Someone in the cruise business told me recently that I should start charging cancellation fees. I have to pay the cruise lines a small amount every time someone cancels a cruise. He is far more experienced in the business than I am, and he is right. I should charge cancellation fees. They cost me hundreds every month, and, as he pointed out, no one complains when you start charging them. I think he thought I was a little bit crazy (or maybe just dumb) when I said that I’d rather just pay the fees myself. Some part of it is that I assume I might get a few extra bookings from other people who h ..read more

It’s that time of the year again! I think a lot more changed this year versus the previous year, probably because I went fairly travel-crazy this year. As always I think “There’s barely any point in doing a gear post since nothing has changed…” and then I realize that actually a lot has changed. Interestingly, I got most of what I wanted from my wishlist that I wrote at the end of last year’s post. Also, I wanted to throw in a shout out for /r/OneBag on Reddit. Every year they have a nice discussion about my gear post. Last year someone mentioned that I was the original person to do gear post ..read more

A teacher friend of mine told me that this year students were different. If she asked to see a hall pass from a freshman, they’d give her the finger. They swore at her and were generally rude. The behavior was so out of line that seniors would step in and tell them not to talk to her like that. I asked why she thought that was happening, and she said, “Covid”. The lack of socialization, especially at such a key time in life, had made this incoming class the first one that lacked basic manners and social skills. Nearly all of us has had less social interaction over the past few years. For many ..read more

Last year’s gratitude post was written largely about my father coming to Vegas to help me with some home improvement projects, so it feels fitting that I’m writing this as I fly across the country to help him with some projects of his own. And, as always, family looms large at the top of my list of things I am grateful for, especially as I’ve gotten to spend more time with so many family members than in the past couple years. But first, this year, I’m grateful for my wife. In the same way that I didn’t really understand just how great my parents were until I got older and heard stories from o ..read more

My friend Brian and I got back to the island for the first time in a year. The owners have various levels of interest and ability in getting to the island and working on it, but Brian and I are generally the two who do the big projects. It’s interesting working with Brian, because in some ways our approach is very different. He tends to plan ahead and prepare for every contingency. I tend to figure out the first couple steps, get working on them, and adjust as I go. This sometimes causes us to butt heads, though I think we also influence each other a bit. When I built my pinball cabinet, I ac ..read more

The last trip I did in August was a trip to Austin, Texas. I stayed with my good friend Noah Kagan, who happens to have two pinball machines in his house. I’ve never really understood pinball, having only played it a handful of times in my life. But my wife and I ended up playing Godzilla pinball twice a day, competing but also encouraging each other and trying to figure out the strategy. At some point, for some reason, I had researched virtual pinball tables. Companies make these tables that are the same size as a real pinball table and have the same controls, but instead of a mechanical pla ..read more

One of the downsides of writing less frequently is that I feel more pressure for each post to be impactful (even though readers have pretty consistently told me that they just want me to write anything). This post will be a meandering one without much of a point other than to let you know what I’m thinking about and working on these days. I’ve found myself more frequently thinking about time I spend in front of screens and connected to notifications. I’ve also found myself becoming more and more nostalgic, even for times in which I wasn’t alive! I saw a 70s commercial (I was born in the 80s ..read more

There are a few things that I consider to be the most important things to think about and focus on, primarily because they have enormous downstream effects that impact almost everything else in your life. Ironically, they also tend to be things that no one else prioritizes. A few are good sleep, social skills, and decision making. Most people try to make good decisions, but never actually think about their decision making processes, never work on social skills at all, and fit sleep in around everything else they do. There others, too, like health, positivity, frugality, etc. Decision making m ..read more

If you’re an investor in anything other than real estate, you’re probably in the middle of a bear market right now. And if you’re a real estate investor… these rising interest rates could mean choppy waters lie ahead. My largest investment by far is Ethereum, and it’s down about 80% from its all time high, so you can imagine what that’s done to my net worth. And while I have an emotional preference for larger numbers over smaller ones, I have to admit that I’m excited and feel good about what’s going on. I wanted to write about why that is, hopefully help you feel better about it, and offer s ..read more

The other day I walked into Dandelion Chocolate. There was a bit of a line, but the second barista, who wasn’t taking orders, asked what drink I was going to have. Iced chocolate chai (seriously, try this thing), I said. She waved me up to the front, made my drink, and said, “It’s on the house. I think you come here a lot.” It was only the second or third time I’d been to that location, and she had never been there before when I was there. She did look familiar, though. I found out that she used to be the manager at Samovar, which was my favorite tea house in the world for many years. I don’t ..read more