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)