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    • Moving Past the K-Cup

      Plastic.  It seems to be all anyone is talking about now.  And not in that this is the future way that The Graduate portrayed.  Plastic has come full circle as it’s accumulated so much over the last 50 years that we can’t avoid the reality that it’s a real problem.  And so the plastic straw and the plastic single use bags at the grocery store are under attack.  In this way the younger generation is way ahead.  Both of my college-age children are well beyond the thought process of my generation.

      I hear people mock the straw shaming – but I’ve heard this all before when change hits home.  People mocked ADA compliance when it hit their wallets, or political correctness when it came to changing the names of their school’s mascots (I was a “Chief” in college, so I know how divisive this was).  Change is hard, and especially hard when it begins to hit the way you’ve always done things.  We get used to convenience, and there’s nothing more convenient than plastic stuff.

      I’ve recycled plastic for 30 years.  I diligently put my plastic bottles in the recycling bin and place it on the curb.  When you had to separate your plastics from cardboard I’d be in the garage making sure everything was separate.  And I celebrated when I didn’t have to do that anymore.  So moving to cardboard or reusable straws?  Slightly inconvenient, but not that big a deal.  Moving back to paper bags or bringing my own bags to the grocery store?  Habit more than a convenience issue.  I’ll be fine.  In fact, the only thing that has proven to be challenging for me is the damned K-cups.

      I’m a coffee lover.  And I’ve made coffee just about every way you can.  I don’t even mind the ritual of making a pot of coffee in the morning.  In fact, I used to love it.  But I’m trying to drink less coffee and if I make a pot I’ll drink a pot.  Make half a pot?  You’re making too much sense.  I’ve tried French presses, single cup drip coffee makers, and all of that assorted coffee gear that’s been out there for years.  Except for one.  The AeroPress.  I’ve seen the AeroPress in action as my nephew used it for his coffee.  I’ve given the AeroPress as a gift to friends who are sailing around the world and blogging about it.  But I hadn’t purchased one for myself…  until now.

      I can’t reconcile the waste associated with K-cups.  I’ve had just about enough of them.  And so this morning I’ve finally brewed my first cup of coffee with an AeroPress.  From a timing standpoint the Keurig has it beat, but not by much.  If I adjust the amount of water I boil in the kettle to a single cup, turn the Keurig on to heat water at the same time I’m boiling water, then go through the brewing experience the AeroPress is very close to the same time.  I timed my second brew (with boiling water ready to go) and it took me 3 minutes start to finish, including cleanup.  If you figure a minute for a Keurig with pre-heated water, I’m saving two minutes per cup with a K-cup.  I can live with the extra two minutes, as the process of brewing the cup is meditative – something I’ve missed with Keurig.

      The benefits are hard to ignore.  The coffee tastes FAR superior!  I was using a bag of Peets coffee that’s been sitting in my cabinet for the entire summer and it blew away the K-cup.  I imagine a fresh bag will be amazing.  And I had none of the mess of a French press.  Simply unscrew the filter, pop out the coffee plug and rinse.  Done!  Looking at the biodegradable coffee and paper filter in the trash felt a lot better than seeing a plastic K-cup in there.  And I have the option of composting the coffee plug to amend my garden soil for an even greener experience.

      So here’s one man’s experience with taking a step away from the K-cup.  The AeroPress is highly portable, easy to clean, and makes truly excellent coffee in close to the time that a K-cup takes.  The cost of a K-cup averages $.60 cents USD.  A bag of really great coffee will be a fraction of that per cup.  So I’m saving money, creating less waste, and drinking better coffee.  I feel better already.

    • Opting In

      “A man is worked upon by what he works on.” – Frederick Douglass

      I’m not a photographer by profession, but I fill Instagram with pictures.

      I’m not an author by profession, but this will be my 416th blog post.

      I’m not a horticulturist. but I’ve spent hundreds of hours painting vibrant portraits with amended soil and pruning shears.

