Thanks for everything

Still on Low Power Mode. Also, 7 other things worth knowing today.

Low power mode again today. This is another one that people loved, and thanks two two of you for suggesting I share it again!

There’s also a method to the madness of (re)-sharing this story today, which is that it plays right into the question I want to ask about what I should do with the newsletter going forward.

In short, I’m working on two things:

• Reorganizing the newsletter so that it’s more topical and manageable, and so that readers know what to expect — whether you’re most interested in content like today’s, or if you like the personal development and health things I find, or some of the Inc.-inspired business issues (since many people found me here from my work on Inc.)

• Adding a new platform — beehiiv — to my repertoire, which I think will add some cool new features and make this all more manageable.

Anyway, please read on … be entertained … and then check in with your thoughts. Thanks as always!

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Long story short

Our story begins with the fact that our refrigerator wasn’t working correctly. It was stuck on the lowest/warmest setting.

So, my wife called the Appliance Guy.

The good news? It could be fixed.

The bad news? It would take several weeks.

Ah, the joys of home ownership. We needed something to tide us over in the meantime. Luckily, there was a social media group in our town—neighbors helping neighbors, that kind of thing.

My wife went on it and asked if anyone has a small fridge we can borrow. Sure enough, a guy offered to lend us one.

We don’t really know him outside the group, but it turns out we’d lent him our hand truck for a project a few weeks before, and he was happy to return the favor.

As for the fridge, imagine an apartment-sized one, just barely likely to fit in our small SUV with the seats down.

The neighbor said he’d put it in front of his building. My wife texted me the address.

But then, the day went by. Next thing I know it was almost 6 p.m., and I hadn’t picked it up yet. I headed out, but it was pitch dark.

Also, I didn’t really know this area of town that well, but Google Maps guided me toward a small apartment building on a busy street.

Did I mention how dark it was? No street lights, lots of cars. Rush hour, basically. I crawled by the address—or at least, what I thought was the address.

But, I couldn’t see the fridge. Could someone have walked off with it?

Traffic picked up. I grew frustrated. One guy flashed his brights in my face; another honked his horn. I was annoying everyone. I drove up and down, two or three times.

Google Maps insisted that I was at the correct spot, but it didn’t look right.

Finally, I double parked and jogged toward the apartment building. Cars flew by; I felt like I was taking my life in my hands.

I spotted the fridge; it was actually in front of a small office building across from the apartments, on a tiny side street.

If you have images enabled, I used Google Maps to get a screenshot of the satellite image below; I think this will help. Keep in mind that it was very dark, and there was a lot of traffic.

1. The orange arrows indicate where I was driving up and down the main street in the pitch dark.

2. The green-blue arrow indicates where the fridge was located.

3. The small pink arrow points to the door of the apartment building I’d originally thought I was looking for.

4. And the red dotted arrow… well, we’ll get to that one in a second.

I picked up the fridge. It was heavy and bulky; I could barely carry it.

I wised up, left it there for a minute and ran back to my car. Then, I double-parked again, closer this time, just in front of the office building. I opened the tailgate and fold down the seats.

Despite all the traffic, I only noticed three other people on foot. Two women and a Little Girl (a toddler, really) were heading into the apartment building across the street. The women—Mom and Auntie, let’s say—had their hands full. Groceries, maybe a Target run.

Little Girl was talking non-stop. Either Mom or Auntie said something about Paw Patrol, and she got very excited. It’s cute.

By now, I had the fridge again. I struggled with it, half-running, half-falling toward my car, afraid I was going to drop the whole thing.

I was stuck on the irony:

• The guy lending us this fridge borrowed our hand truck.

• But I wasn’t smart enough to bring the hand truck to move the fridge!

Then, my trance was broken. I heard: “Stop!!! No!!! Come back!!!”

Memory plays tricks on you, but I recall:

1. Little Girl was running. Why is she running? She was moving faster and faster and faster toward the busy traffic. (That’s the red dotted line in the photo.)

2. Mom and Auntie chased after her, but it was clear they weren’t going to catch Little Girl before she reaches the street.

3. My mind raced, but not the right questions:

   1. Will I be interfering if I chase after the girl?

   2. Will her mother be insulted and think that I don’t think she’s a good parent?

   3. Will we be able to find another fridge if I drop this one and break it?

Fortunately, even as I overthought the situation (how’s that for a theme), I was already running, sprinting, pure instinct. Gosh, this would be easier if I were not in the worst shape of my life right now.

And… I made it with no time to spare.

If I had to guess, I just did a 30 yard dash at NFL Combine speed.

