Videos show shark launching several feet from water as a group of friends pose for photos along Marina state beach
A great white shark put on a spectacular display for California beachgoers over the weekend, leaping from the water off Marina state beach and photobombing visitors.
Videos circulating online show a great white shark launching several feet out of the water in the background as a group of friends pose for photos along the beach.
Coyote euthanized after reportedly roaming Atwater Village comfortably for months and attacking one-year-old boy
One Los Angeles neighborhood has been at war over a wild coyote, and over the weekend it all came to a head.
For months, the animal had been roaming the trendy Atwater Village, showing up in broad daylight, sleeping in back yards and approaching residents. At least one person had reportedly fed the coyote and others affectionately nicknamed it Wiley. But some residents feared the creature had become dangerously too cozy.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeff Kinney, the 55-year-old author of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, who lives in Plainville, Massachusetts. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Every year, when a new "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book hits the shelves, I'm surprised that kids keep showing up.
I started writing the first book in 1998, while working as a computer programmer and game designer. I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, but that didn't work out, so I set out to get my cartoons published somehow. I was inspired by my own childhood experiences.
The first generation of kids who read my books is now almost 30 years old. It's wild to me that there's a new generation of kids encountering these books and finding them fresh.
As an author, I work within a few different spheres: books, my bookstore, movies, and development. I hop from one area to another.
Here's a day in my life.
I wake up before 7 a.m.
I don't set an alarm, so I wake up at that time naturally every day. I stay in bed for a while because after an ankle injury, I have some PT to do, like ankle stretches, while I'm in bed.
I meditate for about 10 minutes, set my intentions for the day, and organize my digital to-do list before I get out of bed.
I do two hours of exercise before breakfast
Right after I get up, I do about two hours of PT yoga, then weightlifting. I do that before I eat breakfast, which is often eggs and sausages.
I'm really committed to my morning physical routine of PT, PT yoga, and exercise. That's now become non-negotiable. I also do some journaling because it orients me toward the day, and it's a calming mechanism.
I've just had my most productive year, during which I wrote two books and two screenplays, so I attribute that to my morning routine. It grounds me.
I stay organized with a habit tracker
I've tried a million different to-do list apps that didn't work, including the pomodoro method and all sorts of others. Then I found a digital habit tracker.
Simon Simard for BI
I'm pretty diligent about checking off my daily habits. These include eating enough fiber, drinking enough water, waking up by a certain time, meditating, and doing stretches and yoga.
My workday starts at around 9:30 a.m.
I have about five or six workspaces, and I like to balance between them. One is a really colorful studio with my whole staff on the top floor of my bookstore, which is about three miles away from my home. When I'm not touring or working on a script, I go into the bookstore.
The bookstore is always top of mind for me, though the day-to-day operations are handled by the staff. Every so often, I'll get involved because we'll have a big author that comes to the store, and I'll interview them.
Another is my guest house, where I sit in the quiet living room. I also have a dark room in the basement where I'll go if I need to shut out everything. The other one is sitting in my car at the cemetery, where it's also very quiet. I can't listen to music because it occupies the same part of my brain needed for creating.
Sometimes I write for 8 to 12 hours a day
I feel most creative in the early morning hours, but sometimes I might write for eight to 12 hours a day.
If I'm illustrating, which I basically do all summer, I'll draw from maybe 9 a.m. until about 9 or 10 p.m. every day for months.
When I'm working on a book, I'll write the jokes first, then the manuscript, and finally I'll illustrate. I do all the illustrations myself. I don't usually combine those activities together.
I'm always stuck creatively, so I use a system
Simon Simard for BI
When I get stuck, I use something called systematic creative thinking, which helps me to produce material even if I'm not feeling creative.
I start with the components. If I'm writing about an airplane, I'll list the parts of the plane inside and out: the wings, the pilots, the lavatory, everything. Then I'll go through each component with a few different tools like subtraction and multiplication, and that's what gives me my raw material.
I'll use my iPad or my computer, or I have this device called a Freewrite, which is a super simple word processor that's not connected to the internet.
I don't stop for lunch
I only eat two meals a day, so I don't really step away for lunch — this is how I roll.
I do have an energy drink, but it's more of a habit than a need. I also don't typically take breaks.
I don't have many work boundaries
A good day is when I can get my to-do list to under 200 items, which is really hard to do. When I'm not illustrating, my wife might say, "Hey, let's have dinner," and that's my backstop for when I stop working.
Work is always on my mind, and I really don't have any boundaries. I don't tell people when I'm going on vacation because they'll reach me anyway, and I don't want to stop them from making progress. I usually make myself available, even if I'm away.
Simon Simard for BI
My team mostly communicates with me by text
Texting is how my team communicates with me. Email has become less useful for me because I get so many emails in a day that I feel like I'm a hockey goalie, and pucks keep whizzing past me.
I can really only answer emails right when I get them. Once they get too far down my list, I'll forget about them. I have a lot of challenges with executive functioning. I really struggle with having a lot of choices.
I've always answered my own emails, and I don't use AI to write.
I'm not often bored; I need stimulation
I don't play a lot. I sometimes go to Celtics games, or I'll go out to dinner with my wife, my friends, or my kids. I'm not often bored.
In fact, I feel very understimulated. I often feel like I'm not getting enough information, or there's not enough that's happening. For example, if I were to drive through the McDonald's drive-thru and get my food, I'd turn on the radio, tune in to some news program, and eat while reading the news on my phone.
Chicken McNuggets with sweet and sour sauce are probably my guilty pleasure. As far as watching TV goes, Survivor is always a staple in our house.
I go to sleep around 9:45 p.m.
These days I go to bed pretty early. I get in bed around 9:45 p.m., put in an earbud, and fall asleep with the news in my ear.
In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action
When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.
I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.
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