Anniversary

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary. I got up early this morning — considering it is a Saturday, and most Friday’s I stay up too late, but last night I limited myself to two beers and went to bed at a decent hour — and ran three miles. I actually did two hours of deep work on my current Rust Exercism, and I’ll admit that I cheated a bit, but only by looking at the Python version of one of the results. I’m still not sure how to translate it to rust. It’s a bit complicated.

We dropped the kids off at my sister in law’s and went to the local amusement park. I bought two beer sampler passes, ten tickets for six ounce cups of brew. Missus thought one was enough, and she was almost right. We left with seven out of twenty punches left on our cards. We didn’t ride any rides, but walked around the park at least twice, which must have been at least two miles. So considering that I ran today and walked all that, I still feel pretty good about it. But I’ve got to go back before next weekend is over, when the passes expire, so I’ll be taking Younger sometime next week. That’s for sure.

I know I sound like a broken record about it, but my Perpetual funding has broken nine hundred dollars. ETH just breached twenty five hundred, and I’m feeling pretty good about things right now. Tomorrow morning is my ‘harvesting’ period, so I need to figure out whether I’m going to compound my positions or pull my money to cash on my Fold debit card. Considering that my Perps are doing better interest than my USDC reFIREment fund, I think I’ll just compound it for now. We’re headed to ATHs and there’s no reason for me to pull out now.

As a matter of fact, Missus finally let me put some cash to crypto. She had about six grand in a retirement subaccount, so I moved it to her BlockFi and set up a recurring daily purchase. It works out to about $55 a day for ninety days. After that she’ll have more cash to move. Once she clears BlockFi’s 0.25 BTC tier we will probably need to have another conversation about DeFi or something, but baby steps.

The next few weeks are probably going to be some of the most lucrative that I’ve seen in years. Time to take full advantage of it. The question is how much leverage can I get away with. I tried to explain things to Missus earlier today, but I’m not quite sure how to explain it to myself. Sure, I can explain the mechanics of funding, but trying to tell how I’m threading the needle with leverage rates and liquidation prices is another matter entirely. All I really can say is that the higher prices go, the less leverage I have, so compounding is necessary. The main question is whether I’m trying to play the funding game, or whether I want to make a huge profit off of leverage. The two aren’t incompatible, but there are subtle differences between the two.

I just need to figure out which one I want.

One day

Well if there was any doubt about whether the bull market was over, the last ten days should have squashed that definitively. BTC is up $10k since then, and just busted definitively through the 41K mark. I was checking the options markets earlier today and had tried to sell a couple 40k contracts, but my asks were underbid and didn’t fill, so I cancelled them. Right before expiry, the price hit 40k, and has since blasted through 41k. ETH is above 2400, so all of my Perpetuals are in profit now. Funding payments for this week have set a new record for me, and we’ve still got two more days to go this week. Things are looking good.

Today was better, I suppose. I got up at six, did a decent workout, and managed to get some work done this morning, working on Rust, trying to figure out how to do sorting with hashmaps. The trick apparently is to use vectors, and enums when the elements are heterogenous. It’s very frustrating trying to solve these Exercisms without peeking ahead at the solutions, but I’m hoping that it’ll help me focus.

I didn’t get much done this afternoon because of the kids, both of whom decided to throw minor fits at various points during the day. My response was better, I didn’t lose my temper, and managed to center myself. I’m still not that great at de-escalating, that’s going to take more work.

Tomorrow is Missus and my twelfth wedding anniversary. We’re taking the kids to my sister in law’s and going to an amusement park for rides and a beer fest. Tonight I’m going to try to go to bed at a decent hour and not stay up drinking. I’d like to go for a run tomorrow, but I picked up a sixer and part of me knows that’s not going to happen.

I’m going to go chill and play video games. Part of me is tempted to buy a Codecademy subscription and start working on more React projects. Part of me knows that’s not going to happen either, for the same reason that I haven’t bought the Whoop yet. It’s too expensive given my current cash situation. I’ve got a few hundred dollars in my Fold card, and enough cash in my SoFi account to pay off my current credit card bills and pay rent next month. Everything else is going to have to wait until I can pull funds out of my Perpetuals on Sunday. Pulling USDC from there on XDAI, over to ETH then to an exchange and ACH back to my bank is going to be a pain in the ass. Not to mention Fold requires another ACH transfer. There’s no direct crypto deposits. Otherwise I’m waiting on BlockFi or Gemini to get their cards together, but that could be months.

