Updated: June 1, 2025

Hey there –

It’s the end of the school year – finally summer time! When my kids mention this, I remind them, “…for some of us. Some of us keep working.” 🙂

Though I’m still working, summer brings a change of pace. I’ve been extremely busy at work for weeks, and that’s planned to continue for the next several weeks. But I can sleep in until 7:15am instead of 5:15am. The extra sleep the last few days has been a nice change.

📕Books I finished reading

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
★★★★☆
I didn’t know much (anything?) about President Theodore Roosevelt. This book was an interesting look at his life after his presidency. Spoiler, he didn’t just sit around writing his memoir. This is about his trip down a largely unexplored, unmapped tributary of the Amazon River. It’s a tough, tough trip… that almost kills him.

The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future by Ryder Carroll
★★★☆ ☆
I’ve always been a fan of the Bullet Journal method. I’ve not always used it – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever fully used the entire method – but I’ve always used bits and pieces. This book describes the Bullet Journal method, but also goes into more detail on Ryder’s philosophy and thought process on goals, work, and productivity.

🎸Music I’ve been listening to

Skeletá by Ghost
Well, it’s not great… but it’s not terrible. I became a fan of Ghost last year – for a while they were a breath of fresh air. It was nice to hear some new rock music. But on this album, that fresh air might be getting a little stale now. I’m still listening to it.

📃Articles I thought were worth reading

High Agency In 30 Minutes by George Mack
I printed this out and went through it with a highlighter. That’s not something I usually do… but I’ve thought about this article several times since I read it. In fact, I can even say it’s helped me make progress on some of my big, important projects at work. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t naturally have high agency, you can always ask “What would I do if I had 10x the agency?”

🎧Podcast episodes I thought were interesting

Outliers: Rose Blumkin — Women of Berkshire Hathaway, The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish
I live in Omaha, so it’s always fun to hear about local people. I don’t love shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart, but I did like listening to it’s origins and how tough of a person Rose Blumkin was. I also was interested to hear about her interactions with Warren Buffett, another Omaha legend.

Asking a Billionaire Investor How to Turn $10,000 into $1M ft. Mohnish Pabrai, My First Million
Speaking of Warren Buffett, a lot of people have studied him… but not like Mohnish Pabrai. He is an Indian investor who has studied and studied Warren Buffett. Both Buffett and Pabrai make investing sound so easy… maybe it is?

🎥Videos I thought were worth watching

1994: Today Show: “What is the Internet, Anyway?”, Chrissy Miklacic
This is funny, but also interesting. Now 31 years after this aired, it’s hard to imagine a time when people didn’t know what internet was. Although, I’m not sure the average person can still describe it.

🎬 My recently published YouTube videos

First Look at TickTick’s new Countdown feature! – TickTick has a new feature called Countdown that’s currently available on the beta version of their app. In this video we take a look at Countdown as well as discuss how to get to the beta version of the web app so you can check out the feature as well. Countdown lets you create a countdown to a certain day, birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.

🖋 Quote I’ve been thinking about

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”

– (attributed to) Albert Einstein