      And so on…

      We aren’t what we want to be, we’re what we do. Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena comes to mind. There are too many cavalier critics in the world. Too many armchair quarterbacks. Get out there and do something already! Opt in and act. Memento mori; remember we all must die, so do something meaningful while you’re here!

      “People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life… people who are passive create a mental landscape that is rather barren. Because of their limited experiences and action, all kinds of connections in the brain die off from lack of use. Pushing against the passive trend of these times, you must work to see how far you can extend control of your circumstances and create the kind of mind you desire.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      The more you do, the more you become. And the more interesting you become. Being interesting is a byproduct of being interested. Being interesting to others of course isn’t the objective, but being interesting with others should be. Engagement offers enlightenment. The curious mind is alive, vibrant and accretive, the disinterested mind is on life support, dull and diminishing.

      Hobbies like gardening and photography aren’t going to get me invited to do a TED talk mind you, but they do make the world a little better, move some electrons around in the brain, and hopefully give me something more to contribute than someone less interested in opting in. If you’re still talking about your conquests in college when you’re over 50 or freeze up when the conversation goes beyond last week’s game you aren’t really growing, are you? Writing for me is no longer a hobby, but not [yet] a profession. Blogging, fueled by travel, reading and curiosity, is my apprenticeship; Teaching consistency, discipline and the art of putting words together from the mind to the screen. I’ll never use this blog to make money, but hope to enrich myself in other ways in the process of daily, consistent writing. I owe that to myself.

    • Sassafras

      Serendipity placed me in front of sassafras twice in almost exactly 24 hours. Yesterday I was with a friend and expert forager who saw it on the edge of the woods. He pointed out each of the three unique leaves of the sassafras tree and pulled out a small root for me to smell.

      Today I visited the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum in Bourne, Massachusetts and what do I see but a sassafras tree! The museum guide pointed out the leaves, scratched the root to have me smell and it was déjà vu all over again.

      The original tea that settlers in North America drank and exported was made from the root of the sassafras tree. Sassafras was used for other things ranging from shipbuilding to toothbrushes, but when you smell it you probably think of root beer. And of course you’d be right; the oil from sassafras root gives flavor and the name to root beer. That was my favorite soft drink growing up. I don’t drink it sugary drinks anymore, but at the moment I’m craving some root beer. Instead, I purchased some sassafras tea from the gift store at the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum and will make a sugar-free sassafras drink. And toast the tree it came from.

    • Flight Delays and a Dose of 80’s Arena Rock

      Strobe lights probed the crack in the curtains, finding my eyes. Loud rumble of thunder found the ears shortly after. A glance at the clock confirms what I feared. 1:14 AM and under two hours until the alarm on my phone is set to go off. 2:54 and various atttempts at sleep, meditation and mental math have carried me to the inevitable and I was up before the alarm. I’d switched to a morning flight when the evening flight delays and cancellations started stacking up, grabbing a room at a Doubletree I’ve spent too many nights in over the years.

      Too early for the airport. I know this. But the alternative is to toss around in bed trying to squeeze an hour more sleep out of the night. Not me. So I shuttle over to the airport with a crew of Spirit Airlines talkers listening to which airports have quiet places to sleep when your flight plans get blown up. Finally in the airport, too early for TSA Pre-Check, but with only 12 people in front of me who cares? The guy in front of me, that’s who. We all handle sleep deprivation differently. In the morning, no matter the sleep pattern, I simply don’t care about slight affronts to my Pre-Check ego.

      Gliding my carry-on through the airport I try to avoid waking up the nappers trapped in the airport. If I had a restless sleep in my hotel they surely have more to say. I won’t be the one to wake them up. Looking out at the sheets of rain rolling down the glass punctuated by heat lightning I wonder if I should have just stayed at the hotel. Flight is still listed as on time, and all I have is optimism and a healthy dose of hope that this flight goes as planned.

      Talking heads on CNN analyze last night’s debate. My noise canceling headphones barely overcome the volume of the speakers blasting through the waiting areas. I count my blessings again for getting a hotel room. This trip on balance is still positive, but it’s also another vote for less business travel. Time is fleeting, and this is no way to spend it.

