Courtesy Lindsey Snow
My latest for Travelocity: “Utah is well-known for its skiing, hiking, red rock, and welcoming residents. If you’ve already visited or are planning your first trip, consider the following statewide classics before finalizing your itinerary. While the below includes several city-based attractions, Utah is disproportionately known for its great outdoors, so plan on enjoying a few urban delights, as well as plenty of magnificent natural ones.” Continue reading…
In January, my wife bought this trendy gallon water bottle and has finished it nearly everyday since. Not to be outdone, I decided to join her in the daily gallon water challenge.
Before this, I was already drinking a lot more water than most—around 11 cups a day (or 2/3 a gallon) over the last several years. At 6’1″ and 200 pounds, this amount felt great. But I wondered what five more cups per day might do for me.
Turns out a lot. I’ve lost a little weight, satiated my appetite more than usual, am never thirsty, and my skin feels even better in the cold desert of Utah where I live. I’ve also peed a lot more than usual, but that’s a minor annoyance that’s well worth the trade-off.
Pro tip: To avoid waking at night to urinate, I finish my gallon by 2pm in the afternoon and don’t drink anything after that. The more you know!
Many thanks to Martin Rowe at EE World for reviewing my newest book, Measuring History. With exception to thinking my Austin and Measurement chapters were too much background, I thought he provided a fair and recommended review.
From the article: “Measuring History is neither a history of measurement nor a measurement of history, and yet it’s both. Blake Snow takes you through the early days of National Instruments through the 2019 induction of founders Dr. James Truchard and Jeff Kodosky into the Inventors Hall of Fame. Throughout the book, Snow focuses on LabVIEW and how engineers and scientists use the graphic programming language to test and control systems that make many products we use function better… I recommend the book if you’re looking for a quick and easy read.”
Thanks, Martin.
Bring your family!
My latest for Travelocity: “The Great Outdoors are scientifically proven to improve your family’s health and happiness. And when it comes to seeing some of the best of America, few regions are more compelling than the Mountain West states (for the record, that’s everything west of the Midwest except Washington, Oregon, and California). With so much to see, however, where should you turn your attention? If you can only visit one place in each of the eight Mountain West states, these should be at the top of your list.” Continue reading…
Several years ago, Provo politicians proposed a bond bill to the community to update century-old city schools. The multi-million dollar bond widely passed because the majority of voters agreed with the included line items.
The next year, the other half of the city wanted to update their schools. A second bond was proposed. Only this time, it asked for 40% more money for the same number of schools. Something was fishy. The numbers didn’t add up, despite politicians saying “lumber had gone up.” The community knew it.
Despite manipulative attempts through signs and public speeches that a “vote for yes is a vote for children,” city voters blocked the second bill’s passage. The next year, a revised bond was proposed with much lower costs and tomfoolery. So the community voted in favor of the revised second bond—a vote for both children and honest pricing.
I was proud of my city that day, but only after first telling our local politicians “no.” As in business, if there’s something you don’t like in politics—be it at a local, state, federal, or global level—vote no. And never let melodramatic or manipulate language convince you that “no” means you don’t care about what’s being voted on.
It might actually mean that you care even more and want our politicians to propose even better legislation with the least amount of corruption.
I first fell in love with grasslands while road tripping through the Black Hills several years ago. Someday I want to see these: Tallgrass Praire in northern Oklahoma: Continue reading…
This is an amazing long-read by The Ringer: “It’s a Cinderella story. Mike truly is Cinderella. The money Mike made was stupid money. But it didn’t happen to him overnight. He saw this and we were in it long before all this frenzy. But now he’s set for life.”
Several years ago, I talked with my wife about working Monday–Thursday only if I could hit my income goal. This was incredible motivation. So much so that I hit my target some 8 months later.
For the next 18 months, I didn’t work a single Friday. Maybe an emergency email here and there, but never more than a few minutes. I didn’t check my inbox, make a call—nothing. It was professional and personal bliss.
My wife and I went on dates, played hooky that day, and spent more time with our children during “early release” Fridays. It was awesome.
Sadly, I got complacent and my income dropped. So I started working Fridays again to build it back up in recent years. Continue reading…
Last year in the middle of pandemic, my life-long friend, Wesley Lovvorn (pictured left) approached me (pictured right) about co-founding a company. I had been working from home for nearly two decades. He’d done so for almost a decade. Both of us had been self-help students for over 30 years. “Let’s combine the two and help the millions of employees now working from home,” he said.
