Whew, this past month has been exhausting.

I’ve worked 60-hour weeks for the Beto campaign – including a weekend schedule of 8am-9pm. Each week I’m responsible for knocking 300 doors, talking on a phone dialer for 20 hours, staffing five events, and organizing volunteers.

The days are long but at this point I’ve eased into a good rhythm with the work. I still feel energized by the cause and it’s comforting to know that the end date is rapidly approaching (if this was indefinite, I might go insane).

I like some aspects of the work more than others. In particular, I’ve found the canvassing largely enjoyable (especially now that the weather’s cooled down a bit). It’s allowed me to explore small Texas towns like Smithville, Lockhart, Bastrop, Elgin, and Webberville and I’ve enjoyed interacting with people from so many different backgrounds.

On the flip side, spending 20 hours a week as a telemarketer has been quite painful. The clock moves slowly and I’ve had to train myself not to check the time after every call. I’ve found the best way to make it through a dialing shift is with a muted college football game on in the background, so I’ve tried to reserve a good amount of my dialing hours for Saturdays.

We’re seven days out from Election Day and it’s hard to know how to feel. Most polls don’t look great, but every so often there’s one that offers a glimmer of hope. Deep down I know Beto is a long shot (this is Texas, after all). But after investing so much time and effort into the campaign, I’m certainly hopeful that all the work will pay off.

We have a week-long sprint to the finish line and then I’ll get to rest up for a bit. In the meantime, I’ll be crossing my fingers for good news on November 8th 🤞

Friends Doing Cool Things

On October 5th, Iconic Air announced that it raised a $5 million dollar seed round. Founded while Kyle Gillis and James Carnes were undergrads at the University of West Virginia, Iconic Air helps oil and gas companies monitor, report, and reduce their emissions. This became a particularly big deal after the Inflation Reduction Act passed and mandated that organizations face fines for methane emissions above a certain threshold. Soon, nearly every major carbon emitter will need to have a robust emissions monitoring tool – and Iconic Air is positioned to take this market by storm!

Monthly Favorites

📝 Article: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ by William Shatner – Last October, 90-year-old William Shatner went to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket. But rather than coming away in awe of the universe, the famed Star Trek actor wrote, “The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.”

Instead, the experience gave Shatner a deeper appreciation of planet earth. And it filled him with hope that, as space travel increases, more of us will be encouraged to “rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us.”

🎵 Song: Levi Johnston's Blues by Ben Folds & Nick Hornby – In the spirit of election season, here’s a Ben Folds tune that I recently re-discovered about Levi Johnston — the guy that knocked up Sarah Palin’s daughter during the 2012 presidential race. Enjoy!

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Thanks for reading! As always, if anything I shared resonated with you, I’d love for you to shoot me a reply 😊

Til Next Month,

Ben

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