Alaskan Cruise 2013

“Something about this place appeals to me,” I told Kim last week as our cruise ship glided through a remote corner of southeast Alaska. (Well, remote except for the two other cruise ships sailing directly behind us, that is.) “Some part of me likes the idea of living in a cabin with nobody around.” I paused. “Fortunately, the rest of me isn’t that crazy.”

That said, I’ve now visited Alaska three times in the last decade. I love the place. In 2004, Kris and I went on an Alaskan cruise with her parents. In 2010, a friend and I spent ten days in southeast Alaska on my neighbor’s boat. And last week, Kim and I took another cruise into the wilderness. We had a good time.

On the trip, I discovered the iPhone’s panoramic photo mode. It’s like a revelation! Whole new worlds of photography are available for me! So, if you’ll indulge me, here are some of the best photos from the trip, including a few panoramas.

Our sister ship, the NCL Jewel, and two others docked in Juneau.

On board the Norwegian Pearl somewhere in sunny Alaska. To the far right, you can see Kim chatting with new friends, Steve and Beverly.

On the NCL Pearl somewhere in sunny Alaska. Kim is on the right, chatting with new friends.

On the top deck of the NCL Pearl, gawking at the glaciers with other tourists.

We spent a LOT of time in the ship's spa. Very relaxing.

We spent a LOT of time in the Pearl’s spa. Kim is to the left, chatting with Leah.

The casinos on cruise ships are surprisingly busy…

In Juneau, we biked around Mendenhall Glacier.

In Skagway, we took a canoe trip to see Davidson Glacier.

We all got our feet wet on the walk into Davidson Glacier. It was totally worth it.

We were lucky enough to hike into (and across) the ice. Fantastic!

This glacier excursion stands as one of my peak travel experiences.

We got up-close and personal with the blue of the ice.

Happy happy happy.

In Ketchikan, we did an obstacle and zip-line course in the rain forest.

We only had a few hours in Victoria, but it was still a lot of fun.

We only had a few hours in Victoria, where we ate seafood and walking the waterfront.

We had a damn good time in Alaska. It’s not on our “must return” list (as Scotland is), but it’s close. Next up? In late February, Kim and I plan to visit Hawaii. As for me, I leave for three weeks in Ecuador on Thursday. Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

The Substance of Our Souls

I’ve spent much of the past month moving the last of my belongings out of Kris’s garage, storage shed, and house. It’s amazing how much Stuff I still has there, even after nearly two years of moving, and even after several years of purging before that. Now, though, all I own is here with me in the condo…or in the storage unit that Kim and I have rented across the river.

While much of the work to move my Stuff was tedious (and overwhelming), some of it was fun. For instance, I’ve spent several hours sorting through boxes of papers and notebooks, skimming my old essays and classwork from high school and college. (Why was I keeping these things?)

In the process, I stumbled upon some unexpected gems.

Here, for example, is an epiphany I wrote in my Astronomy class notebook during my junior year of college.

J.D.’s major spiritual transformation/revelation of 29 Sept 1989

Maybe things don’t need to have a beginning and an end. Maybe such constructs are just our attempts to impose what we can know and comprehend onto what we observe, which may be incomprehensible and unknowable.

Perhaps everything is cyclical — the universe just goes on and on. We do, though our intellect does not. Where did we come from? We came from a sperm and an egg, which grew and flourished as cells were transferred from food to us. We grew from food, which grew from something else.

When we die, we will not pass away. Our remains will be absorbed into the ground to feed the Earth, and our minds will pass away. But our remains will serve to replenish life elsewhere and our cells will become part of other living beings — an endless cycle.

The body belongs to nature and to the endless cycle of life.

So, where do our minds go when we die? What happens to that energy? How and why do we think? Our physical self is part of a never-ending cycle, but what about our mental self? Is our mental energy just a by-product of the physical nature of our beings and doomed to non-existence when we die? Or is it possible that our mental energy is absorbed into some sort of “psychic ground” to be born again in other lives?

Crazy stuff. There I am, at the age of twenty, trying to find an argument for reincarnation and the rebirth of souls. There’s nothing in my past that would have led me to that, and it’s an idea I discarded almost immediately. It’s only recently — since I’ve been dating Kim, who believes strongly in past and future lives — that I’ve begun thinking about these ideas once more.

I like the twist my youthful meditation brings to the subject. Instead of suggesting that our souls might be reborn whole from one life to the next (which seems to be the traditional view of reincarnation), I’m suggesting that our “psychic energy” might break down to become food for other souls, just as our bodies will break down to become food for other bodies.

