Yesterday morning Steven, Bezzy, and I took a great hike around the trails that surround their property. Oprah Winfrey is their neighbor and owns a significant amount of the land up here. There are hiking easements that predate her ownership, and she seems to have put real care into all of it. The trails are beautiful and well maintained, the whole forest around them too. Pretty remarkable, having something like that just outside your door.
Afterward Steven, Rumi, and I went to the Friday farmer's market. Full of delicious, non-keto-friendly things. I found two pounds of ground beef from a local ranch and some fresh spinach, both straight into the freezer. Rumi ate a chocolate chip cookie the size of her head.
Then they went to the pool and I walked around town. The first time I came to Telluride was 1991, for the Bluegrass Festival, with my brother Tucker and a girlfriend at the time. Widespread Panic's Capricorn record had just come out and they were playing the festival, right before the Allman Brothers. My memory of that trip is hazy, but the town feels largely the same. Much more expensive. Same vibe.
I ran into a kid on an electric skateboard and talked with him for a while. I've been looking at OneWheels and ended up reading about the broader category of devices. From what I gather, the OneWheel is the one that's genuinely fun to ride, more like snowboarding or surfing, and it handles off-road well. The electric skateboard is a lot cheaper but it's a pavement device, and my lifestyle doesn't involve much pavement. I know this because I've carried roller blades for years and they barely get used. I'm not going to want to ride on an errand day. I'm going to want to ride when I'm camped somewhere. I'll keep evaluating.
I got great drone footage of the van driving down Main Street with the mountains behind it. Back at the house I backed into my spot in the driveway and glanced out the windshield. Three elk were standing in the yard, grazing. I've never seen elk grazing in someone's yard before. They were massive, antlers huge and still fuzzy. We think they're younger elk, because of the fuzz. They weren't concerned about us at all, just working through the dandelions.
In the evening Steven and Hana made a beautiful dinner on the deck, salmon and broccoli. I had what I think was my first non-alcoholic beer of 2026, a Corona Light. Delicious. 17.5 carbs. A treat. Rumi has been warming up to me slowly over the visit, and I knew I'd made progress when I got handed a ticket to her stuffed animal party under the table after dinner. I was ticket number four.
I was up until midnight cutting five short-form videos out of the "Worst Thing about Van Life" footage, then scheduled them through Buffer to post one a day for the next five days across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Substack Notes. Not the most compelling short-form videos of all time, but they stand on their own and they work. Consistency is the focus right now. I'll keep the routine going and see how it develops.
I took a long hot shower and cleaned up my beard. Felt like a new person. It's been months since I saw myself in a full-length mirror, and I was a little startled by what keto keeps doing to my body. My head looked like it was on someone else's. I've been more muscular at other points in my life, but never this lean, and I like it. More than that, I like that I've found a way to maintain it that's simple and enjoyable. You can decide to make different choices and the results can be dramatic. That's a lesson I want to keep applying.
P.S. Interesting development on the AI front. The U.S. government has issued a directive suspending access to Anthropic's two most advanced models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security concerns. The stated reason is a potential jailbreak. Anthropic is complying but disagrees with the decision.