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I’m writing this on Thursday afternoon, and by the time you read it, the Chicago White Sox may have broken the record for most games ever lost in a Major League Baseball season. I’ve been a little interested in this for a few weeks now, not out of schadenfreude, but because people are writing about “losing” in really thoughtful ways, like in this piece. (gift link)
I don’t know if this is inspiring, but it’s really interesting if you are a little bit of a geography nerd: Mount Rainier’s highest point isn’t the highest point anymore, according to new GPS evidence.
I follow the Photoshop Request subreddit, and it seems to be mostly people earnestly asking for help: Please remove this person from the background of the last photo we have of my dad, so we can use it at his funeral, Please edit this photo of me so I can use it for a LinkedIn profile photo, stuff like that. But every once in a while, someone asks for something like this, and I really appreciate the title for this particular one: Please put my son in a terribly dangerous situation
The Pudding put together a web page of every one of the 59,705 outdoor basketball court in the United States, and I’m not saying you’re going to spend an hour on this, but if you spend a few minutes on it, you can at least marvel a little bit at how big of a deal it is.
I’m sure every parent has warned a child about sticking things up their nose, and I don’t know if this is a worst-case scenario or a best-case scenario, but here’s the headline: “LEGO piece found in 32-year-old’s nose after decades”
I love Seth Werkheiser’s whole approach to telling us we can make art instead of making stuff for social media, but this newest story on his Social Media Escape Club Substack really hits home—it’s about his dad, and his dad’s music, and a neighbor who maybe wouldn’t have called himself a “fan,” but … anyway, it’s worth your time.
We are almost 75 percent through 2024, and it reminds me that I should mention this: If you’re on Strava and you like to go uphill, I created a club called 100 Grand. I made it in 2023 to give people a fun incentive that wasn’t based on how fast you can go or how many miles you cover—basically, if you climb 100,000 vertical feet this year, I’ll send you a sticker at the end of 2024 (and if you climb 300,000 vertical feet, you get 3 stickers, and so on). There’s no sponsor or anything, I just thought it would be fun. Anyway, we all have about three months left to clock some more vert.
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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...