🗣️NASHVILLE: “I just came from summer camp at the zoo — did you know elephants, rhinos, giraffes have infrasonic hearing? Please, no data centers. My generation needs you to put every roadblock in place to stop them.” @nonewdatacenters @MetroNashville@DCBLOXinc@NashvilleZoo
To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.
You won’t.
You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.
That is not who we are.
My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.
For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.
I no longer believe that.
Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.
And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.
That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.
Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.
Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.
Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?
We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.
So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.
You won’t.
The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.
That is the only definition that matters.
🌎 Week in Earthquakes (June 5-12, 2026)
151 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater were recorded around the world this week. Among them were several significant earthquakes in the southern Philippines and offshore Cuba.
Explore the latest earthquake activity from around the globe at https://t.co/ASnaSdC3Sr.
After ignoring repeated warnings a DHS Border Wall Contractor just bulldozed a 1000 year intaglio (giant figure carved into the ground) that was an archeological wonder and one of the oldest surviving in the SW
Long post, but this one is important to me so I hope you stick it out!
In January I reached out to Artemis II Commander @astro_reid with a simple ask- was he open to capturing the moon like I do for my colorful moon photos during the flyby?
He humbly agreed, and we worked out a plan to incorporate into the photos captured as the crew approached the moon. The premise was simple- just capture enough photos in a burst to allow for image stacking to improve image fidelity, potentially to reveal color no human has ever captured.
What he brought back was nothing short of magnificent. When I initially stacked the raw photos, it exceeded my expectations by far. The color came right out of the seemingly gray images, and showed details I've never seen before. It's possible nobody has. The lack of atmosphere meant a lot of color normally absorbed and scattered was present, so even the "near side" features looked exotic and unfamiliar.
This view of the moon from an alien perspective made the usually-familiar lunar surface fresh and exciting, and the color we were able to resolve gave us valuable insight to the complex geological history of it's battered surface.
Then, I faced a bit of a moral dilemma.
I wanted people to be able to own these images in print- but I wouldn't feel right to profit off of them. As an active NASA astronaut, Reid certainly can't. He took these photos as part of a taxpayer-funded mission. If I couldn't split profits with him I didn't see a way to do this ethically, so I decided to release the images initially with no print offering, despite many requests!
Then, it clicked. After doing some research- I decided that I should do a print sale where the profits go 100% to charity. That way I can make prints available, do some good in the world, and it doesn't feel like an ethical conflict.
I'm pleased to share my first EVER entirely-for-charity print release.
At the end of this sale all proceeds with be donated to UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. It feels fitting. I will follow up in a future post with a receipt from the donation, so you know how much we were able to donate. When I released this to my email subscribers only, we were already able to raise around $15k. Amazing!
The limited edition fine art print is now publicly available, you can grab one of them at the link in my bio (also linked further in the thread) for a short time.
Thank you for helping me do something good with my platform. Seriously... it feels amazing.
Did you miss the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus last night? You didn't! Not really, because the pair will still appear close together tonight. Look to the western sky after sunset. In this view from June 10th, see if you can spot Mercury near the horizon as well.