Month: August 2021

Today was mostly bleh. I’m trying to enjoy this last week before the kids go to school and enjoy myself a bit, but I might just be compensating for my lack of motivation. Everyone got up on time this morning, which was good, and we all got our chores done relatively early, so I did manage to work on the treasury proposal for Lift.Kitchen. I suppose that $800k of assets isn’t something to brush off, but after going through several dozen yield farms today, it’s going to be a lot tougher time than I dealt with back in April. Much harder.

ETH had a nice pump today, but I still feel like I’m treading water with my Perps. I guess I should be grateful that my P/L is up slightly, but my funding is looking even worse than last week. Either BTC is about to have an insane pump, or I’m real lucky that there are so many blockchain/crypto/Rust job postings out there. I have no clue what next week is going to be like with the kids at school. I might actually lose my mind.

My Twitter feed just seems to be all NFTs all the time and I’ve managed to keep from doing anything else stupid with my money since minting Cute Pig Clubs. Relevant Buffetism: don’t buy shit you don’t need or you’ll have to sell things you want. Or something like that. Gas has been so insane lately I’ve been sitting with thousands of USDC in my wallet that I’ve been meaning to send to BlockFi, but I didn’t want to pay $30-40 dollars in gas. It’s going to have to happen soon, as I’m out of cash and running on credit right now. God help me if I need to move some of these funds out of Yearn or Curve soon. At least Perp runs on xDAI, but getting those funds out is going to be costly.

ETH is looking good, as is my Solana investments. BTC is getting held down, and the longer it takes to pop the harder it’s going to explode. I know patience is the key, but dammit if I’m not going to have to take a job if things keep up like this.

It’s been real hard to get motivated today. Coming back from vacation is a bit of drag, it would seem. I couldn’t bring myself to workout or run this morning. Missus worked, Elder had a huge tantrum when I tried to get her to do chores this morning. I just sat around on Twitter most of the day. I did a little bit of work on the SAIADao multisig issue, which continues. I had to take Younger to the doctor’s for her checkup and vaccinations to start school. We were there over ninety minutes. Stopped by the library on our way back; I had seven dollars in fines — stupid DVDs — but by the time we got by the school to do her registration the secretary was already gone. Tomorrow, perhaps.

For dinner it was Younger’s turn to throw a tantrum. I’ve just been scrolling Twitter and watching this little ETH run. Gas is insane, but all my Solana bags seem ready to rock. Funding sucks, I’m actually sitting flat right now, so this thing had better move soon.

Missus came down a minute ago and said she doesn’t have any motivation either. I’m just going to stick to the plan tonight; no drinks, read some books, bed early, and hope that I can wake up with enough energy to get my ass out on the street.

So last night was a whiskey night. I played some guitar and discovered a really good music platform called BandLab, which I’ve been playing around with some today. It’s basically a free DAW in a web browser, complete with drum sequencers, MIDI instruments, audio file support, the works. On top of that it’s got a social network and collaborative tools built into it as well, meaning that people can form bands and work on tracks together, or even fork people’s projects and add their own touch to it. And it’s completely free. I’m not sure what the catch is yet, or how they’re making money.

I experimented playing around with the guitar and piano some more today, trying out some things. Old tracks started coming back to me. I haven’t gone through the trouble of breaking out the microphone yet, my guitar (and my voice) is a wreck, so I’ll need to put new strings on and will probably need to wait till the house is empty before I break things out.

Today I went to the SIL’s house. Missus bribed me to take the girls without her, so I did. We swam and ate, got back before it got too hot. Didn’t feel like doing much after that, so I puttered around, tried to nap, and ordered Mexican for dinner.

My Perp funding for the week was pretty lame, a bit over $500. BTC is trending negative right now, I’m down for the day. The price keeps trying to break $49K but it just can’t break it yet. Everything is so bullish, I’m just wondering whether we’ll see another leg down before we finally smash it. I am ready to go.

We’re starting to transition the girls to their school schedules, putting them to bed at a decent hour. I’ve got to register Younger for kindergarten tomorrow, and do some back to school shopping for both of them.

So I’m considering a music project. I’ve spent so much time listening to music while on vacation that I’ve got a bit of inspiration, and I want to start working on my actual debut album. A review of Phoebe Bridger’s first album noted a joke that an album has their entire life to create their debut album, and I’m thinking about writing all new material for it. Something along the lines of Midlife Crisis, or maybe Dad Bod if I’m feeling cheeky. I was daydreaming titles earlier while I was cutting grass, and thinking up potential lyrics. I have a long history of music and yard work, going back to when I was fourteen and singing Pearl Jam’s Ten week after week after week.

I’m really itching at the bit to grab one of my old song notebooks, one that hasn’t seen a pen to it in almost ten years, and start scratching out thoughts. I think the first words might be something along the lines of I’m too old for this shit. Trying to start a music career in earnest at this age is a bit late, but I really feel like this will be a good outlet. You know, since crypto and working out and learning programming and running a dao aren’t enough for me on top of running a household. Hell, at least I’m retired.