The other option is just to pull out some of my existing USDC yield farms first, drain the Perpetuals once a month or so. I need to think about it. I’m hoping that I’ll have enough to put my cash into Alchemix and take a loan out to pay off my expenses. That would be ideal, but I don’t think I’m going to generate the income necessary to be able to do that. Maybe once BTC hits six figures and I’m ready to pay off my student loans.

We’ll see.

Not feeling it

Despite a busy morning, I’ve been feeling lethargic in the afternoons. I’m not sure why. I went to bed at a decent hour, got up at six and went for a run, my first time breaking three miles. I managed to get some work done after the girls were up and watching TV; I tried to get a React App to interact with Metamask to pull my wallet address, but couldn’t quite get it yet.

The neighbors had come over, so I sent them outside at lunch with Younger so I could eat while Elder did her Galileo check-in. I made them lunch, and didn’t get much else done for the rest of the day. I read REAMDE, played Neverwinter for an hour with Elder for our special time. By the time Missus got back from work I was napping on the couch, and I haven’t moved far from there since. We watched some Great Courses videos on gardening and sustainability, and now I’m trying to let the kids wind down about an hour before bedtime.

BTC and ETH have been going nuts. They keep toying with 40,000 and 2400, respectively, and funding has been very lucrative. I’ve already made over $500 this week, which is on track for my best yet. I wonder if this has anything to do with my mood. My positions are in profit overall, and I’m going to have to start taking funding to pay my bills starting on Sunday.

Humpday

I’ve felt a bit of ennui today, I’m not really sure why. Then again, that’s probably why I would call it ennui and not something else. I stayed up a bit later than I have been lately reading REAMDE, told myself I was going to take a break from all the running I’ve been doing. I still wound up trying to do some modified pull ups just to do something. I took the girls on an ill-fated three mile bike ride during the hottest part of the day. After lunch it rained and then we setup the wading pool for a bit of a splash. Then they went to church club while I watched Great Courses piano videos.

I finished the CodeCademy React course, but it was kind of anticlimactic. I looked around at all of the modules that they had available, full stack developer and all that stuff. I think that might have contributed to my mood. So much to learn, but I couldn’t bring myself to distract myself further, now I have no excuse but to bury my head and figure out the Web3 stuff that I’ve been procrastinating over. But that’s tomorrow. I worked on a new Rust Exercism and beat my head up for an hour trying to figure out how to manipulate hashmaps and got soundly rejected by Rust’s borrow system. That probably didn’t help either.

I spent the rest of the day reading, or trying to, and then when the kids left I watched an hour program on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It was actually quite interesting. Then I started watching another program on Mental Math. I thought it was very interesting and I want to go back and watch it with Elder. There’s probably some lessons in there for Younger in there. Drill, baby, drill.

In general I just felt low energy. I joked to Missus that I had low-T. I was really hyper sexed last week. (Dreams were crazy), but now I feel like I’m at a nadir. Not a good sign considering that our twelfth wedding anniversary is coming up Saturday. The traditional gift is silk, but it looks like we’ve wound up buying each other season’s passes to the local amusement park. We’ve got a date there without the kids, to do a beer tour and see fireworks. It should be fun.

Missus asked me what was wrong earlier, and I told her nothing. Like literally nothing was wrong. Everything was great. I had no worries. Just the constant struggle of dealing with the kids. I think it was just coming off a bit of a high from last week, busting my ass working out and getting things done. I needed a break. It just happened to come today.

I’ve put several thousand dollars into my Perpetual positions. The grand of BTC that I sold for tax harvesting and put into a leveraged position on Monday, and another thirteen hundred ETH that I sold to get in on the YGG sale that most people missed out on. My funding it actually trending really good this week, close to what my take home pay was two months ago. And as far as goals go, making my salary passively is a pretty damn good one to meet. And this is with Bitcoin at 40K. I did some math to see what that might look like when BTC hits six figures, ETH five. I’ll make double my previous annual salary, or if the funding turns positive I’ll be able to take enough gains that the house and the student loans will get paid off. I have to beware the black swan though.

