What I'm Up To, Volume 80

Here’s what I’ve been up to since Vol. 79…

1. February Happenings

Even with the extra day this year, February sped by in a blur. I kicked off the month with a couple of happy hours. I met some good friends at the new Austin Beerworks Brewery. April and Val brought their baby girl, Maeve, and my pal Juanpablo joined us as well. The tap selection includes lots of seasonals I love, like Acoustic Metal, a Czech-style dark lager, and Black Thunder, another dark lager. I also may have enjoyed a Flavor Country or two. The place is very family friendly with a huge outdoor patio, a disc golf course and an excellent food truck. We talked books and Oscar nominees before Ubering home.

Speaking of coming home - after 9 weeks, I finally got my Bronco back. The collision center put her back together. Given how fast the pickup was going when it slammed into me, I was sure it was totaled. Hurrah for a well-built offroader!

I hosted a final hunt at Better Ranch. We needed to take two more whitetails for our wildlife management program. Ursula, my friend Dan’s daughter, had left empty-handed last time. On this trip, Ursula harvested a beautiful, 9-point buck the first morning. Robert’s daughter took the remaining doe. Brought back a lot of good memories of my father and uncle taking me hunting in Mississippi.

Much of my month was spent preparing for our annual convention, KW Family Reunion, with around 17,000 attendees. I ended up delivering almost 12 hours of presentations over 4 days. It was by far my most grueling schedule. My EA, Carly, and I were assigned a golf cart to shuttle me from stage to stage around the convention center.

For anyone who thinks I have my act together, I arrived in Vegas and discovered that I failed to pack my pants. It was one of those nauseating moments. I won’t share my self-talk since this is a PG-rated newsletter. Wendy rallied me and we took a car to a nearby Nordstrom for a $450 Vegas shopping trip!

The event went swimmingly. I got to see Tony Robbins, interview Codie Sanchez, hang out with an American Ninja Warrior winner, and much more. By far the highlight was meeting Mel Robbins. I wrote about it on Facebook, but below are the photos and text:

2. What I’m Reading

I doubled down on my nonfiction reads this month and finished some good ones. My favorite was The Creative Act by legendary music producer Rick Rubin. It’s a collection of tiny essays on all things creative. If you choose the audio version, you’ll be treated to his deep, meditative baritone. I enjoyed listening during my morning stretching and yoga routine.

I also enjoyed Life in Five Senses by Gretchen Rubin (no relation.) Rubin in her usual fashion takes us along for her exploration of the five senses – sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. It wasn’t as good as my memory of A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. If you’re curious to know more about how we interpret the world through the senses, start with Ackerman.

​Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte is a dense, thoughtful book on how to take notes. Forte’s thesis is that we’re constantly taking in immense amounts of information. The challenge is that we rarely read or hear it when we need to use it. I’m a pretty advanced note-taker. I have systems for storing stuff away so I can find it when I’m writing. I picked up some good tips. Write your notes for action and store them electronically so they can easily be searched.

Finally, I read Forever Strong by Dr Gabrielle Lyon, one of our speakers at Family Reunion. Dr. Lyon asserts that we spend way too much time talking about fat loss and cutting carbs when we should just focus on protein intake and muscle. She has a lot of science to back her. It’s simple but not easy. You need about one gram of protein for every pound of your ideal weight spread evenly across your meals. For me, that’s 195 grams! Sixty-five grams three times a day is the “not easy” part. At least she gives her blessing to lean steak! Add in strength training three times a week and a HIIT workout and you’re in the game!

3. What I’m Watching

My favorite film of the month was Poor Things with Emma Stone. It could easily take home an Oscar or two. I also caught Equalizer 3 with the aging but ever-cool Denzel Washington. If you’re shopping for a simple action movie, it’s not half bad. Punch-drunk and exhausted from my event, I rewatched Talladega Nights on the flight home. Still hilarious.

For shows, we loved True Detective: Night Country (Max). Jodie Foster was awesome, as always. We also loved Kali Reis, who turns out to be a real-life boxing champion. I had fun catching up with Raylon Givens (Timothy Olyphant) in Justified: City Primeval (Prime). Since I like Olyphant, Carly got me to watch Deadwood, Season 1 (Max) which I’d never seen. Pretty good western which she promised gets better as it goes. I’ll report back after another season.

Finally, we started watching Castlevania (Netflix) with Gus when he came home for the weekend from college. It’s an animated, futuristic Dracula story. And surprisingly excellent.

That’s it for this month. Please reply back and let me know what you’re up to!

Be well, do good deeds, and eat tacos!
​Jay

Note – I’ve decided to start using Amazon affiliate links for the books I share here. While this newsletter isn’t a commercial enterprise, it does have costs to defray. I hope you don’t mind.