Category: General

Oh my what a day. It went pretty well, but I was a bit rushed this morning so here I am writing at eight-thirty at night. Not quite the way I want to end my day. I was productive though.

I wound up taking both the girls into school this morning. That set my schedule back more than it should have. I did my morning meditation, then transplanted my seeds to the plugs that I bought. I was surprised that they were already showing the taproot, but I went ahead and put together my sprouter and light and got them set. I put the setup under my mining rig, behind my desk. I swear I can already see them growing. Once this first batch or two of plants are going, I should be able to get a great start with our vegetable garden, no problem about that at all.

I did some more coding today, working on the most recent Python script. I started putting together some pytest for some good old TDD, which I should have done in the first place. It really forced me to make some design decisions about the program, which I’m honestly ill-prepared to make. I feel like I need to give another read to my design patterns and software architecture books. Imposter syndrome, indeed. We did have some productive conversations at work regarding project managers versus project manager, trying to nail down roles and responsibilities. It’s going to be hard specializing after so many years generalizing, but I’ll run with it today.

I got a text from D. that they’re calling for four to eight inches of snow over the next couple days. I feel so wimpy considering a lot of the Canadian staff are dealing with three feet of snow, so I’ll not complain. Anyways the schools are prepping for not one, but two snow events. They’re closing school two hours early tomorrow, which is actually the milder of the two, but are refraining from making a call about the one on Friday, when we’re expecting most of the snow, and the temperature won’t break twenty-nine degrees the entire day. Yeah right.

Missus had me stock up on beer. I bought so much liquor at the store today they asked me if I wanted a box. Funny thing is I don’t feel like drinking liquor, so I still went to the convenience store to buy beer. I need a budget, indeed.

So I’m done for the day. I want to go play some Tarkov, and still get to bed at a decent hour. I’ll still need to get up at seven to bring Younger into school, so I can’t go crazy yet. Hopefully my new headphones will be here soon, delivery by ten. We’ll see if 7.1 Surround sound improves my game.

Well I feel like I have the day off to a good start. Everyone was on time this morning, Younger got dropped off several minutes before cutoff, but I’d like to drop her off a bit earlier next time. Elder and Missus got out without much trouble, although Elder had a bit of problem following directions. I meditated, and even got a short twenty minute workout in.

My seeds dropped into the water when I touched them, so broke open my sprouting kit. I wound up putting the heated mat on top of the cardboard box under my desk. I moved the seeds to paper towels, trying hard not to mix up the two strains. Last night I installed a grower assist app on my phone, so I’ve got reminders set up to spritz them with water tonight before I go to bed.

I think I have my priorities for today. SAIAdao needs a bit of attention, then I need to work on OpenSea migrations. I got a notification from someone that I messed up their transfer… so I have to deal with more of that. Then we have a dao meeting late in the afternoon, grocery pickup and dinner.

Of course I waited until the end of the day so this post will probably be rushed. The truth is that I was very productive today. I did stay up till one last night, but I managed to wake up at a decent hour and started getting stuff done. I meditated, drank my tea, then started doing research on which of my strains I was going to start first.

I had my Power Couple meeting with Missus this morning and we decided on our course of action for the day. I wanted to get outside and clean up the back yard, which Younger and I did, and then we even did the garage, breaking down boxes and cleaning it out for the first time in months. I was really impressed with myself.

I ordered groceries, did some budget stuff, and by that point in the afternoon everyone wanted to lose themselves in their screens, so I did just that.

I wound up doing some more research on the seeds that I have, and decided to go with a couple of autos, Northern Lights and Alaskan Purple. Both should be easy to grow and have a relatively quick yield. It won’t be as much as the photos that I got, but we want a quick turnaround for this first batch, and we shouldn’t be able to kill them.

Today we were off for MLK day, of course. I went out to the grocery store with Younger for some emergency shopping, and we came home and had a quiet night. Back to work tomorrow.

So I finally broke down and bought a new monitor today. I grabbed an open box deal from Best Buy and got a LG 32″ IPS monitor. It was a hundred dollars off, I got it for four bills. It’s huge, and the games look great on it. The only issue is that I need a VESA mount kit so that I can attach it to the monitor stand for my gaming rig. The old ACER 19″ that I have there attach directly to the mounts, but they have the connectors on the bottom of the bezel, the ones on this LG are on the back, so I need about three inches of space for the cables. I’ve got it sitting on the tray stand right now. Lovely.

I stayed up super late playing Killing Floor 2 with Star Atlas team, finally woke up this morning around 11:30. Woke up and played a round of Tarkov with my brother, then went and grabbed the monitor. Spent all afternoon and this evening checking things out. We played Tarkov for several hours, now the kids are down for bed. It’s almost ten.

I might ping Ed for some FarCry, IDK, maybe I should take it easy tonight. Tomorrow is MLK day, so we’re all off tomorrow. I can’t spend all day playing video games, there’s some things I need to do, including getting some plants started for the grow operation.