And myself.

Just another day

So I upped my running game this morning, although not as much as I thought I did. I added a block to my route, hoping to get it over three miles, but I only got up to 2.8m, according to Google Map Pedometer. I’ll have to play around with it more and start adding on additional diversions to add up to a proper 5K.

Today was somewhat productive. I worked on React this morning, although not as much as I wanted to. I woke up very early and had trouble falling back asleep and got a late start to do the day, as did the rest of the house. Elder had an extended check-in (read: playing paper.io games) in Galileo today, Younger spent much of the day with her friends. I cooked lunch for them, then Mr. D. took them to the park for a bit. I wound up spending some good time with Elder, practicing piano and helping her use the computer. I took a nap, cooked a chicken for dinner, stained the lower deck — properly, this time — and cut the grass afterward. We watched a Great Courses video on sustainable living, some Infinity Train, and now it’s time to put the girls to bed.

The Yield Guild Games token sale went live today, but it sold out in the first block. I figured it would, and there are a lot of disappointed people that were trying to get in on it. Que sera.

I really don’t have much else to say today. I listened to a Daniel Prince Once Bitten podcast on sovereign cities and education that was interesting, but otherwise it was a regular day. About time for me to turn in for some reading and get to bed.

Feeling up

Well I guess my major accomplishment for today was that I finished the damn bowling Exercism on the Rust track. It only took me a week. Even after cleaning it up I wound up with this 100-line monstrosity. Then of course I take a look at the top answer and see how someone did it in two elegant functions. Never ceases to make me feel like an idiot.

Seriously though, today went pretty well. The interview with the recruiter wasn’t as fabulous as I had imagined, but might lead to something. I also reconnected with someone I met through Star Atlas and got hooked up with a US-based mining pool that was getting $7m in venture funding and needs Rust developers. Might be something.

The rest of the day was mostly positive. Woke up at a decent hour, BTC was mooning. Got in a workout and didn’t have to yell at the kids too much today. At all really. Younger is actually putting herself to bed right now, I believe. I had forgotten how much we used to rely on podcasts to help Elder wind down at night. I should have figured.

Didn’t get any house projects done today, weather put a damper in my deck-staining plans. Watched a bit too much TV, but did I mention The Great Courses? OMG I am going to spend way too much time watching those. I started watching the first of a 24-part series on the world’s best solo piano pieces. I even caught Elder watching it while we played dominos after dinner. She can’t help herself. They really do seem like they have some quality stuff on there. It’s just another reason why I think the general college degree is dead.

Talked to my mom a bit earlier. Missed her husband’s birthday on Friday, so needed to catch up. I did most of the talking, as usual, but was mainly about the girls, what’s going on with their summer, our camping trip. Wound up going too much into our reFIREment plans, I always sound crazy when I talk to them about trying to get Missus to quit her government job. Working another fifteen years just for health insurance seems insane though. I still think Bitcoin is a better retirement plan than a government pension.

Talked to my dad today as well. We’re trying to plan a trip home to the midwest soon to visit the rest of the clan, but he wants to stay there for two months, and we’d have no way to get back. Rental car isn’t an option, plane is too expensive, and bus is out of the question. Will have to explore other options.

I’m going to turn in, read a bit, get some rest and up and at em first thing in the morning. Going for a jog, then want to work on finishing the React Codecademy that I’m working on. Then I need to tackle web3 properly. Last I tried I was having issues connecting wallets and getting addresses. I want to get working on a proper Perpetual dashboard, and if I’m feeling really ambitious I may go back and restart work on the Evil Ether Auction. That’ll be nice.

Tired

Well it looks like Bitcoin and Ethereum have finally had the breakout that we’ve been waiting for, busting out a few minutes before the weekly close to give us a bullish start to the week. It’s refreshing.

I actually got up early to meet my friend T. here at the house for an early morning run. he followed me for most of my 2.7m course around the neighborhood. He wasn’t quite up to practice so didn’t go all the way that I did, but I think he needed the company. He’s been in a rough place lately. I gave him my copy of Choose Fi and some vegetables out of the garden. He left before anyone else in the house woke.

