The strange high school D.A.R.E classes tried to teach us that we if did drugs, we would end up a shell of our selves. We would become that “flat girl” Above The Influence PSA if we weren’t careful.

These PSAs urged against it all, all the while your gym teacher was proudly splaying out a buffet of drugs you’ve never heard of in front of you to learn about. But remember…don’t do them!

D.A.R.E insisted on all this, all years before it would cascade into monumental failures with the Opioid Epidemic and War On Drugs.

Congratulations, Anthropic and OpenAI. You’re better than cocaine.

We have, collectively, lost our damn minds. There’s flat girls all around us. It wasn’t oxycontin or Adderall this time around. Government and big business are pushing it just as hard, though.

It’s really freaking weird.

I swear to you, people were capable of writing without a chatbot two years ago. This all happened, fast.

The rhetoric shifted. Many people need the AI now. Need it. Can’t go a day without it. Hit it first thing in the morning.

“Everyone is doing it. It’s industry standard now. Get on board.”

“Oh, I don’t use it... It’s just a thinking partner.”

“It doesn’t matter. All the writers use it now.”

You’ve heard all the clever and easy-to-repeat marketing messages. All the writers don’t use it. I promise.

The Roanoke Rambler example is timely.

This article (https://www.roanokerambler.com/have-your-quesadilla-and-eat-it-too) came across my algorithm the other day. I can’t say I’m awfully familiar with this publication; perhaps the Roanoke Rambler is typically a wonderful media source. I would have scrolled past it, had the reactions not been so numerous.

That article is functionally, fundamentally, unreadable. Not like, “just not great writing” or “maybe the writer is just a newbie journo with bad form.” that we see in today’s media decline. It doesn’t have the flow or basic tenants of human writing. It repeats paragraphs entirely—a little too much chatbot “thinking partner” at play. The word salad is one only an LLM could come up with. A middle schooler with a thesaurus used to be significantly more capable.

The backlash was swift. Lots of comments, from people I know! This is one of the first times I’ve seen the public actually critique an AI thing and not just ignore it. Worse, the author doubled down instead of approaching it with some introspection. That’s just lame. But it’s not surprising in this age of outsourced thinking.

That was an illustrative example but there’s plenty to see every day.

You know what I’m talking about here. Any day to day examples I can give you cut a little too deep, so I’ll be very brief.

It’s media illiteracy, brought on by a technology that has become a reckless crutch. That’s what it is.

It’s asking for someone to explain what is written plainly, when the words are in front of them. If someone actually struggles with literacy, I have abundant empathy and patience.

That’s not the case, here. Those same people were reading and comprehending before this LLM hellscape. Now, so much thinking is outsourced and our brains simply atrophy.

It’s death by 1000 little cuts of lost thinking. If you don’t practice and repeat something, the ability goes away. If you outsource it to a little chat window, you become dependent on it.

We’ll call this an epidemic, eventually.

It’ll be too late and put us behind by many years. Having a public that’s not capable of thinking for themselves is an absolutely fantastic resource for governments and big business. Some massive and terrible event will rip us out of the collective illusion and it will hurt.

Don’t turn this into a “But AI helps me code so well!” argument. That’s great—you translate human speech into code a machine can read—wonderful! None of this is the AI that’s accelerating medical research or solving big questions in the universe. Don’t twist it around.

We’re talking human cognition. Our ability to reason and converse with people without devolving into fits of rage…that we see online and in real life everyday now.

What’s the fix?

Read. Write, without the chatbot open in the other window. No LLM touched any of these words. This was an hour, a couple iced coffees, and a man at a keyboard. Old school, baby.

Lean into the community around you. Meet your neighbors. Go for a walk. Talk to them face-to-face and embrace that awkwardness.

We’re two or three years into this shit. Let’s not make it decades of decline before we name it, address it, and do something about it.

I remember the very first complaint. The birds!

The world is quieter now. It has been for a while. Nobody really noticed when it happened. Gradually, people just started to cede their streets to bicycles and pedestrians. Neighborhoods quieted down. An Amazon truck slowly driving down the road was something of an event. Kids had to get out of the way, pushing their bikes and toys to the side so the driver could get to everyone’s house. The driver would wave at everyone. She was important because her truck brought everyone’s stuff.

That’s around the time the complaints began. The birds! I’ll never forget. When the world got quiet, the birds returned. It all happened one spring. Hundreds, thousands, then more.

The birds are an epidemic, they’d say. It was too loud outside. They shit everywhere—somehow aiming straight for the dusty hoods of everyone’s cars. It’s not like anyone really got rid of a car if they didn’t need to. They just sat. And got bird shit on them. If you still loved to drive all the time—there were holdouts everywhere—you waged war with a garden hose most evenings.

Once people stopped driving as much, everyone in leadership was…less than happy.

Every town and city needed cars. It was good business. GREAT business. We needed to bring them back, and fast!

The first time police officers went viral, it wasn’t a good look. People would bike by and take videos of drowsy officers, fast asleep in patrol cars on the side of the road. It made sense: they hadn’t seen a speeding car in hours. There wasn’t much to do if your job was enforcing traffic.

Right after that, revenues dipped drastically. Tickets were important and we needed more of them. They used to prop up whole rural counties. You just couldn’t rely on a speed trap like you used to.

Sales tax on cars and car parts waned. Gas stations fizzled out and closed. You couldn’t even depend on property taxes to shore up a county budget anymore when most people only had one car in the driveway, if that.

Trauma centers were quiet. Rehabs were closing their doors. And the morticians! They were a vocal bunch. Without car crashes, they were losing money fast. 40,000 clients a year in the US alone weren’t coming through their door. Sure, guns were still doing their share—like they are now—but it didn’t seem like the industry would ever recover fully. That was before measles really came back…

It’s not like one event started the shift, either, so nobody had much to blame. People just gradually put their keys away. At first, gas was expensive. Then when demand disappeared, it was abundant. You could get anything shipped and, with no demand, companies were more than happy to give a good deal to drop things at your door. Trucks and shipping boomed—it was fast with almost nobody else on the roads.

Neighborhoods shops absolutely boomed. You needed a coffee shop, grocery, and bike shop nearby. People who never thought their dream to open up a little corner store were suddenly given the chance—and thriving! That’s still true today.

They tried to get cars back. It didn’t work.

The campaigns were…uninspiring to most. The car fiends loved the messaging but by then, most everyone else had learned that a bicycle ride to the train station just made for a better trip to work.

“Illegals ride bicycles!” they would repeat over and over. Drivers hated “illegals” and would all nod about this one. They traffic their drugs on foot, you see, and Flock safety was better at identifying license plates. This resonated with a certain bunch in a big way.

“We NEED the roads! That money has to come from somewhere." was another one that didn’t share the same gravitas. In reality, the roads just got smaller. People didn’t need the big wide roads, only their cars did. Leave that at home and everything was fine.

“Walking is dangerous! Driving keeps you safe from strangers” too. That one was easier to debunk: if you and all your neighbors were consistently walking around, there didn’t seem to be nearly as many boogeymen hiding in the shadows. The streets didn’t always feel as safe as they do today.

“How will an ambulance reach you?”
”Your American freedom is at stake!”
”They’re trying to trap you in your town.”
”Fifteen minute cities are ANTIFA!!!”

…sorry, you get the point.

It didn’t really work at first and it got tiring after a while. If you saw a car coming up on the road—an old man behind the wheel of their F-350, usually—everyone would groan.

“Which slur are they going to choose today?” the person beside you would say.

“CAN they even ride a bike?” the teenagers would snicker. We’d remind them to have empathy. This new world doesn’t look like the one they were born into.

Then they would drive by, scowling, and rev the engine up to make themselves feel big.

Oops. I went on a rant. I do that, in my ‘golden years’ as Kristy reminds me all the time. I think she tuned me out when I was 35. This guy looks really bored.

He finally got a word in: “Wow… I didn’t know it took all that. Just to get where we are today. I thought people just got smarter...anyway…thanks for the story!”

And he biked away. Next time, he’ll be smarter to ask an old man about the past.

Capital “C”, always. Everybody claims to desire one. Each and every business wants a “Community” surrounding them. That actually means a pool of customers willing to be loyal without asking too many questions.

We all say we want to be part of a Community. When it’s time to show up, though, the excuses abound. Trash cleanup on a Saturday morning? uh, no. Fun happy hour? Hell YES. But now somebody is asking me to help them move a couch or watch their child the next day? That’s not the part I wanted. Eww. That doesn’t benefit me.