After studying the market for several months, we discovered two things: 1) there wasn’t a dedicated company that did this, and 2) we possessed some promising experience, empathy, and research to make it happen. So we spent the next half year interviewing executives, speaking to mentors, developing the initial curriculum, branding ourselves as Power Space, and launching with two pilot customers last fall.
Since I come from a background as an explanatory writer-for-hire, I was dubbed “chief content officer” and tasked with producing the first year curriculum of 18 lessons. I also produce all of our marketing assets, such as press releases, content marketing, and websites that our outreach director (Hi, Abby!) then uses to spread the gospel. Since this is still a side hustle, I do all this in between my day job writing articles for Fortune 500 companies and fancy publications. Continue reading…
It’s wonderful to see pandemic world sprouting in more ways than one this spring. I’m not sure what the future holds, but it sure does feel like society turned a corner.
In my own village, here’s what I’m excited about right now: Continue reading…
Here’s my latest love letter published in Lonely Planet about the state I call home: “Utah is known around the globe for its five national parks, dubbed the “Mighty 5.” But some are better than others, depending on how you travel. Before booking your next adventure to red rock country, here’s what you need to know.” Continue reading…
A good friend of mine recently launched a podcast that examines how authors get their books published. I spoke to him a few months ago, and here is my take on how I wrote and published my two books. Thanks for listening.
My latest for Travel Weekly: “Just as the U.S. was announcing mandatory Covid tests for border reentry this year, I arrived, family in tow, at a small, locally owned resort in the middle of Puerto Vallarta’s coastline. Deep discounts and easy access made Mexico, one of a dozen or so countries still open to Americans, an irresistible beach vacation escape, and although there were plentiful bargains among newer all-inclusives, I was intrigued by an older property called Las Palmas by the Sea.”
As you can hopefully tell after reading the full article, my family and I were enamored by this place. We stayed a full week. Although we usually like to travel to new places and properties for our next vacation, we hope to return to this little slice of paradise within the next year. I smile justing thinking about it. Kudos to both Las Palmas by the Sea and Vallarta Transportation for getting my family to and the airport in comfort and on time. Viva Vallarta!
Continue reading…
NEWS FROM MY LATEST SIDE HUSTLE: Last year in the middle of pandemic, my life-long friend approached me about co-founding a company. I had been working from home for nearly two decades. He’d done so for almost a decade. Both of us had been self-help students for over 30 years. “Let’s combine the two and help the millions of employees now working from home,” he said.
After studying the market for several months, we discovered two things: 1) there wasn’t an existing company that did this, and 2) we possessed some promising experience, empathy, and research to make it happen. So we spent the next half year interviewing executives, developing the initial curriculum, getting our ducks in a row, and launching with two pilot customers last fall.
This year, we fully launched as Power Space and have been gaining momentum ever since. Here are three things we’ve learned so far.
- Employees are stuck in limbo. While many employees are thrilled to be working from home, a sizable majority are struggling, according to every major metric on employee health. Yes, these employees have adapted to this new reality and proven the productivity of working remotely, but they’re far from reaching their potential in this new isolated state while still figuring out the rules.
- Companies are scrambling to keep up. How do you transition from central headquarters to dispersed home offices overnight? You don’t. This takes time. While HR departments have been working hard to help with the transition, they come from a very different background and need assistance with the transition and ongoing training required to make the most of remote work environments.
- Aggressive pricing is required in recession. While we believe there’s significant value in the training we’ve created, we also believe that every remote employee and cash-strapped employer deserves an affordable training option. That’s why we’ve launched our training program starting at $1 per year per employee. That jumps to $3 per employee if we deliver the lessons for our customers (our most popular option), and $5 per employee if lesson personalizations are needed to fit your unique policies.
If you or someone you know is in HR and is struggling to help your employees transition to remote work (or in getting the most from this promising but isolating environment), I hope you’ll consider us when planning your employee training this year. Thanks for thinking of us.—Blake Snow
Many years ago, I subscribed to over 150 news feeds. I was a hard news journalist (aka tech blogger) at the time and believed I needed to monitor that many sources to perform my job.
After realizing how much time I wasted on redundant news, I reduced that number to 30. A few years later, I cut my consumption again to just six daily outlets, before eventually settling on four per day for the last several years (one national outlet, one state, one city, and one long-read curator).