The girls went to church, but Missus was so worn out that she slept till they got back around one. I spent most of the morning catching up with my crypto positions, compounding my Perpetuals and managing some staking positions that had been neglected for the last few weeks.

The kids seemed especially troublesome when they got back, I think we figured out it was because they had skipped lunch after getting back. It was really stressful. We took them to the library but Younger was extremely problematic. Missus took turns taking the girls out to run errands while I puttered about the house and did some light housework. After she got back we worked on the deck, taping up some plastic and washing it down in preparation to stain it first thing tomorrow morning. Then I spent an hour cleaning out the garage for the first time since November. It really needed some cleaning out.

We just finished watching some shows, and now it’s time to put the kids to bed. Then me. I’m going to do some light reading, them I’m out. Tomorrow Missus is going into the office, so I’ve got to be on my game. And I need these kids to be rested, I don’t think I can handle another day like today.

New habits

I woke up to the sound of rain falling on the thin roof of the storage sled that I slept in last night, under a sleeping bag with Elder, a single pillow to us. It was way too early, at least that’s what my hangover told me, so I got up to use the bathroom, grabbed some water and went back to bed. Elder eventually woke and went to the RV. Younger came to visit me briefly then left. When I finally did get up for real, around eight, the girls were already swimming in the lake. I drank some more water before joining them.

I broke out a kayak and took them around the lake, then played Marco Polo with them, a game which brought Missus to tears. We gave her dad some help with the RV; one of the hydraulic pistons that pushed out the bedroom fold-out had failed, so we had to pull it. We packed, ate a spread for early lunch and hit the road for the two and a half hour trip back. The girls napped almost the entire way home.

My nap had to wait until we got back to the house. I spent the rest of the day being lazy, I made a pizza and watched Disenchantment while everyone did their own thing, made the girls a microwave meal and downloaded the new Boss Baby movie for us to watch. It was pretty ridiculous.

My friend T had messaged me a few days ago. I had told him I’d been running a lot and he wanted to go for a jog with me. Somehow I agreed to let him meet me here at 7:30 AM tomorrow to go for a jog. I don’t know how I allowed myself to go for that. I hope I don’t regret it. I suppose it means I’m going to bed on time tonight. There are worse things.

I’ve been doing pretty good the last few weeks, habit wise. I’d say last week was pretty excellent. The only real lapse I had was stopping for a couple sixes of IPA before we turned off the main highway last night. I should have just drank the Modelo Missus brought and I probably wouldn’t have had such a rough morning. I managed to go all week without drinking, mainly due to the fact that I didn’t buy any in the first place. That helps. I think I worked out every day this week. Even today, when you consider the swimming the paddling and the evening walk that I took the family on.

On top of that the RV had a bike rack on it. I know Missus’s dad didn’t need it, so I inquired and he let us have it. Since we’ve got the trailer hitch on the CRV now there’s a lot we can do. The experience of camping out in the RV opened a lot of possibilities to us. There are lots of bike trails around that are within an hour’s car ride, so now I can pack the girls bikes in the back trunk and use the rack for the two big bikes.

And talking to T about running made me focus on doing something that I’ve wanted to do for a while: run a 5K. There’s one in twenty days at my alma mater. I know I can be ready for it, the only obstacle is the $50 entry fee.

I think it’ll be worth it.

“Roughing” it

So here I am, two and a half hours from home, sitting outside next to a campfire in the middle of nowhere. I’m at my father in law’s land in the middle of the state, nineteen acres with a lake and woods. It’s our first overnight trip.

We’ve been out to the lake several times since he bought it a few months ago, but my girls don’t really know the meaning of roughing it, so we’ve always come down for short day trips. He bought an old RV last week, so this is our first overnight trip.

We ran into a bit of traffic on the way down here, we did leave at rush hour on Friday, but it wasn’t too bad. We spent the afternoon swimming in the lake, and I started a campfire so that we could roast hot dogs and smores.

