This tutorial on optimizing foreign language learning is for you if: You’re serious about learning a foreign language. You want an effective, efficient method with constant forward progress, not repeatedly forgetting what you learned. You don’t want to spend money on expensive courses and their magic promises. My Foreign Language Journey I’ve “studied” Spanish for […]
My January portrait challenge continues! I know it was tough to wait an entire week to see who I’d draw next, but your wait ends now! Portrait party time. (Check out the first round here.) I still haven’t made the time to actually study how to draw portraits. I’m just diving in. However, I’m finding […]
As part of my quest to not only draw stick figures forever, I’m reading the classic book Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain. The section on brain development in children is fascinating. When we’re infants, our brain hemispheres are not clearly specialized for different functions. That “lateralization” for left and ride brain doesn’t […]
I suck at portrait drawing for two main reasons: 1) it’s par with rocket science difficulty-wise and 2) I’ve put exactly three hours of practice into it in my entire life. Enough! January is my month to go from “is that a person?” to “hey, only the ears and chin are weird!” (Here’s week 2.) […]
Austin Kleon shared this 2-min video of Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama laughing gleefully during an interview. At one point, Tutu is asked, “What is it about your friendship that allows you to have this extraordinary joy?” He ponders a moment and says, “He’s always troubling me…” and then cracks up. I just love […]
Ah, a new year! A fantastic time to hate the old us: let’s whittle away our bloated physical bodies, quiet our ping-ponging minds, change our crappy jobs, and eat celery while taking cold showers and doing pushups. Meh. I don’t buy it. Can’t we just be happy with who we are and still be on […]
Here are all my T. Rex drawings from 2021. After all, what better way to tee up a successful next year than referencing dinosaurs striving and failing? By the way, the whole T. Rex thing started when I sketched a piece of Guatemalan art that Chelsea and I have on our wall. I randomly added […]
Have you ever considered sharing your thoughts publicly via a newsletter, blog, podcast, or vlog? Based on my experience doing so, I can heartily say make. it. happen. Why? Well… Publishing Traipsing About for the past eight years has added so much richness to my life. Almost 100 newsletters and 200+ blog posts in, things […]
In today’s full-tilt culture, amateur often carries a negative meaning. If a hobby doesn’t morph into a monetized side hustle, what’s the point? Take drawing, for example. I’ve always wanted to learn how to draw something beyond stick figures. To test the waters, I’ve sketched almost every night this year. Then I text a photo […]
For years, our Sprinter van’s “gray water system” consisted of a simple 3-gallon plastic jug. When it filled up, we’d haul the jug outside and dump it out. Usually discreetly, sometimes on an azalea in someone’s front yard. After I upgraded our batteries to lithium and moved them inside, we lost the space for the […]
The Colorado Trail is the big leagues of bikepacking. Get ready for leg-thumping elevation gain, lung-emptying altitude, afternoon thunderstorms tossing lightning and rain at the passes, and remote, rocky terrain with significant consequences. Oh, AND prepare yourself for a fabulous adventure you’ll never forget. We experienced no days I can label easy, but for determined […]
At some point in the past decade, I read an eye-opening article about how mental load, the invisible labor involved in handling a household and family, is usually carried by women. It suggested that for those of us without it, mental load is the water we swim in, unseen and natural, the actions helping the […]
I remember the glee and rush of dopamine from my first hits of Instagram in 2012. People cared about what I shared! (And not only my biggest fan—hi, Mom.) Beyond travel blogging I cranked out in 2005 during a world trip, Instagram was my first foray into sharing creative work with strangers. It encouraged me […]
Bikepacking 300 miles through the Cascade Mountains on the Three Sisters, Three Rivers route.
The buzzing on Jono’s bike started shortly after we rolled onto a tooth-rattling section of the OC&E rail trail. The culprit: his Crocs were dragging on the rear tire. “PHEW, glad I didn’t lose those,” he said. “Hey, wait. Where’s my sleeping pad?” Losing a sleeping pad a mere 13 miles into one’s first bikepacking […]
I can’t believe I waited so long to replace my camper van’s busted-ass AGM batteries with shiny, powerful lithium ones. That single upgrade greatly improved our van travel experience. Prior to the upgrade, our old batteries from the initial build in 2013 wheezed like a smoker’s lungs. They tried hard, but couldn’t get the job […]
In June 2020, Chelsea surprised me with a thoughtful birthday gift: a digital keyboard. Starting from scratch, I’ve managed to progress from “where the hell is middle C?” to “hey, this is going somewhere!” When a reader (hi Kim) recently asked about my piano practice routine, I adapted my notes into this blog post. If […]
I’m one of those Type-A people who enjoys filling a 30-day calendar challenge with X’s. Solidly motivating for me, or at least a simple reminder to practice my Italian! Recently I saw a challenge with a different take: a repeating loop of “do activity, get less awful.” (Paraphrased.) I found it funny…until Chelsea pointed out […]
Good grief, how do I write about 2020 without sounding like a jackass? It served up so much: social unrest, wildfires, the election battle. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, THE F’N PANDEMIC. Talking about what I experienced and learned this year feels self-indulgent when people are hurting and the damndemic rages on. Still, 2020 […]
Between the pandemic and smoke, we spent a biiit more time at home this year. (Anyone else?) Luckily, early December presented a (rare) clear weather window in the Pacific Northwest, so we packed the van and headed west to the ocean. This wasn’t an adventure trip with Type 2 fun. Nope, this was a vacation, […]