In a way, this does happen, even leaving aside reincarnation.

Also while sorting my Stuff, I happened upon the eulogy I wrote for my friend Paul a few years ago. Here’s how I ended it:

Paul is gone now — but he’s not. I’m reminded of him every day in countless little ways. First thing in the morning, when I get out of bed and walk downstairs, I have to shuffle sideways like a crab. My bum knee hurts. That’s Paul. When my knee hurts, I think of Paul, every single time. It’s as if a piece of him is in me. When I hear U2, I think of him. When I get on my bike, I think of him. And every time I meet and talk with one of you, I will think of him, too.

So, maybe our mental energy doesn’t return to some sort of “psychic ground” when we die — maybe it’s a process that happens our entire lives. Maybe we’re constantly feeding people with the substance of our souls, so that pieces of who we are will linger long after we’re gone.

A Series of Fortunate Events

Last Tuesday, I was cleaning the apartment when I noticed that my A/C was producing severe condensation once again. I knocked on the neighbors’ door. “Have have had problems with your A/C unit?” I asked.

“No,” said Jan. “Ours works fine.”

“Would you like a glass of wine?” asked Sheila, his wife.

I held up the half-finished beer in my hand. “Not yet,” I said. She laughed. “Well, at least sit and talk with us while we drink our wine.” And so I did.

Jan and Sheila are both seventy, and for the six months I’ve lived in this building, they’ve been asking me to drink wine with them. The timing never worked until now.

I joined Jan and Sheila at 4:30 in the afternoon. For four hours, we chatted about travel, motorcycles, and more. Sheila drank sangria. Jan drank beer. I took a little of both. When Kim arrived home from work, Sheila made us a lovely dinner with a tomato-basil salad, fried cheese, and corn on the cob.

The food was great, but the conversation was better. My favorite thread of discussion revolved around the role of luck and good fortune. I told them I’d recently written about accepting responsibility for your life and the things that happen to you, which led quite naturally to a discussion of Portland’s booming homelessness problem.

“Do you think the homeless are responsible for their situation?” Sheila asked. We talked it out, deciding that some homeless folks are responsible for their plight — and others aren’t. (Somebody mentioned the following quote, which I like: “It may not be your fault, but it’s your problem.”)

Jan and Sheila also talked about their friend, who’d just undergone open heart surgery that day. We talked about other people we know who have had bad breaks or fallen on hard times. At one point, I tried to draw a comparison between a couple of situations. Jan stopped me.

“You can’t compare misfortunes,” Jan said, an insight I believe is profound. You can’t compare misfortunes. Bad luck is bad luck. It sucks, no matter what the situation is. (Jan’s comment reminded me of the opening line to Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”)

A while later, Jan was talking about the twists and turns his life has taken. He’s a curious man, and always has been. He’s willing to try new things and to talk to new people. As a result, good things happen to him. This reminded me of one of my favorite books, Luck is No Accident [my review], which encourages readers to open themselves to “happenstance” by embracing life head on.

“Most of my life has been this way,” Jan told me. “It’s a series of fortunate events.” I liked that statement too. I feel like my own life has been a series of fortunate events over the past few years. And the more I share, the more open I am, the luckier I get.

I think I should drink wine with Jan and Sheila more often.

One Second Everyday

At World Domination Summit this year, one of our attendee stories featured Cesar Kuriyama, who built an app called One Second Everyday. Kuriyama documented a year of his life in a six-minute video, one that included a one-second clip from each day of the year. As the name of his app implies, it helps others create similar videos by automating the process.

For three weeks, I’ve been using One Second Everyday to document my life. It’s fun. I’ve been pretty good about the process, except for a three-day span last week where I didn’t do much besides read, write, and clean house. (For those three missed days, I “cheated” by using extra footage from days where I had fun clips available.)

Here’s my One Second Everyday video for July 11th through July 31st. It does a pretty good job of capturing what I’ve been up to.

