Jamie Thingelstad

Gorgeous warm day for a quick walk at Desert Trail Park. 🌵

Day 2 of the February Photoblogging Challenge: Morning beverage.

Delicious Guatemalan coffee from Pair Cupworks. Big carafe, thermos, cup.

This is my workstation setup for our February stay in Mesa, AZ. The mStand is critical to getting the screen and camera at a good height. The 12.9” iPad Pro does great double duty as a second display using Sidecar.

Day 1 of the February Photoblogging Challenge: Close up.

It is novel for us Minnesotans to see lemons growing in the yard of this rental that we are staying in Mesa, AZ.

Fun to see a wind generator blade getting transported down the road. It had a pilot vehicle in front and behind as well.

I thought North Dakota had the record for roads that go straight as far as the eye can see. It turns out Arizona gives it a very good run for the prize! This is I-40 heading West.

Today’s point of view for the next several hours. Impressive volume of semi-trucks on I-40.

Day two on way to Mesa, Arizona departing from Elk City, Oklahoma. 835 miles, 12.5 hours, 4 states.

5:57a Left Elk City, OK
6:33a entered Texas
8:54a entered New Mexico and mountain time
12p lunch at Green Jeans
TAL Ship
TAL Fiasco
1:58p enter Arizona

These Duke’s Hatch Green Chile sausages are delicious. Great flavor and the Hatch chiles are great.

Family selfie by Clear Lake, IA on the road with the Honda Pilot stuffed full!

Big road trip to Arizona this weekend. Today’s drive is to Elk City, Oklahoma from Minneapolis, Minnesota! 913 miles, 13 hours, and 5 states.

Log

6:04 Left home
6:45 Played Trace
7:33 Entered Iowa
8:55 Gas and stretch in Ellsworth, IA
10:10 TAL: Kids Logic
10:48a Enter Missouri
12:15p Culver’s in Lincoln
4:35 Entered Oklahoma

We played Exploding Kittens for first time tonight. Silly game but quick and fun.

I love geeking out on all the AV gear when recording. This setup was great!

Capturing the moment with the Bernie Sanders Mittens Meme and the Peanuts Tree. Image by the artist himself, Adam Gale.

The vast majority of the email I reply to I do a simple top reply. Particularly on mobile. It is fast and simple.

However, I have started replying to friends and family with longer inline replies. It feels sort of old fashioned, like I’m writing a letter. It puts me in a context to write more thoughtfully. If you haven’t tried inline replies lately, with nice formatting and trimming of the note you are replying to, give it a go. ✍️

I noticed that it was four years ago today that I signed up to back Indie Microblogging on Kickstarter. Micro.blog has evolved so much since launch and has firmly taken the place as my favorite blogging platform.

Micro.blog removes the friction from publishing, and is deceptively powerful. I’ve consolidated over 15 years of blogging across a few different systems into micro.blog. I have thousands of posts and it continues to be a delight to use. It strikes the perfect compromise of power and ease-of-use. It is the easiest way I know to get a photo on the web.

I’m amazed at what has been created, and I continue to be excited about the improvements being made. If you are looking for a home on the web, I would strongly endorse micro.blog.

Writing to describe myself or one of my projects is hard for me. Those little “About” boxes all over profile pages on the web fill me with dread. For the Weekly Thing having a strong description is critical and I knew it needed improvement. I found Josh Spector’s Five-Day Plan to Grow Your Newsletter and his first item was to improve your description. I liked his framework so gave it a go.

This is what I started with.

The Weekly Thing is a weekly newsletter highlighting helpful, interesting, or insightful articles from the week. I am a voracious reader of technology, culture, leadership, privacy, and many other topics as my interests roam. Each article I share is framed with personal commentary combining my decades of experiences. My goal is to positively impact your journey with knowledge and insight.

It is certainly accurate, but I didn’t love it. I don’t think it represented what you actually got by subscribing. It didn’t even include my name.

I wanted to make sure that it

• included a solid description of what you would expect to get
• included my name so you know who it came from
• included some validation points like quotes and subscriber count
• referenced that I include more than just links

I took Spector’s framework as a starter and then worked it over and over. This is what I finished with.

Join over 1,000 subscribers to the Weekly Thing by Jamie Thingelstad!

Each Saturday morning, you will get my thoughts on technology, leadership, productivity, culture, privacy, and anything else interesting. I add commentary combining my decades of experience leading teams and building technology. I also include my personal writing, what I’m currently into, and a photograph of the week. There is even a fortune at the end! 🥠

A friend once described the Weekly Thing as a “direct feed from Jamie’s brain.” 🧠 There are no ads, your email will never be shared, your privacy will be protected, and it is free.

Subscribe now and positively impact your journey with knowledge, insight, and perspective!

Here is what others have to say. 🙌

“I’m a better person and leader because of the Weekly Thing!” — Jenny
“I look forward to reading what you are digging.” — David
“I don’t find the interesting links you share anywhere else!” — Andy
“It’s a perfect start to every Saturday!” — Phil

I took the time to run the confirmation email, where this same text is included, through Mail Tester. The previous message was too short and was being heavily penalized by spam tools. The new length and text scored a perfect 10/10 score. For newsletter authors this is an important thing to get right!

I’m not A/B testing and I don’t use surveillance tools on my signup page but I should still be able to see if signups increase, and very important if the number of unconfirmed subscribers, that seem to never get the confirmation email, drops.

Snowy trail taking Lucky for a walk.

The kids thinking about summer on the frozen pool. 🥶😊

The new Good Day Coffee in Faribault has some incredibly good pie! Recommended if you are in the area.