Baseball, Trains, and Hat Sales – Newsletter #002
Newsletter #002
This blog was adapted from my monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
“The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings… You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive…”
- Bartlett Giamatti, The Green Fields of the Mind
I love baseball. Anyways, here’s 10 things worth sharing:
1. Before Kyle Mooney was on SNL, he had this dumb youtube channel called Good Neighbor Stuff where he just awkwardly talked to strangers. Every year on opening day I like to watch this one back. ”Smellin’ that green grass. Sweet crack of the bat. Man, it’s good to be back.”
2. A few years ago I was trying to be a youtuber. As you know that didn’t work out. But I did make this fun video about how much I love baseball cards. Actually, I’m not even that embarrassed by it. It holds up…
3. I just finished Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (audiobook link), which is about how America has lost our ability to build, invent, and progress as a society. One of the marquee stories is the history of California high-speed trains that we can’t come close to finishing, meanwhile China and Japan and Europe can do it much quicker and much cheaper. I don’t like to argue about politics, mainly because I don’t believe the arguing is helping us move forward in the current era – but trains? I will FIGHT for trains. WE. NEED. TRAINS.
4. There’s a show on HGTV called Home Town that we absolutely love. Erin and Ben Napier renovate homes and businesses in their hometown of Laurel, Mississippi – they’ve turned a shrinking rural town into a destination for new transplants and out-of-town visitors. On the way back from our spring break trip to Florida, we took the long way home and visited Laurel. We loved the mercantile and woodshop, and were inspired by how much change can happen when a few people do what they love, do it for good, and do it for a long time.
5. Hot Take: books are too long now! I took Of Mice and Men on that spring break trip and finished it in 2 days – while still having time for sand castles and frisbee. Where are all the 2-day beach reads in 2025? Everything is like 500 pages and too big or bulky to fit in your pocket like these lil’ classics. Seems like a conspiracy by Big Book but I have not developed a full theory yet. (Of Mice and Men is a lovely story. Just some friends during the depression who love each other and take care of each other and dream together as they struggle through back-breaking labor on a ranch.)
6. Did you know: the Impact font is actually really cool? I’d only ever noticed it on internet memes – until I came across this video about the font’s history. All of the examples of IMPACT in the wild blew my mind. Very cool if you are a font nerd like me.
7. “You know, at the beginning of the movie, when it says ‘UNIVERSAL’ on the globe? What if the Universal was made of chicken nuggets…” said my 7-year old while eating alphabet nuggets on a snow day. I became a graphic designer because I fell in love with photoshop in high school, so I wasn’t about to let this one pass me by:
8. I stumbled on this video of a young Willie Nelson one night, and was struck by a few things – first, 1965 seems like a different planet when you see it on video. It seems so, so long ago. But I have my own memories of Willie Nelson songs that happened in the 90’s or even the 2020’s… and the songs don’t feel out of place at all. Music is really neat – it is simultaneously a time machine and also it is timeless. Second, Willie was already 32 years old in 1965 and he’s still rollin’. What a treasure.
9. I have been using these little Dapper Notes cards for about 6 months now, and cannot stop talking about them. They are single, loose leaf note cards that fit in your pocket and are the perfect size for a quick to-do list or note to a friend. Just delightful.
10. In honor of the return of baseball season, my Hot Dog! hats are on sale this week (25% off). The Gen Z’s at the coffee shop keep commenting that they “like the hat” and “its so silly”, so you better hop on the bandwagon while you can.
Thanks for reading! See you next month.
And… Play Ball!