Since pandemic started, however, I noticed a disappointing trend: even the trustworthy sources I still read seemingly couldn’t look past the moving target that is coronavirus. They had become temporarily myopic, if not overly doomsday-ish, and were incapable of telling the whole truth (i.e. the world is getting much better).
In light of this, I cut my daily news in January to just two sources per weekday, one of which is delivered straight to my inbox. That source is the Need2Know newsletter, which summarizes what their editors deem as the 10 most important news updates every weekday. In just five minutes, I get smart summaries with a few smile-inducing comments from the Associated Press, New York Times, USA Today, and other specialist publications. (The other daily source I still follow is Digg’s Long Reads for in-depth reporting.)
After cutting my news to just two daily sources (note: I no longer read news on weekends as Need2Know alerts me on Monday of anything noteworthy), I went from spending on hour on news each day to no more than five minutes, minus the long reads I still reach for on my lunch break.
Like all previous instances that I dramatically reduced my news intake, I suspect I’ll be just fine this time, if not even prosper with the added hour the act afforded me.
Courtesy Shutterstock
One morning last fall when the weather was still unseasonably warm, my wife and I were playing tennis at the park. We played a couple times a week last year and enjoyed people-watching in between games and sets.
This particular morning, I watched a young, twenty-something couple meet in the middle of a large field. They were holding masks in hand and maintaining physical distance per state health guidelines. Standing the entire time, it looked as though they were courting lovers having a quarrel.
The calm quarreling went on for some time—several games of tennis, in fact, until finally I watched the couple embrace and kiss after seemingly working out their differences. “Young love beat COVID today,” I mentioned to my wife with a smile. The romantic in me was proud to see the blatant disregard for quarantine restrictions. My wife just rolled her eyes.
It was the cutest thing, really. I then called the Mask Gestapo and both lovers were immediately detained for being a menace to public health. Thank, heavens!
NOTE: Everything but the last two sentences are true.
Paramount Pictures
How you interact with others has an enormous impact on your life.
According to most experts, there are four types of communication. All four are learned by observing and interacting with our families, friends, and coworkers. While it’s possible to adopt a mix of all four in different settings and relationships, many of us tend to gravitate towards one dominant style.
Problem is, 75% of those styles often complicate our wants and needs while also frustrating the wants and needs of those we live and work with. For example, passive communicators put the needs of others above themselves and rarely if ever share their own wants. Passive aggressive communicators sarcastically put the needs of others above themselves, while obscuring their own true wants. And aggressive communicators put the needs of themselves above others at all costs, while exaggerating their own wants.
But there is a better way. It’s difficult to master but it leads to a lot more honesty, respect, understanding, and freedom. It’s called assertive communication and it can do wonders for both your professional and personal life. Continue reading…
Hac Tran
While working onsite with a client last week, I met an Englishman that shared my love of music. At some point we diverged into a discussion on the merits of Daft Punk — his favorite band — and where their latest album went wrong. We both agreed that Random Access Memories was better produced than it was written; Discovery was “bloody brilliant;” and their soundtrack to Tron: Legacy was their second best work to date.
As I was about to leave, my new friend excitedly announced, “I have something to show you!” He left the room, then returned with a custom, LED-lit Thomas Bangalter mask. “May I?” said I, giddy at the prospect. “Of course,” he replied. I put it on, struck a pose, then took several snapshots for posterity’s sake before bidding him farewell.
What’s funny is this Englishman had just traveled 6,000 miles from his office in Munich for weeklong meetings with “corporate” in Los Angeles. While most people scramble for chargers and underwear the night before travel, I laughed at the thought of this kindly bloke deciding to bring his shiny keepsake along for the journey. “Ah, yes! Mustn’t forget my smashing mask.”
That’s a fan. Thanks for the memories, Daft Punk.
First published on November 6, 2013
I forgot to hit publish on this earlier. Better late than never?
Pros
Cons
- I lost access to much of my village
- I got permenant tinnitus (ringing ears) while recording my album (turns out four straight months of loud headphones will do that)
- Had my income reduced by more than 50%
- I couldn’t travel as much with borders closed
In short, it was the most challenging four star year of my life. After all, first-world problems are way easier than third-world problems. I’m hoping 2021 will be at least a 4.5/5 star year and am doing everything I can to hit that mark!
