If I gave you a guaranteed way to improve your health, would you try?

It's free and you have easy access. No training or medication required. And… the answer lies right outside your front door.

What's this miraculous wonder? The great outdoors.

Decades of research proves what common sense already tells us: going outside improves your well-being. It’s not complicated. Go for a walk, sit on a front porch, pedal a bike, take a jog, cast a fishing line, watch the birds, stare at the clouds, let grass push between your toes.

Fresh air and open spaces help us feel better. Among the many benefits:

• A strengthened immune system

• A healthier heart

• Reduced stress

So, find a path or follow a waterway. Pitch a tent. Do a cannonball in a pool.

Your body (and mind) will thank you.

A question.

When do restaurants experience worse tips — the weekdays or the weekends?

A recent study dug into the numbers and found a clear answer. The result?

The weekends offer lower tips.

That seems a little backward because weekends are busier with more customers walking through the door. So what’s the reason?

Apparently several factors play a role, though one stands out: on slower weekdays, staff give personalized attention to their diners. Extra care often creates fatter tips.

The opposite can be true on the weekends. With packed dining rooms and longer waits, servers feel the constant push to turn tables. Premier service is harder to deliver. When the experience changes, so do the tips.

It’s interesting to find connections in everyday life, and when you look closely, ordinary places can hide extraordinary patterns.

So here’s the life lesson:

Being busy is not the same as being effective, since hustle doesn’t always mean greater reward. Motion and progress can be two different animals.

Go for better, not busier.

Back in 1909 there was a race, the first of its kind.

The Ocean to Ocean Automobile Endurance Contest stretched 4,100 miles from New York to Seattle. Since automobiles were a new invention, the contest promoted these motorized marvels.

It wasn’t pretty. In those days, no highways existed and horses still ruled the roads. The route relied on wagon trails and dirt paths between towns. Breakdowns happened constantly, and when rain fell, wheels sank into axle-deep mud during the four-thousand mile sputtering adventure.

1909 doesn’t seem very long ago. The timeline is a reminder of how quickly technology can improve, especially when considering how cars have taken over modern society.

But even more amazing… we went from horseless carriages to stepping on the Moon in roughly sixty years. From dirt roads to a lunar landing in only decades.

Because time is deceiving, you can live through revolutions you barely notice. The present always feels permanent. Change arrives gradually, then all at once.

Every advancement begins by looking a little ridiculous. A future person will read about smartphones the same way we read about wagon trails.

Life seems to move slowly while living it and shockingly fast when remembering it.

A big mistake.

Back in 1964, something painful happened in conservation history when researchers allowed a Nevada bristlecone pine to be cut down.

They knew it was an ancient tree, but they didn’t realize how old. Then the rings were counted. That’s when they discovered the pine was over 4,900 years old.

The oldest known individual organism on Earth… accidentally killed. Gone in one swoop. A bad afternoon erased nearly five millennia of history.

This tree started growing around the same time Egyptians built the pyramids and lived through the Bronze Age and the Roman Empire. Entire civilizations rose and collapsed, but this survivor had kept standing until that fateful day.

Some decisions are irreversible. You can't undo a chainsaw or glue tree rings back together.

Slow down before you act on anything you can’t reverse.

The Statue of Liberty has 25 windows in her crown.

For many years, I didn’t know you could enter Lady Liberty and climb to the top. That’s where it becomes magical. A narrow staircase leads to an amazing sightline of New York Harbor, Brooklyn, and Lower Manhattan. 

The outside version is never the whole story. From a distance, the Statue of Liberty is only a monument, but step inside and the view is made for a movie.

Observation and experience aren’t the same thing. Look a little closer for the hidden staircase.

No one alone.

Sea otters sleep on the ocean’s surface. To keep from drifting away from each other while they nap, they do something remarkable.

They hold hands.

Groups of them link up into floating communities called rafts and rest together on the waves with their paws clasped. Sea otters are fierce hunters but when the day is done, they still reach for each other.

Find people who stay connected alongside you. The right ones will protect you from wandering off course by simply being present when the currents turn rough.

Even the strong need to be held sometimes. But holding on is an act of love, a two-way grip. You hold others and they hold you.

An interlocked hand seems like nothing, but it’s the difference between staying and drifting.

Are you familiar with the Manhattan Project?

It was a secret research and development program during World War II. That’s how the United States built the first nuclear weapons: a uranium bomb (“Little Boy”) and a plutonium bomb (“Fat Man”).

The weapons struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, forcing Japan’s surrender and the end of the war. Those shocking moments marked the start of the nuclear age. The Manhattan Project changed warfare forever and sparked a controversy the world still hasn’t resolved.

