Yamhill County, Oregon
Husband, father, dog dad. Roaster. Egg man. Middle aged guy who can't stop thinking about the invisible scripts that run people's lives.
A few different things, held together loosely by place and curiosity.
A deck of 58 values. You sort them by how they've affected your recent thinking. What comes out is a particular opportunity to see some of the "why" behind our choices and behaviors. Now a Substack essay series and a podcast — one value at a time.
→Open in McMinnville since 2013. The place where most of these conversations started — over a cup, across a counter.
→ 03 · Pasture-Raised EggsEggs from a genuinely varied flock. The shells come in many colors. The chickens have opinions. Named after the dog, (Charles Pot-Pie Fulla Lovin' Barkley).
→The exercise comes from Shalom Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values. I've now done it with more than 200 people. The conversation it starts is always worth having.
"True Friendship is my favorite because in it I find contained a multitude of the values-of-life. True friendship with my spouse, with my kids, with my family, with my friends. True friendship with my dogs and with the sheep of the field, with the natural world. Perhaps even true friendship with the God of my childhood?"
— From the essay on True FriendshipI'm from a rural bit of Oregon and now I live in a different rural bit of Oregon.
We burned a hole in the road between my home and my church.
I was a farm-boy. I was a landscaper and a construction laborer and a building contractor.
We hung our coffee-shingle in 2008. All of his work has taught me things about community and impermanence that I'm still sorting through.
My wife and I live with our kids on a few acres with chickens, yellow labs named Chuck & Barb, great neighbors and a teardrop camper I record podcasts in.
I'm a real person in a real town. If something here resonated, feel free to reach out.