Here’s what each second captures:

July 11th – Writing October’s Entrepreneur column on tax deductions.
July 12th – Mannequin salesman at the antique fair.
July 13th – Visiting with the Limbaughs on Kim’s last night at the house.
July 14th – Packing Kim’s house and moving her to my condo.
July 15th – Talking with Benny Lewis about his travel plans.
July 16th – Working with Lisa Briscoe on our poster project.
July 17th – Kim’s bad cough keeping us awake in the middle of the night.
July 18th – Kim kicking my ass at pool (after beating me at shuffleboard).
July 19th – Picking berries with Kris at the house.
July 20th – Listening to live music at the Muddy Rudder.
July 21st – Romantical.
July 22nd – Watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. [Cheated.]
July 23rd – Smoking on the back porch at Kim’s house. [Cheated.]
July 24th – Celebrating a goal at the Timbers match. [Cheated.]
July 25th – “Baby Got Back” at the Yukon with Portland money bloggers.
July 26th – Sneaking down the steep hill behind the mausoleum.
July 27th – Beer and pizza at the Muddy Rudder.
July 28th – Buying flowers at the Farmers Market.
July 29th – Holding plank position at Crossfit.
July 30th – Comparison pricing at Costco.
July 31st – At the park with Andrew and Isaiah.

One interesting thing about this project is choosing what to include. Because I want to share my video with the public, I’ve kept it pretty PG (or PG-13). My life is more R-rated than that (as are most people’s lives!).

It’s also interesting that once I started taking short video clips, I stopped taking as many photos. Since I have a couple of ongoing photo projects, this is a bit of a challenge. I need to be sure I’m documenting my life with still images for these projects at the same time I’m capturing moving images for One Second Everyday.

I’m going to do my best to continue this project as long as I can. Can I keep it up for an entire year? I don’t know. It helps, though, that the app sends me periodic reminders throughout the day. These little nudges are enough to make me think, “What am I doing right now? Can I film a few seconds?”

I love this app. It’s fun to use, and it’s fun to see the pattern of my life captured in this way…

Giving Without the Expectation of Return

Well, it’s official. Yesterday I signed the contract to resume writing at Get Rich Slowly. I’ll be supplying a minimum of two articles per month, though I hope to write more. In return, I’ll be paid nothing.

To some, this seems crazy. To others, it seems like I’m being a sucker. To me, it sounds like fun. Often my favorite projects are the ones done solely for passion, the ones where there’s no expectation of an immediate payoff or return.

No Immediate Payoff

Last January, I had a phone conversation with Seth Godin. I was excited to pitch him on the idea joining us at World Domination Summit as a speaker this year.

“Why should I do this?” he asked.

I explained that it was a chance to share his message with 3000 receptive influencers. He was unconvinced. (In retrospect, I understand. Unlike many of our speakers, Seth already has a huge platform. While I still think he’d benefit from speaking at WDS, he’d get less from it than other speakers might.)

Seth had another objection. “You’re asking me to do this for free,” he said. “Would you do this for free?”

“Yes. I did it for free last year,” I said.

“And how much are you paid to help organize the conference?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“See, I don’t get that,” he said. “Why would you do that? I understand why Chris does it. There’s a payoff for him, even if it’s not financial. He’s gathering his tribe. But what’s in it for you?”

I had no answer. There’s not anything in WDS for me — except that I love the event, and it makes me happy to help connect amazing speakers with a receptive audience. I get true joy from facilitating collaboration. It sounds hokey, but it’s true.

Ultimately, Seth didn’t speak at WDS, and I get it. He believes free speaking gigs undermine his industry, making it more difficult for him to find quality paid speaking gigs. He needs a concrete return on his investment of time. That makes perfect sense.

But I’m still willing to work on WDS — and other projects — without the expectation that I’ll receive anything in return.

Note: Before this conversation, I didn’t really “get” Seth Godin. He sounds a little mercenary from this anecdote, but that’s not the impression I got at all. Instead, I was impressed from the first moment by how sharp his mind was and how insightful his questions were. We spent twenty minutes on the phone, and in those twenty minutes I learned a lot, especially about business. Since then, I’ve read as much as I can by him. I “get” Seth Godin now. He’s a smart, smart man.

Connecting and Collaborating

For much of the past two years, much of my work has been built around giving without the expectation of return.

As I’ve mentioned before, I meet with folks several times each week. I receive lots of email from readers and colleagues and complete strangers who want to have lunch or coffee. I agree to meet as many people as possible.

These meetings have become my real work. I spend an hour or two at a time talking about whatever my companion finds important. Last week over dinner, for instance, I discussed soccer and careers and ice cream with a fellow financial blogger. The next day, I met a reader for tea and we talked about games, about getting out of debt, and about starting a business. And the following day, I spoke with two folks by phone, exploring topics like fear and rejection and knowing when to quit.

I have no agenda for these meetings, and often nothing comes of them. But that’s okay. Other times, I get a great idea. Or my companion gets a great idea. And sometimes, I’m able to provide an introduction that could lead to a cool collaboration. (“Ramit Sethi, meet Jia Jiang. Jia Jiang, meet Ramit Sethi.”)

