Thoughts and musings longer than notes.
We spent an afternoon at the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, in 2014 and it was delightful and amazing as you might expect. My favorite memory is the little girl in the picture above, so happy to feed the sparrows that gather in the courtyard. It will probably be a while before we know what…
Science Daily reports that just two servings a week of mushrooms can reduce the chance of cognitive decline in your senior years. The magic ingredient, found in all types of mushrooms that you’d find in the grocery store, is likely to be ergothioneine, an anti-inflammatory antioxidant that humans can’t synthesize. Low levels of ergothioneine have…
The orthopedist who diagnosed my osteoarthritis told me that he couldn’t recommend a physical therapy treatment because, in his experience, it was just as likely to make my condition worse. I got an opinion from a second orthopedist who didn’t have the same hesitation. This week two studies provide more evidence that vigorous exercise can…
I’ve never been very disciplined about tagging notes or documents. But as I’m working on improving my zettelkasten knowledge base I decided to give tagging another go. So I quickly came up with a list of logical keywords and added an octothorp (#) to make them into hashtags because…why not? Every major social media platform…
A recent study published by the European Society of Cardiology and cited by NBC News has people looking at toasted brie as if it might be the next fountain of youth. People are especially excited about this passage from the NBC report: “But most other dairy products, especially cheese and yogurt, were found to protect…
In my earlier post I mentioned that I recently took a personal productivity retreat, inspired by a podcast featuring Mike Schimitz. One of the things Mike talked about was organizing his time around a “12 week year.” This idea immediately clicked with me. A year is a timeframe that I use to view my accomplishments…
Last weekend I took some time away from my to-do list to contemplate a series of questions that had the potential to rock my world. I learned about the “Three Questions Spirit Quest” on a recent episode of the Free Agents podcast with David Sparks and Mike Schmitz. Mike shared how he periodically clears his…
When I think of architecture and urban design I think of people who are working together to create pleasing spaces that promote all kinds of social interaction. Tongva Park in Santa Monica is a fairly small piece of land that feels expansive because of the way its interconnected walkways hide and reveal new areas to…
I wrote this article on the 101 freeway during the morning rush hour. To be completely honest I did some light editing and added links afterwards, but the bulk of the material was drafted while I was behind the wheel. Before I go too far, there are some risks to multitasking while driving even when…
It’s easy to neglect your personal contacts on your Mac. For starters your phone is probably where you are most likely to reach out to people – make calls, write text messages, set appointments, even fire off an email. This is why I said in a previous post that it’s important to keep your iPhone’s…
I recently got into heated argument with Siri about whether or not I had entered an important contact’s phone number into my Contacts app – the native address book on the iPhone. It turned out that Siri was right (I hadn’t entered the number) but I couldn’t prove it to myself until I was off…
Inflammation is one of the key symptoms of osteoarthritis accompanying pain and joint degeneration. It would make sense, then, that an anti-inflammatory diet would help to relieve some of the pain and discomfort, and possibly slow some deterioration. The problem is that there is no clear evidence that an anti-inflammatory diet will relieve the symptoms…
If you like trees and love exploring, check out the site Monumental Trees. Here is an archive of some of the biggest, the tallest, the gnarliest and the oldest trees in the world. Monumental Trees catalogs extraordinary trees and provides lots of tree-facts in the process. I’ve written previously about the mysterious Grove of the…
I’ve really tried to love Bible study apps like Youversion but I end up feeling like I’m trying to view the scope of history through a keyhole. Bible study seems to be richer and more effective when I use an old-fashioned paper Bible and mark the pages as I go. Some people take the process…
If you’re like me you know a few knots that get you through most situations. But then you have to haul home an antique Chippendale from the swap meet and you can’t figure out the best knot for tying your tie-down strap to another strap to keep the load secure in two directions. Fortunately Gear…
