A Few Things
Current location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Reading: Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse
Listening: get him back! by Olivia Rodrigo(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status via email or in the comments)
A Few Things
It’s a somewhat frazzled week for me, so here are some thoughts and updates in list form:
This week’s video will be a live YouTube stream, tomorrow (Thursday) at 6pm US Central time (CT). It’ll be a “Let’s Talk About The News”-themed stream, so please stop by and say hello, ask questions about things happening in the news, and hear about what’s been on my mind in that regard. Here’s where you can join in on that (or you can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified).
I’ve moved Let’s Know Things from an external podcast host to Substack, which’ll allow me to do some fun new things with the show. This has been quite the process, and I’ll be doing the same with Understandary subscriptions/podcasts, soon—all of which will be GREAT when it’s done, but all of which is a real pain and stressor right now, mid-transition. You can subscribe to that (and become a paid supporter if you’d like) here.
I’m visiting family in Seattle next week, and my publishing schedule will remain intact throughout, though One Sentence News will feature pre-scheduled visual emails for the duration (similar to what paid supporters receive as a bonus on Saturdays), and there won’t be OSN podcast episodes while I’m there. Sorry about that! But I hope you enjoy the visuals/commentary if you’re a subscriber, and thanks for understanding that I’m keen to focus on family time while away (and OSN is the one publication I can’t do beforehand in its usual format) :)
I’m soft-launching something I’ve long wanted to try: folks ask me all the time if I do consultations, mentoring, that sort of thing, and while I’ve done such calls on a one-off, freelance basis over the years, I’ve never had a formal setup for making them available more consistently and casually. I’ve now set up a system where you can choose a date and time that works best for you (15-, 30-, and 60-minute call options are currently available), and as a sort of promo for that (and a means of bringing in more long-term supporters to help keep my projects ad-free), if you become a yearly paid supporter for any of my projects, you can book a 30-minute call as a freebie. And during that call we can discuss something you’re working on, talk about establishing a you-shaped lifestyle, discuss what’s happening in the world, or whatever else you’d like to cover (it can be super-businessy or super-casual). Here’s a link to my call-booking setup if you’d like to do that, and if you’d like to take advantage of that promo, become a yearly supporter of this newsletter, Aspiring Generalist, Brain Lenses, Climate Happenings, Let’s Know Things, Never Not Curious, One Sentence News, or You Probably Don’t Need—just send me an email after you do so, and I’ll send you a link to schedule your call.
Okay! That’s a lot, and apologies for the deviation from my usual format, but again: it’s been quite a week (and the rest of the year is looking to be pretty jam-packed, too (which I guess is better than the alternative?)).
Also: It’s that wonderful time of year where it’s cold enough that I can keep the windows open all day without dying of heat and humidity, but it’s not yet cold enough that all the plants are dead, so all those natural air currents are filling my home with essence of ragweed and other allergy-inducing detritus, resulting in near-constant congestion and itchy eyes.
Despite those downsides, though, I’m enjoying the air-flow and slowly recovering from all the AC-usage: apartment buildings in Wisconsin are built to keep heat in, and that can be devastating on especially hot summer days (and weeks, and months), and it’s been just really nice not having that constant hum in the background of my life, and that artificially cooled air filling my space (even though that cooling is what made this space livable for the past several months).
Interesting & Useful
This is a great concept: a curated collection of the first lines of books, meant to help you choose something to read without having to worry over all the other details that might otherwise influence your decision.
A fun website that converts the time of day when you visit it (10:40am, for instance) into a year (1040 CE, for instance) and tells you something that happened that year in history.
How the Best Underwater Photography Reveals a World of Wonder
“Plunging into chilly waters isn’t the only thing that makes capturing these aquatic animals difficult. U.K.-based photographer James Lynott had to swim at night with a water-resistant LED blue light and a heavy underwater camera to find and photograph a glow-in-the-dark lizardfish. In Indonesia’s northern Lembeh Strait, photographer Katarzyna Battenfeld carefully searched for a colorful Coleman’s shrimp scurrying around the venomous fire urchins that the crustaceans call home. As Battenfeld put it, “there is a lot of luck involved.””
Outro
How’re things in your neck of the woods? Drop me a quick note and tell me how you’ve been. Reply directly to this newsletter or send an email to colin@exilelifestyle.com—I respond to every message I receive!
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