These meetings make me happy. I feel like I’m doing something good in the world. Plus, who knows? Maybe someday all of this connecting and collaborating will lead to the Next Big Thing.

Ulterior Motives

My return to Get Rich Slowly isn’t completely altruistic, I’ll confess. There’ll be no immediate monetary benefit, but I’m hopeful that there might be future positives that come from it.

Last week, Kim asked me to make a list of all the crazy plans that have been running through my head. “You have so many business ideas,” she said. “It’s hard to keep track of them all.”

I spent an hour jotting down the different things I’d like to do, like write another book (or three), start a new business, open a store that sells financial advice, and so on. When the list was finished, I was surprised to see that in order to pursue many of the ideas — especially those that matter most to me — it would helpful to write at Get Rich Slowly again. That sealed the deal. (Though, really, I was planning to return anyhow.)

Plus, I’ll admit: I’ve met a lot of cool financial bloggers over the past year (bloggers like Paula, Joe, MMM, and Kathleen), and I’m excited about interacting with them on a daily basis. Again, it’s a chance for connecting and collaborating. It sounds like fun!

I believe that a lot of good can come when you give without the expectation of return. You produce good in other people’s lives. Often, you receive unexpected benefits. But most of all, you make the world a better place.

Note: Some might wonder how this will affect my writing here at More Than Money. The answer is: It won’t. I’ll still be writing here about my favorite non-financial topics. I have lots more to say in coming months about overcoming fear, traveling the world, and discovering happiness in everyday life.

Expertise and Expectations: Thoughts on Success — and What Comes After

One of my favorite parts about working on the World Domination Summit is getting to know the speakers.

This year, for instance, I fostered friendships with radio journalist Tess Vigeland and blogger/entrepreneur Jia Jiang. Earlier this month, both spoke from the WDS main stage. Tess shared her story of leaping without a safety net; Jia talked about his project to actively seek out (and learn from) rejection. (Update: The video of Jia’s WDS talk is now available!)

Today, I spoke with both Tess and Jia by phone. Jia and I mostly talked about business. And soccer. And collaboration. My conversation with Tess was more personal. She and I have remarkably similar experiences with (and reactions to) success and life. Her counsel this morning was both insightful and helpful.

The Impostor Syndrome

Last week, Tess chatted with Carl Richards (the brains behind Behavior Gap). They discussed how strange it feels to be thought an expert when you only feel like a normal person. Carl told her about the impostor syndrome, the psychological phenomenon in which you’re unable to accept your success and accomplishments. While the rest of the world may tell you how well you’re doing, you don’t think you’ve done anything noteworthy. You feel like a fraud or a phony.

This reaction is surprisingly common among the successful people I’ve spoken with in recent years. The crazy thing is that in every case that somebody has confessed to me that they feel this way, I’ve been able to see that they’re wrong, that they are worthy of the accolades they receive.

Despite this, I still feel like I don’t deserve the recognition that I receive. Just yesterday, I met with a long-time Get Rich Slowly reader. “I want to thank you, J.D.,” this man said to me over hot tea and hummus. “You changed my life. You helped me get out of debt and save money. As a result, I was able to spend a year-and-a-half doing my own thing. Thanks.”

I accepted my companion’s approbation, but the whole time I was thinking, “Dude, it wasn’t me. It was you. You did all of this. I don’t have any special knowledge. I’m no expert.”

And that’s the thing: I’m not an expert. I’m not a financial guru. If I’m an expert at anything, it’s at conveying complex topics in simple terms so that they’re understandable to everyday people. I’m an expert at telling my own story and sharing the lessons I learn from it. But perhaps my greatest skill is self-awareness — and helping others to become self-aware.

Great Expectations

Tess is having a tough time enjoying her success. Right now, she’s terrified. The reaction to her talk at WDS was so overwhelmingly positive, and so many good things came out of it (job offers, a book deal, and so on), that she feels like whatever she does next cannot hope to measure up to what she just accomplished. She feels like nothing will be as successful as that speech. She feels like she’s reached the high point of her career.

Note: There’s no audio or video of Tess’s talk yet — soon! — but you can read a transcript at her website.

I’m in a similar position. I achieved success with Get Rich Slowly. Now, I’m ready to try other things. I have many opportunities. I’m a fortunate man because I can pick and choose what I want to try next. Yet I’m reluctant to commit to anything because I feel like I won’t be able to measure up to what I’ve done before. The perfectionist in me prevents me from being decisive.

