LATEST BLOG POSTS

A few months ago, maybe a year, my phone stopped reading the memory card. It couldn’t access the 16 gigabytes on it, including all my saved music, pictures, videos, and several apps. I kept putting off getting it fixed until earlier this month, when I brought it to a repair shop. In the meantime, I found myself preferring without the memory. When bored, instead of music, I paid attention to[…] Keep reading →

The physical and mental experience Physically, I loved the experience of yesterday’s ride, grueling as I found it, because I wanted to give up so many times. I lifted weights two days before and did some Turkish Get-ups (an all-over lifting exercise that includes lunges) the day before, which resulted in being unable to get out of the bike’s lowest gear for many hills toward the end. I probably spent[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe how much today’s ride tired me out. I’ll only post the high-level details before going to sleep. I recently got a new used bike—a touring bike designed to carry enough to go bike camping. The summer between high school and college, a friend and I rode from Philadelphia to Bar Harbor, Maine and back—about 1,500 miles. For years I used bikes as my main commuting vehicles, until[…] Keep reading →

Nir and my second conversation covered how I inspired him and how he inspired me. If I’m not too presumptuous to say I inspired him, the first part is about his choosing to avoid flying. Several months into the pandemic, we’re all used to not flying, but when he committed, before the pandemic, most people I talked to called not flying impossible. By contrast, Nir emailed me about 24 hours[…] Keep reading →

People sometimes call my life easier because I don’t have kids or the challenges in time, money, and other resources that come from having them. They say, “Josh, you don’t know what it’s like as a single mom raising three kids on three jobs.” If someone can’t afford a house but buys one beyond their budget, we say they chose wrong and might help them fix the choice. If they[…] Keep reading →

The not-flying-by-choice community is fairly small. About 80 percent of humans can’t fly because they can’t, but among people who can but choose not to, we’re limited. Still, I can’t believe I only found out about Maja recently. A few minutes into her TEDx talk, I knew I had to bring her on. She’s avoided flying about double how long I have. I could hear from her every sentence that[…] Keep reading →

I never noticed how many of my major possessions I bought used versus new. Side note: I met Craig Newmark—the Craig of Craig’s List—when he spoke at Columbia nearly 20 years ago, then again last winter at a nearby cafe, now closed for the pandemic. Used I bought or acquire used Refrigerator—bought on Craig’s List, I think for $50 about ten years ago when my old one broke. Both sofas—neighbors[…] Keep reading →