Two babies and a toddler don’t let me go out and see movies very often, so I’m totally spoiled this week where I get to see both Wakanda Forever in a theatre AND Hamilton on tour in back-to-back nights.
This was my first time seeing a proper live Hamilton production, though I’ve seen a few iterations of it, including a high school skirting around licensing limitations by making a play about a school performing Hamilton… and sprinkling in a few Rent songs. It’s a deep enough story that each time different characters and moments stand out. This cast had a real good Angelica, and Dear Theodosia + Nonstop hit different this time around. That tension between being satisfied with life with those you love and wanting to change the world for them like you’re running out of time is real for me.
As for Wakanda Forever… seemed like the impossible sequel to write but never should’ve doubted Ryan Coogler. All the Mesoamerican inspirations and broad inclusions of the diaspora… feels like they’re making superhero flicks for international history nerds like me now.
Vienna Public Housing
There are a lot of things that make Vienna the world’s most livable city, from great infrastructure to good access to greens pace to a strong sense of peace and stability. BUT there’s one thing that sets it apart from other cities that also offer those things.
For over a century, Vienna has implemented a public housing system without rival.
Rather than building public housing as a last resort when homelessness becomes an inescapable and visible problem, they take proactive measures. They build public houses that are so attractive, desirable, and close to important access points that around 2/3rds of the city chooses to live there. Most people only pay around 15% of their income to live there.
Taking the burden of housing away has a lot of extended benefits. Employers don’t have to struggle to keep pace with a surging cost of living. People are less financially viable.
Musk Ox Farm
The musk ox is one of the oldest mammal species, having survived the Ice Age some 150,000 years ago.
In the 1800s and 1900s, these animals were overhunted and nearly driven to extinction.
Reintroduction and regulation helped the Alaskan musk ox population recover.
As large herbivores, musk ox primarily feast on young dwarf birch and gray willow.
This diet constrains the population of those trees, which are found in abundance around the Arctic. Curbing their population allows less common plant life to establish itself without the shade and competition.
Oh, and their growls sound absolutely prehistoric. It’s amazing.
State 50
To me, it made perfect sense to have The Last Frontier State by MY last frontier.
Going to all fifty states before turning thirty was something I always hoped to do. I made it to 49, but some years, there’s a pandemic, and other years you get pregnant, and soon that before thirty list has a few adjustments in pen to make it a before 33 list.
This summer, I finally got to go to my 50th state, which was Alaska- a state I somewhat deliberately saved for the very end because it seemed like the coolest note to end on. I was right. I’d love to go back, knowing how much more there remains to see and do.
I feel super lucky. To have seen so much of this big, complicated country. To have friends who want to share the adventure and celebrate this with me. To have kids just at the start of their own adventures.
My 50th State
My 50th state. What a milestone.
If it wasn’t completely obvious already, I’m a geography lover.
I spent a large amount of time in childhood bedroom with maps and kid-atlases, learning random facts about state flowers and longest rivers and things.
Whenever I visit a city, state, or country I haven’t been to before, I kind of feel like a kid at Disneyland meeting one of the characters in real life. “It’s you! I’ve heard so much about you…”
For a few years now, Alaska has stuck out as the only state I hadn’t been to yet. Getting to see all of them was a bucket-list level item, and as I try to do at least one of those every year, I got my chance this summer
I’m lucky to have seen so much of our big, wild, multifaceted, complicated country. Thank God for road trips and conferences, a few big moves, living out of a van in my 20s, and the upside of having friends that have spread their roots all over the place.
Now what? Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing more of Alaska. I’d love to check out the spots that are so far north things start to get a little weird.
32 in Guatemala
I’ve gotten to celebrate birthdays in Egypt, Argentina, and now… Guatemala.
I think the Guatemala celebration might’ve been my favorite one.
Taking a coffee tour in the morning, learning about farms and volcanic ecology, plus getting to spend the evening with my kids… I can’t really think of much else I would want to do with a day in the life.
You know you have it good when the activities you choose for your birthday resemble what you do for work and what you would typically do on any given weekend night.