That is not my experience in Community, though. At least not lately. Growing up, I don’t recall any Community. I never visited my neighbors or called them by name despite living on a bus route in Blacksburg. Now, I happily hang out with the neighbor kids most every time I leave my front door.

Now? You all? Holy…Community! We got it here, in Christiansburg. Some days I’m at a loss to even know how it could get better. Sure, we need a coffee shop downtown. The boarded-up buildings and lazy owners need ousted. The cars need to go. But that person-to-person connectedness that is the “Community” that I believe everyone says they strive for is here.

Someday, I might get brave enough to talk directly about the loneliness epidemic, especially among my fellow men. Not today. You’d hate what I have to say.

What I can offer is some more microscopic and actionable perspectives:

Events are not the answer.

Can we agree to cut the shit on this one? Events are generally thinly-veiled endeavors at capitalistic advancement. People see through it and, even more simply, are too busy to care.

In Community work, events are the golden ticket. More events! That’s Community! If you send out a survey, that’s what people will say. Try it out.

How, then, do we reconcile with that fact that every day of the week, there are three competing events for every hour we have? Even in our little small town, it’s true. I love the ones that are a weekly habit but there’s just no room for more. A “yes” to one is already a “no” to the rest. That’s nothing to say of time to clean the house or, god forbid, rest.

We ruined our communities with roadways.

I’ll keep this one quick and spare you too much car hate on this post. Check my others for plenty of that. However, we’ve given our Communities up to cars.

Those four lane asphalt death traps that crisscross our communities ruined them. Instead of walking past a neighbor’s beautiful garden or biking beside them on your commute to work, we stuck ourselves in metal cages and decided we hate every other person in a car on the road and especially despise those brave enough to walk or bike on the periphery.

Narrow the roads, slow down the cars, ride the bike, and if you’re able, walk to wherever you need to go and leave parking spots open for those among us that can’t walk or ride a bicycle.

Community inconveniences are part of the fun.

I had to learn this one. This has since become a household mantra. It’s not all fun but that’s the important part of this Community thing. Friends are coming over to help us move a hot tub this evening. I’m sorry. And I owe you.

We can accept that many parts of Community are inconvenient or annoying while understanding that those are the important parts.

My big dogs licking you and slobbering your pants are obnoxious.

Yes, my floors are always dirty but I’m really happy you stopped by on your way home.

Your kids scream way too much and they make everything sticky.

I really don’t want to run your charity 5K at 8am on my Saturday morning.

Showing up to town council meetings on a Tuesday night ruin the whole evening.

I’m going to cuss so hard when your bees sting me while I’m mowing, Daniel.

I love all that stuff. It’s so important that those sticky kids grow up knowing that people love them. If we don’t show up to Town Council, the developer that couldn’t care less about us wins. He’s counting on us to skip that 7pm meeting.

Lean into the inconvenience.

Smaller acts are community magic.

I don’t buy for a moment that events are the answer to Community. Nor are social media platforms, conferences with expensive speakers from far away, or marketing campaigns that swear your tiny retail business cares about the community around it. You want to sell your inventory. That makes sense.

The small acts are the magic ones. The evenings spent on front porches or the times you remember that you’re allowed to just pick up the phone and call someone.

Give your neighbors flowers.

Find their unlocked car door and throw some zucchini in there.

Show up when your friend says they made too much food.

Throw a book in the little library and put food in the box that the church puts out.

Can we actually do this one (!!!): get your musical friends together and invite the neighborhood over to hang out on a Friday evening.

What do YOU want?

The important part and the one I really want some responses on, if you’re at all willing: what do you want out of “Community” and where do we fall short? It’s clear that as a society, we aren’t succeeding at it. Division runs rampant and I’m not even sure we can claim “us and them” at this point—it’s starting to seem like everyone just hates “them”, whoever they are.

The Community is here, though, and it’s strong. I want to build what works. I have some answers, a few years of success under my belt, and an enthusiasm for this work that I’m convinced doesn’t burn out.

Just tell me what to do.

I’m a professor in Urban Planning, so when we first started looking at Virginia Tech, I was skeptical. I always want to live somewhere that feels like it’s growing and we were both very unsure about Blacksburg. The only train station was a town over, the student housing sprawl is immense, and even with the sale of our house in California, our dollar wouldn’t go as far as we’d like.

Still, I started to love this place. The mountain views. The humid air that didn’t dry out my skin every day. Every time I flew in and took the train to Christiansburg to do my interviews at VT, I fell in love a little more.

Fast-forward to our real move cross country, a wildly expensive rental for a while, and the purchase of our home in Christiansburg! A cute brick ranch on a hilly half-acre’s worth of yard with some mid-century details. Way more than we had back in California.

This town took some getting used to. “Small town” here means something different than back home. Only one high school, no pro sports, and every doctor—if you can find one—is booked out a year.

Still, we started to meet people and eventually found our way downtown. The farmers market is so cute! It’s built on a former street and right near the coffee shops and restaurants. I’m told the whole downtown used to be sleepy: boarded up buildings, law offices, and barber shops.

Downtown is absolutely bustling now. They closed off most of the side streets to car traffic, which created a massive pedestrian area and huge influx of business interest in town. I know every town wants to “pedestrian-ize” these days but Christiansburg really went all-in on it. The 2029 Federal Revitalization Initiative really helped make all this happen.

Anyway, it’s a really cool small town. There’s music on Fridays at the amphitheater. It’s pretty informal: a food truck or two but people mostly just bring dinner and have a picnic.

There’s not much nightlife—this is really a commuter town for workers after all. If you want sticky floors and 1am drinks, Blacksburg is always happy to oblige.

The community is incredible and absolutely overwhelming. When we moved in, the neighbors all came by and said hello. We moved in late October and everyone took Halloween as their opportunity to knock on our door and meet us. Coming from a place where neighbors might wave and shut their doors in the same breath, this took some getting used to.

Once we figured out that people really just wanted to invite us over for a cookout and weren’t trying to talk us into any cults, we relaxed a bit. The neighbor kids have free reign across everyone’s yards, which Lew-Boo still isn’t accustomed to.

We really just settled into an easy life here. I’m working on tenure and Isaac found a remote job doing AI-remediation. We both joined a run club in town and I keep finding more and more book clubs to join.

It’s still not the perfect place but its problems are all things we can work with. The town council is constantly dealing with developers wanting to bring more and more “Student Professional” projects in—which is code for “Student Housing but make it expensive.”

They did say that sometime around 2035, the town’s population should be able to actually support the number of barber shops. There’s 28 of them in town, narrowly edging out the car washes. Most people just treat those as strange quirks of Christiansburg. Isaac thinks they’re all fronts.

I do hope we get a little more here before the kids get older. The arcade across from Pizza Inn (my favorite restaurant, hence my username!) desperately needs a face-lift. The main building still has a gaudy red-white-and-blue motif that has fallen apart. That helps it earns its nickname, “‘Merica-cade.” I can’t imagine what the owners were thinking.

Anyway, we love it here. The people are warm and welcoming. The town just feels like it’s taking a slower approach—less traffic, narrower streets, and a little less love for sprawl.

Do I recommend Christiansburg? I do. I’m surprised to say that because the last two years haven’t always been easy. Everyone told me I was moving to a southern bible belt town, stuck in its ways as ever. That’s not what I found here; instead I got warm people and opportunities to get out and connect myself to a town that loves each other—my family included.

I do have one gripe still, though: can we finally connect the path that goes between the rec center and place I go to swim laps? Despite all the fixes, they’ve never done that!

I wanted to share some photos of my current garden but first, I have a question: what are you doing online these days? I see friends still lurking in the shadows: people look at stories and send memes back-and-forth on group chats—oh so many group chats.

But are you offline other than that? A quick peep at the news but no social media anymore? Avoiding it all and rotting with some Netflix? I’m just wondering what other people are doing in our current hellscape. The internet feels dead in many places if you’re not looking to spout hate and divineness.

April in the Garden!

I’m really enjoying the garden this year. We tilled up a huge chunk of our yard and are working to establish a flower garden, mostly from seed. We also more-than-doubled our blueberry bushes this year as well and added some more native plants from the VT Plant Sale.

Here’s what I got going this week:

It’s that slow time of year where everything seems to take forever to grow except the weeds. Finally, the greens are growing a little faster. Herbs are taking off. And I got some warmer-season stuff in from Riverstone Organic Farm yesterday!

Thankful for the rain today. Anyway, enjoy these photos and don’t be a stranger. There’s lots of good happening in the world if only we escape looking at all the bad they want us to see. Go plant something for me.

