Jerry Towler

Self-driven.

Reading

Book Art

How to Take Smart Notes

Sönke Ahrens


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    travel

    Two sort of opposite pictures from Jackson Hole today. One of a man made structure—a cute little cabin decorated with skis—on the side of a mountain; and the other a family of mule deer who decided our little townhouse complex was a good dinner spot. …

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    travel

    Last summer, we backpacked in Grand Teton National Park. Today is our first day skiing Jackson Hole. This is a great, and beautiful, part of the country.

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    I assume I will eventually stop taking pictures of the natural beauty of Salt Lake City, but I don’t predict it will be soon.

    Mountain ridge with pink coloring on the peaks from the sunset.
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    Skiing Alta

    I haven’t been to Alta since the first time I came to Salt Lake City to ski several years ago. At the time, I was just re-learning how to ski 10 years after basically quitting cold turkey when I took a job in Texas after college.

    We went today, …

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    When I was collecting data for my 2024 health and fitness review, I couldn’t figure out how to see how many times I hit my daily exercise goal.

    Turns out it’s in Trends→Exercise in the Fitness app, all the way at the bottom.

    Now I just …

    À la @QuilledSister,

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    photos

    First vert of the season!

    Meera and Jerry in ski jackets and helmets in front of a snowy landscape at Solitude ski resort.IKON pass description of today’s skiing: 2,891 vertical feet over 3 lifts, 5 trails, 3.0 miles.

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    Apropos of doing better with physical health this year, I managed to get three days into 2025 without a workout, until yesterday. Here’s to way more of these this year!

    2024 Review: VerseNotes

    After my family and my job, the thing I spent the most brainpower thinking about in 2024 was VerseNotes, which I’ve been writing since August 2018.

    This year marked a huge turning point, as I published the very first VerseNotes products and …

    2024 Review: Health and Fitness

    2024 was (apparently) not a good year for physical fitness for me. We got in a lot of good skiing and one backpacking trip (to Grand Teton National Park), but otherwise I apparently didn’t do much to keep myself alive. This post is a bit …

    2024 Review: Finances

    It’s hard to talk about finances publicly, but it’s an important part of an annual review. That said, as I wrote this post, I realized I wasn’t comfortable talking about this publicly after all. But two parts I am comfortable with: …

    2024 Review: Reading

    Reading is actually first on my personal review of each year, but I wanted to play with the photo collections, so I started with travel. I keep an up-to-date list of books I’m reading and have read, but here’s 2024 for posterity, or …

    travel

    2024 Review: Travel

    Next step of 2024-in-review is travel. Flighty has some cool visualizations, which are a good excuse to try the new image collections feature.

    A chart displays the number of flights for the top routes, with SAT-DFW having the most at 9 flights.A digital flight passport displays a flight map and itinerary details, including 58 flights, a total distance of 65,054 miles, 23 airports, and 3 airlines, with the authority being the Flighty App.A flight summary shows a total of 58 flights, with a majority being in February, predominantly domestic, and a monthly bar graph distribution.A travel summary card displays total flight distance, comparisons to Earth and space distances, and details the shortest and longest flights.A summary of flight time statistics includes a total flight time of 165 hours and 22 minutes, with details on specific flights like a 58-minute one from San Antonio to Dallas and a 13-hour, 10-minute one from Dallas to Tokyo.A chart shows the number of something associated with seven airports, with SAT having the highest count at 32.

    I actually did less flying this year than last year, despite trips to Tokyo, Milan, and Luxembourg (via …

    Doing some 2024-in-review this weekend. First step: update my /now page.

    books

    Finished reading: Rocket Men by Robert Kurson

    The success of Apollo 8 is one of the biggest achievements of American spaceflight, or possibly all human spaceflight. I love space stories, but I knew Apollo 11 and 13 far better than this one, so we …

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    Fool of a…

    A weathered vintage sign for a store called Took and Johnnie’s features a drawing of Marilyn Monroe’s subway grate pose.

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    Getting some coffee and WiFi at Downshift Brewing in Ruidoso. Got a few hours of work in with a view of the river and some decorations being taken down.

    Hopefully we’ll be back later today to, uh, downshift from caffeine to alcohol; their beer is …

    books

    Finished reading: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

    This story is so epic it deserves better treatment. Unfortunately, this narrative weaves in dozens of names and focuses on a few, almost exclusively black women and white men (with few …

    books

    Finished reading: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe.

    Damn, what a book.

    We follow a number of major characters in the Troubles of Northern Ireland from about 1968 to about 2016. I learned much more than I’ve ever known about this history.

    The …

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    travel

    This road trip has given us the opportunity to compare many fried chicken chains across more than a thousand miles so far. We’ve hit Whataburger (I know), Popeye’s, and just now Bojangle’s for lunch.

    Best chicken: Popeye’s Best biscuit: Bojangle’s …

    One of the best parts of roadtrips is long-form audio, which I avoid on my short daily commutes because it breaks up the text too much (I devour podcasts instead).

    We’ve really been enjoying Say Nothing about the Troubles. We’ll finish today, but I …

    Halfway through the first of three long drives this Christmas. Eleven hours today and we’ll be in the right place for Christmas.

    versenotes

    This evening I’m trying to maintain motivation to keep going with Chapter By Chapter by looking at how far I’ve come.

    There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible, which is daunting, but I’ve already written about 405 of them, which is …

    versenotes

    I don’t think Paul Simon was thinking of Psalm 88:18 when he wrote “The Sound of Silence”, but the NIV translation sure sounds like it:

    You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

    We designed New Year’s cards today (because we’re too late for reliable Christmas cards). I am very happy with them.

    We’re trying something new this year: having them addressed and shipped for us, because the next two weeks are way …