Vienna Public Transit
Some people will visit a new city wanting to know all about its nightlife or art scene. You should talk to me about its public transit system.
Of all the places I’ve been, Vienna just might have the best one, getting all its different systems to work together, connecting you to pretty much anywhere in the city very easily.
And the best part? Riding costs about $1 for each day if you get a year pass.
One of the very best investments a city can make is making it easier for people to get where they need to go without being so car dependent.
Cow Talk
While I was in Burundi, I spent a lot of time getting familiar with Kirundi, which is a really beautiful Bantu language. One thing that stood out to me was how many of their compliments and greetings were all cow related.
“Have cows and children!” (Urakagira inka n’ibibondo)
“That guy is all cows in the field.” (Inka n’imirima)
“You have the eyes of a cow. Beautiful.” (Amaso y’inyana)
I had to confirm with my friend Emile whether I was understanding these phrases correctly. One thing is for sure. Having cows in Burundi is a very big deal in terms of your status. Cattle is wealth. It’s one thing to afford a cow, but once you do, you’ve also got a natural source of fertilizer for your field.
I love languages, and I love that there’s always so much more to switching languages than just translating sentences. The variations in how you compose thoughts and ideas result in different ways of seeing the world.
Congo Basin Forest
The worst environmental news I heard this year was most likely the announcement that the Congo Basin Rainforest would be open for drilling. It’s a rainforest that holds about a tenth of the earth’s carbon, and hosts so many species that can’t be found elsewhere. That seemed like a huge blow to climate and biodiversity.
Getting to talk to Birori, who promotes ecosystem restoration through working directly with communities was a valuable reminder for me.
Even though his team was fully aware of how unfortunate the news was, he knew that forest protection is best when local communities own the process.
Hopefully the next time I’m in this part of Africa, a visit to the Congo Basin Rainforest could be in order.
Halloween Roundup
When you have one kid born on Halloween and a set of twin babies in the house… costumes are a really big deal.
We’re kind of at a good age for group costumes, especially since two of the kids are two young to debate over what to dress up as. We mostly went with an Asian restaurant theme:
A sriracha
A soy sauce
A sushi roll
A maneki neko (those lucky cats with the waving paw)
and
A ghost.
Rhys was obsessed after seeing It’s a Great Pumpkin. Classic costume. But I guess the group theme is now *haunted sushi restaurant*
Rhys Turns Three
RHYS. Piecer. My man.
In a life where so many good things have happened to me, getting to be your dad is about as good as it gets. You’ve got sweetness and fight and heart and energy… and three whole years of that in my life has been a literal dream come true.
Your third lap around the sun was a pretty big deal.
You became a big brother.
You went on your first international trip.
You climbed ruins in Guatemala and glaciers in Alaska.
You went from the Monkey Room to the Ladybug Room.
I love your geography skills, your taste for eating plain lemons straight up, and your fascination with caves.
I love the person you’re growing into, but I also think you’re an incredible person right this moment.
Happy birthday. Let’s do halo halo again soon.
How Diverse is Toronto
This is my favorite thing about Toronto… it feels like North America’s portal to the world.
Toronto is home to over 200 different ethnic groups. Over 140 languages are spoken in the city, which includes many different international neighborhoods like Chiantown, Greektown, Little Italy, Little Poland, and Little India. Many of these neighborhoods host cultural festivals throughout the year.
I love how this allows you to experience so many things from different cultures, from food to film festivals… but better yet, it introduces you to new people and perspectives.
The Phillies!
Shoutout to baseball for the important life lesson that sometimes two opposites are simultaneously true.
The ending of that World Series sucked AND the 2022 Phillies were such a weird and wonderful chaotic bunch that made this baseball season perhaps the most fun in my life.
Once the sting wears off, the reality sets in that this team coming two games from winning it all is leaps and bounds beyond the expectations of the most optimistic Phillies fan. Like most of us, I was just hoping for a return to relevance after eleven straight years missing the playoffs. Now it looks like we’re just getting started with a new era of a really fun team.
Best part, of course, were all the people I got to share this with. The group chats with co-workers, watch parties at church, and friends who know to text me during these games. Getting to see game one of the NLCS at Petco was the cherry on top. Not to mention, seeing the inner baseball-fan in Deanna take off!