“Sometimes I just want to walk up to Starbucks and take a job as a barrista,” I told Tess on our call today.

“Right. I get it,” she said. “Because then nobody will expect anything of you.”

“Exactly!” I said. “I can work a simple job, do it well, and come home at the end of the day with nothing to worry about but making coffee in the morning.”

“But at the same time, you know there’s more you can do, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have this desire to do great things, to continue helping people. And I have ideas of how I can do that while making a little money at the same time.”

“It’s that goddamn ambition,” Tess said — and we both laughed because it’s true.

The bottom line: We’re afraid of failing to live up to the expectations of others, but we’re also afraid of failing to live up to our own expectations. That’s quite a trap. How does one escape it?

Self-Respect

Tess and I also talked about those strange situations where you’re able to meet your own expectations but unable to meet the expectations of others. I’m experiencing this in my own life right now, and I don’t like it. It’s new to me. (Usually, if I’m doing a poor job, I know it and so do people around me. If I’m doing well, that’s obvious too. But to be told I’m doing poorly when I think I’m doing well? That’s a new one!)

During her presentation at WDS, Tess talked about being trapped by a good thing. In her case, she was working at her dream job — but her dream job wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d hoped. In fact, in some very real ways, it was bringing her down. After a lot of deliberation, she realized she had to quit.

“It’s time to leave when you have too much self-respect to stay,” Tess said on stage in front of nearly 3000 people. That’s an important message, one that resonates with me right now.

“Sometimes something will slowly chip away at your sense of self-worth,” Tess told me today. “It’ll chip away at your sense of value so much that even you begin to believe it, to accept that you’re not as good as you know you are. But you have to remember that you’re better than that. Life is too short to be treated like shit. Nobody deserves that. Don’t hang out with people who don’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

In the end, Tess told me something I already knew: “Sometimes you have to know when to quit.”

What’s Next?

One reason it’s difficult to quit something (even when that something is a net negative) is that we’re wired to be afraid of uncertainty. We’d rather stick with the devil we know than the devil we don’t. That’s how women get trapped in abusive relationships and workers find themselves stuck in jobs that are unfulfilling or unprofitable.

Like anyone, I’m apprehensive about the unknown. It makes me nervous to leap without a net. But the thing is, I have a net. I’m lucky, and I know it. If needed, I can take a long time to discover what life holds for me. I have the luxury of being selective about which course of action to take.

“You need to listen to your gut,” Tess told me. “Do what it tells you to do.”

She’s right.

After my conversation with Tess was over, I thought about my own talk last year at WDS. In that talk, I shared a lesson I’d learned from Derek Sivers.

Sivers says you should either be so excited by something that it makes you say “HELL YEAH!” — or you should say “no” to it. When you say “no” to the things that don’t excite you, you leave lots of room in your life to passionately pursue the few things that make you go HELL YEAH! If you want to be happy, if you want to become a better person, then focus first on the parts of your life that are most important to you. Make these your priorities. Once you’ve scheduled these things, fit the other, less important things in — if you can.

For the past few months, I’ve been exploring possible courses of action. I’ve been trying to decide what’s next for me. I need to follow my own advice — which is to follow Sivers’ advice. I need to look at all of the possibilities, and then only pursue those that make me say “HELL YEAH!”

Which direction will this take me? I don’t know, but I don’t need to know either. I’m ready to embrace the uncertainty!

Poems for People Who Don’t Like Poetry?

When I was younger, I wanted to be a poet. In high school, I wrote poetry all the time. Some of it was actually okay — in a sophomoric kind of way. Most of the time, it was about what you’d expect from a nerdy high-school boy. Still, I managed to get some poems published, and even saw a few paychecks because of it.

I haven’t written much poetry since college, though. The impulse vanished. About once every couple of years, I’ll dash something off, but mostly I’m non-poetic. Here’s a little bit that I wrote on September 11, 2001. I like it.

In the twilight
the colors bleed and fade —
what once was red, or blue, or green,
is now black. Or white.

The approaching darkness
casts long shadows, cloaking
all that once danced in light,
consuming warmth, producing fright.

Though I don’t write much myself anymore, I appreciate good poetry. Here are a few of my favorites:

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Summer Storm
by Dana Gioia

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm —
A gesture you didn’t explain —
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm —
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

The Sunlight on the Garden
by Louis MacNeice

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told,
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth comples, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

I’m particularly impressed by folks who make good use of meter, rhythm, and rhyme. It’s harder to work within these contraints than outside of them. Besides, I don’t find much difference between modern free verse and flowery essays. (I’ll readily admit this could be a shortcoming on my part.)