This topic has been percolating for a bit now and will bridge between personal and work stuff.

The concept here is very simple: when you tell stories that connect with people, you win. When you don’t tell those stories, the “why” behind whatever it is you do, you don’t.

I need to remember this too. While I still take pictures, document, and tell stories in my personal life, I don’t do it like I used to. I get lazy and leave the camera at home. Photography has always been a game of plateaus for me: I spend lots of time feeling like my work is in a rut before an inevitable “level up” if I push through. Over time, those plateaus get longer and it’s easy to get lazy.

Run club is a shining, if nonlinear, example.

I’m committed to the group photos for run club and have been consistently plugging away at those for years. Many hundreds of meetups later and very few where we don’t take a picture.

Those pictures tell the story, show people what the club looks like, and directly gets new people out with us because they can see themselves included. If we didn’t post with a level of weekly (and now almost daily) consistency, the club wouldn’t grow like it does and our community wouldn’t prosper as a result.

At work, it’s a lot easier to see the effect.

We’ve always been prolific with digital storytelling at Aspire: photography, videos, and websites that tell stories—sometimes complex ones—that resonate.

Lately, there’s been a great chasm of story-doers and story-don’ters.

The brands, counties, and non-profits telling stories? Big wins.

Others that have let stories slide away or never started? Sales dropping. Slowly, the public’s awareness eroded. A bad direction and a scary one.

If you’re selling something, simply showing your products, store hours, and sign-up links has never been enough. Nobody gets excited over a “call to action”.

Put that same product or service in the hands of a customer, show the problems you solve or feeling you evoke? Magic happens then.

It doesn’t really matter what it is, either: we’ve been pointing cameras at lab equipment, silt in local streams, and banking services an awful lot lately. Those stories work wonders. It’s even easier if what you sell is more exciting.

This is my personal kick-in-the-butt.

I’ll bring the camera like I always used to, remember to tell the stories, and not let complacency and a weighty world let me forget what wins.

At my core, I’ve always told stories. Somewhere along the way, I realized the value it had and started doing it for others too. I don’t want to see other losing when there’s stories to be told. If this motivates anyone else, that’d be a swell added perk.

Here’s the context: Kristy and I go outside with our dogs a lot. Several times per week, we’re out on trails or in places with limited cell service.

Our dogs are either on leash or have excellent recall. We don’t need hunting-style collars to show us that our dogs are running a county over; we just need a secondary option in case they chase a deer and are now lost one ridge over.

So, let’s solve that problem!

Sounds fairly straightforward with all the dog collar trackers that are on the market, right? Not exactly. They all have fundamental limitations OR are exorbitantly expensive.

If you’re not a huge nerd and would rather have a quick summary instead of a write-up, here’s the TL;DR: Using a couple hundred dollars in off-the-shelf radio components, I made a dog tracker that should, in theory, work anywhere in the world without the need for any outside network.

“Anywhere in the world” is a slightly dubious statement because you’d potentially have to get components that are made for your region—but you can order those from the same companies.

Why Other Trackers Fall Short

There’s two (or maybe three) basic tiers of dog trackers on the market:

1. “Airtag” style options that are cheap but require close proximity to work. These fail even in the scale of my backyard.

2. The accessible competition: Fi, Halo, and Tractive-style options that all require cellphone network signal to actually work.

3. True GPS-enabled dog trackers made for hunting. Garmin is the head of this. To get one receiver and one collar, you’re looking at $1000+

Most of them fall short for my use for one simple reason: they require a cell phone network to operate. Even in our nearby towns, cell service can be spotty. In the places we often go hiking like Giles County, Craig County, and Monroe County, WV, these cellular trackers might as well be useless.

So, the options are cellular-based collars that won’t work when we need them or very expensive Garmin collars that are simply overkill for the occasional “maybe my dog will chase a deer” situation.

Enter, a solution!

How “Meshtastic” Works

Meshtastic is “off-grid communication for everyone”, which sounds like some doomsday HAM radio stuff—which it kinda is. You don’t need an amateur radio license, though.

As simply put as possible, Meshtastic is a project that allows you to connect many radios (nodes) together to send text messages and positioning data over LoRa radio. No cellular network or outside infrastructure required.

The goal of many Meshtastic projects is to have a bunch of people with nodes around town, to create a mesh that lets you bounce your signals by “hopping” across their nodes.

That’s tough because you first need to convince a bunch of people on this fringe technology, to buy a cheap node, and to actually turn it on.

In order to make a dog tracker, though, all I need is a small network: my node, my wife’s, and a tracker on our dog.

Implementation

While the tracking setup was a bit finicky to set up (I had to factory reset one node a couple times to get location to report), it’s about as plug-and-play as any open source projects can be.

We purchased three “nodes”:

Two Muzi Works R1 Neo nodes.

One Elecrow ThinkNode M3 Meshtastic tracker—which is a node in itself but in a smaller package and with some additional configuration and sensors.

Note: I got the R1 Neo nodes because they have built-in GPS modules. That isn’t very relevant for this project since you could just pull that data from your phone. You could get cheaper radios like a complete Heltec V3 and have this work too.

Each of these nodes have onboard GPS modules so they can connect with satellites and transmit their location data across the radio network, at a set interval. The tracker node sends its position more often (every 30 seconds) and the other nodes update every couple minutes.

Using “Channel 0” that allows you to send your precise location and an encryption key that’s shared as a QR code to add more nodes to a channel, each of these nodes is basically “paired” together and will share its location with each other.

This information is all sent to the Meshtastic app, available for iOS, Android, and desktop. The nodes interface with each of our iPhones via Bluetooth and do not require any cellular service to work.

With a node in each human’s pocket and a tracker on our dog (zip-tied with a bracket on his collar), we can plot our locations on a map, included in the Meshtastic app, and receive updates from the tracker node in “real enough” time: about every 30 seconds.

“Squeak” and “Spud” are the nodes we have in our pocket and “Trac” is the dog tracker.

After we were confident that the nodes were reporting as we walked through the Virginia Tech campus, we tried something else: I walked away and Kristy kept our dog with her.

Within the time it took me to walk a few meters onto the drillfield, the Meshtastic app updated our positions and realized I was walking away.

Note: “Squeak” and “Trac” were actually together. The “Squeak” node simply updates less often than “Trac” is set to do. While this isn’t truly real-time, it’s fast enough that we could find our dog in the woods.

There you have it!

Subscription-less, off-grid (no cell network required) GPS dog tracking for less than the cost of most competitors collars.

Limitations/Next Steps

As with any project, this isn’t without limitations:

1. The radios need to have decent line-of-site to each other.

2. Each node needs charged AND the radios that my wife and I have in our pockets need a phone as well. That’s a lot to keep charged.

3. End-of-the-day, it’s relying on an open-sourced app that isn’t nearly as clean and sleek as what Garmin has to offer. That’s still a better product at a lot higher price.

“Will this work if our dog actually runs off?” We’ll see. Airtags and cell-based collars have failed in the past. The plan is to not have him run off in the first place, using a leash.

“Is it plug-and-play? Can I do this if I’m not into tinkering?” As with all technology stuff, I think you can! But I’m often reminded that I’m a lot more willing to read and play around than most people.

This was an incredibly “plug and play” solution in regards to using off-the-shelf radios and an app with no coding required.

“Can I use this as a tracker for my child/bike/family?” You could absolutely use this to track people or things if you were going for a hike or out on your property. The limitation is battery life: the tracker node has a stated battery life of 18 hours.

This is not an Airtag replacement to hide in a camera bag or bicycle. Airtags work better for that because they stay charged for months and if something gets lost or stolen, it only has to show up once to be “found”.

This was a fun winter project with some fairly inexpensive components.

Regardless of how often we’ll actually use this, these radios and the Meshtastic project in general is very fun.

This allows me to make subscription-less things at a time when the world only wants to supply subscription-based solutions. Figuring this out felt like the “old” internet: buggy, a little confusing, and fulfilling in the end.

One thing is for certain: we’d still need to find things to complain about.

A list, lovingly assembled with my wife:

• I can’t find bike parking outside the brewery. Everyone keeps taking all the spots.

• The kids in the park down the street are too loud.

• The train left on-time and I missed it. Again.

• My car battery keeps dying. I keep forgetting to drive anywhere.

• I can’t get an appointment with my doctor until tomorrow.

• The close bakery has better muffins but the far one has better coffee.

• I keep getting lost on the local trails. There’s too many.