As soon as I get done here I’m going to pop upstairs and see what programs I have at my disposal. The last time I recorded anything I was using Cakewalk to record guitar and vocals, and Rebirth for synths and drum machines. I don’t know if I still have access to pirated copies of them like the old days, or if there are FOSS programs that can do just as good. I did some work with Adobe Audition a few years ago during my podcasting phase, but that subscription lapsed.

I was playing around on the piano last night, the first time I’d really tried to make up something on it since I’ve been playing it for what, two years now? I’m still way better at guitar, but I haven’t played it in so long, or come up with anything new on it in several years since I was working on a political themed song called Americaland, about the Trump admin child separation policies.

I actually started jotting down a few rhymes the other day, a response to the kids’ tantrums called Grumplestiltskin. It’s too kitschy or tongue in cheek to include in this project, I want it to be more serious. And I’m going to need to figure out what genre I’m going to make it. My ouvre is all over the map, and I need to find something to hold everything together. I need to find my sound.

I could try to limit it to guitar, piano, and vocals, just to keep it simple, cause Lord knows I can get lost in synth and effect programming. But I just need to get back in the habit of playing.

It’s time to start.

Oops, I did it again. Forgot to post yesterday. I think my mistake was not posting in the morning, before my date night with Missus. We went out to a place we usually go when we’re at the beach to get prime rib. I spent close to two hundred dollars. Got back to the house and wound up playing spades till bedtime. I also watched The Wandering Earth. It was pretty good.

We wound up leaving a day early on our rental. Trying to leave Saturday morning is a nightmare, all the fellow tourists trying to get out at the same time. We left just in time to start catching a bit of the Friday rush hour here at home, but it wasn’t too bad.

I’ve loaded up a couple Amazon Music playlists with Pitchfork’s Best Albums for the past few years. It used to be a habit of mine to torrent everything I could get my hands on at year’s end and spend several weeks listening to them, but I stopped a few years ago. Amazon’s hit rate was pretty bad, it only had half of the songs and more than half of those are only available to play on Echo devices for some reason, but I’ll take what I can get. Dua Lupia’s album was surprisingly good, and I’ve listened to Phoebe Bridgers Punisher twice today. The main problem with Pitchfork’s list is heavy inclusions of gansta rap, which of course I can’t listen to without headphones with the kids around.

So we’re back. I’m going to spend some time next week trying to figure out how to take advantage of the Star Atlas IEO, but what I really need to do is get back in my habits. I think I’ve finally kicked the funk, so I need to start working out. And I didn’t meditate the entire time I was at the beach, which I think affected my mood.

Tonight though, I’ll let the kids relax and continue enjoying the last day of our vacation. I’m not sure what tomorrow has in store, but next week is the last before Labor Day and back to school. I’ve got to get Younger enrolled and do all our supply shopping. I’m going to get her in Girl Scouts as well.

But tonight, I’ll probably be drinking beer, listening to music and playing video games.

Yes, I missed a goddamn post last night, breaking a streak that has lasted for months. I started drinking early in the afternoon and just plain forgot to do it. Wound up watching Contact and playing spades until late in the night with the FIL, his wife, and Missus’s nephew. What a waste.

Today has been pretty chill. I got my Star Atlas posters all settled up for the snapshot, and they released their teaser trailer.

Unfortunately, due to a bug with the DaoHaus UI, our funding proposal got rounded up when we hit the MAX button, so the proposal itself failed. Now I have to way another nine days to get the funds disbursed, which I believe will be too late for the IEO. So that sucked.

We didn’t hit up the beach until mid-afternoon. Watched The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Stupid, but funny. Now everyone’s on their screens, I’m cooking a pizza. Everyone is going to bed early tonight.

A much more subdued day it has been. I might have overdone it a bit last night, but I slept in a bit.

I’ve been using my new BlockFi credit card while we’ve been on vacation. I’ve used it several times the last few days, but yesterday I handed it to a clerk and they noticed the Bitcoin symbol on it. They said it was the first one they’d seen. We would have had a longer conversation but we were coming back from dinner with the girls, so I didn’t have time to talk. I planning on going back there to have a longer conversation with them.

Spent some more time at the beach. Busted my ass on a skimboard this morning, literally fell on my butt and hurt my back, but it’s more a dull ache and no longer sending stabbing pains when I shift around. We took the kids out out shopping for candy and let them sit around watching TV all day. Elder missed both of her Galileo meetings. We managed to get back out for some beach time this afternoon during low tide and did some boogie boarding. I’m thinking about renting a surfboard. In some fifteen years of beach weeks with Missus’s family, this is probably the best weather we’ve seen.

Perp funding is absolutely garbage. Bitcoin hit $50k and dumped, and I’ve made less than a hundred dollars the past two days. It might have something to do with Binance announcing KYC, but it could just be that everyone’s bullish AF and expects things to pump from here. Hopefully we’ll see more consolidation and I can actually make some money.

I’m sitting on the back deck, under the stars, well, at least a star. The weather is beautiful, despite a bit of rain earlier in the afternoon. The fam did some swimming this morning, we spent the hottest part of the day inside, and I took the girls out to eat for hibachi for dinner. Life is good.

