January 2024

👋 Hey there

Updated: January 1, 2024

📕 Books I finished reading

  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – This was my first audio book.  I’ve always considered audio books cheating, but now that Spotify offers some free with Premium I thought I might as well take advantage.  I’ve read The Great Gatsby before and didn’t get much out of it.  I enjoyed listening to the audio book and probably got slightly more out of it this time.  I’m still not sure I really enjoyed the story, but I liked listening to the audio book.
  • The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell – I was caught off guard by this one.  I had written it down as another George Orwell book to read, but after I got to the second chapter I realized I wasn’t reading a dystopian novel — instead this was a non-fiction book.  It’s two parts where the first part he spends researching the working poor – he lives and works with coal miners, etc.  The second part he tries to make a case for socialism.

🎸 Music I’ve been listening to

  • After Me, Kashus Culpepper – I like finding good artists before they’re popular.  This song is poetry… sad and vivid.  After listening to this song, I searched for more music by Kashus Culpeper… but it’s unavailable.  He’s not on Spotify or any other music service yet, but I’ll be watching for it!

🎥 Videos I thought were worth watching

  • The Handi Desk – This guy shows a way of journaling where he uses a device that he invented called the Handi Desk.  The device is not that cool, to be honest… but this video did give me the idea to start journaling with a Binder.  I like the ideas of being able to re-organize the journal… so it doesn’t have to be chronological, if you don’t want it to be.  Also, the ability to write a single sheet of paper, and not have a stack of papers (the rest of the notebook) under your hand while you try to write.  So I bought a binder and also one of the date stamps that Austin Kleon recommended.  I’m ready to journal in 2024!

Quote I’ve been thinking about



“There is no knowledge that is not power”

– Mortal Kombat 3 (also Ralph Waldo Emerson)