• All the good storefronts downtown are taken with pretty shops.

• The sidewalks are too wide. People don’t know where to walk!

• I keep tracking in too many flower petals from the yard.

• The prettier bike path is too hilly.

And some additions, assembled with the help of friends:

• The farmer’s market has too many fresh options; I don’t know what to make for dinner. (Alex Gomes)

• The rooftop solar company is backed up with too much demand. They’re hiring like crazy, but it’s hard to properly train so many employees so quickly. (Alex Gomes)

Want to add your own? Leave a comment or text me and I’ll add it (with your name too, if you want)

This blog thing is just plain fun. I’m not taking it seriously at all—just writing when and what I want. Last year, when I was taking it a big more seriously, I wrote up some 2025 Resolutions.

Now, let’s see how I did!

Regardless of these resolutions from last year, this year was amazing. We got married, biked in the Netherlands, saw freaking windmills, raised a lovely puppy, saw many old friends, and got outside a whole lot.

Anyway, these were last years’ resolutions:

(Personal) “Shirk my cellular responsibilities.” (-5/10)

Yeah, no. Failed at this one. A helpful reminder. I even downloaded Threads again after a good long break. Phones are still my problem. Gross.

(Personal) Quit buying new stuff. (8/10)

I did pretty well here. Selling my daily driver and buying a bike was a wonderful idea. It wasn’t hard and has saved an incredible amount of money. I drive the van when I need to and just don’t miss that little sedan at all.

New cars do not save you any money. Nor are they more reliable. The math doesn’t work out. I don’t spend anywhere near a car payment to keep the van rolling each month. Not even close.

Most of my clothes are approaching a decade old, too. It’s a great feeling. When I started buying quality clothes, new or thrifted, the costs hurt pretty bad. Now, they’ve paid for themselves over and over! I tend to buy secondhand for everything too. Online consignment is great.

(Personal) Eat a little smarter. (5/10)

Probably about the same. I really enjoy the farm share and I want to grow a little bit bigger garden this year. Food is food.

(Work) Only take on deeper tasks. (7/10)

Definitely a good trajectory here. We take on more, bigger projects and less small stuff. I love the small stuff; I just don’t have time for much of it. I want to find a way to do the small, fun things but can’t seem to figure that out.

(Work) Don’t worry about growth. Serve instead. (9/10)

Did I do well here, on accident? Aspire grew a lot this year, by most every metric. We have an absolutely amazing team. I can’t remember if I really worked to grow or serve more, though. I just want to do impactful work.

(Work) Work with who wants to be in the room. (7/10)

I only want to work with and work for people who want me in the room with them. Fortunately, I seem to find plenty of those people. I hope this will only improve over time.

(Run Club) Collaborate as broadly as possible. (5/10)

This is one piece I haven’t figured out yet. People and brands “want” to collaborate but, so far, we don’t fully align. I haven’t found ways that collaboration really helps out the club or its members. With a notable exception, though, from Iron Tree Brewing Company, which is an excellent home base and even put up our flag!

In terms of run community collaboration, too? It’s great. We work back-and-forth with the Blacksburg Striders a lot now and are really forming a great regional community of runners.

(Run Club) Tighten up the mission and solidify. (2/10)

This year, we might have gotten looser. I started out last year thinking we’d form the non-profit organization, have a scholarship fund going, and be “real” by now.

We’re bigger than ever, with more committed folks. But as an organization, it’s looser. Maybe that’s just community. One big, crazy family.

(Run Club) Build community affinity. (7/10)

One year better in the community. More people know about us. I hear about run club in odd places more often. People tell me they love to see it. We’re doing well here.

“The big one”: Build only for those that are open to it. (7/10)

I don’t quite remember why this one felt “big” last year. I think I was experiencing some frustration with people who were terminally unhappy with a lot in their own lives and it bled into work.

Not everyone is open to growth. Not every place, either: I’m still not sure if Christiansburg truly wants to improve or not. But time will tell and we’ll keep making friends and running in town!

Will I do some more resolutions this year? Maybe. Or maybe I’ll keep going.

The Kindness We Seem to Lack

Amsterdam and the Netherlands was amazing… and I have almost nothing to say about it. It was a beautiful trip. We walked for hours on cobblestone streets, rode bikes alongside thousands of Dutch folks, and ducked into more shops for coffee, pastries, and half-pint (“vaasje”) beers than I can count. It was a dream for several days and I’ll remember it forever.

I expected to learn a thing or two about biking while I was there. The helmet-less, beautifully chaotic city riding was incredible. I can absolutely see how it would quickly just become commonplace to be on a bike and rarely need a car.

It would never work back here, though.

There was one big takeaway: we’re not going to infrastructure or legislate our way out of our American car problem. Even if we built beautiful, safe bike lanes everywhere and separated our giant cars and trucks from bikes and pedestrians, drivers would still find a way to be terrible.

We already speed through crosswalks and spew hateful comments online about bikers and walkers whenever they come up. Those aren’t all keyboard warriors, either: I’ve taken those conversations offline and into real life and people around me will double-down on the hate.

It’s the Kindness We Seem to Lack

It’s bizarre to me that we can offer so much grace to those immediately around us and then turn around and “other” everyone else.

The bike you’re behind in the road isn’t the enemy. That’s a person, going somewhere. That’s simple. They’re not breaking laws any more often than drivers are—and I’d argue probably a lot less.

Go beyond biking too. The person in the grocery store who’s walking around, annoyingly oblivious to those around them is just a person. Their life is hard, like everyone else. Yet, we get irate.

We can extrapolate this lack of kindness into so many parts of life. I’m strapped for time today but this problem goes very deep.

I didn’t see that “otherness” when I was riding in Amsterdam

I was a random person among many thousands. Riding around walkers, trams, busses, ferries, and yes: a whole lot of cars. Like, a small American city number of cars. It wasn’t the DC Beltway or Manhattan car-packed but it felt like Roanoke or Raleigh in terms of cars.

The hate wasn’t there, though. Cars know their place. Just big, bumbling metal objects moving around all of humanity. Bikers and walkers too—sometimes people mess up or ride somewhere dumb. You divert off, maybe ring your bell if it’s especially egregious, and keep going. That’s kindness.

And it’s kindness we lack.

Thanks for the photo! I didn’t take it. Photo credit: Jace & Afsoon

Starring into our messy sewing drawer, or still-uncut lawn, or van that needs its oil changed, or the emails piling up (which is my typical excuse for not writing here), it’s easy to only see chaos and busyness.

But that sewing drawer just looks like opportunity to repair something instead of trashing it. The lawn hardly matters. The oil change will only take half an hour in the driveway and that van means freedom.

It all piles and piles but one thing is certain: I believe in you. I believe in us.

I hear so much frustration, constantly. It’s true that the world, at least if you look at any current event, is in shambles. Yesterday, as I was eating my Cook Out lunch in a dilapidated strip mall parking lot with my window down, I thought: “this is nobody’s idea of good. Look broader, at everything going on. There isn’t even one person that looks around at the world today and says “yep, we’re good!”

It’s very easy to conclude that most everyone has simply given up. But I don’t think so. I believe in you.

Take my daily, easy win: run club. I believe, so much, in this group of people who show up for themselves and each other every week. It’s just a couple hours to be together but the camaraderie compounds over time. I hope nobody feels alone, crowded together on the gravel shoulder of a busy street running or with three tables pushed together at the bar after, shoulder-to-shoulder with each other and every toddler, dog, and fragile glass pint in the mix.

I believe in you a lot more, though.

I believe that you’re pouring so much into what’s actually important every day. Getting your kids fed each morning and being present with them is more important than any work meeting you feel bad missing. Cancel the meeting. It should have been an email anyway.

I believe that we all want a better community. We want safe sidewalks to walk on and places to go. I know, too, that you don’t have time or energy to take action. Almost none of us can attend evening committee meetings or hollow “work sessions” in the name of change. If our leaders actually represented our concerns, we wouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t need to.

Even beyond that, what if your employer doesn’t agree? It’s way more important to keep a job than be vocal about progress.

I believe that we’re all striving in ways nobody else sees. Take social media, because it’s an easy example: it’s pretty dead these days. There’s anger and hate, for sure, but that doesn’t do anything good. The smart ones among us have logged off. I’m still there, of course.

We can’t worry ourselves if people don’t interact or buy our thing. I work in marketing: that often means sales—at scale.

Unless it’s essential, in ways only groceries and gas are, anybody that buys “nice to haves” now should be celebrated. It’s a statement against chaos to give someone a gift or buy a coffee out. I know we’re all doing the very best we can. You deserve that coffee, too.

