About.

Being put in a basement.

A '62 walnut credenza, designed by someone who spent years understanding form, symmetry, and functionality. A lifetime of craftsmanship left in the basement corner, filled with disintegrating magazines and knick-knacks, collecting dust and moisture. But culture moved on; fashions changed; people stopped respecting its deliberate design, meaning, and impact, even though it still did its job well. A bygone era from when things were made to last.

In a throwaway society, handiwork and artistry go underappreciated.

Such attitudes are fading, thankfully. People are recognizing self-assembled furniture and fast fashion have limits and consequences. It's hard to cherish products built to never be moved or designed for obsolescence the moment they leave the store.

As AI slop, over-promised technology, and mass-marketed, outsourced knock-offs run rampant, it's causing me to rethink what has lasting value. I know it's not just me thinking this. You're thinking it too, right?

What matters? I mean, really matters.

For me, I'm craving legacy and meaning. Community and analog conversations. Crisp air and oxygen. I think that's what's drawing me back to Ketchum. It's the last place I remember feeling comfortable, relaxed, and authentically me.

When I consider that, it's clear my last thirty years have blipped by. I co-founded UserVoice — you've used the feedback tab on websites, even if you didn't know I made it. I built Addvocate. I ran product marketing for small businesses and global social at Salesforce.

I pushed and pushed, thinking it'll all make sense one day. Until it didn't.

Ten years ago, I found myself a single father. Three kids — my daughter was 16, my son was 14, and our tequila surprise was only 4 years old. I felt I needed to step away from corporate life and focus on them; it was the right thing to do. I figured I would consult, stay close to the tech scene, career suicide be damned.

And for the most part, it worked. Again, until it didn't. The industry doesn't hold the door open for you while you're gone.

As my parenting responsibilities subsided, I tried to return to what had brought me success in the past. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley politely lets you know you're done. Nothing said directly, but you notice the meetings get rarer. Roles get narrower. You watch companies you helped build substitute your years with AI, and they call it progress.

As a product storyteller, witnessing an industry I dedicated my life to decide it no longer needs my kind is certainly a little sad, but not unexpected.

I am the credenza.

As I write this, I'm in New Zealand. My Scottish lineage took a turn south at one point, so I've come here to claim my dual citizenship and enroll my youngest — he's fourteen now — in boarding school. The same halls his great-grandfather and nearly a dozen other family members wandered.

I've taken these last seven months off to stop. To breathe. Have a think. To figure out what comes next when what came before no longer welcomes you. It's a heavy thing.

So here I am, experiencing this Kiwi DNA, this history filling my time. Cuzzies have told me stories about my mother, eccentric even back then; my Nana Joy, who loved flowers and mastered the homestead; and my Papa George, who played the piano by ear, innovated in his sheep farming, and rebuilt his bridge connecting the paddocks every few years as flash floods carried it away.

I've also dug into my MacDougall legacy, tracing back to the House of Somerled — Norse-Gaelic Sea Kings who conquered Vikings, claimed Argyll, Kintyre, and Lorne, and became Lords of the Isles. His son Dougall inherited Lorne. That's where the name comes from.

Hence the "McDougal" of my middle name… Mom's maiden.

The more I researched, the more I marveled. Why isn't this Somerled guy and his vast Scottish Clan lineage an epic AppleTV series? MacDougall. MacDonald. MacRory. MacAlister. MacInnes. And the list goes on.

Anyway. Birthed from all of this research was this:

Lords of Lorne.

Not a pivot. Not a lifestyle or a retirement project — maybe more of a mid-life crisis. I dunno. Stay tuned, I guess.

I've always loved mid-century design. Couches, tanker desks, chrome-covered Formica-topped dining sets, a mahogany-walled home in the hills of El Cerrito — it's a through line I can't ignore. It's also that "one day I'll..." idea that hasn't gone away with time.

“One day” has become today.

I actually want to build — with my hands, in a town I loved in my twenties when I was pirating software I couldn't afford, washing windows, fixing sprinklers, waxing floors, and teaching myself to code, before J.Crew put me in a catalog and career pursuits took me somewhere else entirely.

I wanna honor the artist's hand, finding the furniture that's been set aside, forgotten, underestimated. Beauty from ashes. These pieces still have life to offer. Joy. Meaning. Utility. Just like you. Just like me.

That's my pitch. And my promise.

I'll document every piece with the same obsessive attention to provenance that I brought to narrative and product design — because the story is as important as the object itself. I learned that working for a record label in 1993, and I haven't stopped believing it.

Every piece — we call them Subjects — that comes through my hands will get the love, the attention, an embedded brass crest, a hand-sewn tartan pocket, and a metal collector's card, engraved with the Subject's history, that travels with it forever. A chain of custody. A record that says: this mattered, this was cared for, this is worth knowing.

I'm building the thing I wish someone had built for me, and I hope you will love it as much as I do. Or maybe even more.

Thank you for believing too.