So today was fun. Last night was fun also, staying up late to play Killing Floor 2 with several dudes from work. My dad came over today and we went out to a place where they selling farming equipment for people who want to grow their own medicine.

I spent fifteen hundred, got a whole indoor growing setup, everything we need to grow four plants at my dads house. The girl — woman — that helped me out even had several varieties of seeds that she gave me. So the plan is for me to start the seeds at home, then transplant them to my dad’s house after they outgrow the starter tray.

At least that was the plan. Missus is a bit upset about it because it’s not what we had talked about, which didn’t include me having any plants at the house. I’ll figure it out, I’m taking her out on a date in thirty minutes.

I took my dad out too while we were across town. To a brewery/restaurant spot. I needed a bit of hair of the dog. They had a really good smoked chicken drumstick app with some “sweaty”, spicy sauce. My dad and I both went for the steak and eggs. He drank wine, since the place didn’t have Budweiser.

We stopped by Best Buy on our way back so I could check out monitors. The 27 and 32″ curved monitors are very nice. I can’t even imagine how big the 49″ ones are. I’ll probably get two 27s to replace my 22s and one 32 inch to replace the three 19s I have upstairs. I think. I’m tempted to order one right now, and part of me wants to run back over to the BB on our side and grab one. I was actually haggling with the guys over a 32″, but I noticed that it had a scratch on the screen, so we left.

So the neighbors are going to watch the kids, and I’m taking Missus out on a hot date.

Did I mention it was payday yesterday?

My daily schedule is blown to shit.

Younger came into the bed in the early AM, stuffy nose, couldn’t breathe. I helped her by giving her a box of tissues, but I knew falling back asleep was going to be futile, so I took my pillow and a blanket downstairs to sleep on the couch. I dreamt, and Missus woke me at eight, an hour late.

Younger threw a big fit over missing school breakfast and stomped her feet I’m not going to school if I can’t have breakfast! So I took Elder in and came back to find Missus and Younger taking a hot bath. Apparently she’s having a sick day.

My calves are sore today. Apparently six miles is enough to make them ache. I’ve been running as a way to ignore the fact that I’ve been skipping my regular weight training push and pull days, but I don’t think that’s wise.

I’ve got a deadline today that I need to attend to, getting these damn OpenSea poster migrations. I still don’t have an automated solution; hopefully I won’t make any more mistakes.

My boy ChrisCrypto is really handling SAIAdao right now. He’s trying to get me a founder’s bonus for all my hard work. Twenty percent of dao returns. That’s about eighty grand. I’m taking a backseat from here.

Today was a good day. I skipped writing this morning because I needed to write something for work, and I knew it would take me a while. A one page promise that turned out to be three. I said I would need more time if I was going to make it shorter. A maxim I picked up somewhere about good writing. I was actually happy with the result; I’m not to bad a writer sometimes, I’ll admit.

I have another deadline tomorrow, one that I’m dreading a bit more, only because it’s a bunch of data validation that requires significant attention to detail. Not my strong suit. But I made promises to the community so I need to get it done.

I ran six miles after work. I’ve been listening to a Rich Roll interview on the Tim Ferriss pod and it’s speaking to me. I’m already mapping out how far I need to get up to miles seven through ten.

I got back and the neighbors were over, Missus had ordered pizza, which I kinda intuited that she would, based on the fact that we were woken up this morning by Younger coming into the bed, unable to breathe through her nose. I’m sure she was dragging ass today, and she was on a work or union call at 4:30, so I texted her “going for a run, see you in an hour” and took off.

My boy Ed G. came by yesterday, he brought me a 3070Ti card for my gaming rig. It’s a loan. I gave him my Oculus CV1 and cooked him dinner. Tarkov, Cyberpunk and FarCry all look great, but I’m down to one relatively tiny 19″ monitor instead of the three I usually have, so I broke down and bought a couple adapters as well as a $150 pair of wireless headphones. Ed tried to get me to buy a $350 30″ monitor, but I told him I was working through my budget and had too much going on to redesign my new build. I don’t just have one monitor, I have three upstairs and two downstairs, so I got a lot going on. Still I’m thankful that I can play on ultra settings now, it’s pretty nice. I’m just glad I didn’t pay $1300 for the pleasure, I would have been disappointed.

Now $1300 on a 49″ monitor, or even better, a $1400 Vibe 2 Pro with 5K VR… that might be awesome.

I’m working a budget though, setting aside $1000 a month toward these discretionary computer upgrades. And the rule is that I can’t buy anything without getting rid of something else. I may have a spare GPU now, but I got the Oculus out of the house. I’ve got a MacBook coming in toward the end of the month, so I’ve got to consolidate. Right now I’ve got:

• ancient laptop I gave to Elder that has been unused for months
• eight year old work laptop with dock that is getting replaced by the MacBook
• newer Alienware laptop that I’m using now and like to travel with
• Elder’s desktop (my last gaming machine)
• Missus’s desktop (repurposed client machine) that she uses and that hosts our home entertainment torrent videos
• current gaming machine
• mining rig (which has blown another power cable and is only running with 5/6 cards…)

That’s a total of seven monitors that I’m using, plus a 47″ Samsung TV that were all manufactured around 2008. I already operated on the TV once a few years ago. A capacitor burst and I replaced it with my soldering iron.