I believe that your commitment to travel, to go out into nature with phones off and not a soul in sight, or that time you take away from it all to read a book—whatever you need that makes the world better for you—is essential. Those moments are probably all that’s holding you together some days, so please: take the time.

“I believe” we can offer each other so much more grace.

Be a steward to those around you. Be kind when others won’t. Hide away when you need to, so you can be the best version of you when it’s time to be there.

A lot of what I’ve written here so far comes back to community and grace. Since I wrote about Building Community in Tough Times in February, things certainly aren’t any better. But we’re still here and growing in good ways.

If we offer more grace, too, we can all be better. We might even be able to Lessen Each Others’ Burdens, when we have the strength.

I’ve been really bad about writing here lately. Life and work are busier than ever and I’m grateful to lean into all of it. Trying to write weekly over the summer just proved too much and I gave myself the grace to not force it. I’m back for now and hopeful, though.

The choice to go car-lite and get an e-bike has brought upon joy, fitness, and a rekindled connection to our hometown. We’ve sailed past the first 500 miles on our bike—when I meant to write this post—and are nearly at the first thousand.

I’ve been a bike nerd for most of my life. It’s always meant freedom, fun, and this sense of joy that I can’t quite explain unless we’re out riding together. For all those years, though, it also felt like owning a “daily driver” car was necessary. Come to find out, it wasn’t—even in our small town that’s largely deprived of any bicycle infrastructure.

Being “car-lite” is so much easier than expected.

We didn’t make any radical change with this new endeavor. Kristy and I still have cars: a Subaru Crosstrek as our reliable, modern car and an absolutely lovely camper van from the 90’s.

Car-lite living is so easy, though, that we still don’t drive the van enough to keep the battery reliably charged to start it.

One e- bike that we can share and cars when we need them. It’s easy.

Once I sold my Jetta, we bought a Tern Quick Haul P9 at Roanoke Mountain Adventures. It’s a compact cargo bike with a good motor. It’s designed to fit people of many sizes and Kristy and I can both ride it comfortably and only need to adjust the seatpost each time.

If you’re considering an e-bike, it’s a great option. There’s definitely cheaper bikes as well as ones that are triple this price. I wanted one that would solidly work as a “car replacement”, so I chose the Tern.

In the market? This Quick Haul has gone up in price thanks to one man’s silly tariffs but the industry has so many options. There’s used ones now, too!

We put about 100 a miles a week on our Tern.

Every weekday with decent weather, one of us rides to work. It’s around 20 miles roundtrip, which uses about 80% of the battery with our town’s relentless hills. In a flatter place, you’d get a lot more out of a single charge.

That’s 100 miles a week that we get to be outside. 100 miles that we don’t put on either car. We also drive less in general—grocery trips are easy with the cargo bike and I will definitely grab the bike to ride over to a friend’s instead of driving.

A few days of groceries isn’t hard at all to pick up on the bike. It’s stable with weight and cruises easily at 22-25mph. Going down a hill (the motor cuts off at 28mph) these little tires feel great at 35mph too.

So, should you get an e-bike?

I genuinely think most people could use one. So many car trips are short ones: to the store, over to a friend’s, or general errands like work commutes and kids to daycare.

Most people I talk to are incredibly supportive of the car-lite thing. Others share the same basic reservations about it.

• “It’s dangerous."Sure. But so is driving. And I’ve come to grips that biking in general isn’t necessarily safe. At least with this bike I can keep up with cars most of the time.

• “I live too far away from work.” This one makes perfect sense. But how about your grocery store? Daycare? Church? There’s lots of trips you could use a bike to accomplish!

• “I can’t with the kids.” This is a big one. The funny part is, the vast majority of e-bike owners I know have kids and an incredible amount of e-bike marketing and the products brands sell are designed for this very use in mind. There’s a kid-focused solution for pretty much everything associated with e-bikes!

Bottom line: I think you can e-bike! Most everyone reading this could replace a car trip with some bike rides, walks, or by simply choosing not to do the drive. They make tricycles, scooters, and so many more assistive devices now, too.

So, what have I learned? Let’s start with the frustrating parts:

You’ll need to know how to fix basic bike things like flat tires. It’s a function, mostly, that we’re simply putting a lot more miles on bikes than ever before. That being said, I’ve also changed more flats than ever before. That seems to be sorting itself out over time but it’s been a bit frustrating start.

It forces me to plan. Long-term, this will be a good thing. There’s no more “I forgot to grab something, let me pop back home in 15 minutes.” or “Can we meet in half an hour?”

The bike provided a crash course in planning. Again, this is frustrating in the moment but not a bad thing. Most work meetings can be virtual and I’ve learned to be a bit better about packing.

Brodozer trucks and SUV drivers on cell phones Cars still hate you. Being on the the bikes more now, we get yelled at more. If anything, I think the vitriol towards bikes is getting worse. I often think that even if a small percentage of people would get on bikes too, we’d all be safer just by sheer numbers.

I really don’t want idiotic drivers to scare anybody off, though. I’ve found safe routes and ways to deescalate driver interactions over the years and am more-than-happy to share my tactics.

What about all the good?

All the good parts of e-bikes far, far outweigh the frustrations. That’s why I didn’t even call anything above “bad”. They’re all just realities of life—planning is good, mechanical things break, and some drivers will simply never learn. There’s so much good:

I’ve seen the seasons change in an incredibly intimate way. Everyday, there’s new birds out chirping. Trees bloom literally overnight. The Huckleberry Trail (our local greenway system) is a vestige of green space where cars and car driver’s attitudes can’t touch.

The people are incredible. Everyday I ride, I wave at almost everyone. I’ve started to see the regulars and learn their routines. Everyone is just moving about and living their own life. Without a metal cage around us, it all feels so much closer.

More than that, my own community supports it. People have reached out, offering their cars if I ever need to borrow one. Nobody cares if I show up a little sweaty. Everyone asks questions and I can often feel the wheels turning in their own heads: “Can I do this too?”

You can do this too.

If you’re considering it, take the leap. Talk to me. I can send you information, resources, and a not-so-gentle nudge in the right direction. These first few hundred miles have been lovely. I can’t wait for more!

Years later now, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done and a great example of a phrase that people preach all the time: “start before you’re ready.”

Run club started out because we needed to build community here in Christiansburg. Camaraderie and connection just didn’t exist for those of us moving into town, drawn in by decent housing prices and the promise of an “up-and-coming” town.

Fast-forward over five years now and it’s plain to see that we’ve built something pretty special as a community. Running is the amazing glue that holds it all together.

Thanks mostly in part to run club and my own stubborn commitment to consistency, I’m a runner now! I put down decent miles each week, race very little, and sing the merits of our regional running community to anyone who will listen. Literal olympians share our local greenways with people lacing up shoes for the first time. That’s magical.

I run for the community aspect and the day-to-day vibes. Today, I wanted to write down some of my “rules” for running: think of them more as guidelines that I’ve learned along the way.

I’m not an authority on running. I’ve learned a thing or two about community, though.

I didn’t run in high school or college. I’ve never really posted any notable times, won a race, or done anything too daring in the sport. Take this as a fun list and, please, listen to the many voices in the running world that are better than me.

Even though I’m not an expert on running, I care deeply about building communities. These “rules” mostly serve me for that side: the fun, mindful, best-sport-I’ve-ever-done part of running that have made this last half decade fly by.

I love running and I hope you’ll enjoy this little glimpse into the sport with me.

Here they are! Roberts’ Rules of Running:

There’s no “right” way to run. You’re doing it right!

Runs around the block when you have 10 minutes, track days, ultras, walks, they’re all good and they all count!

Don’t get caught up in worrying about if you’re running the right way or not. Especially when you’re starting out, lace up your shoes and head out. Go slower than you think you need to and just get used to the movement. Don’t push too hard or you’ll get hurt, especially in the beginning.

Walking is part of it.

Brendan Leonard puts this into great perspective in his book, “I Hate Running and You Can Too: How to Get Started, Keep Going, and Make Sense of an Irrational Passion” available here.

You should read his book. But this one is easy: don’t worry about walking. If you want to, walk! We do lots of runs, especially when it’s just me and Kristy, where we walk a lot. When you’re racing or trying to put up a great time, you want to try and walk instead of stopping. But walking can be really helpful, even when you’re pushing hard.