Courtesy Shutterstock
The following is one of 18 lessons for my new remote work training company. You should totally ask your employer to buy it. 😉
Admitting that you’re stuck is a hard thing to do. Asking for help is even harder, especially for the more prideful souls among us, of which there is no shortage. On top of that, many of us refrain from asking for help because we think doing so is imposing on or making more unwanted work for others.
Nothing could be further from the truth. While it’s true that asking for help sometimes creates more work for others, we do not get to decide what is unwelcome work for others. Predicting or telling ourselves that is an unhelpful projection. That may be true some of the time, but research shows that humans are usually willing to help. As social creatures, it’s in our DNA and has been for tens of thousands of years.
Continue reading…
Courtesy Lindsey Snow
The United States recently designated “White Sands” as the country’s latest and 62nd National Park—the highest honor given to protected lands. But New Mexico’s newest national park isn’t the only one. Since 1994, America has recognized more than 10 new National Parks. Here’s where to find them and what their biggest draws are, according to my latest article for Lonely Planet.
I recently re-watched Top Gun with my children. This is what we thought of it: Radical!
As I always do with movies I love, I immediately headed to Wikipedia after the screening to soak up additional context. Turns out, the movie was inspired by this incredibly written article by Ehud Yonay in California Magazine. First published in 1983, Yonay tells the story of two pilots named “Yogi” and “Possum” and how they navigate “Top Gun,” along with two excellent sidebar stories about taking a flight in an F-5 and how to fly one.
“When I climbed out of the cockpit at the end of our hourlong flight, I couldn’t even swagger,” Yonay writes. “Every muscle in my body ached, I was exhausted and slightly nauseated, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. But they tell me the first time is the worst, and I can’t wait to get up there again.”
FUN FACT: Top Gun has since moved to Fallon, Nevada. My family visited it several years ago on a press trip and were floored by the air maneuvers (or “hops” as they used to say). Looked like something out of Inception—jets flying straight up and down at speeds I’ve never seen before!
Several years ago, my wife and I borrowed a fancy fork from a fancy hotel to finish a boxed meal while adventuring in some city I no longer remember.
I remember that fork, however. “This fork is amazing,” I exclaimed to my wife while later eating from the box. “We gotta get silverware like this!”
We never did—even though that same fork would occasionally remind me to buy something like it every time I reached for it from our kitchen drawer.
Continue reading…
My friend Wesley and I recently launched a startup called PowerSpace. It’s an employer-sponsored online class to help the surge of employees now working from home. We’re really excited about it.
But that’s not why I’m here today. I’m here to tell you we couldn’t have built what we did so far without the nearly two dozen people who agreed to help us refine our product, pricing, and overall market approach. And they did it all for free, just because we asked nicely.
This brilliant idea wasn’t mine, however. It was Wesley’s. Before starting this company, my definition of mentors went something like this: formal and stiff relationships that mostly college students form to help find a job.
Boy was I wrong. Turns out mentoring is a lot more effective when it’s done on an informal, individual, and case-by-case basis. Better yet, people are happy to share their perspective, feedback, and opinion—usually for free.
That said, free mentoring won’t make you a success. Only you can do that. But it can give you a leg up on what you need to do next, and it will certainly introduce you to a greater number of people who can put you in contact with even more smart people who can help.
Want to get started or have an idea or problem you need help with? Send an email to someone you respect and see what happens. In my experience, my response rate was over half. It works so well, I’m determined to use free mentoring on every big idea that crosses my desk now.
Thanks, Wesley. And thank you to the many people who have mentored me so far.
IT MIGHT GET LOUD: My band Super Cover is playing an all-new 30 minute setlist at Platinum Music in Provo on Thursday, Feb. 18. Show starts at 7:30 pm. Grab a bite then rock dance your heart out. Adults only. Hope to see you there. 🤘🙏 (Watch our last concert on YouTube)
A friendly man named Michael recently asked me how to get published as a freelance writer. This is what I told him:
Most publications want pitches, not full-blown articles. This is for two reasons: 1) they care more about the idea first, and 2) they like to feel like they’re having an influence on its final form, one that’s specific to their publication.
While publications sometimes accept finished manuscripts, these are usually really big or unique or exclusive stories. I’ve only placed a few of those in my 16 year career as a writer, so I’d focus on really good pitches, and why you’re a good person to write it.
