Hey Reader,

Man, it's been a wild week.

Hurricane Helene hit, and we were fortunate enough to only experience minor damage here in southwest Ohio. We lost power for five hours and our internet connection for six days—a mild inconvenience compared to the devastation across the southeastern U.S.

Damage from Hurricane Helene hits close to home

Cara has family in western North Carolina, who fled their home in South Carolina to avoid the storm by retreating to their mountain cabin. Unfortunately, western NC was one of the hardest-hit areas. They live just outside Asheville, which was severely impacted.

The scenic river behind their cabin flooded and caused massive damage to their property. They lost power, water, and sewage. Their cars flooded. Trees down everywhere. The roads leading to their house were impassable, covered by a landslide. Thankfully, they were okay and had a generator, as well as a neighbor who had access to a natural spring for water.

Cara and I were just down there a few weeks ago, staying at this little cottage at the Celo Inn, a cute, family-owned bed and breakfast. Yesterday, I learned that the cottage we stayed in is completely gone. Washed away in the flood.

That was just a small part of the damage that hit close to home. The lovely towns of Burnsville an Spruce Pine were wrecked beyond belief. Beyond what anyone was prepared for. We always like to visit these towns whenever we visit Cara's family down in NC. It was unbelievable to learn what happened.

The "DT's" circled in this photo is for DT's Blue Ridge Java, the community coffee shop and a local staple. I remember having coffee there with Cara’s family back in 2020. I still can’t believe what I’m seeing in these photos.

Fortunately, the owners of the Celo Inn and Blue Ridge Java are safe, but are grieving the loss of their family business. Despite the devestation, they (and many others) are finding comfort in the way the community has come together to rebuild.

This was just my personal glimpse into the tragedy. The entire Appalachia region, and much of the Southeast, are reeling and will never be the same. Here's a video below of some of the devestation:

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It’s hard to write about anything joyful this week, but I’m grateful to be alive and to live in a town that’s relatively safe, with access to everything we need.

Cara and I often fantasize about living off-grid in a mountain cabin, away from it all. But the reality is much different. When you're living off a winding mountain road—an offshoot of another back road, and 30 minutes from the nearest grocery store—you gotta be rugged and ready for something like this.

Some good things from this week

I will say that spending almost a week without WiFi had its perks. It snapped me out of my normal routines, disrupted my habits, and forced me to figure out creative ways to get things done.

Cara and I joked that she was thriving during the outage. Getting to light candles, cozy up to read and color in her coloring books. We dusted off our DVD player and borrowed Midsommar and Hereditary from the library. We also watched Inside Out 2, which we loved.

I stopped checking my feeds for new content and instead caught up on a backlog of audiobooks that I had downloaded to my phone. I finished Tony Tulathumitte's fiction novel Rejection and finished Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing—both of which I'd recommend.

When we finally got our internet restored after six days, I got caught up on the WordPress drama between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine. This week's latest developments are WP Engine officially filing a legal complaint against Matt, and one of the spicier bits were a series of texts where Matt tried to poach WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner to work for him at Automattic.

Here's a comperensive rundown of everything that's happened so far with Matt and WP Engine. Definitely worth a read if you want to catch up.

Creatively, I made more progress on my b-boy funk track. It's coming along, but not ready to share just yet.

Oh, and ConvertKit, the app I'm using right now to write this newsletter, rebranded to Kit this week. Nothing has really changed for me yet, aside from seeing a new logo and updated UI. I like the rebrand, but I'm curious how they plan to roll out new tools for creators "who mean business".

Well, that's about all for this week.

Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you soon. ✌️

Jeff

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The Official Newsletter of Jeff Finley
​Designer, Author, Mystic

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