Taking this one step further, I love our run club walks. Every Monday, we meet up and walk through neighborhood streets, no running involved. Even if you never want to take that faster stride and become a “runner”, you can reap the same benefits of fitness and community by walking. It’s awesome.

You don’t have to race.

I’m really just not enamored with racing. I enjoy spectating races and love when I can cheer on friends. I love keeping up with competitive athletes and seeing them push boundaries.

But I don’t run to race. They don’t motivate me—knowing that I have a race scheduled is almost demotivating for me. Wake up early, start exactly when somebody with a starting gun tells you…it’s just not me. I probably do a handful a year.

You don’t have to race.

Everything else counts too.

Life happens. Right now, we have a lovely puppy who can’t run until he’s a year old in August. We’re running a lot less and walking him a lot more. I also sold my car and started biking, which has propelled me from a dozen or so biking miles per week to around 40.

Everything else matters. Don’t beat yourself up when you enter a season of life where you’re running less. Or the flip: don’t worry if others think you’re crazy if now’s the time to up those miles and dream big.

Eat food and bring water.

Seriously, bring snacks!! Morgan Corl, the person I co-founded run club with, taught me that. It’s more fun and you’ll feel better during and after your run. Candy is great run fuel too.

And another: bring water! There is no penalty for having a water bottle in your hand or wearing a vest. You’ll learn over time when you don’t need to bring water and it will feel like a no-brainer. If you’re ever in-doubt, just grab a water bottle.

Related: bring $20 and toilet paper with you running. You’re welcome.

Runs can be unserious.

Do not run every run with training and goals in mind. Just go run. Run with your dog. Run with your friends when they’ve had a bad day. But just go run.

If you get into this thing, you’re going to spend an incredible amount of hours doing this. Like, part-time job number of hours. Find a way to make it fun.

Remember to wave.

This goes for biking, hiking, and most anything done on a road or trail: WAVE! A simple acknowledgement that requires nothing from you builds community and lets that other person understand that they belong.

Fast friends make you faster.

Don’t be scared to run with people who you know are faster than you. I am, at my absolute best, middle of the pack. Your faster friends will teach you the ropes, explain the intricacies, and naturally make you faster over time.

And one note on “faster”: it’s a weird goal. You don’t need to get any faster than you are today. But over time and with consistency, it will happen on its own. I love when I feel fast on a run. It’s of those rare, amazing moments in this sport.

You should probably go for that run.

We all make excuses to not go for a run. There are many times you shouldn’t: if you’re too injured, sick, in a place where it isn’t safe, or in general whenever pushing your body to run would make other things worse.

But if we’re being honest with ourselves, a lot of the time we just don’t want to go. In those moments, you should go for that run.

A lot of times, we’ll get done with a run club run and somebody will say, “thanks for this. I wouldn’t have run if you guys weren’t there with me.” When you choose to go for a run, you might be helping somebody else too. Just go for it.

I hope you enjoyed these! They’ll be fun to look back on in a few more years and see what’s changed. I’m planning to do one of these for biking as well, so stay tuned and subscribe if you aren’t already!

Best is a dumb word.

I write for a living. I might do a lot of other things to scrape together this career but it all comes down to writing: for myself and to get the words of others out there. Whether it’s clear communication for an email, words on a website, or putting heartfelt videos out to show emotional perspectives, words are the core of it all.

I don’t use “best”

In the world right now, we’re at a sink-or-swim moment. People are either covered up with work to the point of burnout or one day away from closing up shop. There doesn’t seem to be much in-between.

When emotions run high and desperation seeps in, people start to think in binaries. “Best” and “worst” come out when what we truly need is nuance.

Quit saying “best”

None of us are the best. I’m certainly not the pinnacle of anything that I do. If we were truly at the top heap of that thought-terminating word, we wouldn’t even be in the places we are today.

I know a few people who probably are the best at what they do. To get there, they had to carve out a niche within a niche. They were the “best” one time, in one moment, or they truly are the most studied in a focused field. But if you talk to the greats, they’ll all point to a dozen people who they think are better.

The rest of us? Not the best.

If I was the best storyteller, web designer, business owner, or marketer? I wouldn’t be around and available to serve the people I care about. Am I fairly good and studied at it? Yes. Am I among the better people regionally? I think so. But ‘best’ isn’t coming out of my mouth.

Best run club founder? Of course not. If I was even among the top 100, Nike would have called and I’d live near Beaverton, Oregon. (I’m willing, Nike.)

Best fiancé/dog dad/photographer/community builder/writer/gardener? Not a chance in hell at any of those. Doesn’t mean I can’t work to be a little bit better every day.

The truth is, none of us are the best at anything.

It’s a worthless pursuit to even try. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be the one to show up and be there when people ask. It doesn’t mean your business can’t be the place people choose to work with that day. It certainly doesn’t mean you can’t win simply because you aren’t the best.

Abandon it and tell a real story instead.

We use that bad word all the time and I’m sorry to say: none of us are the best at anything.

Best restaurant? Or even simply best burgers in your small town? For who, what day? What if they want outdoor seating or a vegan option? What if they just like the memories they made at the place down the road?

Don’t lean on best, tell me that you pride yourself on making others feel welcome. Tell me about the farmer you buy your beef from—she’s not the best either but it means a lot that you’re buying local!

Your kid’s the best on the team? What happens when they aren’t anymore? They might win a lot but are they the best teammate? Mentor to younger athletes? We can’t all be everything but we can work on each part.

Let’s focus on being what our community needs each day.

I’ll never worry about being the top of anything that I do. But I promise, I’ll show up more. I’ll be more consistent. I’ll outlast and out-help.

There are billions upon billions of people on this planet. The chances of any one of us being the top at anything for more than a fleeting moment is nonexistent. Don’t even try and lean on it. Just focus on being what you need for yourself. After that, focus on how you might help others. It’s that easy.

If you’re reading this, by now you’ve figured out that I don’t think you’re the best at anything. But I know you’re really good at a lot of things and you’re important to yourself and those around you. If you aren’t sure why that is, reach out and I can tell you. I’m happy to be your hype squad.

Last post, I said, “I hope I can look back decades from now and find that it only grew stranger from here.” I may have spoken that into existence.

Almost two weeks ago now, we drove my Volkswagen Jetta down to Greensboro, signed it away to Carvana, toured a wonderful botanical garden, and came back home in the Subaru.

I turned around a couple days later and bought a Tern e-bike for daily use. What felt like a bandaid ripped off then feels a lot less scary even just a few days later.

You see, I’ve always been a bike nerd.

Enjoy these throwback photos that Flickr still retains and will let me download in full quality decades later.

Looking back at old photos, I think I started in on bikes about 2005. At thirteen years old, bikes naturally meant freedom and fun. For me, though, they were this obsession that didn’t require anybody else’s time or input. I had a few other bike friends, a couple pretty close ones maybe, but it was mainly a solo pursuit.

Bikes taught me how to be by myself. Despite my outward community building and networking work, I’ve always felt really at-ease being alone. I still crave alone time and find a lot of comfort in it.

I was a bit of a loner kid. Not popular or remotely capable of it. I had friends, all of whom were the odd kids too—obviously all of us rebels without a cause brought up by Hot Topic and Parental Advisory CDs. I look back on those years and see how shitty many of those friends were. Times where it seems everyone bullied everyone with teachers being among the worst offenders. Half the stuff that happened would never fly today in the age of cell phone video and consequences. I’ve retained friendships with a small handful of those folks still but I can certainly see why I was drawn towards bikes.

Being alone on a bike was as fun then as it is now. Back then, I rode a lot with my dad—that was fun. Now, I ride with Kristy and on group rides or happenstance meetups on the trail. But most of my biking has always been alone.

Biking let me go far. Far away, places I’d pause at even driving to now. I wonder how many hours and miles I spent out there spinning.

I was brought up biking during the fixie age—a bike with one gear, that doesn’t coast, and often with few brakes aside from your legs resisting the pedal movement. They were made cool by bike messengers. I was a little young and far too rural to be truly part of the scene but at the same time, always welcomed. Biking introduced me to alternative folks and the things that come with that: thrifty ingenuity, fixing your own shit when it breaks, art, and all the rest.

I worked in bike shops, read bike forums, rode bikes, and didn’t really want to do anything else. It was a magical time. Even when I got a car, and then a truck, I biked as much as I could. I remember teachers and school administrators being largely unhappy with that fact. Us three bike kids were going to get hit by a car, or do drugs, or think for ourselves. Now I know, it was really that last one.

There were so many great things about that era, both in biking and in early-ish Internet culture. I’m glad this webcomic still loads: Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery.

