How Uzbek judges learned fairness, a hand-saving bike upgrade, credit card hacks, and brilliant investigative journalism.
Howdy folks,
Thanks for all the emails last week with updates about your lives! I loved hearing what's keeping you engaged during this dang pandemic. So cool how many of you are making lemonade and finding ways to deepen your focus on passions or develop new skills.
Speaking of that, if you missed my blog post last week on being productive and balanced in COVID Land, check it out here.
This week's newsletter:
A fantastic podcast from one of my favorite authors, credit card hacking recommendations, a hand-saving bike upgrade, and excellent work from ProPublica.
Random photo: During a February van trip, I unexpectedly pedaled underneath this waterfall!
Podcast: Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
What's happened to fairness? And why is there a backlash against referees of all kinds these days - sports, finance, legal...?
No one better than Michael Lewis to dig into this! He's one of my favorite nonfiction authors and his new podcast, Against the Rules, is excellent. He brings his usual insight and story weaving ability to the podcast world with fascinating characters. The result is pithy episodes about 30 minutes long.
I've enjoyed them all so far, but Season 1, Episode 6 about Baby Judge School is a favorite. How he compares judges in Uzbekistan to what's going on in the U.S. is classic Michael Lewis. Enjoy!
Upgrade Your Road Bike with a Redshift Shockstop stem!
The Redshift Shockstop stem majorly upped my enjoyment of road and gravel riding these past couple months. Elastomer dampers soak up bumps like road creases or washboards, a fantastic improvement. I wish we’d put these on our bikes for road touring to save a lot of grief and hand pain for Chelsea.
This isn’t a suspension fork, so don’t expect magic. However, it’s also not bouncy, so standing up and wrenching on the bars to hammer up a climb feels great. If you’re not just riding silky-smooth pavement all the time, I bet you’ll love this! Here’s a review from Path Less Pedaled in case you want to learn more.
Patrick is so smooth on a bike he could ride wooden tires and still skip the shockstop stem.
Credit Card Hacking with Hustler Money Blog
Got some spare time lately to invest in your finances? A little research and time can yield some solid cash and ongoing points/cash back accrual with credit card hacking. Hustler Money Blog lays out various company bonus offers in a clear, easy to navigate website.
I recently got the Capital 1 Venture card and got a $500 bonus plus 2% cash back on everything we purchase. I got another $300 for opening a new business account and cash for moving investments around. Total time: less than an hour. A little effort once a year can yield some solid dividends!
Brilliant Independent Journalism at ProPublica
Independent journalism's value keeps increasing in the face of click-bait news and falling revenues for newspapers. We support ProPublica and their excellent investigative journalism, which turns out pieces that other news outlets can use for free.
This recent piece on how conspiracies spread is timely and I found good takeaways in it. They also have a fascinating graphic of the United States that make trends for COVID-19 cases easy to understand.
That's it for this week. Wherever you are, I hope you're serenly navigating the various stages of reopening around the world. We certainly live in interesting times!
