The first person I ever smoked pot with was my dad. We were fishing in Florida with two of my mom’s brothers (aka: “my druncles”). I was 17, I think.

Also, my mom reads this email so I’m sure she’s more appalled by that revelation than you are.

My dad was the best man in my wedding, which I’ve told you before. He taught me honor, generosity, loyalty – and a twisted sense of humor. We golfed together, played poker, pool, and fantasy football, hunted, fished, cooked, traveled, cheered for the Steelers, bitched about the Steelers, and elbowed each other in the side whenever a beautiful woman walked by.

He died 53 months ago and I still reach for my phone to call him nearly every day.

It kind of happened out of nowhere. We went to the bar together a few days before and he was right as rain. Top of his game. Then, boom.

I would do anything to have another year with him, but I know he would’ve rather cashed out then – at a healthy 74 – than have someone wipe his ass or remind him who my sister is. I get it. Let me drop dead at a full-faculty 82 and I’ll sign up right now. Guaranteed.

So, I don’t grieve. Because I know he wouldn’t want me to. And because he prepared me for life without him. And because I believe I’ll see him again.

We were as close as any father and son have ever been. So much that I prayed for a boy of my own – which is why God gave me two daughters. Because I could never replicate what I had with my dad. And I would have been a fool for trying.

But I’m working hard to be that close with my girls. I haven’t smoked pot with them obviously. It’ll be legal everywhere by the time they’re 18 anyway, which takes all the fun out of it.

We’re close in other ways. Noelle shares my love of cooking and action movies; Maddie, music.

I’m teaching them confidence, joie de vivre – and a twisted sense of humor. Tara is teaching them self-reliance and impeccable taste in life partners.

Hopefully they learn humility from their coaches and teachers.

And hopefully they’ll think half as fondly of me one day as I do of my parents.

Here’s what we’re seeing this week:

Consumer confidence continued its upward swing, if subtly, over the past two weeks.Buoyed by a particularly strong finish to the reporting period (March 2-6), our Economic Sentiment Index rallied into positive figures for the third straight reading. The big push comes from consumers who feel good about the environment for major purchases like homes and cars, which typically bodes well for secondary expenses like home improvement projects, major appliances, and even vacations. One thing to note, however: Look at the little downward tail on the blue line below. Maybe people shouldn’t have been so surprised by the sour jobs report yesterday.

https://hps-civicscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Mar-5-ESI-Image-Two.png

When it comes to car insurance, cost matters most – until privacy gets in the way. This studytaught me a lot about the auto insurance category and it was more interesting than I would’ve expected. If you’ve ever wondered why State Farm, Progressive, and GEICO buy seemingly every other commercial on TV, it’s because 90% of Americans need their services. The majority of those people don’t care about the reputation of the company they choose or even the coverage (until they get older). Price is king – to a point. Only 14% of drivers are willing to let insurance companies track their driving habits in return for lower rates. That’s down from 18% in 2017.

Holy shit, we’re fat. Take a look at the eye-catching chart below from a survey of over 67,000 U.S. adults. I’ll do the math for you: 87% of Americans think they’re overweight. 87%! One in five think they’re 50lbs+ overweight. We’re doing a deep study on this (which I’ll of course share with you) but the correlations are endless. First, the more overweight someone believes they are, the more likely they are to be female – which says more about body image than actual weight. Ugh. Other high correlations? Parenthood, rural-ness, income (of course), race, social media usage, and basically everything else you can think of. Oh, and the results were way different before Christmas than they are now. Stay tuned. We’re going to do a lot with this.

To say that a majority of Americans believe Netflix movies should be eligible for Oscars is the understatement of the century. After Steven Spielberg told Netflix to get off his lawn last weekend, we quickly ran a question through our system to confirm what anyone who knows how to open a web browser already understands. The world has changed. 77% of U.S. adults believe Netflix and other made-for-streaming movies should be eligible for Academy Awards. 23% disagree. That’s 3-to-1. In today’s divided America, that almost never happens.

Lyft still has a long haul before they catch Uber, but there are reasons to think they can.After Lyft filed for their IPO last week, our team of analysts plowed through a bunch of our data andfound some pretty fascinating things. Not surprisingly, Uber is still much more popular, with 53% of consumers preferring them over Lyft (22%). The future, though, might be more promising for Lyft. For one, over half of Lyft fans are Millennials. Second, and somewhat related, Lyft riders are much more comfortable with the idea of self-driving vehicles, which is the long-term bet everyone in the transportation industry is making.

Here are some of our most popular questions of the past few weeks:   

Hoping you’re well.

JD