On top of that, I’d write everyday, if you’re not already. I’ve done this virtually every day through my blog, journal, and formal assignments. Since there’s no replacement for 10,000 hours of practice, that’s really the best way to improve your writing.
But doing the above only gets you half of the way. To get published, you often have to ask 100 editors if they’ll accept your pitch. Even I have to do this still. In short, placing articles is a grind. But I love the grind enough to stick with it until my article finally publishes.
TLDR; Placing articles is 50% good writing, 50% hustle (at least in my experience)
- Can technology ever fix corruption? (Rest of World) Here is a thought-provoking story about how Mexico City uses the world’s largest surveillance system to reduce petty crime while also increasing police bribes in a notoriously corrupt culture. While I disagree with the author about throwing out the bath tub for harboring dirty water (i.e. because the system doesn’t reduce high crimes), it was still an enlightening read.
- The man who turned credit-card points into a travel empire (NY Times). “If you trace the thread back on any one of these businesses, it’s always the same deal: The poor underwrite the fantasies of the middle class, who in turn underwrite the realities of the rich.”
- Shigeru Miyamoto Wants to Create a Kinder World (New Yorker). “It’s important to note that, in our household, all the video-game hardware belonged to me, and the children understood that they were borrowing these things. If they couldn’t follow the rules, then there was an understanding that I could just take the machine away from them. [Laughs.] When it was good weather outside, I would always encourage them to play outside. They played a lot of Sega games, too, by the way.”
This is a great and handy read from T. Edward Nickens: “Everyone’s watching, so don’t screw it up. Soak a roll of toilet paper in kerosene and tuck it at the base of the tepee fire. You don’t have to light it with a flaming arrow shot across the dark sky. But, then again, you could.”
I recently finished A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. From a single book I’ve never learned so much and so little at the same time. I’ve also never read a more absorbing science book. Whereas I usually highlight a few passages from each book, I highlighted more than two dozen parts of this book upon completion — it covers that much ground. Continue reading…
I launched a YouTube channel several years ago solely out of curiosity.
To date I’ve uploaded 38 videos, half of which are songs from my debut record.
Most of my videos have a few dozen total views, but a few surprisingly have numbered in the thousands. They are as follows:
- Underdog swing fail. This is a six second video of my youngest son kicking the camera out of my hand after attempting an underdog. It has 123,000 views!
- Newfoundland road trip. This is a three and a half minute video of my road trip through Newfoundland with my brother-in-law Clay. It has 2,000 views.
- Utah Lake: We found the elusive Bird Island by jet-ski. This is a 30 second video of my buddy Garrit and I happening upon a bird filled island several years ago. It has 376 views.
- Backpacking the Uintas: 5 men, 1 mountain, lots of fish. This is a 3 minute video of a recent backpacking trip with friends. it has 354 views.
- Super Cover performing “Lonely Boy” by Black Keys. This is a 3 minute video of my cover band playing after only a couple of practices. It has 212 views.
Thanks for watching!
The story first published to blakesnow.com in the fall of 2012
With the help of two babysitting grandmas, a good job, and lots of decisiveness, Lindsey and I vacationed in Paris this year for her birthday. It was our first time to Yurp. (And I thought Boston was old!)
Travel bragging aside, I learned several things on the trip, including a few reoccurring generalizations. They are as follows: Continue reading…
This long-read by Chris Solomon about losing his father to dementia and what it did to his mother is one of the most moving articles I’ve read all year:
I am still single at middle age. Long commitments have not suited me. The way I feel about love is the way I feel standing before the ocean. Its vastness frightens me—to give yourself over to something so large, so borderless, so beautiful, so brutal. Growing up, I was awed by the devotion of my mother and father to each other, those people whom I admired most. I saw them laughing and bobbing and waving amid the whitecaps of their marriage. As I grew older, I watched couples more closely. I saw the misery that is twin to love and devotion. I watched my parents, near the end. I saw a husband receding from view. I saw a wife with one arm stretched out to him, the other reaching to shore—as Stevie Smith wrote, not waving but drowning.
I don’t know if it was extra poignant since my dad suffers from dementia, but either way it’s beautiful.
From Quartz: “Imagine you are deciding between two different movies. Five of your friends say movie A is nothing special, but definitely above average. Of those same five friends, four tell you movie B is amazing, but one says it is a bit below average and wouldn’t recommend it.
