Articles of Interest / Still Here / Secret exec contacts

Recomendo - issue #505

Nerdy podcast on clothes

A podcast I am enjoying is Articles of Interest, which is a spinoff of the legendary 99% Invisible podcast. It has the same nerdy fascination with things we tend to take for granted. In this case, clothing. It dives deep into the origins, and meaning of common articles of clothing such as blue jeans, school uniforms, outdoor wear, even pockets, zippers, and clerical collars. Each episode is a delicious rabbit hole. It’s a blast. There’s a very satisfying archive of back episodes. — KK

Visualize your love in time and space

Still Here is a visualization tool for mapping your time and shared space with a loved one (animal or human) after they have passed. It was created by someone grieving the death of his dogs, and it feels very personal and tender. My fur baby is 7 years old now, and he has taught me so much about how grief and love are two sides of the same coin, so I am often thinking about his death. This feels like a kind of exposure therapy for my heart. — CD

Secret exec contacts for stubborn companies

When a company stonewalls you on a refund or dispute, head over to the Elliott Report’s Company Contacts database. Journalist Christopher Elliott has compiled direct phone numbers and email addresses for customer service executives at hundreds of companies — airlines, hotels, car rentals, banks, cable providers, and more. Skip the front-line customer service maze and go straight to someone with actual authority. The site also rates each company’s responsiveness to consumers. Free to use, no signup required. — MF

Portable board game

The tiniest portable board game I know about is Iota ($30 used). It fits into a small container the size of an AirPods case, and so can be slipped into any day bag, purse or pocket. It’s perfect for travels. To play you keep arranging its tiny little cards on a table into nesting sets, sort of like dominos, but with more dimensions. The game rewards pattern matching. Even small kids can play, and it is challenging enough for adults. Also no language is needed – another plus for travel. — KK

Book finding guides

This week I came across two book-finding tools worth sharing. NPR’s Books We Love is an interactive guide that lets you filter more than 4,000 staff and critic picks first by year and then by genre and other tags, like length or mood. If you prefer something not on a bestseller list, you can also try Whichbook, a search engine that lets you find books by emotion or by character, or click on a world map to find books set in specific countries. — CD

Wireless under-cabinet kitchen lights

I bought a 2-pack of these battery-powered MCGOR motion-sensor lights to use as kitchen counter lighting. They snap magnetically onto adhesive metal plates you stick under your cabinets. They turn on automatically when you get near; step away, and they shut off after 20 seconds. Five brightness levels let you dial in exactly the right amount of light. They are USB-C rechargeable, and one charge lasts days. — MF

03/15/26

Book Freak #200: The 5 Types of Wealth

A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life

Get The 5 Types of Wealth

After three years of research and thousands of interviews, The 5 Types of Wealth offers a framework for building a truly rich life — one defined not just by money, but by time, relationships, mental clarity, and physical vitality working together across every season of your journey.

Core Principles

Time Wealth

Time is your most valuable and finite asset. Time Wealth means having the freedom to choose how you spend it, where you spend it, and whom you spend it with. It requires three things: awareness that time is limited, attention to spending it on what matters, and control over your own schedule. The ultimate goal isn’t more time — it’s the freedom to allocate it according to your preferences.

Social Wealth

Social Wealth is about depth over breadth — cultivating deep, meaningful connections with a small group of people rather than shallow relationships with many. Your inner circles, communities, and the quality of your bonds determine much of your life satisfaction. Remember: everyone you love is on loan for a short period of time.

Mental Wealth

Mental Wealth shapes how you experience everything else. It consists of purpose (a vision that guides your decisions), growth (eagerness to learn and change), and space (time to think, recharge, and listen to your inner voice). The greatest discoveries come not from finding right answers but from asking right questions.

Physical Wealth

Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years. Physical Wealth rests on three pillars: movement (daily activity focusing on cardio, strength, and flexibility), nutrition (whole, unprocessed foods), and recovery (prioritizing sleep). Minor issues become major issues over time — repair them early.

Financial Wealth

Financial Wealth means defining what “enough” means to you and building toward it. Money enables the other four types of wealth but doesn’t replace them. Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough. Your wealthy life may involve money, but it will ultimately be defined by everything else.