Man, I lived for that daily comic. I’d get a tattoo of it.

20 years later, I’m so glad to be here again!

Biking is still here, welcoming me back in. I never truly left except for a few years after college where I didn’t own a bike. In recent years, though, I’ve only ridden recreationally. That’s fun too: Kristy and I have done a tour and have more planned. We can finally afford the bikes I’d have dreamed of back then.

Now, in the spring of 2025, I’m back to the lifestyle.

Bike people are my people. It’s a merry band of misfits who never truly fit in elsewhere. It’s fun to find those people other places too: in running, caving, and so many communities. Turns out, everyone in those worlds ride bikes too. If teenage, bike-obsessed me had only known what was in store he would have been a lot more optimistic about the future.

Now, we have a 1998 Burley tandem and a 1998 camper van to haul it. It’s whimsical, terrifying, and so much fun. Biking has taught me to be weird and wild and to never care what others think.

I really don’t care much about outward impressions. I love to share my view of the world but I’ve absolutely made peace with the fact that my life won’t be normal. I’m a contrarian but mostly just because I find the alternatives to be more fun.

I don’t hate cars at all. I like old cars, stick shifts, and turbos. They’re fun. What I’d like to see is a lot fewer cars on the road and a lot more people on bikes. Let the car enthusiasts and those who truly need them have the streets. If we all would simply pick up a bike or walk places more, the roads and world would be a better place.

We all have the ability to opt out of becoming more traffic.

That’s where I hope this new journey takes me: propelling myself on two wheels when I can. I’ll grab a car when I need to but I’ll head out into the rain as much as I can. I’ve already noticed that facing the wind feels pretty good.

I’m sure this won’t be the last time I talk about bikes here. I already have some writing planned. I just wanted to honor this change and talk about the context a little. I was always headed back here and I’m glad I took the leap.

I keep coming back to that question. It’s often when I’m running, walking, or doing something where my mind is elsewhere. It’s been a bit of a nagging thought, especially when I reflect on daily tasks.

The world is, has always been, and will always be, tough. Right now, we’re in a most trying time. Without a strong community around us, it would be truly hard to cope. We’re all faced with many burdens each day and I’ve started to wonder if there’s a balm for at least some of them.

One note: I find that my personal community is already doing a great job of this stuff. We work collectively to help each other, often with a sincere goal to pay the favor back or an understanding that it’s not necessary. If you read this and find that you’re already doing all these things, that’s wonderful! I’m writing in hopes that this spurs someone to action, to build their own community up and help create good.

When I think about “burdens”, I think of two types.

Most easily noticed are the serious, life-altering burdens we all encounter: sickness, death, loneliness—all the sad, assured parts of life. They shock you out of your everyday and people tend to come out to support those. Those are burdens we’re used to lending a hand through.

Then, there are burdens that get a lot less press: everyday things that we’re taught to simply tough out. I’m thinking broadly here, things like:

• The relentless need to run errands.

• Making dinner when the kids are sick, you’re exhausted, and laundry is piling up.

• Home repair tasks that are a lot easier with another set of hands.

• Lonely commutes to work through roads that seem to get worse every day.

The second type of burdens are all things that we can all mostly get through alone. Each little stress compounds, though, and often has me wondering: what if we collectively worked to help each other through?

We know to show up when something tragic happens. We’re taught to cook food for those that are mourning and I’ve received some amazing soup when I have been. Thank you.

What if, though, we simply dropped off food to make someone’s Tuesday a little brighter? What if we made it a habit to buy a coffee if we know someone had a rough night?

Those are the burdens I’m looking to ease. It requires us all to look around a little more proactively and ask, “how can I help?” more often. It also requires a good amount of give-and-take: this only really works if those that ease burdens have their own eased as well.

More just piles on more and so much of what we’re asked to do simply keeps us busy. Reflecting on each day, I plainly see that many things simply exist to create more: the easiest examples are in our professional lives. “Networking events” being among the most egregious offenses, so much business is there to make more money, to buy more things, to truly form a hamster wheel of burdens like cars, houses, and clothes.

Removing the question of how we can financially or socially benefit from something and simply giving because it helps someone’s day be a little bit better is a mindset shift that’s out of the norm.

Ideas to ease our burdens

So, just like in my ideas for community building in tough times, writing is cheap without action. So how might you reduce the burdens of those around you?

Show up in small ways. Go for a walk with friends. Attend a birthday party and be the one to help clean up. Help someone take their car to the mechanic. Don’t be afraid to help with the little things that pile up.

Give freely among those around you. If you bake, bring some to your neighbors. If you garden, share your bounty. If you’re handy, repair things to help your community save money.

Giving to a little free food pantry is another great way to ease a burden. It takes very little time out of your day and costs only as much as you’re comfortable giving. You stand a wonderful chance to give to someone you might not know, whose burdens might be truly great.

Don’t wait to start. Too many of us are well-meaning but never take the leap. Please, don’t hesitate! If it’s clear that your friend or neighbor could benefit and you’re in a position to help, do so. Till their garden, cut up a tree, do something to build them up.

Don’t just give someone more work. When you refer work to someone, ask permission first. Make sure it’s something they want, where they can truly benefit. I see this a lot in the small business world: we drum up work for each other that might not be what someone’s needs in that moment. Always ask and honor a “no” if that’s what you’re given.

Often, we’re taught to put others in front of ourselves. It’s noble, of course, but a lot more good can be done by first focusing on your immediate community and those that return the favor back to you. When your needs are truly met, it’s a lot easier to dream bigger.

I really want to make our community a better place. I’d love if these ideas made it out broadly, helping others as well. It all requires reciprocity: if you receive help, it becomes your task to help someone else—once you’re not spread so thin, that is.

We’re all faced with burdens everyday. If we collectively work to pull ourselves out of the tasks that simply keep us busy and work to ease each other’s days a bit, we’ll all be much better for it.

It’s fun and very heartening to have an outlet full of people who don’t mind reading something a little longer, where I’m able to explain myself more completely and use words that might be too “collegiate” for some ears. Most of my writing work is commercial, focused on explaining things with the simplest and shortest language possible. In that world, we know people won’t read it anyway. Here, I know the words get through.

Thank you all.

I’ve been reflecting on joy lately. In a world that seems systematically set on robbing us of so many good moments, it feels like rebellion to look at my time and realize that there is truly so much that brings me happiness each week.

Today, I thought I’d talk about what I look forward to often.

Evenings spent in nature

While our adventures are consistently less epic than they were in the past, we are spending so much more time outside than ever before. Every moment feels precious, so even just a half hour outside on a trail with the dogs adds so much happiness.

We are all so busy. I’m as guilty of it as anyone: saying yes because I want to help and want to impact so much. I’ve grown far more careful of any “yes”, making sure that anything I do is aligned alongside people with shared visions and goals.

So many evenings, most of them in-fact, are spoken for. It’s a nearly automatic “no” anymore for anything else. Weekends are even worse. So when we have a chance to get outside one evening, we take it. I really don’t want to out-busy my life to any extent that would prevent that.

Little adventures bring me close to the world. I’ve gone out in every season and in most any weather, observing things few others make the time to see. That’s important to me.

Storytelling work

Most of my job is storytelling work, in one way or the other.

I’m really grateful to enjoy my job. That wasn’t always the case, even after learning that I’m bad at being an employee and starting on my own thing. Chasing work to “scale” was never at the core of what I wanted to do and I’m extremely grateful to feel like I’m on the other side: telling stories and helping organizations grow where I can have true impact.

I start every week excited to jump in. Whether I’m behind a computer organizing work or behind a camera, it’s easy to see now that I’m where I belong. All the rest that we do at Aspire serves to tell the stories: the websites, the strategies we write, and all the technical issues we solve are just there to forward someone’s story and bring a dream to life.

With a hearty workload now, that’s allowing us to hire some and grow again. I can’t wait to see where it takes us and I’m looking forward to that.

Run Club. Oh, Run Club!

I can safely admit it now: Christiansburg Run Club is monumentally bigger than I ever thought it could be. Our numbers and each member’s commitment to each other is incredible. A dozen of us ran a freaking ultra this weekend together.

Run club forms the basis for a community that I truly value and could not be as happy here without. Like many clubs, it’s about more than the activity itself. We get dinner together, babysit each others kids, go for bike rides, and move furniture together. I could go on for a very long time about how much joy that brings me.

Monday and Thursday evenings, every single week, are joyous.

Adventures, chickens, and this wonderfully strange life we lead.

