One good read every week
Captain's Briefing
Five minutes. No politics. No doomscrolling. Just the stuff worth knowing.
There's something about the last week of September that feels like the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
Somewhere, somebody is pulling a sweatshirt out of the closet for the first time in six months. Somewhere else, the top is still off the Jeep and nobody has any intention of putting it back on.
Either way, the weekends suddenly feel a little more valuable.
So before everybody disappears into ballgames, hardware-store runs, birthday parties, yard projects and whatever else somehow consumes a Saturday, here are a few things worth knowing.
On the Radar
A whale took the scenic route.
A humpback whale turned up in California's Sacramento River on September 16, roughly 60 miles inland from the Pacific.
Researchers planned to assess and monitor it; why it headed upriver was still unknown. The animal has been documented over 24 years and was last recorded off Baja California in February.
We support the occasional wrong turn. From a respectful distance.
A camping plan uncovered a 390-million-year-old crater.
This may be the most CaptainDad story of the week.
An amateur astronomer was scouting satellite maps for somewhere to camp in a remote part of Quebec when he noticed a giant circular feature that looked a little suspicious.
Researchers eventually investigated.
NASA describes it as essentially confirmed by the researchers, with formal recognition by a Meteoritical Society committee still expected. There are roughly 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth.
Apparently this one was waiting for somebody planning a camping trip to notice it on a map.
Never stop poking around.
Bats, apparently, got their start in Europe.
A huge new study combining high-quality genomes from 103 bat species with fossil evidence has taken another swing at one of biology's long-running mysteries: where bats actually came from.
The researchers' conclusion is that bats, and therefore their powered flight, most likely originated in Europe in the late Paleocene.
The research also suggests echolocation appeared very early in the bat family story.
Europe gave us espresso, the 911 and now, apparently, bats.
The Ballgame
This is the good part.
This is the part of baseball season where checking one score inevitably turns into checking three standings, four tiebreakers and somebody else's remaining schedule.
The Wild Card Series begins September 29, with several playoff races still undecided.
Even if you haven't paid much attention since June, this is the good part.
Trade Winds
A sale is only a deal if you already wanted the thing.
If a grill, outdoor chair, bike, lawn tool or piece of camping gear is already on your list, this is a reasonable moment to check clearance sections.
Treat that as a shopping prompt, not a claim that any particular retailer has a deal today. Compare the actual price, warranty, fit and return terms before getting excited.
No specific promotion or discount is being endorsed here. Buying nothing is still an excellent option.
Weekend Orders
Do one thing that does not need to accomplish anything.
Take the long way home.
Throw a ball around.
Drive somewhere for breakfast.
Wash the car with your kid even though the automatic wash would objectively do a better job.
Sit near some water.
Leave your phone somewhere you can't reach it for an hour.
You are hereby excused from optimizing any of this.
Off Duty
Back to the Future, again.
If it's been a while, watch Back to the Future again.
Yes, it still works.
And this time, pay attention to Marty McFly's black Toyota pickup.
We have some thoughts about that truck coming soon.
That's the Briefing
A little less noise. A little more life.
See you next week.
