Everyone this is Andrew…
So excited to have the last guest writer of 2020 here with us today. I met Andrew Norton at a rehearsal dinner five and a half years ago when he said, “you’re Katie, right?” And the rest is history.
Andrew is the go-to guy when I need someone to explain the weather, mow our lawn, laugh at a TikTok that isn’t that funny, but if you think about it, it is, or if I lock myself out of my car at a Quik Trip. When I was talking to him about what he should include in this week’s newsletter I said, “Ok if Andrew Norton were a Venn Diagram, I feel like there’s sports, agriculture, pop culture, service, and being tall.” Anyway, get in touch with him if you’re trying to start a “bros of the newsletter” group text.
I’ll be coming at ya next Sunday with a little ~year in review~ and then we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in 2021. I did finish watching Virgin River, and I am ready to talk about it.
One more thing from me and then it’s Andrew: I loved this piece on the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon, and it made me think of how I was once in a facebook group with Jackie Roeloffs (from a couple weeks ago), and someone was asking for suggestions for their wedding registry. Jackie said something along the lines of “I HATED registering at Bed Bath and Beyond, but someone gave us an insta pot from there, and the first time I used it I burned beans into the sides of it, so I took it to the store, and they took the return beans and all.” And for some reason that has stuck with me like beans to an insta pot, so I alway encourage registering at Bed Bath and Beyond.
This sentence now has links to a reader survey, the 100th issue master spread sheet, my instagram, my Outdoor Voices referral link , and old issues of the newsletter.
Number One: Conspiracy Theories
By now, unless you live under a rock, you probably have heard about the Utah monolith that was discovered and has brought about a lot of conspiracy theories about who and where it came from. I won’t spend a lot of time going into those because we all have Google, but this obelisk got me thinking. Once it was discovered on Google Earth, they found out it could have been there since 2015 or even earlier. So what else is out there that we don’t know about? I love a good conspiracy theory. The Denver Airport is one of my favorites, but another I love is Bigfoot. If there was a 12 foot metal pole found after years of it being there, you’re going to tell me that a creature that can move around and doesn’t want to be found can’t there too? Or aliens? Makes you think at least…
Number Two: Just some fun things about Agriculture
I work in the Ag industry and there are just some cool things going on many never even think or hear of. In college I worked on a research project that enabled a drone to fly over a soybean field and the infrared cameras on it can predict things like plant maturity dates as well as nutrient deficiency.
Here are a few links to stories about how agriculture is growing and developing to feed the world in sustainable ways.
• Can we put carbon from the air back into the ground? Yes thanks to crops and soil tillage! Here is an interesting article about how drones can find out how much carbon is already in the soil to know how much we can take out of the atmosphere and back into soil.
• Is cornstarch the key to using a natural ingredient to help kill mosquitos and other plant pests while in turn increasing the value of corn that produces it?
• The grain markets may not be as well known as the stock markets, but still affect us all the time. How does the weather in South America affect corn and soybean prices in the US? And what does 2021 look like after a wild 2020?
Number Three: Bike Gangs // pants rec
One of the highlights of 2020 has been joining a bike gang. You may have heard Katherine talk about it, but it has been a real bright spot this year for me. It turned out to be a great way to be outside and stay socially distant while still being active and outside. Highly recommend starting one yourself with some friends going into 2021!
Katherine here: today our bike gang did a little spin around North Kansas City. And Andrew wore these pants from Target, and all of us girls agreed they were great pants (they look way better in person than the photo from Target). And I was like Andrew, why didn’t you include these pants in Five Things? So he sent me the link. Great pants!
Number Four: Chik-fil-A Breakfast
My favorite fast food meal is Chick-Fil-A breakfast and it’s not close. Everything on the menu is great. But the best thing and my recommendation to you is the spicy chicken biscuit topped with exactly one packet of honey. The spicy and sweet combo is unbeatable and it is all held together by a soft and flaky biscuit. (Fun fact I just looked up but according to Merriam Webster both flaky and flakey are correct spellings)
Number Five: Ask the third question
Christmas and the Holidays are one of my favorite times of year. I know that’s not a hot take or anything, but it really is special. This year is also very different in many ways (also not a hot take I know). I want to challenge you as I am myself to really go out of the way to be nice and reach out to others to check in in the coming weeks. And I mean everyone. Those we know are struggling and also ones we think there is no way they can’t be joyful during this time. With families not being able to fully be together, all the loss and sadness in the world today and the still uncertain nature of what next year brings even though 2020 will be over, people can be struggling more than we know.
Something I heard last week was “ask the third question.” Anyone can ask two basic questions when we small talk to get it out of the way, but the third question has to go deeper. It has to be more thoughtful and specific. And if you are struggling or lonely during this time, please reach out to someone. I can promise you are not alone and we will get through this together. Be nice to each other. We got this. You are worth it.
Bonus: Charlie Woods
Andrew just sent me a bunch of tweets about Tiger Woods’ son, so it seemed as good a time as any to learn how to embed tweets. If we end up seeing just a bunch of code, I’ll link the tweets in the comments.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The twirl. <a href="https://t.co/7TkSi5cbCt">pic.twitter.com/7TkSi5cbCt</a></p>— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) <a href="https://twitter.com/ForePlayPod/status/1340402592149630981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Eagle from team Woods is AWESOME <a href="https://t.co/6IqZVRp09g">pic.twitter.com/6IqZVRp09g</a></p>— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) <a href="https://twitter.com/ForePlayPod/status/1340353402577047555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This will never get old. Ever. <a href="https://t.co/Bx9QLF82ZH">pic.twitter.com/Bx9QLF82ZH</a></p>— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) <a href="https://twitter.com/ForePlayPod/status/1340676882698780672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As promised, here’s the link to Ticket to Ride.