her owner (an expat) and found out her real name is…drum roll…Sally :-/.

5) Avocado Heaven

If I could inject a steady stream of only two food items into my body to live off of, it would be peanut butter and avocados. I love avocados, but in NY they are, at best, $2 per avocado. In avocado heaven, also known as Utila, Honduras, they are just under .50cents for each perfectly rip creamy avocado! You better believe we’ve been figuring out ways to incorporate avocado into every meal.

Those who know my wife, know she has a ridiculously amazing writing ability. Just peruse through her Twitter feed and you’ll see what I mean. Her mind is like wikipedia and her pen is like David Sedaris. She can pull out references to just about anything and make it funny. This is why she not only has a collection of online adoring fans, but has also landed her a two page interview in the December Wired print magazine. Though not her first brush with the media (here, here), it’s for sure her biggest. You can’t buy the magazine off-the-rack any more, but if you have a copy, turn to page 94, and you’ll see my lovely, and talented, wife talking about her life as a Ghost Twitterer. Here’s the opening line…

“Think your favorite celebrity posts awfully clever tweets? They’re probably written by Annie Colbert”

ACbert and I are now 17 days into our month long “relocation” in Utila, Honduras, and I thought it appropriate to start sharing some of the joyful oddities we’re discovering.

1) Do You Have a Costco Membership?

Once a week (Wednesdays) a boat arrives on the island filled with supplies from the main land that then populates the various store shelves. The funny thing is that most of the product sent over is Costco brand. On Wikipedia it shows the closest Costco locations are in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Florida. I can only image someone going to Costco to buy produce for an entire island of people. That’s one huge shopping cart.

2) 1976 Cornflakes

By looking at the box, you’d think it was made in the 1970′s, but this box is indeed a current box that is good to eat. The manufacturers must have just decided it wasn’t worth their time to update the design because, after all, the best designs happened in the 70s, right?

3) The Bootlegged Library

Believe it our not, our tiny little island has a library with books and DVDs you can rent out. The selection of DVDs is actually rather large and fairly current too. But you’ll notice, by the picture, that 90% of the DVDs are bootlegged copies. If your conscious can handle that, then this is a great resource to kill some nights at home.

4) What’s better than Rum? Cola Rum!

I don’t drink pop (soda for my east coast friends), but if you trick me by putting a little rum in there, I’m sold. Yes, that is a straw coming out the top that I drank it with. Free Cuba!

Blogger James Altucher challenged his readers to create a list of the ten things that make you happy. Here’s my list…

1. Spending time with my wife
2. Spending time with my family
3. Building things people value
4. Building financial wealth
5. Spending time with friends
6. Reading (learning)
7. Traveling for pleasure
8. Being active (soccer, hiking, etc)
9. Daydreaming
10. Connecting with student leaders

Bonus list…

1. Writing my blog
2. Meditating
3. Networking

What would you put on your list?

In person time with my family is the best, but not always possible.