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Favorite Things: August ‘25

Hello! Here are a few things I’ve been up to.

Doing | Reading | Watching | Improving | Using | Traveling 

What I've been Doing

Reinventing my life. Ha! kidding… sort of. Outside of the normal stuff I’ve been:

Quitting Real Estate

In the spring, I sold the first rental property I ever bought. Today, I signed the closing docs for the sale of my last rental property. Getting out of the game has absorbed much of my time, thought, and energy- and warrants a slew of posts. From reasons why to tax strategies, from identity shifts to what comes next, I look forward to writing more—without the distraction of fixing toilets or herding tenants.

Going Hard on Points

After “80/20’ing” the other side hustles out of my life, I decided to go all-in on credit card bonuses. So far this year, I’ve earned roughly 1.24 million points across 14 credit cards. This includes points from Hyatt, IHG, Capital One, Chase, American Airlines, United, and more. (Hat tip to these two guys for expanding my idea of what is possible.)

Launching a New Product at Work

After a company re-org in ’23/’24, my first assignment with my new team was to PM the launch of the most significant Salesforce tool our department has ever implemented. We launched last weekend!

Planning Our Biggest Trip Yet

With a 15-years-at-the-company sabbatical coming this spring, we’re planning our most ambitious European adventure ever (on a shoestring budget, of course).

What I've been Reading

Fate of the Day by Rick Atkinson

Atkinson’s storytelling doesn’t just give the full-color context around the American Revolution. His true genius lies in making the worn familiar names- Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, (Howe, Cornwallis, and George)- come alive. More, he makes you realize how little you knew about these most famous of men and their real stories.

I couldn’t put the first book in the series (The British are Coming) down. When I heard number two in the trilogy dropped, I downloaded it to my Kindle Scribe and haven’t looked up since. (Amazon)

Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley

The most fundamental and profound thing about your life (and your family’s) isn’t a trip you take or a great conversation you have. It’s what you do every day. This book is a beautifully written (and approachable-for-everyday-sinners) look at simple daily practices that can anchor your home around spiritual touchpoints and rhythms of the gospel. With a later school start time this year, we will be tinkering with a number of ideas from this excellent title. (Amazon)

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman

In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman tackles the fundamental shift driving so much of our quickly-changing culture: how we all understand our “self”.

Take this statement: “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body”. Whether you empathize with or are repulsed by this statement, Trueman’s point is simple: that this sentence would have been completely meaningless in every culture in human history- other than ours. The fact that this idea makes sense today in the West is just one downstream indicator of the massive shift in how we now define identity.

Tracing thinkers from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Trueman follows how the self moved from being rooted in objective, external reality to being defined by inner feelings and expression. If you want to understand and engage with the wild west of ideas that make up our current cultural imagination, this book is essential for getting you to the root of how our collective worldview is changing. (Amazon)

Provence (Glory) - Assouline

Bougie travel book designed to transport you. Provence nails it — gorgeous photography and text that lets me “flip” myself into lavender, sun, and sea at the end of a long Minnesota day. (Amazon)

What I've been Watching

Drops of God (Apple TV)

A heart-tugging storyline driven by sommelier family dynamics, elevated by stunning settings in Southern France and Tokyo.

La Casa de Papel (Money Heist, Netflix)

The first seasons are riveting, creative, and tense. By the last season, though, you’ll wonder who kidnapped the original writers- it definitely goes downhill by the end.

A Complete Unknown (2024 Dylan Biopic)

For the big Bob movie, I actually made it to a theater. What I loved:

  • Time & Place: 1960s Greenwich Village and all the tumult of the 60s comes into full color - and so too, the…

  • Songs: It’s one thing to hear Blowin’ in the Wind in a college classroom (like I first heard it). It’s another to see a young Dylan working out the chords in his village apartment… and then singing it weeks later to a packed hall in the wake of integration and its upheaval.

  • Chalamet: I disliked his early work (and may have dismissed him as the bellwether of an androgynous shift of the western male archetype). His role in Dune softened me. The acting and singing(!) in Complete Unknown (along with his visit to Hibbing High and fluency in French) have completely won me over. The kid’s great.

Youtube Music Universe

 
 

Here were some of my of-late award winners. Crank up your headphones:

What I've been Improving

My French

I’ve slowly approached the borderline between A1 and A2 on the CEFR scale. Progress is snail-like but satisfying. My latest realizations:

  • The unconscious aspect of learning a language: We spend hours on conjugation tables and struggle to understand word order… but that’s not remotely how we learned our first language. In fact, no one explained the rules of our first language at all. but we somehow learned it to fluency. This should make us language-learners pause.

  • There are many methods to learning a language. Some are better than others.

  • Method I’ve been leaning into: Comprehensible Input, where you’re listening to material that’s at or just above your current level of understanding. Practically for me (A1 French Learner) that’s been a simple Youtube channel from the incredible Alice Ayel.

What I've been Using

Kindle Scribe

I snagged one for >50% off during Prime Days. The purchase initially triggered the “money waste alert” in my brain - until it arrived in the mail.

This device is all the books in the world in a highlightable, “mark-up-able” format with a super-thin, light profile. It also contains infinite notebooks that you can OCR and sync with one touch. The Scribe absolutely crushes past Kindles and is quickly becoming my default for both reading and writing. Pair with Readwise and Obsidian for synergistic second-brain superpower. (Amazon)

ChatGPT

Love the coming AI-pocalypse or hate it, you need to know how to use this tool. For an example: let’s say hypothetically you’re selling a rental property and want to figure out your taxes.

  • 1990: [Flipping through Dewey-Decimal cards, searching for tax law]

  • 2015: [Googling “capital gains rental property Minnesota”]

  • 2025: “Here are my numbers, ChatGPT”

    • Result: Instant tax calculation, personalized explanation, and tailored strategy for your exact situation

Now do this ^ for everything in your life. It ain’t perfect (yet), but this is not a technology you want to pass you by.

Superhuman

The sleek email app that cuts my inbox-clearing time by over half. Yes, it’s pricey, but if you hate email as much as I do, it’s worth every penny. (Superhuman)

Where I've been Traveling

Bordeaux & the French Atlantic Coast

Following a work trip, I was able to sneak away to the world capital of wine. I loved Île de Ré, La Rochelle, Saint-Émilion, and Bordeaux itself. But if I’m honest (and a little snobby)… I’d take dry mountainous Provence over flat, wet Bordeaux any day of the week.

Northern Spain

From the lush Costa Verde and the Picos de Europa on through to Basque country, the sheer eye-candy of this region surprised and thrilled me. Add charming, untouristed villages (and churros con chocolate for breakfast), and you’ve got one of the most incredible, underrated corners of Europe.

North Shore of Minnesota

One of my favorite places on earth is just a few hours from home. You still can’t beat Superior’s perfect blend of pine, rock, and water.

Ok, that’s the snapshot. In summary, this last year has been all about making more room for what matters. Thanks for reading and let me know if there's anything above you want me to expand on in future posts. I hope all is well on the other end :)

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