When Kim and I started dating fifteen months ago, I mentioned my fondness for poetry. “I’m not sure I like poetry,” she said. “A lot of times, I just don’t get it. Plus, I don’t like being told what things mean.”

“Some of it’s good,” I told her.

“You should share it with me,” she said. But I never did.

Last weekend, I found some time to read her a handful of poems. She liked a few, but others simply reinforced her opinion. “I don’t get it,” she said after a couple of opaque poems. From her perspective, it was as if the poets didn’t want to be understood, an observation I find interesting (and, quite possibly, accurate).

So, I’m coming to you for advice. Can you recommend some poems for people who don’t like poetry? Did you used to be a poetry hater? Are you still? What poems changed your mind? What poets do you appreciate? How does somebody who finds poetry frustrating learn to love it?

Backstage at World Domination Summit 2013

Yes, I know I haven’t updated this site in almost a month. To be honest, I haven’t done much of anything for the past few weeks — except work on this year’s World Domination Summit.

Last weekend, we brought nearly 3000 people to Portland to talk about community, service, and adventure. A million-dollar production like this takes a lot of work. More than you can possibly imagine. And so, I’ve been too busy to do anything else.

The hard work is now finished, though, and the conference is over. Our last official meeting about WDS 2013 will take place this evening. From what we can tell, it was a wild success. Beyond our wildest dreams, in fact. (Yes, there were some glitches. But the good stuff far outweighed the glitches.)

There are lost of attendee photos floating around the interwebs, but few from backstage. As I do every year, I carried my camera with me constantly so that I could document things from behind the scenes. Here are a few of my favorite moments from WDS 2013.

World Domination Summit…on the marquee of Portland’s best theater for almost a week!

Loading the trucks to take stuff to the venues.

Preparing to kick off the World Float, the first official event of WDS 2013.

We set a world record by creating a 620-person floating human chain.

Our media crew was on hand to document the event. So was the local news.

Meanwhile, our volunteers were working hard to prepare for registration at Director Park.

At the main venue, the tech crew was building the set and working with speakers and their slides.

Chris G. and Don Miller conferring on stage during rehearsal.

On Friday evening, we held our opening party at the Oregon Zoo.

Entertainment was provided by March Fourth, a combination marching band and circus act.

As always, my role on the planning team this year was to recruit and co-ordinate speakers. It’s a job I enjoy. It’s fun to create a cohesive arc from ten different presenters.

Every year, I work with a secret sub-theme as we put together the line-up. Last year, the secret them was: “Change yourself, change the world.” This year’s secret them was: “Live your life as a story.” As event organizer Chris Guillebeau and I chose speakers, I looked for folks like Nancy Duarte, people whose messages are clearly about story. I also looked for people with compelling stories to tell. And, when our line-up was set, I asked speakers to consider how their talks might be integrated into this unofficial theme.

On Saturday morning, doors opened for the main event. It took 48 minutes to fill the house.

WDS 2013 Attendees listen intently to a speaker

The audience was completely engaged with the speakers.

Jolie Guillebeau helps Superman (aka Darren Rowse) prepare for his entrance at WDS 2013

Problogger Darren Rowse shared his childhood dream to become Superman.
Backstage, Jolie Guillebeau helped him make that dream come true.

Bob from Bob’s Red Mill spoke about putting people before profit. [photo by Amrosa Studios]

Backstage at WDS 2013 during Jia Jiang's talk

At the tech station stage-right as Jia Jiang talks about learning from rejection.

Improv performer Gary Hirsch turned the audience into a rock band.

Journalist Tess Vigeland told her raw, personal story on stage. Here, she steels herself for her talk.

Tess took to the audience to ask some questions. Here she’s surprised by Carol Wain.

Steve Schalchlin was joined on-stage by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus.

We wanted to end the weekend with a champagne sendoff. We settled for sparkling cider instead.

Among the glitches this year was the fact we underestimated demand for workshops. Our attendees put together a lot of amazing unofficial events over the course of the weekend, and we thought they’d draw more folks. We were wrong. As a result, workshops were overcrowded and we had to turn people away.

This year, I partnered with Leo from Zen Habits to create a workshop on overcoming fear and building confidence. We had a great time planning it, and thought we were well-prepared for our 150-person venue. We printed 200 handouts just to be safe. But when far more than 200 folks showed up to hear us (we think there were about 250), we had to improvise on the spot. We did the best we could given the situation, but we had to scrap much of our planned presentation.