I’m waiting for the moon to rise. Last night we had a beautiful full moon, and I’m hoping to get a glimpse of it again as it rises over the Atlantic.

I cycled my Perps today. This week’s gain was about eleven hundred dollars, almost evenly split between ETH and BTC. I was feeling FOMO since we had a bit of a dip, and 4x’d the proceed. Rates are still pretty flat right now, but we’re back at $49.5k, so who am I to complain?

I had a long conversation with Sasuke from YGG about investing in some Axie scholars. It’s only $2400 but I’ve got a bit of anxiety about it because my liquid cash is thin, but it seems like a no brainer opportunity. 300-400%. He said he’s making several thousand dollars a day; he must have close to half a million invested among several hundred scholars. I’ve been trying to get the Filipino members of the clan interested, but still no takers.

Nonetheless, there’s still a lot of opportunities for me once the girls go back to school and I decided that I want to do something. For now, I don’t.

Well we just arrived at our vacation rental an hour ago. The fam is upstairs, Missus’s clan is upstairs playing Spades, the girls are hanging out on their screens. I had to deal with a bunch of drama to get the house ready to go, but we’re here, and I’m ready to relax?

I had to pack three hardware wallets, including my Lattice, because of the Star Atlas drops going on next week. I’m likely going to be making a lot of moves on Wednesday, and be tied up with a lot of stuff while we figure out what to do.

BTC came very close to 50k today. Funding for my Perpetuals is basically flat, I’ve crossed a grand but no where near what I thought it would be earlier this week. Tomorrow morning I’ll pull proceeds and lever up. This rocket is ready to go. The next three months will be interesting.

Getting the kids ready to go today was such a pain. Missus was still at the AFL-CIO convention and didn’t get back until three. She had set out chores with one and five dollar bills taped to a piece of paper. Younger helped me a good deal but Elder was just dramarama. It’s my fault for letting her stay up too late last night. What a mess. I stayed up too late myself, but got a power nap in after Missus came home and we wound up getting here to the house just after eight.

It’s a lot nicer than our rental last year, this one doesn’t seem like it’s about to fall into the ocean. It’s right on the ocean, a few houses down from a fishing pier. The full moon was rising over the ocean when we got here — we also saw a beautiful rainbow on the way here — and we’re right across the street from a froyo spot. It should be a lovely week.

Today has been quite the mixed bag.

On the one hand, I felt good enough this morning to go for a run, the first one since I got sick over two weeks ago. It did not go well. I went on my usual route, but well before the halfway mark I began having doubts that I could pick up where I left out. I cut things a bit short and had to walk for a bit, but managed to pick things up again near then end. Distance wise, a bit under three miles.

I was a bit concerned about leaving the girls alone while I went for my run. I knew they were worn out from the day before and staying up a bit late, I needn’t have worried. I was back and almost finished with my cooldown and meditation before Younger finally came plodding around downstairs. She put herself to bed and slept there the whole night. I just had to tell her to wait in her bed for me while I read. I told her if she woke up and saw my light out, she was welcome to join me, but she was worn out.

The main blot on the day was the tantrum that she threw later in the day. I promised her ice cream as a reward for staying in bed, and she felt slighted that Elder was going to get some as well. I swear, these kids… We went to the library and Elder was a bit rude to her and it set her on a downhill trajectory that ruined the entire trip. Next stop was the fabric store. Elder was planning on buying some fabric to make an outfit for her sister, but Younger changed her mind and wanted to buy a doll instead. We had an argument as she was a dollar short and I told her she’d need to earn it. That set her off even more. We went by the bookstore to get the crypto-edition of Fortune magazine — for the third time, no less, and empty handed again — then I took them to Cold Stone for her treat. We had decided to get the birthday cake specialty mix, and after the woman had started making it, Younger said she had change her mind. It was too late, I told her, and that started a fit that continued all the way home and almost an hour after we were home. It was a complete disaster.

Things eventually wound down, we had our ice cream, and even had another treat after dinner and cleanup. We watched What If? and Hilda. Now the girls are upstairs winding down as I type this.

I did do some work this afternoon. Things are moving really fast with Star Atlas, and we’ve got some work to do with SAIADao.

The @staratlas posters that we purchased on behalf of @interstellaral3's SAIADao for $16k two a month ago have a current resale price of over $126,000.

— BCM – The Blockchain Man (@dahifi) August 20, 2021

I wrote up some thoughts earlier today for the community. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s going to interfere with my vacation next week, but that’s how it goes, innit?

The other big news today of course it the big BTC pump. It was expected, and I feel a bit shitty for not leveraging up a bit more than I was. But I did sell some RUNE that was on Binance and moved it to my cold wallet. Perp funding has been flat since I woke up this morning, so it seems that the market was expecting a move. My ETH position is still paying out, but BTC has barely moved, so I’m probably not breaking last week’s record. Still, it should be a respectable haul, and I can’t really complain if I’ve got a 1.5x BTC position on the way up to new ATHs. I’m just waiting for ETH to do it’s thing.