There’s a small fire pit in front of me. When I first started building the fire up my FIL, E., told me that he had some diesel fuel that I could use. No thanks, I said, I used to be a Boy Scout, I know how to start a fire. I went about building up my fire pyramid: leaves on the bottom between two logs, lots of small twigs in the middle with another layer of one or two inch branches, with some small logs on top, and with a large, previously burned piece of wood on top to serve as charcoal. E. came back over as I was lighting it.

When you get tired of the Boy Scout stuff, I got some fire logs over here you can use. I just laughed at him. After a few minutes I had a roaring fire, and we had our roasted dogs and smores.

I’m kind of amused that I have internet here, my laptop connected to my cell phone’s LTE connection — thanks ATT. E just had electricity run out here, so I could literally stay here as long as I can stand it. I did bring my private keys with me, as I always do. I

When you get tired of the Boy Scout stuff, I got some fire logs over here you can use. I just laughed at him. After a few minutes I had a roaring fire, and we had our roasted dogs and smores.

I’m kind of amused that I have internet here, my laptop connected to my cell phone’s LTE connection — thanks ATT. E just had electricity run out here, so I could literally stay here as long as I can stand it. I did bring my private keys with me, as I always do. I’m not quite ready to live in an RV, I’ve still got too many material possessions, and the kids are much too sensitive, but this is a promising start.

Missus and Younger are sleeping in the RV along with her dad and his wife, I’m sitting down by the campfire next to the shed where Elder is sleeping. I’ll join her shortly. It smells like motor oil and gasoline in there, but I really don’t mind. There’s air conditioning in there.

I’ll wrap this up, pour some water on the fire and then go to sleep. Tomorrow after breakfast we’ll do some more swimming and head home before the sun gets too high that we need sunscreen. Right now it’s just me and the bullfrogs.

One of the main things that I was looking forward to was showing the girls what the stars look like outside of the city. We like to look at the sky at night, but usually the light pollution is so bright that we can only see Ursa Major or Orion. I was hoping that we could come out here and see the Milky Way in all its glory. Alas when the sun went down earlier, all we could see through the clouds was just one single star.

Now though, it’s cleared up, and even though my night vision is a bit ruined by my laptop screen, I can see more of them peeking out at me. I’m about to close the lid on this machine and give my eyes fifteen minutes to adjust.

Elder’s asleep in the shed, the light still on. I might just wake her up to take a look with me, and listen to the bullfrogs.

“Let’s go to the beach, it’ll be fun”.

Famous last words. I was feeling pretty good going into this afternoon as we had a really good time last Thursday. I was remarking how close we live to the beach and how rarely we made it out there for a swim. This trip did not go as well.

I had invited the neighbors to come with us, as I figured the kids would have a lot of fun together, so we met up after dinner and headed out there. We were just planning a quick trip, so it wasn’t too much trouble getting ready. The only wrinkle in our plan was that Missus had a strategy call with a political campaign she was advising, but she was just going to sit on the beach with her headphones in while I played with the kids.

One of the reasons we’d had such a good time last week was that we had been experiencing sweltering 90-degree weather through much of the week, and we went out there at six in the evening when the sun was low enough that we didn’t have to worry about sunscreen or getting burnt. And the water was so warm. We got to play out there while the sun set, and had the girls home right in time for bed. It seemed like a perfect plan, so I wanted to do it again today with the neighbors.

We got there about six thirty, near high tide. I put Younger’s float on her and we all jumped in the water, which was warm and a bit rougher than it was when we were out there last week during low tide. One of D.’s kids, carrying nets, quickly found a jellyfish and started getting excited. D asked me if he should bury it in the sand. I don’t know, I said, shrugging my shoulders, too busy to care. I’m not the jellyfish police. I turned around and swam a bit, keeping an eye on the kids as the took to the water.

Not even five minutes later, I saw Elder running out of the water toward me. Jellyfish! she yelled. Younger got stung by a jellyfish. I got out and went to her. The poor thing was hysterical. She had gotten popped in several places, her angle, thigh, and arm on one side of her body. I did my best dad emergency care, telling her that we needed to scrape off the sting using some sand. I grabbed a couple handfuls, scrubbed it lightly over the affected areas, then took her back in the water to wash it off. Then I hurried her to our stuff to further doctor her up.

