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ANNOUNCEMENT: There’s a longer story about this on the DFTBA store page, but we are putting my “Periodic Table of the Elements of Adventure” on a LIMITED EDITION Nalgene bottle. You can order one from right now until midnight Mountain Time on April 5th (next Friday), and that’s it. Order now or live a life of regret. (Here’s a short video of the whole bottle so you can see the whole design)
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If you own more than one mug, and you click on one thing in this list today, let it be this brilliant piece about the worst mug in your cupboard. I was going to include a quote from it, but I couldn’t decide on one. And for the record, my current favorite mug in our cupboard is actually Hilary’s, and the worst mug in the cupboard is probably one I brought to the relationship.
I love many things about this story, including but not limited to the fact that it’s about the guy who picks up dog poop on our local trail up Mt. Jumbo here in Missoula and leaves passive-aggressive (or maybe just aggressive?) notes for people calling them out, but also that it’s 6,000-plus words, which, given the average reader’s attention span nowadays, is really going for it when you’re writing a story about a guy who picks up dog poop on a trail in a town of 75,000 people. To be fair, there’s a lot there.
Payson High School, where Footloose was filmed in 1983, is scheduled to be demolished after the end of the 2023-3024 school year. Students wanted Kevin Bacon to come back to the high school for prom, and he told them he would, via a video call into a school assembly (that was broadcast on the Today Show).
Sure, this is a map of the internet in 1973, but how does it make you feel? Because I have feelings about it. Like nostalgia, but not?
This is a super-fun idea, and I think needed for a lot of people who enjoy creating things: A free (or pay what you want) zine, How to Keep Your Hobby From Becoming A Job.
This short blurb of a blog post is kind of all over the place, references a Slate article from 2014, and also the Emily Dickinson poem “That Love is all there is,” all to say: We’ve only been roasting vegetables since 1980? How is this invention younger than I am?
[RELATED: I have made this Brussels Sprouts Roasted with Kimchi and Scallions recipe at least 15 times since I found it in November 2022, and I can all but guarantee it help you win friends and influence people]
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Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.
Friday Inspiration 514 I was not prepared to learn so much about the human body when I started watching this new-to-me video about why kids don’t get cold as easily as adults do. But if you have five minutes to watch this, prepare to be armed with several pieces of information that will make you sound really smart. (video) I linked to this series in December 2024, and totally forgot about it until the emails for this year's series started popping up in my inbox again this December. There are...
The Greatest Gift Of All (?) Every year, whenever the process of trying to find the perfect holiday gift for *everyone* at the exact same time hits its crescendo, I tell myself: One of these years, I’m just gonna do what Jeff Harris does. Every December for about a decade now, a Priority Mail Flat Rate box has arrived at my house, weighing approximately four and a half pounds. I open it, and if I don’t already have some softened butter, I grab a stick out of the refrigerator and command it to...
Friday Inspiration 513 An update from me as we enter the final weeks of 2025: As you may already know, this newsletter is supported financially by my friend Don. And Brian. And Julie, Scott, Kim, Travis, Adam, Charlotte, Zachary, and a bunch of other people who kick in a few dollars a month on my Patreon or through paid Substack subscriptions. I am grateful and privileged to be able to create the things I create for a living, and it’s because of the support of those people that I’m able to...