The only downside (well, other than the bats going cold since Wednesday) was having my kids be a little too young to get what was going on. Shoutout to me for not missing an inning OR a tuck-in time! There’s something pretty special about watching your team go on a run as a kid. Guess that means you gotta keep this up for years, Phillies
A Lesson in Global Poverty
From the perspective of someone living in one of the world’s wealthiest nations, it’s easy to look at poverty all around the world without much nuance. We often overlook the difference between a low income country and a middle income country. Or a modest living standard versus extreme poverty.
Does that matter, though? Isn’t the goal simply to end poverty? Period?
It matters because of that goal.
It shows us that it’s possible. And what it might look like.
Thanks to Hans Rosling and Gapminder for the graph.
Ingoma
Just imagine it’s late in the day. The daylight is almost burnt up, except for that last orange glow. You hear an elongated shout, then some thumping. Then it explodes into a rhythm.
The drummers emerge. They’re in line. But some cut to the front. And others follow in a pattern. One moves to the center to leap.
Burundi’s the country of big beats, largely because of their tradition of ingoma drumming.
These drums were used in royal ceremonies, like crowning a new ruler or mourning a funeral. Because the drums were made of cordia africana, or Sudanese teakwood, their sound could travel a far distance. Right up close, however, it simply thundered.
Today the big beats are also used to honor and welcome special guests. I kept trying to find out if they were ever used for war. It seems possible, but I never found that explicitly stated. The ceremonial reasons were the main priority.
But i do know the sound of those drums is a bigger pump up than any locker room anthem I can think of. If I was an opposing army and heard the way those sounds echoed… game over.
Congo Closed
One of the year’s biggest disappointments: I was supposed to visit Congo this summer, along with Burundi.
I ended up spending more time in Burundi because three days before my scheduled DRC visit, violent protests broke out in the area I was staying, targeting outsiders.
This was the second time in three years I’ve had to cancel a planned trip to DRC, a country I’ve wanted to visit for years.
I’m thankful I still got a chance to see my friend from Congo, Birori, while in Bujumbura.
NLCS
I never thought I’d see the Phillies and Padres face off for a pennant!
Been a lifelong Phillies fan. I was just old enough to catch the buzz around their ‘93 team. It’s mostly been tough times since then, with the exception of the 2007-11 golden era.
And the Padres… one other long-suffering fan base, often ignored by the league. While the Phils always come first, it’s hard not to feel good about that squad too. Though, don’t get me wrong, I want the W.
Anyways, at first I wrote off even thinking of going to a playoff game. I assumed it cost a gazillion bucks. Turns out, it was only half-a-gazillion, so I bought tickets not knowing if I’d see this again.
The Marvelous Musk Ox
I had a hunch Rhys would enjoy getting to take a tour of an Alaskan Musk Ox farm… and I was right. And I loved it too. It doesn’t take much for me to be enamored with a large prehistoric herbivore.
These guys date back to the last Ice Age, which puts their dinosaur-like low growl into perspective.
After diving a little bit deeper into Arctic ecosystems, it translate out they are impressive guardians of biodiversity, who once almost went extinct. Glad they didn’t. Charisma beasts.
The Most Livable City
Vienna was named the most livable city in the world
Vienna’s first place ranking comes from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Livability Index and here’s the criteria they use: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
Here’s what makes Vienna a winner.
Philosopher's Walk
Nested between the Royal Ontario Museum and the campus of the University of Toronto, the Philosopher’s Walk is a cool example of what a green corridor is capable of.
This spot is right in the middle of the city, mind you. But it feels pleasantly covered by trees, and carpeted by lush grass.
I catch two older ladies looking up. Turns out we’re under a horse chestnut tree. As of the past four years this tree is under risk of extinction, which is what happened to the American chestnut. Good to see one looking healthy.
We also find melanated squirrels. Squirrels in Canada have a distinct black fur, and you can mostly find them around Toronto.
Supposedly the dominant genetic mutation gives an advantage in the cold. It’s also linked to more testosterone and these squirrels really aren’t that shy.