“Which movie would you choose to see? For me, the clear answer is movie B. I’d prefer an 80% chance of seeing a great movie than a 100% of one that is just pretty good. Yet, if you rely on the popular movie review website Rotten Tomatoes, you would be steered toward movie A. This is unfortunate, and a result of bad statistical methodology.”
Metacritic, on the other hand, weights its reviews and more accurately predicts award-winning movies, the data shows. It also lets you compare critical reviews from audience ones for a fuller picture of how well a movie is received. I’ve been using Metacritic for nearly two decades and highly recommend it.
Rescue Time recently published a data-filled article on improving focus in a restricted world that’s still sorting itself out. Although their recommendations (below) aren’t applicable to everyone, the following five certainly are:
- Develop an ‘indifferent’ attitude to the things you can’t change
- Deprioritize tasks that are bringing you stress without any return
- Rebuild your passion and curiosity after burning out
- Use the ‘scientific method’ to find your ideal working habits
- Create hard boundaries on excessive emails, all-day Zoom calls, and late-night work
I learned the first lesson in anger management. Spoiler alert: this really works and has enabled me to let go of my anger associated with what I believe to be draconian restrictions. The last point I learned while developing my first book. The better boundaries we set, the better we’re able to nurture all of our talents and needs.
As for the rest, I highly recommend you try them, namely quitting habits that aren’t doing anything for you, trying new things when your old routine no longer works, and trying new approaches to your work before giving up or keeping the ones that have a positive impact.
The following excerpt comes from my newest book, Measuring History: How One Unsung Company Quietly Changed the World.
If there’s one theme that runs deep within the founding DNA of National Instruments, it is this: “Nothing beats dumb luck.”
Long-time CEO Jim Truchard is credited with imparting the belief during his four decades at the helm, and the principle certainly caught on, especially with early-generation employees and executives. “It’s basically a pleasing and modest way of saying we’ll succeed with hard work and luck, but to be great, we also need good timing,” explains Steve Rogers, who was hired in 1984 and serves as one of LabVIEW’s chief architects. “We were lucky to grow when we did.”
Almost everyone I spoke to internally for this book repeated the refrain: “Nothing beats dumb luck. This would have never worked had computers not become affordable and accessible to everyone. We were in the right place at the right time.”
What was that place and time? For those who grew up with smartphones and touchscreens in their hands, it’s important to understand that the “personal computer” (or PC) revolution of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s was a very different place and time. Society had no idea that bulky desktop and laptop computers would eventually merge with cellphones to become pocket-sized supercomputers, so at the time they called them “personal computers.”
Continue reading…
According to years of behavioral research, here’s a great explanation of how buying time, buying experiences, and buying things for others can scientifically turbocharge our happiness.
For nearly 20 years, I’ve traveled at least once a quarter for fun. Over the last six years, I’ve traveled 8-10 times a year as a working journalist. With few notable exceptions, that all came to a screeching halt this year.
Although not being able to travel might be a first-world problem, having closed borders is no laughing matter. Since restrictions started, here’s what I learned from the lack of travel over the past 10 months: Continue reading…
If this photo by Domcar C. Lagto of lightning striking the erupting Taal volcano in the Philippines this January isn’t the photo of the year, I don’t know what is. The violence is transfixing!
SAVE THE DATE: My cover band will premier its first live YouTube show on New Year’s Eve at 4pm local time (6pm Eastern). Hit that bell and join the live chat during our 31 minute performance. Hope you can make it. Please tell your friends.
Watch this comical video to see what I mean. Not everyone talks like this, of course, but a lot of companies do.
For whatever reason (usually cultural ones), businesses like to speak in code to each other, and then they pay me to decode the nonsense into something actual humans can understand in written form.
It’s a confusing phenomenon, but I ain’t complaining. I love doing it.
See also: Why corporate speak is garbage language
Most historians agree that America became the wold’s superpower in the early 1900s, either after the building the Panama Canal or certainly for their help in winning World War I.
Author Bill Bryson, however, convincingly argues that the county truly congealed that status in the summer of 1927, when Charles Lindberg became a global superstar after becoming the first person to fly across the Atlantic; “talking pictures” began exporting American thoughts, attitudes, and culture en masse; installment plans made modern consumerism possible; television was invented, and Babe Ruth became the first athletic superstar. Amazingly, a lot more happened that summer, too, which you’ll need to read to find out for yourself.