Here I am improvising (literally!) during our workshop. [photo by Amrosa Studios]

After the conference was over, we held a massive dance party in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. As he has every year, DJ Prashant taught attendees Bollywood dancing.

See the guy on the ground in front of the stage? That’s me… [photo by Amrosa Studios]

…the photo I was snapping in the scene above. DJ Prashant teaching the crowd to dance.

Toni Anderson and Andrea Deckard have smooth moves.

My favorite story from backstage this weekend: When the event was over, as the after-party started, I hosted a dinner for the speakers. I was joined by WDS planning team member (and friend) Tyler Tervooren. After dinner, we walked to the dance party. Unfortunately, Tyler had lost his nametag, which was required to enter the square.

“But I’m one of the organizers,” Tyler said.

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman guarding the entry said.

“Really?” I said. “I can vouch for him. He’s been planning this for months.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Tyler seemed stumped for a moment, but I could see the gears working in his head. “How about this?” he said at last, as he fished in his pocket. “This piece of paper is the event-use permit for this party. It’s the document I had to sign with the city to rent this park. That’s my signature. Here’s my driver license to verify it.”

The woman laughed. “Okay,” she said. “You can go in.”

Tyler, producing the party permit in order to get in…

The best part of World Domination Summit is meeting the attendees. The people who come to this event are amazing. Unfortunately, I have less time to do that each year. This year, I managed to have dinner with attendees on Saturday night. I also spent most of Monday and Tuesday meeting with folks too. (I particularly enjoyed dinner on Monday night. Kim and I joined speakers Tess Vigeland and Jia Jiang as well as some close blogging colleagues. We had a great meal and a great conversation.)

Dinner with speaker Jia Jiang and some of my friends who attended WDS 2013

Now, I’m tired. Producing WDS 2013 took a lot out of me this year, physically and mentally and emotionally. I’m drained. It’s been two or three months since I’ve had time to work on my own projects. (As I mentioned already, it’s been an entire month since I had time to even update this site.) I love World Domination Summit, and I’d love to be a part of it in the future. But I’m not sure it’s worth the sacrifices I’ve had to make. After all, you have to dominate your own life before you can dominate the world.

Spitfire 944

Here’s a lovely short film (about fifteen minutes) about a tiny slice of World War II history. William Lorton’s great uncle was a doctor in the U.S. Army Air Corps. There, he shot 90 minutes of personal footage of the war, including one segment of a crash on an airstrip in England.

Through a bit of internet detective work, Lorton tracked down the pilot who survived the crash. In the film, the 83-year-old John Blyth tells his story and — for the first time ever — views the footage of the crash. It’s much more interesting than it sounds.

Here’s Spitfire 944:

You can read more about the film at this Sundance Film Festival page and at Wikipedia.

The Flavor Bible: A Cookbook Without Recipes

A couple of months ago, I reconnected with Ken, one of my college roommates. Turns out that 25 years after rooming together, he and I gain live in the same building.

Over dinner at Relish Gastropub — one of my favorite new restaurants in Portland — Ken and I reconnected. We talked about life and love. We talked about money. We talked about food. In the decades since I knew him, Ken has become a professional chef. In fact, he teaches restaurant management at one of the culinary schools here in town.

At one point, the conversation turned to books. “I used to have thousands of books,” I told Ken. “I still have too many. But moving into my new place has forced me to do yet another book purge. If Kim moves in with me, I may have to get rid of even more.”

“Yeah,” Ken said. “I love books too. Especially cookbooks. I have a cookbook problem.” We laughed at the notion he was addicted to cookbooks.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve been doing more cooking now that I have a decent kitchen. I like cooking, but I haven’t done much of it since Kris and I split up. Do you have any cookbook recommendations?”

Ken thought for a moment. “Actually, my favorite cookbook — the one I use all the time — isn’t really a cookbook. It’s called The Flavor Bible, and all it does is list hundreds of different flavor combinations that work well together. I use it as a source of inspiration. Like, if I have beets in the fridge that I need to use, I can look in The Flavor Bible to see that good flavor combinations are beets and butter, or beets and blue cheese, or beets and dijon mustard. It even lists complex flavor combinations such as beets and vinegar and hazelnuts and Gorgonzola.”

“Huh,” I said. “Sounds like my kind of book.”