I could hardly breathe, but a quarter of a second before Little Girl stepped into the main street, I jumped in front, putting my body between her and the cars.

I might be imagining this afterward, but I think I remember a driver screaming an obscenity at me, after nearly hitting me and swerving away.

Anyway, I swooped down to grab Little Girl, but it wasn’t quite necessary.

She was so freaked out by the sight of this crazy, bearded, red-faced guy jumping in front of her that she burst into tears ran the other way—right into the arms of either Mom or Auntie.

They were very emotional, maybe even crying.

One of them kept saying, “Thank you sir! Thank you sir! Thank you sir!” over and over and over.

I was all the way back to the car by now, shoving the fridge into the back of the SUV.

Finally, it occurred to me to reply: “You’re welcome. I’m just glad she’s OK.”

I closed the tailgate and pulled away. It was over.

It took me much longer to write this here than it took to happen in real life.

Also, if I’m being honest, I started composing this entire thing in my mind immediately, planning to use it for the newsletter. (Although I don’t think I predicted sharing it again three years later during Low Power Mode.)

I kept thinking about all the things that had to happen exactly as they did, down to the very split-second, to put me in a position to get between Little Girl and the busy traffic with zero time to spare.

The congestion, driving up and down the street, the darkness, the fact that I put off even going to pick up the fridge until about six hours after I was originally supposed to. All the petty annoyances.

Also, of course, we had to buy this particular house, and before that, my wife and I had to get together…

I hope Little Girl grows up to build a better mousetrap or something. And, you can call all this whatever you want in order to explain it, or choose not to explain it at all.

But, bottom line, I’m thankful that our fridge wasn’t working correctly.

[Update: Since then, our refrigerator broke again! And we had to replace it! I like the new one though.]

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So, what do you like?

Here’s today’s promised poll. I launched this newsletter quite some time ago now — and one of the funny things is that I still can’t tell people what it’s about in a sentence. It came to a head during a few Christmas parties in December, in fact.

Anyway, I got some advice from people who said: You know, you don’t really have a daily newsletter; what you have instead are probably 4 or 5 weekly newsletters, each staggered and under the same name.

So, one of the big things I’m working on is reorganizing. I don’t want to make today’s explanation longer than it already is, so just know that it would help me to get a bit more feedback on the kind of content that brings loyal readers back — and the kind that maybe should have its own home.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• Residents in Pacific Palisades, one of California's ritziest neighborhoods, have been told their lives are at immediate risk as a raging wildfire rapidly rips through Los Angeles. Evacuation notices are in place along the affluent coastal region, with a chilling warning from authorities which read: 'Immediate threat to life. This is a lawful order to LEAVE NOW. The area is lawfully closed to public access.' (Daily Mail)

• President-elect Donald Trump announced his plans to change the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America” during an elliptical and stream-of-consciousness press conference Tuesday morning at Mar-a-Lago. The idea may have caught a lot of people by surprise — unless, of course, you follow Trump acolyte Jack Posobiec, who proposed it on Twitter/X about 2.5 weeks ago. (Mediaite)

• The judge in Florida who dismissed the case against Donald Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents has temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing a report detailing the findings of that investigation by special counsel Jack Smith. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom Trump appointed during his first term, barred Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting” the long-awaited report while a federal appeals court in Atlanta weighs an emergency motion from two of the president-elect’s former co-defendants. (Washington Post)

• The casket carrying the remains of President Jimmy Carter was bound for Washington, D.C., on an Air Force One jet Tuesday after a solemn ceremony in Atlanta on a sunny day in near-freezing temperatures. Carter's life and legacy will be honored with a National Day of Mourning and a state funeral Thursday. (NBC)

• AI’s next leap will require intimate access to your digital life: Executives from leading AI companies including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI have all predicted that a new generation of digital helpers termed “AI agents” will take control of users' computers and take action on their behalf. They claim the technology, set to be a major focus of the industry in 2025, will initially automate mundane tasks like online shopping or data entry and eventually tackle complex work that can take humans hours. (Washington Post)

• Mark Zuckerberg built up Facebook’s content-policing efforts in the wake of Donald Trump’s first presidential election. Now the Meta Platforms CEO is reversing course as he embraces a second Trump presidency. Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday, a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. (WSJ)

• America's hottest housing market in 2025? Buffalo, N.Y., according to Zillow, with Indianapolis, Providence, Harford, and Philadelphia rounding out the top five. Buffalo was also predicted to be the hottest market of 2024, making it the first market to hold the title in back-to-back years. Relative affordability and supply that trails demand are common threads among what should be the most competitive markets for buyers in 2025. (Zillow)