With one or two exceptions later in the book—where Bryson sorta goes off on a tangent about seemingly unconnected things that happened that summer (such as what book publishers did that summer)—I found the history to be fascinating and often gripping. Either way, “It was one hell of a summer,” Bryson writes.
Here’s my favorite passage: “It is a little hard to imagine now, but Americans in the 1920s had grown up in a world in which most of the most important things happened in Europe. Now suddenly America was dominant in nearly every field—in popular culture, finance and banking, military might, invention and technology. The center of gravity for the planet was moving to the other side of the world, and Charles Lindbergh’s flight somehow became the culminating expression of that.”
My latest for Costco Connection (click to enlarge):
Thanks for reading.
NOTE: You can alternatively watch this article on YouTube—it’s pretty cool and features some of my favorite movie scenes.
Hi, my name is Blake Snow. I am an author and practicing husband and father from Provo, Utah. I recently published my second book called Measuring History about an unknown Texas company that quietly changed the world. I hope you read it.
Many years ago, a hospice nurse from Australia named Bronnie Ware asked thousands of patients on their deathbeds to share their biggest regrets in life. This was number one: “I wish I lived a life that was true to myself instead of trying to satisfy others’ expectations of me.” This was number two: “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
To avoid these common mistakes and prevent history from repeating, each of us must change our default, human behavior. The good news is there are three, science-backed daily habits we can adopt to accomplish this. I discovered these while writing my first book, Log Off, and have closely followed them to wonderful heights over the last decade.
These 3 life-saving strategies are as follows: Continue reading…
Courtesy Shutterstock
Thanks for reading and sharing the ones that interest you the most:
NOT what I saw but thematically similar (Courtesy Shutterstock)
While driving home recently, my wife, son, and I witnessed 10-12 UFOs heading east into the night sky. They were lined up like planes heading to the airport, but they weren’t blinking and the airport is north, not east.
The objects were flying in formation in a mostly straight line. But one by one, the distant lights faded away as they crossed a certain threshold of the cloudless night sky. I was so mesmerized, I thought to myself, “Pull over and take video,” but then I reasoned, “There’s got to be a logical explanation that will manifest itself soon,” so I kept driving. Moments later, the line of UFOs were gone. I don’t know if they were alien, but they were certainly unidentified, mysterious flying objects like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Fun fact: this was the second UFO sighting I’ve seen in my life. The first was as a boy from my window-filled room on Orchard Street in Stillwater, Oklahoma. For that, there were no other witnesses. I saw a dime-sized black-lit oval (with several white lights spaced out like chocolate chips on a cookie) fly across the horizon at a speed that was twice as fast as either a satellite or fighter jet. I immediately ran to my mother to tell her. I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. And she believed me!
I can’t tell you how wonderful that felt, to have my mother believe in a mystery that I had just experienced. She didn’t judge or even express skepticism. She sincerely believed and supported me, which is about the best any of us can do when something unexplained happens.
UPDATE: Mystery solved! After further research, my friend Matt rightfully determined that what we witnessed was SpaceX’s new Starlink internet satellites.
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This is a great read by Bloomberg about the sudden rise and fall of Quibi, a short-lived streaming platform that threw a lot of money and hype at a problem that didn’t exist:
“By September, Quibi’s user base had crept to about 400,000, putting it far behind the company’s internal projections of 7.4 million viewers by the end of 2020. That same month, Whitman and Katzenberg considered raising more money or selling the company. They pitched Apple, Facebook, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal, none of whom bit on either option, according to people familiar with the meetings. With $350 million left, the co-founders abruptly decided to shut down the service.”
I remember hearing about the company when they launched this spring, thinking to myself “Who would pay $8 a month for 10-minute short movies?” and then I never heard from them again, until this news broke. It must be hard to get good feedback on new ideas when you’ve already found success like these two famous cofounders previously had.
Photo Blake Snow
This thing is a taste and texture explosion!
I like it because the toast and crunchy peanut butter are perfectly balanced by the creaminess of the butter and soft bananas on top that cushion the roof of your mouth. And the cinnamon adds just the right kick of spice!
Better yet, it’s packed with carbs, proteins, and fats to give your body all the macro nutrients it needs to start the day. Pair with whole milk. Hope you enjoy!
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“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
“But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
“A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.”
“We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.”—Ira Byrock
