When I was in middle school and high school, I was always confused by the things my wealthier friends did with their time. It seemed that many of these families had nothing better to do with their lives than constantly try new and expensive activities. We didn’t really have the money for those things, but […]
Life, Work, and YouTube
If I had to summarize what I’ve learned from YouTube over the past 3 or 4 years, I would say this: Life is short; the world is big. I still have a soft spot in my heart for those tall geography books, with pictures from across the world, maps galore, and interesting facts. But honestly, […]
The Revolving Door of Stuff
The bookshelf has gotten stuffy lately, I have some clothes to get rid of, and some of my unused kitchen crap is slated for sacrifice to the thrift stores. I’m eager to find things to get rid of. These cycles. Why do they happen? The only reason the quantity of my possessions is fairly stable […]
Best and Worst Purchases of 2019
We’ve all bought dumb things from time to time. We’ve also probably bought things we really love, that enhance our lives in certain ways. But hindsight is 20/20, and things don’t always go as planned. Here are some of my best and worst purchases of 2019, with reflections on what went wrong and what went […]
Options
My motivation to be diligent at work often depends on the level of interest I take in a project. Building something new, making it look great and function exactly as it should? Piece of cake: I’m engaged all day. Go back over this and fight an existing system, full of mysterious and hidden standards, to […]
Reflections on Programming
There are four general types of people who become programmers: There are those who enter the fray by their inherent tendency to tinker, who tinker so much that they suddenly realize they are qualified for jobs. Then there are the money chasers who hear that “coding pays well” and who either put themselves through a […]
Coupons
I’m not convinced that coupons are worth using. This is largely due to the fact that most coupons I receive are not for stores I frequently visit, but they always manage to plant one question in my brain: “Hm, is there anything I need from this store?” This is a dangerous question. It’s like asking, […]
The Degrees of Financial Independence
I’m excited for 2020, in large part because I’m now working a job that pays more than my previous job and happens to also give me experience with the things I’d really like to do in software. Given the higher pay, it’s likely that I’ll achieve a 60% savings rate this year. Some of that […]
Reflections on Anger
Several weeks ago, I started thinking about the anger in my life. I’d written my fill of words on this blog expressing several of the things that really make me angry, but the only thing to return back from the great void of expression was a simple question: now what? At the macro-scale, the things […]
White Savior
Many years ago I signed up to volunteer with a refugee organization in Denver. I guess I had this idea of which ethnicities I preferred to work with, like picking things out of a catalog, or browsing which classes I wanted to take next semester. So I was surprised when instead I was assigned to […]