Missus was sitting on her beach chair, chatting on her Zoom call, so I asked her to put out the picnic blanket so I could doctor Younger up. I gave her a towel to keep her warm, then sat her down on the blanket to take a closer look. She had welts all over her skin, and I could see tiny raised dots of skin in the middle of the red area. Missus pulled out a Capri Sun and I used it to cool some of the bad ones. She was still in a good deal of pain. Poor thing. Missus looked up remedies on her phone, but we had nothing available other than what else I had already done. We would have to take her home.

I didn’t really want to take her as I knew the stings would subside in a few minutes. We’d only been there for less than twenty minutes and I didn’t want to force Elder to leave with us or saddle D. with taking her, so I tried to make Younger as comfortable as possible. I told Missus she’d be out in the water in no time at all. I went to give her floaty to D.’s youngest, and then back to the car to retrieve a life preserver for his daughter. By the time I got back, Younger was already back out in the water.

I told you so, I mouthed to Missus as I relieved her from watching the girls so she could focus on her call. I went back in the water, and it was obvious that Younger was still in a good deal of pain. I picked her up to wade with me and told her how proud I was for her going back out in the water. She said she wanted to have fun with her friends. She was a really good sport, and we had a really good time for the next half hour or so.

But the waves were a little bit rough for her, and wore her down, so she got out. And it was too cold with the sun waning, so she said she wanted to go home. Plus I had promised her a treat from the ice cream man, she reminded me. I made sure that Elder could ride back to the house with D., and we packed up and started heading back to the car, Missus still on her call. No sooner than we got near the boardwalk, the ice cream van started pulling off. Where’s he going? Younger started, and I promised to take her to 7-11 for a cone. (Plus I was pretty sure I was going to drink a sixer myself, at this point.) But another ice cream truck was pulling up, no doubt according to some ice-cream cartel rotating schedule, and she had to have it from the ice cream truck.

It wasn’t even the good ice cream truck either. This one had faded paint and looked worn down. I held up my credit card while I approached to make sure he took plastic, and he nodded to me. I had to hold Younger back from running through the parking lot. I asked her to point to which one she wanted on an old faded picture menu. Sorry, the man said, leaning out the window. We only got these. He pointed at the vanilla and chocolate soft serve cones. And the sundays. I asked Younger. She pointed at a milkshake. I told her to pick a cone. Vanilla. And one for me I told him. He asked if I wanted a waffle cone, and by the time I was done we had two soft serve ice creams, nine dollars. Nine dollars.

Oh well, I thought to myself. He obviously needs it more than I do.

We walked back to the car, and I popped the hatch so we could sit in the back while we ate. She was mostly back to normal. We talked for a bit, mostly about how I wished she had let me go to the store to buy ice cream. I could have bought three ice creams for what we paid for these, and they would have been better.

But dad, she said, we can only eat one ice cream.

Hard to argue with that logic. Anyways by the time I had finished my ice cream she said she wanted to go back out to the water and play, telling me I feel better now.

You’re kidding, I said, swearing her to secrecy. I made her give the rest of her cone to her mom, then we walked back out to the beach. We only had a few more minutes before sundown, so I told her we didn’t have much time and needed to go home shortly. D. saw us coming, surprised. He had just come out of the water to dry off in preparation to leave. Younger went out in the water, carefree as ever.

I talked with D. and his wife for not even two minutes when the kids started a commotion out in the water. Among the words yelled: jellyfish. This time it was Elder coming of the water, arms half raised, a pained wail on her face a la Napalm Girl. I scooped her up with a towel to examine her. She had a huge raised welt on her thigh. D. says to me good thing I put that jellyfish repellent on my kids when we got her. My brain hadn’t registered that he was joking, as I turned back to him with some kind of look on my face that was completely serious. He laughed.

Well we were getting ready to anyways, so I scooped Elder up in a towel and started carrying her back to the car. I knew she was going to be okay; I was more worried about how I was going to explain to this Missus. We got to the boardwalk, where I sat her down to take another look at her leg and see how she was doing. It was bad.

I asked her how she was doing. She looked across at the commercial van parked a few meters away from us.

I want an ice cream.