Try It Now

1. Rate yourself 1-10 on each type of wealth: Time, Social, Mental, Physical, Financial. Which one is most neglected?
2. Identify one area where you’ve been “occasionally extraordinary” but inconsistent. Commit to being “consistently reliable” instead.
3. Write down your definition of “enough” financially. What number would give you freedom without endless striving?
4. Schedule one thing this week that invests in a non-financial type of wealth you’ve been neglecting.

Quote

“Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough.”

03/13/26

Wraparound Sleep Mask/Hotel Point Changes/Remote Worker Lodging

Nomadico issue #197

Travel Insurance and Evacuation

It’s hard to put out a travel newsletter this week without addressing the travel elephant in the room: the bombing of Iran and the counter-attacks that followed. Our hearts go out to all the citizens caught in the crossfire. If you’re stuck in the region trying to get home or your connecting flight through Doha or Dubai got cancelled, it’s time to dive into the fine print on your travel insurance policy to find solutions. Our sometime ad partner SafetyWing is providing a general framework for getting reimbursed for your escape: 1) Your policy had to be in place before any warnings went out. 2) There was no travel warning in place when you arrived in the area. 3) You have evacuated within 10 days of the travel warning being issued. Many policies will compensate you for cancelled flights and/or new expenditures, but it depends on what you purchased.

Wraparound Silk Eye Mask

I was leading a group of travelers in Slovakia last week and guest Yvonne from Colorado raved about this wraparound silk eye mask for both air travel and too-bright lodging. She likes how it stays in place in different positions, is comfortable for hours, and completely blocks out the light. It comes in four colors from $23 to $26 and has solid reviews on Amazon.

Travel Points Downgrades and Upgrades

It always pays to bank airline or hotel points for a specific purpose and cash them in rather than letting them sit around for years. They’re more like a new car than a house or index fund: over time, the value of those points will depreciate. Hyatt showed that clearly last week, massively raising the redemption rate on many of their hotels and generally making most tiers more expensive in terms of points, starting in May. In better news, you can now transfer Chase Rewards points to Wyndham at 1:1. Most points bloggers are saying “Don’t do it” simply based on the math, but Wyndham has a refreshingly simple loyalty program with just three tiers at 7,500, 15,000, and 30,000 points. (You can get 3-4 nights at a Wyndham all-inclusive for the price of what one night with no meals often costs at a nearby Hilton or Marriott.)

The Remote Worker Lodging Gap

I try to keep things brief here, but I enjoy the thought-provoking, in-depth articles on the Nomag newsletter that dive into issues not widely covered elsewhere. The latest is on the muddy middle of housing that many remote workers find lacking, rentals for one to four months at a price that works for everyone. “The housing system in a surprising number of places still functions as a rigid binary. You are either a tourist staying a few days, or you are a long-term tenant signing contracts measured in years.” There’s an obvious business opportunity in a whole lot of cities for whoever is willing to grab it. See “The Housing Market’s Blind Spot” here.

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

03/12/26

What’s in my NOW? — Paul Parkinson

issue #245

I’m a semi-retired Brit who spent nearly 40 years flogging treasury and risk management software. I’m looking around for something less stressful and more fun to keep the brain working properly. I’m a keen photographer and judge of photographic competitions. Coffee lover. Arsenal fan. Ultimately, we should remember that life’s too short to drink bad wine. — Paul Parkinson

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PHYSICAL

• Asvine P36 Titanium Piston Demonstrator fountain pen: This is simply a fountain pen which is punching so far above its weight it’s ridiculous. It writes smoother, feels better, and looks nicer than many pens costing even 10 times what this Chinese “replica” pen cost. Fitted with a Bock medium nib and filled with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji, it’s a delight.
• Elephant N-Wallet: I got fed up with breaking my butt every time I sat down because my wallet was full up. Honestly, it was around 1” deep at that point. I switched to Elephant N-Wallet and apart from the occasional new elastic band, it’s been amazing. I carry no less than I did before but it’s a much smaller package. As an aside, I also use a small Muji Polyester double zip case to carry more stuff like pill cases and other bits and bobs. As a combination it’s perfect for me.
• Resound Vivia Hearing aids: I’m pretty much deaf these days and these hearing aids have been incredible for me. Not cheap but the sound quality is incredible and the MFI connection to my iPhone for streaming works beautifully.

