{"id":953,"date":"2014-02-24T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=953"},"modified":"2014-02-24T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T20:00:12","slug":"a-fathers-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/02\/24\/a-fathers-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"A father’s shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won<\/a> this year’s Daytona 500.<\/p>\n

My driver is Kasey Kahne (a choice I made by saying whoever won Rookie of the Year the first year I watched NASCAR would be my guy). It’s been a good choice (even though there have been some rough years), and while the Daytona 500 wasn’t good to him, I have a good feeling about this year… but I digress.<\/p>\n

Junior has the fortune\/misfortune<\/a> of being the son of the greatest (or maybe #2) stock car driver of all time. He’s ridden that to some great highs (twice winning the Busch series driving for his dad’s team), and some incredibly lows (two multiple year winless streaks that have haunted him). I think personally though that he’s handled it all well, and this win is I think the beginning of him coming out of his father’s shadow.<\/p>\n

The thing is, I really get what it’s like to be Junior.<\/p>\n

My dad started and sold<\/a> a company during the first bubble at first bubble valuations. My aunt got him a t-shirt that translated the price to Turkish lira, and given the ratio was $1:1mil TL at the time, it was a huge number.<\/p>\n

All I knew growing up was science and technology were going to open the doors for me to do the same thing. I never considered anything else except computer science\/electrical engineering as a profession. I loved economics, french, and the film class I used to sneak into with Jordan, but those were never going to be a profession. At most, they’d be a hobby.<\/p>\n

And there has been a really long lull where I felt like this was an awful choice. I would never find a way out of that shadow. And I don’t know that I’m out yet, but it’s really starting to feel like the possibility is there. And it’s really uplifting. And it’s really terrifying. But mainly, it’s exciting.<\/p>\n

It’s a long and lonely thing a father’s shadow. But the other side is a story of a journey well traveled, and a life well lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won this year’s Daytona 500. My driver is Kasey Kahne (a choice I made by saying whoever won Rookie of the Year the first year I watched NASCAR would be my guy). It’s been a good choice (even though there have been some rough years), and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[64,4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-fn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":255,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/02\/08\/another-bug-bites-the-dust\/","url_meta":{"origin":953,"position":0},"title":"Another bug bites the dust","date":"February 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been working on an interesting project lately that I hope to share with everyone soon. I keep running into the oddest of problems trying to get things going. It's almost as if just getting the whole thing started is the biggest challenge. After that... it's going to be a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1485,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/02\/26\/wont-the-sharing-economy-decouple-itself-from-the-marketplaces\/","url_meta":{"origin":953,"position":1},"title":"Won't the sharing economy decouple itself from the marketplaces?","date":"February 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When we first moved into the house, we had an one-off insurance policy to fix plumbing, appliances, roof, etc. I called them once, they sent over a fantastic plumber, and I never called them again. 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And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1767,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/11\/28\/moana-the-review-for-adults\/","url_meta":{"origin":953,"position":3},"title":"Moana - The review for adults","date":"November 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you haven't seen the new Disney film Moana, then turn away. There are spoilers in this post. Ok, I'm assuming that if you're still with me, that you're ok with knowing what happens in the movie, and jumping in on the conversation my brother and I had in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":140,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2009\/06\/14\/too-many-numbers-and-not-enough-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":953,"position":4},"title":"Too many numbers, and not enough people","date":"June 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I think that as we've moved away from oral histories and now stress what's written, what's wiki-ed, what's memorized, we've lost one of the simplest and most profound methods of improving ourselves and the communities in which we find ourselves. We've lost the ability to listen. One strong piece of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":555,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2012\/09\/09\/life-update-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":953,"position":5},"title":"Life update","date":"September 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't posted in quite a long while, and a lot has happened in my life since. High level overview, and then I'll get back on the bandwagon, and post more regularly. Luka was born My son Luka James Onvural was born on July 5. He's huge, and healthy, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}