This final section will be “all the rest”: Kristy (who is reflected in all the rest too), chickens, tandem bikes, our rambunctious dogs, a camper van nearly as old as we are, and all the adventures and misadventures we find ourselves on.

Looking at the present, I can’t say I’m surprised exactly by where I am. I’ve always leaned into what feels good and never worried too much if it’s typical or not. Chasing status or things was never part of my plan and never will be. All these simple things bring me joy.

I hope I can look back decades from now and find that it only grew stranger from here.

Thanks for reading this, you people with actual attention spans! I’m glad you’re here and support this work. If it wasn’t for your kind words, I’d probably still be writing—that’s the kind of stubborn person that I am. But your words do truly help and I’m grateful for them in more ways than you know.

Compelled to write more now, it’s clear that one of the best things I can do is be a little dose of joy instead of another harbinger of dread and sadness—we have plenty of that in the world.

Today, I thought I’d bring you on our last little hike.

Kristy and I are pretty good about devoting time for what matters intensely to us: spending time with each other and doing the things that bring us joy. It takes a lot of intention and balance-that-feels-odd to pull this off.

Often, our adventures aren’t big endeavors. Yesterday, it just meant leaving town an hour before a wintertime sunset to take a slippery drive to Poverty Creek, head down a fire road, and park at a gate we’ve been to hundreds of times before now.

We did the “Mayapple loop”, a flat-ish two mile loop that takes us through pine forest, beaver-dammed marshland, and across a couple creek crossings.

I love having access to nature so close here. There’s very few places I’ve been to that let you find a dozen hikes 20 minutes from home. The only similar places I’ve been to are on the front range in Colorado and the Adirondacks in upstate New York.

A tangent but stay with me: while there wasn’t much wildlife out in the sleet yesterday, this is a great loop for nature spotting. A Barred Owl resides in the marshy stretch and has followed us around like a sentinel in the past. Owls do that to us—more than I think is normal. I like to think it means something.

Samwise, our new puppy, is doing great. As effortless as off-leash training felt with Maggie, he’s learning just the same—from her this time.

I’m looking forward to Samwise’s graduation from puppyhood but trying to remember that I’ll earnestly miss these moments too. If we don’t give time to things like this, we’ll only look back on missed memories.

Taking a couple hours to escape to the woods with our dogs is more important to me than most things.

A simple hike and time feeling reasonably present in the woods is one of things that brings me the most joy. Yesterday, I was skipping around, knocking wet snow off pine branches, and smiling much more than usual.

We stay so busy that it’s easy to just let life go by on the way to appointments, meetings, or all the rest we’re told is important. To me, those aren’t going to matter later on. Endless hours in the woods will feel good, though.

Communities show us that there’s so much good in those around us. Once you notice that and can lean in on your friends and neighbors for support, your mindset shifts. Building community is like many things: it takes consistency and stubbornness. Once you commit to the practices of community, though, you build inertia too.

Today, I thought I’d talk about how to simply start. The same way you became a runner the first time you laced up your shoes and went for a run, you start building community the first time you take an intentional step towards it.

Pretty soon, you’ll notice the connections and momentum build.

You don’t have to start a run club

It would be easy to simply write about run club for this whole thing but I know that’s not everyone’s idea of a good time. Start in a way that feels good to you, that helps you feel less isolated and more connected. Like any practice, it gets easier as you go.

Here are some ways to start building community:

Share: with neighbors, coworkers, and friends

Probably the easiest on this list and something we’ve been told to do since before preschool: share!

Make a consistent practice of giving. Share widely and often, in small ways. Don’t worry too much about cost—try to keep money out of this equation if you can.

Having chickens or a garden creates a scenario that makes sharing easy. Add to that our farmshare subscription and we share a ton. It’s fun to text with neighbors and tell them that there will be sweet potatoes on their porch or that you just baked cookies. I know for a fact that we live in a more neighborly ‘hood than most but a large part of what makes my neighborhood great is our tendency to share in the first place.

Start with a walk

Walking is a community activity, whether you’re by yourself or not. Heading out your door instantly immerses you in your community, good or bad. With others, you add richness to the experience through conversation and togetherness.

I wanted to include walking here because it’s great, no matter what company you have. Even if you live away from others or aren’t social by nature, a walk is wonderful.

I think the most important part of run club has been the walking element. Not only is it an easy barrier-to-entry, it’s the more social activity too. Folks that often run will decide to walk sometimes—maybe you’re not feeling like it or you couldn’t get changed in time after work. That gives you a chance to talk casually and make connections in ways that is a little tougher when your heart is pumping hard on a run.

Work (or read!) together

Workplace community is huge but you don’t have to stop there. If your job allows some flexibility, go to a coffee shop or coworking space and work around others. It’s a great way to share ideas or change your landscape for a little bit. These places can also be “third places”, that I talk about below.

If your work isn’t flexible—as most aren’t—don’t feel like you’re stuck. Joining a book club might sound cliche but they’re a wonderful way to meet new people and share ideas. Communities built around ideas are very powerful.

Our local bookstore, Blacksburg Books, hosts a book club with meetups at Moon Hollow Brewing. Check it out! If your town doesn’t have a bookstore yet, reach out to your local library or join one online!

Look for your “Third Place”

Although not exactly a new term, Third Places feel very trendy right now—with good reason. They’re crucial to a lot of a community’s success while also being what many places lack.

A third place is “where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances.” It’s after your “first” place, home. And second place, “work”.

Third places can be many things—including other groups of people and not a physical space.

Whether you find your third place in a coffee shop, church pew, or with a group of people, you’ll know when you find it. You probably know this feeling but maybe not since college or even childhood. It’s a feeling of easy acceptance without many expectations.

Don’t be scared to make your own community

I’ll get around to writing specifically about starting a run club but I want to make sure I get this point across now: YOU can start your own community around whatever you want. Don’t wait for others or feel defeated in your town just because what you want to exist hasn’t been created yet.

One of the most surprising parts of community building is how fast it happens each time. You’ll be surprised how many people around you will be looking for exactly what you want to do.

Some ways to get started: reach out online and see if anybody wants to meet at the dog park. See if your local brewery would be willing to host and advertise a game night. Start your own book club online. The list goes on!

Find some joy with others

No matter how you choose to build your community, always bring it back to finding joy. Be silly, playful, and full of wonder with those around you. We shroud ourselves too often in professionalism and forget that we can have fun. Don’t be scared to ask someone to play frisbee or just go shopping with you on a Saturday.

Building community through all this chaos will help get us through. It shields those most vulnerable a little too, by offering them a refuge from a world that’s not so welcoming. If you’re looking for ways to put any of these ideas into action, reach out!

What should I say when I shouldn’t be silent?

I’ll keep this brief.

I don’t want to write. I would rather hide, doomscrolling away and coping badly while looking at—and tearing myself away from—the news.

Hiding is cowardice, though. It is, on every side of this thing.

If you love all that’s happening, I wish you’d scream it out for the whole world to see. Show me an alternative where this isn’t all ending badly. Give me hope and give all those who are even more poignantly terrified a reason to believe that there’s good intentions behind all of this.

I don’t understand the hate towards people I love. I love lots of people and they all look different. I have absolutely no hate in my heart for people who don’t look like me, don’t love like me, or don’t live the way I choose to. Addressing those that might love all this that’s happening: I don’t understand but I’m ready to forgive and move on if you decide you can love again. Because this isn’t love that’s happening right now.

What can I do?

Nothing, I’m pretty sure. We’ll fight, yes. And we’ll adjust to make the best of any of this. We have before. And we’ll hug those around us and offer refuge from a world that is so terrifying.

On the large scale, though, I’m nothing. What I can offer is community and not much else.

In my community and around me, you’re welcomed. I don’t know that any of us now can keep each other safe but we can try.

To all those around me who are scared for their whole existence: I am profoundly sad that we’re here. It appears that we’ll have to keep going down this terrible hole of hate to get through. With me, at least, you’re always welcome.

As a community, we’ve lost livelihoods already. We’ve lost autonomy and choice and given in—complying early, it seems—to a regime that is filled with hate and loving of control.

I don’t have answers and I wonder if these words just become part of the noise. But saying nothing would be even less worthwhile.

If I can do something to help, please let me know. And know that I’ll keep welcoming everyone in, building this community and holding on tight to the love around me.

Provided I can find the words, I’ll write about what we can do through all of this. I know we can love each other and I know that we can share and show that we’re not all like the leaders who hate so many of us.

Thank you for being part of all this with me.

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