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DIGITAL

• I recently switched over to Microsoft OneNote after my previous e-note supplier increased their subscription to beyond stupid. The fact that it’s included with my Office subscription (kinda sorta free, right?) and I bought and stacked annual packages on Amazon Prime Day, I don’t pay anything until June 2028!
• I simply could not exist without RSS and my Feedly account. I follow 600 feeds of varying activity levels and never miss an update. I’ve been a user since 2013 (post Google Reader). Simply perfect.

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INVISIBLE

Whatever you do today, do it with the confidence of a 4-year old in a Batman cape.

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Sign up here to get What’s in my NOW? a week early in your inbox.

03/11/26

What is a Witch / Rosalie Lightning

Issue No. 108

WHAT IS A WITCH – A POETIC AND VISUAL CONJURING OF THE WITCH ARCHETYPE

What is a Witch
by Pamela Grossman (author) and Tin Can Forest (artists)
Tin Can Forest
2016, 36 pages, 9.0 x 11.75 x 0.25 inches

Buy a copy

There are few ideas and words in the popular zeitgeist more mercurial than “witch.” Whether coming from the world’s mythologies, religions, folk tales, the realms of fiction, or from those who embrace it as a real-world religious identity, witch can mean myriad things. There are probably few archetypes more simultaneously romanticized and demonized.

This dizzying dream of character and identity is uniquely and creatively expressed in What is a Witch, a sort of comic book grimoire on the subject by witch and author Pamela Grossman and Canadian’s comic-art occultists, Tin Can Forest. In just under 40 pages of lush, saturated black art and text, What is a Witch serves as something of a witch’s manifesto. The dreamy, free-form text, interwoven amongst equally dreamy art, attempts to cast a spell over the reader, to bring this complex character more vividly to life. In doing so, it doesn’t really answer the question (note that it’s not posed as one) of what a witch is, but instead, plays with her mercurial identity, dipping in and out of fictional and real-world conceptions and how witches are experienced and self-identified. The art and production are really lovely and work to deepen the spell that the book is attempting to cast. The effect of Grossman’s free, often trance-like prose reminded me somewhat of Jack Parson’s famous “We are the Witchcraft” manifesto, another attempt at a poetic conjuring on the identity of the witch.

What is a Witch feels like a captured dream to me, one in which the author and artists dutifully recorded what they experienced and shared the results with us. And those results definitely feel touched by magic. – Gareth Branwyn

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ROSALIE LIGHTNING – WHAT COMES AFTER THE SUDDEN, UNEXPLAINED DEATH OF A TWO-YEAR-OLD TODDLER

Rosalie Lightning
by Tom Hart
St. Martin’s Press
2016, 272 pages, 7.8 x 9.6 x 0.8 inches

Buy on Amazon

“What do you do when your child dies?” Rosalie Lightning shows us what Tom Hart and his partner Leela Corman did as they mourned the sudden, unexplained death of their toddler Rosalie. This graphic memoir, written and drawn by Hart, is a poignant recounting of grief. In the first pages of the book, Rosalie Lightning, not yet two, dies in the night, without any known cause or sign.

Or were there signs? Hart looks for signs and portents – things that might have given him a clue about was to come — though knowing the portents are meaningless. “What meaning do we make of things?” he asks. Seeking symbols becomes the activity of grief. All the while, he and Corman are visiting friends, selling a home, and considering getting pregnant again.

“Wasn’t I a father? Didn’t I have a daughter?” Hart’s grief is acute and vivid. He mixes grayed drawings of himself with simple, adorable drawings of Rosalie (“Rodzy” as she pronounced it). He brings her to life for us through her toddler language “bumbites” (bug bites), “Rodzy hep” (Rosalie help) and “bye big spidoo wam!” (no translation needed).

