1. I enjoy longform podcasts (often lined up with my longer runs). My favorite podcast is Acquired. I’ve yet to meet other hosts who dive as deep as Ben and David do. I would have already finished their newest episode (Renaissance Technologies) by now, but Lex Fridman’s episode with Kimbal Musk caught my attention.
If you enjoy the intersection of Food and Technology like I do, give it a listen here.
2. My wife (Mikayla) and I have now had our Eight Sleep mattress (cover) for 2 years. It’s one of the best investments we’ve made. Mikayla likes her side of the bed set to +2 heat. I usually have mine set to -2 cold. It starts making the adjustments about 30 minutes before we’re ready for bed. The Eight Sleep discount is still the best fellow Y Combinator deal I’ve used.
If you like investing in better rest, check ‘em out here.
3. My second book just came out. It’s nothing to do with business. It’s a collection of poems I wrote 4 years ago. For illustrating the poems, my friend and incredible artist, Michael Schneider (who illustrated my children’s book, Elvis the Selfish Shellfish) came back and created 30 pieces of art to accompany each of the poems. He turned the art into a collage masterpiece for the book’s cover.
If you enjoy poetry and hard cover books, it’s now available on Amazon here.
4. As spring arrives, I’ve been clearing trees left and right with the chainsaw. A lot of that wood ends up going to our campfires. And around campfires, I’m usually enjoying my roots—country music. I recently discovered the YouTube channel, Western AF. It’s filled with incredible musicians, giving raw live performances.
If you enjoy country and/or acoustic, check out the channel here.
5. When it comes to art, I’ve become an obsessive collector over the past decade. I also think Iowa needs more fine art museums. I recently discovered Josh Sorrell, a Des Moines based artist, on YouTube. I was instantly hooked on his approach and how his creations carry a heaviness to them, lifted by an aura of color. Another artist who continues to intrigue me is Zancan, a French artist I first discovered in my favorite generative art community, fxhash. He recently launched a collection that saw 76,208 mints, which I believe is the largest generative art collection created to date. And what’s even better is that Zancan has a serious Discord community that is chatting with each other every day—talk about creating for the long term.
You can check out Josh’s art here.
You can check out Zancan’s art here.
6. It’s looking like we’re at the beginning of another full bull market for crypto, which means many things will be built and tested within the space. Hopefully there will be plenty of companies building for the long term. One company I’m watching is Blast. They’re the team behind Blur and raised a $20m seed round near the end of last year. They’re aggressive with staking yields and are leading toward an airdrop based on a points system that people continue to speculate over.
One of the startups (a decentralized app/DAPP) built on Blast is called New Blast City. They recently launched their 3,333 NFT mint (burned down from original ~8,000) with the idea that each NFT represents a character and faction in a dystopian future. By staking an NFT, you influence the story line. New Blast City’s community Discord has the founders constantly looking for feedback, and they’ve promised to give 100% of the rewards (and meme coin airdrops) to the community members who have participated in their staking. One of these days, someone will figure out storytelling and better interactions; maybe it’ll be these guys.
You can check out Blast here.
You can learn more about New Blast City here.
7. I couldn’t go without mentioning that one of my favorite races just took place, and an awesome milestone was achieved. That race is the Barkley Marathons, hosted by Lazarus Lakes. It’s a more secretive race, that covers somewhere around 100 miles and over 50,000 feet of elevation gain. Racers aren’t allowed gps watches and must complete 5 loops through unmapped terrain. There’s a 60 hour time limit. This year, there were 5 finishers. One of those finishers is ultra runner, Jasmin Paris. She’s the first woman to complete the race in its 38 year history. Absolutely incredible. Inspirational. And a reminder that our bodies can go further than we think, so long as we provide them with the right fuel and focus.
While I don’t plan to ever try to qualify for the Barkley, I will be going back for round 2 with Lazarus Lakes’ Backyard Ultra qualifying race later this year in September.
There’s a great documentary on The Barkley Marathons here.
There’s a great documentary on The Backyard Ultra here.
Alrighty, it’s back to farming the world’s freshest salads. We’re just about to reach our 1 year anniversary of Clayton Farms Salads, and celebrate 50,000 salads and smoothies served. 🥗