Berlin is Becoming a Sponge City

I really like this kind of city design. Where the natural elements are infused into the architecture of the man-made. Where waste is minimized and reusability is key to sustaining the life and businesses above ground. I'd love to visit Berlin one day to see this.

Conan learns to make German sausages

These Berlin spots so far have been hilarious. Here's Conan working at a Berlin sausage factory.

Summer 2016 playlist

I used to make and publish a lot of playlists. Music has always been a very powerful medium for me in terms of helping me remember certain events and times. Thanks in large part to Spotify, the last few years has seen me listen to a lot more new music, and unfortunately, this is one of the reasons I think that I’ve stopped making playlists. When everything is at my fingertips at any given moment, the need to make a playlist for a specific person, time, or place seems unnecessary.

The last playlist I made was in December of 2015 and it was for my girlfriend at the time. In the last few weeks, I’ve played that playlist a few times and it’s tough to get through because I have memories of those songs playing in the background of my head in respect to a relationship that no longer exists — car rides we took, nights we spent in my office, airplane rides to far off places. Every song has a memory and while it’s nice to re-live those moments, it’s not so nice (for now) to remember that I’m essentially listening to them alone (except for all you good people reading this blog post, right?).

Fast forward a few seasons and here I am finally putting together another mix. I forget how fun this is, not to mention how time is spent curating a list of songs that somehow relate to each other and give a good overall flow. I feel like I’m putting my own album together — just with no original songs by yours truly. More importantly though, this album is sort of a closing chapter for me for the summer of 2016. What a ride. Probably the most rollercoaster-like time in my entire life and one one that I'm truly sad to see end.

Here’s the tracklist:

I Feel It – Avid Dancer
Electric Indigo – The Paper Kites
As Time Goes – JR JR
Crystals – Of Monsters and Men
Infinite High – Panama Wedding
Cast Away – Strange Talk
Running in the Night – FM-84, Ollie Wride
It's All in Vain – Wet
Alaska – Maggie Rogers
Fiona Coyne – Skylar Spence
Go! (feat. Mai Lan) – M83, MAI LAN
Ditmas – Mumford & Sons
Move – Kid Runner
Katy – ADHDS
Choke – King Charles