Leave room to breathe

There’s a “hoarding” that isn’t a disaster zone and doesn’t look like the houses on the TV show. Houses aren’t overflowing, but are simply full. A lot of millennials are finding out they’re inheriting the task of sorting through decades of stuff that has lost its purpose.

It’s a museum of “just-in-case” items, things that have outlived their use but haven’t been let go. It’s even worse if they have been paying monthly for a storage unit to hold the past. it’s time to start clearing the way for what comes next. Houses that became warehouses are a terrible burden to receive at the same time you’re processing grief.

EGO POWER+ Lawn Mower

It’s mowing season and I’m celebrating 7 years of my EGO battery-powered mower this year. I’m a big fan because it works like a regular lawn mower but it’s quieter (great for listening to podcasts or music) and my clothes don’t smell like gasoline after mowing. Speaking of smell, I no longer have to take a gas can to the gas station and risk it tipping over in the trunk, which has happened before.

The EGO mower uses the same battery as their other tools. I have the EGO leaf blower and snow blower. The battery that came with the mower can last me my whole yard unless I let it get way too tall. In that case, I would just put the battery on the charger and go weed whip. By time I was done with that, the battery would have enough juice to finish the job. I gained another battery with the other tools, so I now I can just do a quick swap and keep going if I run out.

#CommissionsEarned

Our goal should be to make life better for the next generation

There’s a shift that happens once you hit a certain age. The “me” starts to get a bit quieter, and the “them” gets a lot louder. You realize that life is a long-game investment. It’s not just about what you can check off your own list today; it’s about making sure the path is clear for the people coming up behind you.

That’s the real work. It’s about the steady, everyday choices—the way you handle your money, the way you treat your neighbors, and the way you teach your kids to think for themselves. You’re planting trees whose shade you might never sit in. A legacy isn’t a name on a building; it’s a foundation of competence and kindness that gives the next generation the tools they need to handle their own “dirt.” When you set them up for success, you’re doing the most practical thing a person can do.

If your greed stands in the way of leaving things better than you found them, it’s not just your kids you’re failing, you’re burdening the next generation.

Private equity, the first step to getting less

There’s a simple math to business. In a small shop, it’s just you, the customer, and the product. You provide a service, they get a result, and you keep a profit. It’s honest. When a business gets bigger, it adds employees—the customer gets better service, the owner gets a larger profit, and the workers get a paycheck. That’s a fair trade for everyone.

But once you add shareholders, the math changes. Now, the owner has to pay a “royalty” to people who didn’t do the work but want a piece of the pie. That payback usually comes out of the customer’s wallet and the employee’s paycheck. And when private equity enters the mix, the goal changes again. They aren’t looking to build something; they’re looking to strip it down and sell the pieces for a quick profit. At that point, the customer and the employee are just squeezed until the company is nothing more than a shell of what it used to be.

Digital Borrowing

With digital media, are you buying something or just borrowing it until the store changes their mind? We’ve landed in a world where we don’t own our music, our movies, or our books. If they can take it away with a click, it wasn’t yours to begin with. You used to be able to assume your only threat of loss was the company going out of business but now they can take it back because they changed their mind or didn’t want to negotiate a license. They don’t want to play any more. They’re taking their ball and going home.

#DRM

The confidence of having more opinions than experience

He who speaks loudest at the hardware store usually knows the least. There’s a certain kind of confidence that comes from having a lot of opinions and very little experience. Real knowledge doesn’t need to shout; it just shows up in the tools you keep on hand, the work you do, and the helping hand you give.

Terracotta Watering Spikes

Use these terracotta watering spikes plus a bottle and it will keep your plants watered throughout the day to help them survive the heat wave. They are also great to have while you’re on vacation!

Unlike watering with a can, these spikes allow a slow and steady release in response to the soil around it. This keeps the soil moist so the plants can absorb water gradually throughout the day. By providing a continuous supply rather than a single, heavy dose, the moisture reaches the roots effectively, keeping them hydrated and resilient against the drying effects of the heat. When you pull the spikes out at the end of the season, you’ll see the roots found their way to the spike and grow toward the water, around the spike. For me, this saved my plants when they were drying out to quickly in a garden table.

#CommissionsEarned

Thumbs Down a Tesla Cyber Truck

The modern ‘slug bug,’ where you would punch a passenger when you saw a VW Beetle, is the ‘Thumbs Down a Tesla Cyber Truck’. An ugly vehicle deserves an ugly gesture. Not as ugly as the gesture Elon threw up but maybe he was just heiling a Tesla Taxi.

Out of Stock

Buying from a scalper is just handing over your hard-earned cash to someone looking for a free ride. If it’s out of stock, it’s out of stock. Wait for the manufacturer to do their job, or do without.

Don’t pay a middleman for the privilege of being ripped off. You pay a premium and encourage them to continue buying all the inventory in the future.

Another Summer, another Canadian wildfire ruining the air quality

I remember being a kid and the only time the news talked about “bad air” was when they were showing smog in Los Angeles. It felt like a far-off problem for big city people. Now, I’m an adult, and I’m experiencing another Summer where the sky turns orange above me because of a fire hundreds of miles away in Canada.

It’s a bit of a head-scratcher that we’ve just shrugged our shoulders and accepted this as the “new normal.” We shouldn’t have to get used to the air being unbreathable just because it’s convenient for us to look the other way.