      “Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” – Homer

      I revisit this Homer quote at times when optimism wanes. That hasn’t happened just yet but I have it at the ready. The other is “This too shall pass”. And it will, so I roll with the changes, like that REO Speedwagon song, which sounds like the perfect choice to drown out debate talk right about now. And just like that the pulse quickens just enough. It’s going to be a good day.

      And then before I know it we’re at 34,000 feet and things look brighter. Things do pass, given time and patience. I keep reminding myself of that, and the world keeps reinforcing it in return.

    • Early Morning on Navy Pier

      East Ohio Street leads right to Lake Michigan, as so many other roads in Chicago do. This road ends at a tunnel under North Shore Drive into Jane Addams Memorial Park and the Navy Pier beyond. As with most things, being out on the water a bit changes your perspective of the world, and on my last morning in Chicago I finally got out there.

      The city was shaking off some overnight rain, and fog was descending quickly as the sun rose. In that brief window I caught a glimpse of sunrise, appreciated the good fortune and took in the waking Navy Pier. Boats all docked, restaurants all closed, just the joggers, dog walkers, construction workers and me. And one tractor driving noisily by on its way out to the end of the pier. I grumbled to myself about the noise until I looked up and realized what he was doing. There’s a row of flags at the end of Navy Pier, and all were at half staff to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. This gentleman was riding out to raise the flags. I caught up to him as he was completing the raising of the first, paused for a moment and moved on. There was a lot of “where were you” talk yesterday, and it was interesting to hear how people from around the country took in the events of that day.

      Making the turn and heading back to the hotel the fog began to swallow buildings. There’s beauty in fog too, and I took in Chicago from this perspective. Beautiful city and a joy to behold. Reflection time over, its time to move ahead with the day.

    • The Siren Call of More

      Energy. Vibrancy. Concrete, glass and steel. Traffic. Relentless traffic. Fit achievers marching to close the deal or set a new PR. Steakhouses and pizza and other temptations tip the scale. Look up and you see money reaching for the sky. Look down and you see the homeless trying to get a leg up or having given up. Urine stains on concrete sidewalks. Sewer system reminds you that there’s another world under that sidewalk.

      Taxis and buses and Uber this way and that. Roar of engines, wail of sirens, honking of horns. This world clamors for attention. Like many big American cities Chicago won’t wait for you. “Be better” it calls. “More!” It cries. As the old business cliche warns, “If you’re not moving forward you’re falling behind.” So get moving already. Play the game or get out of the way.

      It’s easy to get caught up in this crazy world of “more”. The siren beckons… But “less” has its own call.

    • The Fate of Trees

      Returning to the poem The Ship and Her Makers this morning as I consider the smoke alarm in my hotel room that chirped all night. Such is the glamorous life of travel. Writing instead of sleeping in is a habit I’ve developed, and there’s no sleeping in with a chirpy roommate.

      Consider:

      THE TREES
      We grew on mountains where the glaciers cry,
      Infinite sombre armies of us stood
      Below the snow-peaks which defy the sky;
      A song like the gods moaning filled our wood;
      We knew no men—our life was to stand staunch,
      Singing our song, against the avalanche.

      – John Masefield, The Ship and Her Makers

      Living in New Hampshire I know the power of trees. The white pines that dominated the forests were cut down for masts and wide plank floors and countless other uses the trees weren’t consulted on, but they’ve grown back, and New Hampshire, just behind neighboring Maine, top the nation in percentage of “above ground woody biomass”, or as we call them around here; trees.

      “Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen.” – Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World

      The irony of writing about trees thirteen stories above the largely treeless Chicago landscape isn’t lost on me. Love the city, but couldn’t live here. Give me trees. Walking amongst the tallest of them certainly brings humans back to earth. Forests are the opposite of cities in that respect too. Skyscrapers race to be the tallest, just as trees do, but they’re all in it for themselves. Not so with trees.

      “But isn’t that how evolution works? you ask. The survival of the fittest? Trees would just shake their heads—or rather their crowns. Their well-being depends on their community, and when the supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well.”

      – Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World

      There’s an underlying sadness in Masefield’s poem emphasized by the first line. We grew on mountains where the glaciers cry. What a portrait of what once was… we were once this grand forest, now we’re the planks under your feet and the mast above. Such are the sacrifices for mankind. Forests regrow of course, but we all lose something by the loss of old growth trees. Wohlleben wrote that in the quote above; when the supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well. The others aren’t just the other trees: they’re also us.

    • A Wandering Tenant

      Waiting this morning for a flight to Chicago, and the last line of this poem comes to mind.

      THE SHIP

      I march across great waters like a queen,
      I whom so many wisdoms helped to make;
      Over the uncruddled billows of seas green
      I blanch the bubbled highway of my wake.
      By me my wandering tenants clasp the hands,
      And know the thoughts of men in other lands.

      – John Masefield, The Ship and Her Makers

      Granted, I’m boarding a JetBlue flight with technology not dreamed of in the time of John Masefield, things like iPhones playing music over Bluetooth to my wireless noise cancelling headphones, or the onboard video entertainment 18″ from my face that I try to keep on the tracking map to focus on productivity. Perhaps the vessel has changed over the years, but the adventure of travel hasn’t. Instead of blanching a bubbled highway a pair of contrails mark our previous moments. I surf an aluminum tube skimming 35,000 feet above sea level at 480 miles per hour

      This is a business trip, but as with any trip I try to make the most of the time away from the more familiar. I’ve been to Chicago many times, and look forward to reacquainting myself with people from around the continent attending the same event. And of course a chance to meet new acquaintances as well. Travel offers the opportunity to explore the world one conversation at a time.

    • As the Twig is Bent the Tree Inclines

      “Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.  Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface, nor concluded in the appendix.  Even Virgil’s poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries.  It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, providing that man is still man in the world…  It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and then they failed, read them again, or perchance write more.” – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      I keep returning to Thoreau this year.  And he rarely lets me down.  When he wrote these lines he was referencing the poetry of the long dead Virgil, contemplating the power of his words in his time, even as they meant something slightly different to him.  And now I read Thoreau’s words, in turn contemplating the power of his words in the same fashion.      We all are influenced by the collective wisdom of the ages, and if we’re bold write about our own perceptions of the world to in turn influence others.  I’m not so bold as to compare myself to Virgil or Thoreau mind you, but I’ll keep working towards it nonetheless.

      “Your descendants shall gather your fruits.” – Virgil

      I’ll follow Thoreau’s lead and contemplate some of Virgil’s writing for a moment.  Whether my writing amounts to anything more than the ramblings of a restless mind or the beginning of something greater remains to be seen at this point, but those descendants will know a bit more about that mind for having done the writing.  Neither could have envisioned the world as it is today, and who might be contemplating their words.  We all add to the chorus with our voice.

      “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.” – Virgil

      There’s no doubt that blogging has bent the twig a bit, so to speak.  The benefit of this daily writing habit is that the behavior inclines us more towards greater things.  Ultimately that’s the entire point of the exercise (and thank you for being part of the journey), chipping away at it.  Getting that 10,000 hours in.  Refining, building, becoming something better for the effort and consistency.  And maybe add a little great poetry to the world in the process.

    • The Deathbed Question

      “You are 99 years old, you are on your deathbed, and you have a chance to come back right now: what would you do?” – Christopher Carmichael

      No relation to me that I’m aware of, but I love the question. This question is referenced by Jérôme Jarre, a young man with an old soul, in a written interview he’d done in Tribe of Mentors, itself a wealth of information and inspiration.

      The answer should never be “not this” of course, but importantly, what IS that answer? The time travel spin is a variation on the dying wish story: I wish I’d spent more time with my children instead of working, or similar wishes. But it’s easy to separate ourselves from the responsibility of that deathbed moment. There’s still time… Carmichael’s what would you do? question brings the future to NOW. And really, that’s all we have isn’t it?

      So, …what’s the answer to the question? Right now?