About
Off the clock.
The work is the rest of this site. This is the other stuff: what I read, what I watch, and the strange way I plan trips. It changes; so does the shelf.
Reading
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
Nostalgia and tech, intertwined. Written for kids who grew up around computers.
Kitchen Confidential
Anthony Bourdain
Required reading from my first career. Bourdain wrote down what every kitchen already knew.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Hunter S. Thompson
Political journalism with the safety off.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
Short sentences, big stakes. I think about the prose as much as the plot.
Europe Through the Back Door
Rick Steves
The manual. Half my trip-planning habits trace back to this book.
In print
Wildsam
Travel writing with hand-drawn maps. The good kind of slow.
Ori
Print travel, the unhurried kind.
The Flow Trip
Lifestyle and culture, printed like it matters.
Watching
- The Bear
I ran those Friday nights. It’s accurate enough that my shoulders tense.
- Slow Horses
The rejects out-working everyone. Beautifully mean writing.
Mike OkayYouTubeTravel, one honest walk at a time.
Bald and BankruptYouTubeGoes where the guidebooks don’t.
Peter SantenelloYouTubeGoes into communities most of us only have opinions about.
On my phone
Doing
There is always a trip in planning. Right now it’s Japan, or a month alone in Europe, whichever wins. And there’s always a new app taking shape; the folder count on my Mac keeps climbing.
Something I do that people may find odd: I watch walking-tour videos on YouTube with Google Maps open on my phone, following along street by street, bookmarking where I’d eat, drink, and wander. By the time I land somewhere, I’ve already walked it. It’s the same instinct Ripple is built on: caring about places you’re not standing in.