There’s a big difference between intelligence and wisdom. While the Project had no shortage of intelligent people, wisdom arrived late and haunted the aftermath. Intelligence asks, “Can we?” but Wisdom asks, “Should we?” 

Always let wisdom do what intelligence cannot: ask the harder questions and hold the longer view.

Certain days stay with you forever.

I can’t remember becoming a brother, but my wedding day is crystal clear. So are the five special occasions when my kids were born.

There were other life-changing moments along the way: son-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle. But then came March 26. That’s when I gained a new title, one that took a lot of years to earn.

I became a granddad.

And it beats a Super Bowl ring or a gold medal by a mile. So if you see me out in the wild, prepare yourself. 

I have pictures.

The funny gas.

Helium doesn’t get enough credit. Most people know the colorless element only for party balloons and giving squeaky voices when inhaled. But remove it from the world and bad things happen.

Helium:

• Keeps superconducting magnets cold inside advanced equipment (like MRI scanners)

• Supports computer chip manufacturing through cooling and leak detection

• Pressurizes rocket tanks for stable fuel flow

These are the machines and systems holding modern life together.

Maybe the most important fact: helium cannot be manufactured, only extracted from the ground. Once released into the atmosphere it escapes Earth’s gravity and drifts into space to be gone forever. A finite resource, one of the rarest and most useful on the planet.

Think about that next time you take a helium puff at a birthday party.

6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960.

Try saying that fast, five times in a row.

But what does it mean? Incredibly, the figure is the amount of solvable games in Sudoku, the number-placing puzzle. Amazing how a little grid can have so many options.

In life, many people underestimate how many paths exist when they feel stuck. The temptation is to think the way forward is limited. But there’s almost always more than one right answer, which means your situation has possibilities you don’t even realize. 

Refuse to give up.

There may be six septillion reasons why.

A couple of days ago, we heard a woodpecker in our backyard.

Bap bap bap bap… the sound was mesmerizing, like a drumline in the woods.

Did you know woodpeckers strike their beaks against timber around 20 times every second? The bird may even hit a tree 10,000 to 12,000 times a day.

You’d expect a scrambled egg situation inside that tiny head. But amazingly, its skull spreads impact through spongy bone and muscle. Consider the bird’s tongue. It extends far beyond the beak and wraps around the back of the skull, helping absorb the force during pecking.

Engineers have studied woodpecker skulls to improve football helmets and concussion research.

A few other findings about these remarkable creatures:

• Woodpeckers hunt tree insects, and during outbreaks of beetles or borers, they’re fantastic pest control.

• Pecking doesn’t just mean feeding, since they also “drum” to mark territory or attract a mate.

• Tiny feathers around the nostrils keep wood chips from entering the nose.

This small bird with incredible engineering has some truths for us. Protection isn’t in the beak (the tool), but hidden inside the skull (the structure). A reminder that true strength is often internal.

The woodpecker was built for the pressure it faces.

So were you.

Creation amazes me.

• A blue whale’s heart is the size of a car, and its tongue weighs the same as an elephant.

• A hippo’s skin is so thick it’s essentially bulletproof.

• Cheetahs sprint as fast as 75 mph, reaching that speed in just three seconds.

• A lion’s roar can be heard five miles away.

• A kangaroo is able to leap 25 feet in a single bound.

If those creatures seem too distant from your daily life, just look in the mirror. Behind your eyes sits a brain with an estimated storage capacity of around 2.5 petabytes. That equals roughly three million hours of Netflix.

Yep, your head holds more than most of us could watch in several lifetimes.

Always keep your sense of wonder. Our world overflows with the fingerprints of a creative God.

The Hawaiian alphabet contains only 13 letters.

And the little upside-down comma you see in words like Hawaiʻi is called an ʻokina. It counts as a real letter, and if left out, another word can accidentally emerge.

Missionaries helped develop the written system in the 1820s. They removed letters representing sounds Hawaiians never used. Because of fewer choices, rhythm matters more.

Hawaiian carries an almost musical quality when pronounced correctly. Thirteen letters, endless meaning.

Remember simplicity creates clarity. Depth does not require complexity.

Where will you explore next?

Travel is more than luxury, it’s an education. Think of travel costs as tuition and the memories as degrees.

Here’s a fun pop quiz. Do you know how many cities are in the world?

Go ahead and guess. It’s actually surprising…

Officially, there are over 50,000 cities.

Let that number stretch your imagination. Even if you somehow visited 10% of those, there would still be forty-five thousand locations waiting. And each one showcases something different. Unfamiliar accents, new rhythms, interesting ways to cook food/greet a neighbor/celebrate a birthday.