The Flavor Bible

The next day, I borrowed a copy from the library. I liked it. Not only does The Flavor Bible list matching flavor combinations, it also tells you which flavor combinations to avoid (don’t mix basil and tarragon, for instance). It offers tips and ideas from great chefs around the United States. Some of the tips are short and sweet, like this one from Emily Luchetti of San Francisco’s Farallon:

Blueberries and lemon go really well together. Blueberries are a thick fruit with a lot of pectin in them, and intensely flavored. You need som lemon to cut through that.

In the blueberry section, there are quotes from other chefs that suggest using cinnamon or maple in combination with blueberries.

Other tips are longer. For example, The Flavor Bible includes a sidebar in which Gina DePalma of New York’s Babbo describes how to build a cheese plate. As a guy who likes his cheeses (and likes to build cheese plates), these 250 words are gold.

Though The Flavor Bible doesn’t contain any actual recipes, it does list hundreds of dishes from restaurants around the country, such as:

Alaskan king salmon with sugar snap peas
Cornish game hens with pomegranate sauce and toasted almonds
Leek and asparagus pasta with lemon, parmesan, and poached egg
Seaweed and jicama salad with ginger dressing
Roasted beet salad with shaved fennel and chèvre

The names and descriptions of these dishes are often enough for inspiration. (Plus, you can sometimes google to find a recipe.)

Sometimes a chef will describe a dish in detail (though not with an actual recipe). I’m eager to try Gabriel Kreuther‘s watermelon salad, which includes a tomato confit and a layer of browned pistachios with salt and pepper. Sounds delicious.

Since I bought this cookbook a month ago, I’ve used it several times each week. Like my friend Ken, I grab The Flavor Bible whenever I have spare food in the fridge that I need to know how to use. Sometimes I use it to figure out how to add another dimension to something I’m making.

Here’s an example. For the next three weeks, Kim and I are doing a plant-based “cleanse” together (with a small portion of lean protein in the evening). As Kim (and Kris) will tell you, I’m not so good when it comes to eating plants. I need help getting creative with them. That’s where The Flavor Bible comes in.

Yesterday I used it for something as simple as a fruit smoothie. I’d already added banana, coconut milk, berries, and vanilla protein powder. “What can I do to punch this up?” I wondered. “Maybe cinnamon?” I pulled down The Flavor Bible. Sure enough, bananas and vanilla combine well with cinnamon, and berries are on okay flavor match. I added a bit of cinnamon to the smoothie and it helped.

The 39 Best Flavor Combinations

The Flavor Bible contains nearly 400 pages of flavor affinities, which it ranks on four levels based on how many chefs recommend the combination. Of these thousands of permutations, I scoured the book to find only 39 that received the highest number of endorsements. These are the “Holy Grail” flavor pairings that the most experts agree upon. Here they are:

Angelica and rhubarb
Apple and cinnamon
Basil and garlic
Basil and tomatoes
Beans and savory
Beans (flageolet) and lamb
Chard and garlic
Cheese (manchego) and quince paste
Cherries and kirsch
Chile peppers and Thai cuisine
Chocolate and coffee
White chocolate and raspberries
Crab and avocado
Jicama and chile peppers
Jicama and lime
Lamb and garlic
Lamb and rosemary
Mint and lamb
Oregano and tomatoes
Pork and black pepper
Quince and apples
Quince and pears
Raspberries and white chocolate
Rhubarb and strawberries
Rosemary and garlic
Rosemary and lamb
Saffron and rice
Saffron and risotto
Savory and beans
Shrimp and garlic
Spinach and butter (especially unsalted butter)
Strawberries and cream
Strawberries and rhubarb
Strawberries and sugar
Strawberries and balsamic vinegar (especially aged balsamic vinegar
Tomatoes and basil
Turmeric and curry powder
Vanilla and (ice) cream
Fennel seeds and sausages (especially Italian sausages)

I find it interesting that a handful of flavor combinations appear in the listing for both ingredients (strawberries are recommended with rhubarb and rhubarb is recommended with strawberries), but most of the pairings are only uni-directional. Not sure what that means.

The Bottom Line

If I have one complaint about The Flavor Bible it’s that the highly-recommended flavor matches tend toward the conventional. I wonder if they’re recommended not so much because they’re great combinations but because they’re well known.

Still, I have to agree with Ken. The Flavor Bible is a great book, and I can see keeping it in my kitchen long after other cookbooks have been donated to Goodwill. I look forward to many years of exploring its suggestions. I’ll start tonight. Kim and I are going to try some jicama with chile peppers and lime!

The authors of The Flavor Bible also wrote a book called What to Drink with What You Eat, which apparently follows the same format. Guess what I’m going to borrow from the library when I run my errands today…