Friday Inspiration 451



Friday Inspiration 451

This video is probably not for everyone, but if you like Oreos, it will be very ... informative. (video)

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.

--

Semi-Rad

Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.

Read more from Semi-Rad
thumbnail from i couldn't say no

Friday Inspiration 541 This video was my first experience watching Rainbolt (who has 1.1 million followers so I guess I live under a rock) and it was oddly compelling to following him as he tracked down the location of this photo that someone sent him of their recently passed mother several decades ago. Was it Yemen or Greece? (video) Someone re-posted this old clip on social media somewhere, and I got sucked in and watched Norm MacDonald (RIP) tell this joke to Conan O’Brien back in 2009 and...

thumbnail from The Keeper

Friday Inspiration 540 My favorite part about this beekeeper who works in NYC (!) and is allergic to bees (!) was actually the quote (which might only make sense if you watch the 3-ish minutes leading up to it: "These are our little boxes. Do what you can to make it a nice box." (video) I don’t know if I have the words to describe how powerful Come See Me in the Good Light was for me, but I thought it was a masterpiece of documentary film work, and Andrea Gibson was a truly unique person who...

at the dump

We Go To The Dump Seagulls, my brain announced, as I stared out the window of my little old Toyota pickup, waiting behind another truck at the entrance to the dump. Seagulls, at the dump? I asked myself, and then when the truck in front of me moved, I pulled ahead to check in with the lady at the entrance building. At the drive-up window, they weigh your vehicle, and you have to tell them what you have in your truck. This time, it was some old plywood, some chunks of foamboard insulation,...