The planet is less like a map and more like a library with fifty thousand unopened books. Or let’s put it another way. The world is a giant buffet and many people have only sampled the breadsticks.

Get out there and explore. Stop nibbling and start feasting.

What’s the fastest you’ve ever traveled?

Most people would answer an airplane ride, since commercial jets fly about 550 mph while cruising at altitude. But you’ve moved much faster. Actually, you’re going faster right now.

A little fact that melts my mind: the Earth travels around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. Think about it. While sipping a relaxed cup of coffee, you’re hurtling through space like a rocket.

So technically, sitting on your couch makes you roughly 122 times quicker than a jet pilot, which really puts your productivity into perspective.

You deserve a break today.

Let’s say you’re an astronaut in space. The majestic Earth floats below.

You’re wearing the multi-million-dollar NASA suit with the helmet and bulky gloves. And suddenly… your nose starts itching. What do you do? You can’t reach your face or remove the helmet, so it’s maddening torture.

This is a real problem NASA had to solve, but they devised a solution. Hint: no redesign required.

Engineers added a tiny Velcro patch inside the spacesuit helmets. Whenever there’s an itch, astronauts just lean forward and rub against it. No hands required.

The most elegant answer usually hides in plain sight while other people are busy designing something complicated. Overthinking is expensive. Sometimes, effective breakthroughs are low-tech.

Innovation isn’t always a rocket engine. The best tool is the one that works.

Recently, for the first time, I heard Brandi Carlile's song, “Crowded Table.”

As I worked, it played in the background and the chorus grabbed my attention:

I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone
Let us take on the world while we're young and able
And bring us back together when the day is done

A crowded table is one of life’s greatest gifts. Coming home to people who are looking for you and folks who want to hear about your day. It’s a reset from all the stuff faced during daily obligations.

You could have every dollar on earth, but returning home to empty seats and silent rooms is the deepest kind of poverty.

Near the end of the song, another lyric got me, too:

The door is always open
Your picture's on my wall
Everyone's a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs

Always choose full tables over treasure.

Everyone wants abs by Friday.

The problem? You’re eating Cheetos in your pajamas at 2PM on a Tuesday.

We all desire the medal, the promotion, the beach body, the standing ovation. Craving the trophy requires zero effort.

Everyone has a willingness to win, but not everyone has a willingness to prepare to win. Because preparation is hard. It means showing up when you’d rather stay in bed.

Preparation is doing the thing again when you’ve already done the thing twenty-seven times and you’re still not good at the thing. Winners are forged in the dark, when no one is watching. The gap between wanting and winning overflows with work most people refuse to do.

Success has a very boring origin story, but you must lean into it. Champions aren’t made in the ring; they’re simply rewarded there.

This started as a small idea.

A quiet one. And then I jumped in.

Three hundred sixty-five days. Three hundred sixty-five blog posts. January 12, 2025 through January 12, 2026.

Some entries flowed easily. Others felt like a root canal. But still, the habit stuck. One day led to the next, and the calendar kept flipping.

And somehow, here we are.

I set this goal for two reasons:

1) To freeze snapshots from our everyday family life
2) To challenge myself as a writer

Well, I finally landed the plane. The year wrapped up.

Thanks for reading along over the past twelve months. And especially for the encouragement.

The blog will stay, just not daily. Weekly feels right. Or whenever the itch shows up and the cursor starts blinking again.

Adios, until next time.

January 12th means… Kate’s birthday!

On Sunday, we celebrated with her in Richmond. After church and gifts, Kate, Jess, and I enjoyed brunch at First Watch, followed by window shopping in Carytown. We capped off the afternoon with a dessert stop at Sweet Frog.

During our meal, we continued a tradition started years ago, asking the same set of birthday questions.

The list runs about twenty deep, covering everything from favorite colors and sports teams to future dreams. And the big ones are always fun: career plans, marriage, kids.

It’s interesting to see how the answers change over time.

One of the questions is, “What do you love?” And Kate responded in the most Kate way possible:

“Life.”

That single word captures her completely. She dances through her days, quick to laugh at herself. Sunshine seems to follow her around. Want to groove to music? She’s your girl. Feel like going out for a meal or settling in for a movie? Sign her up.

She moves through the world with a natural, wonderful mantra: “Why not?”

This fearless spirit has guided her through high school choir and track, two summers at a child development center, a college role as a Resident Advisor, and a campus marketing position.

At one point on Sunday I asked, “What job do you want to have in ten years?” She thought for a minute and then answered confidently.

“I’d like to teach hip-hop dance.”

Wow… I didn’t see that one coming. But it’s perfectly Kate.

And with her passion for life, I’ll be the first to enroll.

Happy Birthday, Kate!