The memoir is personal but not invasive. It provides no pat resolution but instead rests on the symbolism of life that comes from one of Rosalie’s favorite objects to collect – an acorn. The closing images of the memoir show an acorn growing into a mature tree, accompanied by the repetition of the word “yes.” The affirmation feels equally willing and forced. After the death of loved ones, after all, we want to move on; we must force ourselves to move on. – Meagan Rodgers

03/10/26

Dental Care

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 180

Mirrored flashlight for oral & mechanical work

GUM Oral Care Kit

Two incredibly handy tools seldom used for their intended uses are dental mirrors (a.k.a. “inspection” mirrors) and dental picks. The one problem with most inspection mirrors is that when you have to look into awkward electronic or mechanical crevices where you need a mirror, you also need a flashlight for illumination and a spare hand to hold the light. This kit (#832) has a dental mirror with a bright flashlight integrated into the handle and a switch in the grip, freeing up your other hand. The other neat thing is that for less than $10 you get two dental picks — great for nudging or extracting small inaccessible components from assemblies. Recently, I was upgrading a friend’s computer. The motherboard was mounted in a “baby ATX” case which was a very tight fit. To locate the CMOS reset jumper or check to see if the memory socket catch was engaged, I needed the use of the lighted mirror to negotiate the dark spots where those components were hidden. In the same manner the picks were handy to snag small cables within the case. — Stephen A. Kupiec

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Superior dental tool

Reach Access Flosser

The civilized way to floss. A tiny, easily replaceable harp on the end of a stick. More hygienic (no fingers in your mouth), more effective at flossing the hard parts, more comfortable, easier to use. Our kids love ’em. I floss much more often myself since I started using one. A really cool tool more folks should use. — KK

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Essential mouth tool

Dental Mirror

I got mine — made of surgical stainless steel — from a set of used dental tools at a garage sale for 25 cents. It’s incredibly handy for inspecting missing fillings, infections, gum complaints, particularly in kids. And you can look for sharp edges on dental braces. There really is no other way to look deep inside the mouth. The key is to get a proper front-surface mirror, which some drugstore plastic versions don’t have. Otherwise at close range there is a slight double image which confuses the image. — KK

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Emergency teeth fillings

Dentemp

Dentemp is a traditional dental combination of zinc oxide and eugenol (clove oil) mixed when needed to make a temporary tooth patch for lost cavity filling, or to re-cement a cap or inlaid on a tooth. It’s strong enough that you’ll need to have a dentist remove it later. Since an emergency Dentemp kit weighs less than an ounce, it should be part of your traveling or backpacking kit. You can get it at almost any drug store. — KK

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Floss alternative

Brush Picks

I hate flossing. I hate how the floss cuts into my fingers and lips, and how it gets wet and slimy and impossible to manipulate. I’ve tried those little flossers with handles but they’re not much better than regular floss. I’ve used interdental brushes (they’re like itty-bitty bottle brushes with handles) but they’re not flexible and don’t fit between normally-spaced teeth. After years of ignoring my dentist’s suggestion to just floss the teeth I want to keep, I think BrushPicks are my solution.

Each disposable plastic pick has a pick end and a brush end. The pick end has tiny ridges that help to scrape harder material from between your teeth. But it’s the brush end that’s a real innovation. It looks kind of like a feathery antenna, with a flat row of tiny bristles extending on either side of a thin, flexible pick. This brush end is stiff enough and thin enough to poke easily between your teeth, but flexible enough that it readily bends so that you’re not jabbing painfully into your gums. This flexibility also allows for cleaning behind rear molars. Rotating the brush end as you clean helps to loosen and remove gunk from otherwise impossible-to-reach areas.

BrushPicks are so effective that they’re actually kind of fun to use–in a “look what I just dug out of my own head” sort of way. I’ve taken to using one every 2 or 3 days and I’m anxious to see if my dental hygienist notices the difference during my next cleaning. — Rhodora Collins

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Emergency dentistry

Where there is no dentist

There is very little chance you’ll ever be beyond the reach of a dentist most of your life. However, like its companion Where There is No Doctor, the true audience for this free PDF (and for-sale printed book) is care-givers in the developing world. But this tome also works as a short course in emergency care. Real dental first aid that is useful for anyone to know. — KK

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

03/9/26

What’s in my NOW? — Paul Parkinson