I didn’t quite mean to turn this into a minimalism post, but here we are.

We’ve been in the middle of a cold spell all week, temperatures have been below freezing since this weekend. The humidity has been very dry though, not even frost. There was a bit of crystals on the car windshield this morning when I took Younger to school, but just on the bottom driver side corner.

During the summer, my neighbor decided to put a pool in his backyard. He thought he’d get around building permits for a new deck by digging a hole in for the pool which would allow the deck to be built below the height limit that would have triggered a permit. He hired a crew to come in with a small earth mover and dig a large forty foot hole in the backyard. Once the hole was dug they discovered that the ground was too saturated to provide a sturdy foundation for the pool, so they decided to wait until the ground dried out.

That was almost six months ago. We live in a low lying coastal area, the threshold of my door is about eight feet over the high tide marker, so he effectively dug the bottom of the hole close to sea level. It has not dried out, and every time it rains water collects in the bottom of the hole. On top of that, he still has the excavated dirt piled up around the hole. It’s really something.

I bring it up because before the cold spell hit we had some tremendous storms. I think it rained for three days. My neighbor’s hole must have had four inches of water in it when the freeze came.

He’s basically got an ice rink in the backyard now.

I’m not too concerned about it, other than I worry that he still thinks he can put a pool back there. I know he’s down fifteen hundred on the work and that his wife is none too happy about it. I just imagine that springtime will come around and he’ll still be waiting for the hole to dry out, meanwhile mosquitoes are breeding in the water. I’m trying to be a good neighbor here, but I still can’t help question his judgement. Not that I haven’t had my lapses in good sense, but this is something else entirely.

I’ve been up two hours and already the list of things that I need to do is getting overwhelming. Here’s just a partial list:

• Meditate (done)
• Journal
• Manage Star Atlas fleets
• Perform manual DCA trigger
• Order groceries for week
• Contact CPA and keep taxes moving forward
• Contact painters
• Perp positions are underwater. Time to close them?
• Clean house
• Work stuff
• Exercise
• Go to bed on time

It’s no wonder I’m discombobulated most of the time. This small list kind of glosses over the two work projects that I’m managing, not to mention the work going on with SAIAdao. And I’ve got nothing about my family on there, nor the other shopping and leisure activities that I want to engage in.

The Waking Up app has added about one hundred hours of Alan Watts talks to it, I started listening to the first one yesterday and finished up this morning. Wow, the man was a good philosopher.

Today was a much better day that yesterday, mostly due to the fact that I went to bed at a decent hour. Younger came into the bed last night, putting herself in between me and Missus as she does. I rolled her across me, over to the outside edge of the bed, to separate her from Missus and let her get a better sleep. I suffered instead.

Laying next to Younger at night is like a fight. She tries to throw her leg over top of you and dig into you as much as possible, some sort of child’s reassurance that you’re still there. For me, it resolves to moving her arms or legs off of me, pushing her away, and putting elbows or knees up to keep her from doing the same.

The kids woke up first, went downstairs and watched TV. I managed to wake up in time to remind them to get ready for church, and had them out the door on time… as the bus pulled up basically.

I got a lot done while they were gone. Missus cleaned up from last night’s party while I did laundry, balanced the house accounts and dealt with my regular Sunday Perp compounding. I’m basically at the break-even point. I’ve actually made quite a good return with the funding rate over the last few months, but I’m considerably down from my six-figure PNL that I had some three months ago. I’m tempted to close out the positions and move them to Katana on Solana, which is currently offering 30-40 percent returns using covered calls or whatever. I don’t know what to do, so of course, I did nothing other than compound the positions. I only used 1x leverage this time, instead of 10x like I did last week.

I’m going to save discussion of taxes for another day, but I found out my CPA wants five K to do my return. Missus said okay, but I’m hoping for a second opinion. The last thing I want to do is have to do them myself.

I went for a run today, I didn’t go for a personal best, but just went for a easy route that would get me out of the house. I wound up doing a relatively 2.6 miles in under 25 minutes, and that included a brief stop to talk to a handyman that I encountered along the way.

I did some coding today, mostly going over Anchor and Solana stuff, and yes, I managed to play some Tarkov. I’ve still had ill luck trying to get a game together with my brother. Seems the servers he’s got good connections too and the ones I do are not close enough, so I kept getting disconnected from the match when he was the leader.

It’s ten, so I’m going to lay down, read some books, and hit the morning running. Missus is work from the office tomorrow, so I should have no excuses for my productivity tomorrow.