I maintain a list of thoughts I have found valuable, which include a couple from my dad: “To the extent possible, make decisions that leave the most options open.” There will of course be times that your decisions close off other options,…
I’ve written before about what I call Secret Clubs, including stovetop coffee roasting, PDX Carpet, and Luv Ya Bye. As we become interested in a particular topic or skill, we naturally learn more about it and/or get better at it through practice and experimentation. We…
![Life [can be] Short](https://www.glenvanpeski.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/PlaneCrash_350.jpg)
There have been a couple of plane crashes in the news recently, which has gotten me thinking. I think one of the reasons that plane crashes are horrifying is that they don’t happen very often, so they are news, which means…
An alert reader shelli stein (apparently I’m not the only one who loves the simplicity and lower ink weight of all lower case) forwarded me a picture she snapped of a sign in Honolulu, Hawaii, which had a speed limit…
In their book The Genius of Dogs, Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods explore the cognitive abilities of dogs, arguing that they have unique intelligence, based on their social skills. I haven’t finished the book yet, as we are listening to it on…
The winding down of the holidays doesn’t involve the same excitement as the run up to them. The ornaments are packed away, the tree will soon be on the curb for the Boy Scouts to cart away. But it’s a great time…
When I pack for a backpacking trip, I’m pretty darned good at saying ‘No’. To head out with a sub-5 lb. base weight, a lot of ‘No’ is required. And the light weight gained by saying ‘No’ so many times means I…
My habit in the mornings is to spend time reading my bible and some additional devotionals, meditating and praying. And usually practicing Italian and French, although I’m currently in a slacker season on that particular item. One of the additional texts I…
I tried to get my buddy Brendan Leonard to write about this, but now that he’s being routinely quoted in the New York Times, he’s too busy. It’s not easy being an engineer (or being married to one, as Francie will attest). You…
Four years ago next week, my mom Claire Louise Bateman passed away. At 86, she was reasonably heathy and active, always busy in her extensive gardens in the summer, shoveling her own snow in the winter. The sole complication in her life…
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