Everything and everyone is saturated to the gills with political commentary, hot takes, discourse, and pissed-off snark. People and the internet are so filled with all of this they don’t really have time or space for anything else. Longtime followers know that I think this whole culture and drift is toxic and erodes the human spirit and the possibility of culture and life. You also know I am most interested in writing about, talking photos of, and exploring life in our modern world. Trying to make, and document, (honest) life as art in our age of clickbait-algo spectator reactive discourse. For the past six months I have been working on compiling a collection of short essays and vignettes I have written over the years into a single print volume and I am thrilled to share it with you. In curating this collection for print I was adamant about a few things. I wanted a classic, simple, beautiful design inside and out. I wanted a book that you could carry around, toss on your bed, put in your pocket, shove in your bag, manhandle on the beach, write in, write on, and everything else in-between. For me, the point of this collection isn’t to produce an epic hardcover tome. It’s something more informal and approachable. Something simpler and relatable. I’ve always loved those little paperbacks. You know, the ones they say they aren’t going to make anymore. Well, I want to still make them or something similar to them. I wanted this collection to be as close as possible to that rugged, personal, carefree spirit. The book itself is about 5 in. X 7.75 in.. About as small as you can get these days. The design is simple and (hopefully) timeless, the font is warm, the margins are ample, and the pieces honest. There’s a link in my linktree / bio to Amazon where you can Buy Modern Lives. Or of course, just search Amazon as we all so often do and that will work just as well. No politics, no hot-takes, no reaction, no discourse; just life.

Returned home from a chilly walk with the kids to the wonderful smell of homemade granola my wife has been baking in the oven. The whole house smells wonderful.

Shots taken on afternoon walks in the woods with the older kids

A piece I wrote a couple years ago musing on the difference between a cottage and a cabin. Shot the photos at my uncle's cabin in Northern Michigan. It's like an incredible time warp. Read the full piece to see some incredible shots inside.

Four year old daughter was trying to carve the top off a little tabletop pumpkin last night with a pair of kid scissors and I didn’t think she would be able to do it but she did it and was thrilled she did it and so she dug out the seeds and then she and my wife roasted them up today. 🎃

What childhood should be

I record Pleasant Peninsula Podcast outside every week all year, rain, shine, or snow. This week, outside in the lovely scenes of autumn, I discuss the glorious fragrance of fallen leaves and a 2 acre island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

Winter can be dreamy too.

When you are a child you rarely think of your mortality, all those accidents happen to other people, you are invincible and will be fine, and it’s naive and clueless and it’s beautiful.

The stuff that makes the real money is the slop. The higher brow or intellectual stuff is never the money maker. It’s true all across the board. Companies or people have portfolios and it’s the mass appeal stuff that brings in the money and then the legacy brands - the high touch high culture brands - barely break even etc… This is just the nature of how the world is.

Raising kids in the city like he describes sounds interesting, and I'm not being facetious, but my kids are so used to spending so much time on grass and in woods and on and and in the water and in nature that it would take a real mindset shift to even entertain something else.

Echoing the sentiments of others - this site does honestly kind of suck today. The slop is truly horrendous, the idiocracy is awful, the algorithm is basically just geared to pushing the lowest common denominator as long as it pisses you off or gets you jacked on delusion. It's honestly not good. But - but! - I will never leave, we've got to try to put out a positive idea or create something meaningful across the board. But, it's okay, we can admit - it's real bad currently.

No, I don't worry about cortisol spikes. I have a family, and children, and work, and things to do.

Good advice and true. There is also no way to have your cake and eat it too. You can't actually have it all. You always exchange something for something else. Life is also a series of exchanges. Do your best and do what you believe in - that's the best most honorable way.

Life will continue to go on no matter what, so it’s a good idea to not build your future around assumptions of an imminent apocalypse.

We had a compilation VHS and this was on it when we were kids. I honestly don’t remember even thinking about how old it was. I didn’t even wonder. I don’t think you care about time in that way as a kid. It doesn’t mean anything to you. I just knew I liked it.

I love the sound of the geese in October and November. Because all our kids have been born in October and November the sound of their squawking and the sight of them flying above will always have a fond place in my heart. I will always associate them with new life.

Sitting outside on the front porch drinking coffee. The baby is in bed, one sick kid is in bed, a kid who used to be sick but is now feeling better is being read to and I am re-energizing in the cool October air.