Chris Brooks Newsletter 028
Greetings from western NY, where I'm excited to be reunited with our grandson Rory later today. We've shifted from very hot and humid to the rainy aftermath of Debby.
We closed on our new Napa home on August 1. I'm flying out in about 10 days to take possession and get some projects started there.
1. 🚘 Where I've been traveling
I made a short trip to Erie PA for an in-person session with Erik, my online golf coach. I try to get there once a year, lately to use his GEARS system. With the van I made it an overnight, staying at Big Inlet Brewing (Harvest Host) and playing 18 at Chautauqua Golf Club (Hill Course). The golf instruction was great but much work to do in order to translate onto the course.
2. 📖 What I've been reading
Articles:
Julie shared this NY Times article about the town of Gouda sinking into the sea. I have no doubts that the Dutch master hydro engineers will science their way out of this.
This is a great environmental impact analysis on Chernobyl. The analysis is almost certainly not what you'd expect: it explores the negative impacts of the slowdown in new power plant production and excessive regulation.
Books:
Motherless Brooklyn was a great read. Julie is reading now and we look forward to watching the film.
3. 🍿 What I've been watching
TV Shows:
All Olympics, all the time these days. With our revolving door of guests Julie and I aren't doing any TV show watching these days.
Movies :
Nada
YouTube:
I think Hundreds of Beavers is likely to be a better movie than Cocaine Bear.
I can vouch that America still sounds good live. How cool would it have been to hear Ventura Highway live back in 1972? Still hoping to see alligator lizards in the air someday. I'm probably not on the right meds.
4. 🎶 What I've been listening to
Podcasts:
More music as World Cafe chatted with Portland homie Colin Meloy on the new Decemberists album.
There are two services and communities that Julie and I treasure for our van adventures: Harvest Hosts and Escapees. Well, Harvest Hosts just bought the Escapees member community. This is a good podcast about the deal. We rely heavily on the Escapees mail service, which was not part of this deal.
Music:
I've been revisiting the back catalog of Indigo Girls in anticipation of a concert later this month.
5. 🎮 What I've been playing
Plenty of (mostly lighter) boardgames with our visitors:
6. My compulsion
Every once in a while I run into a new organizational system, tool, or philosophy that overwhelms me for a few weeks. My last foray was when I went all-in on Obsidian and the PARA Method. Obsidian continues to be the best software tool I've ever used, but PARA was beginning to show some weakness. It didn't help that I overlayed Nick Milo's Linking Your Thinking structure on top of it.
A few weeks ago son Jacob sent me this article on how a fellow hacker and writer uses Obsidian. I noticed his use of the Johnny Decimal System, which I had encountered before but never really dug into. The timing was good for this deep dive because they were just about to release their "Life Admin" quick start pack, a pre-packaged implementation instance focused on applying Johnny Decimal to the stuff we all have to manage as functioning adults. So I purchased this and their workbook for a whopping $30 and have been consumed with a total re-org of my digital life.
It feels good!
Even if I'm not in a better place organizationally (I think for sure that I am), the process of touching my library of notes, folder structure, backups, and so on has been worthwhile.
See you next month, when I'll share final updates before we take off for five weeks in Africa.
-Chris