I just finished “Every Landlord’s Tax Deduction Guide” by Stephen Fishman of the Nolo publishing company. This was the Idiot’s Guide to Cover Your Assets. Let me share the best lessons.

Chapter 1

Income

The government is gracious enough to only take money out of your pocket. By that I mean, if you charge someone $5 for a sandwich, and it costs $5 in ingredients and labor to make the sandwich, no money is going in your pocket. The government is happy to let you fill your days with these “wash sales.” The first half of the equation is your money coming in, your income. That is rent and the sale of houses. It also includes a security deposit if you keep it as the last month’s rent, late fees, parking fees, and laundry fees. More on the second half of the equation later.

Ownership

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is a one man, one house relationship. Just as God intended.

Regular partnership

More than one person contributes funds, services, and property. Partners have equal say in managing the business. 

Limited partnership

Just like a regular partnership, except there is a general manager that is actively engaged in the day to day operations of the business, and limited partners that contribute funds and share in the passive gains.

Corporation

A corporation is just like a limited partnership, except that it is a distinct, separate legal entity from the individuals it represents. 

S Corporations

The S stands for small business. A small business corporation passes the income and the losses to the owners, who must pay personal income tax.

C Corporations

The C stands for… The C refers to “Internal Revenue Code—subchapter “C”—under which its tax designation is described.” per https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/c-corporation/. I had to look that up. The income and losses are not passed through and the corporation must pay taxes on the income.

Limited Liability Company

An LLC is like a regular partnership in that multiple people can contribute and gain, and it’s like a S corporation because it is a separate legal entity, and the profits and losses pass through to the owners. 

Tips to not get audited

1. Be meticulous. The return should look professional. There shouldn’t be any erasure marks. The papers should be neat, orderly, and clean. The math should add up. If you round up to the nearest $5000, it will look like you’re guessing. Don’t round the numbers. Your state and federal returns should match.
2. Mail your return by registered mail. 
3. Don’t file early. The IRS has 3 years following April 15 to decide to audit you. If you get the extension to file late, the IRS will have less time to decide. You might avoid an audit through IRS indecision.  (Even if you get the extension to file late, you still need to pay taxes by April 15).
4. Don’t file Electronically. The IRS has to hire temp workers to transcribe data from paper returns into their database. There’s only so many hours in the day, and a ton of returns, so the data entry clerks only enter the most essential information. Additionally the IRS has to store the paperwork for X number of years, and then they dispose of it. This is good because the IRS can only audit you based on the information it has. If the information they need wasn’t important enough at the time to type up, and/or is now shredded, then you’re safe.
5. If you claim a large, legitimate deduction on your return, include a Disclosure Statement with your return explaining the situation. It’s not a guarantee, but auditing is a painful and expensive process and if your explanation seems reasonable, they might not audit you.
6. Report all rental income. The IRS wasn’t born yesterday. If your numbers for income seem disproportionately low, you might be flagged for an audit.

 Chapter 2

Landlord Tax Categories

Business owner

Business owners differ from investors in that they are active in the operations. They interview, call, hire, fire, etc. One note, it’s possible to hire a real estate agent or management company to do the operations for you. You’re still the business owner, even if you’re not personally doing the work. 

Real estate investor

A real estate investor simply puts money into a business and expects their share to increase in value, or pay dividends. They have little to no say in the operations. 

Dealer in real estate

People who buy real estate low and sell high are real estate dealers. They are not particularly interested in collecting rents or dividends. It’s possible to own one house for collecting rent, and one house for flipping and selling. In this case, be very careful to keep your records straight and your receipts separate. The IRS will determine your dealer status on a property by property basis.

A person who owns rental property as a not-for-profit activity

There are three general cases when someone is considered not profit motivated:

• Renting out a vacation home that you or family occasionally use
• Renting below market rates
• Letting the property sit vacation for a substantial amount of time

Tax Consequences

Business owners and Investors can deduct many of the same big ticket items from their revenue: repair costs, depreciation, interest, travel expenses, etc.

Investors do not get the following that business owners get: Home office deduction, seminar or convention attendance tickets, $5,000 for starting up your business.

If your activity is not-for-profit, you can only deduct as much income as you made. You can’t report a loss. If you earned $6,000 in rent collected, you can only claim $6,000 in deductions. It’s only worth claiming deductions if you can itemize and they add up to more than the standard deduction. 

Dealers have the worst hand when it comes to tax treatment. Their profits from sales count as ordinary income as opposed to business owners and investors whose profits are subject to capital gains which is usually much lower. They can’t deduct depreciation. They have to pay self-employment tax and medicare tax. And if that’s not bad enough, they also have to file a Schedule C. 

Chapter 3

Deducting Operating Expenses

The two golden equations to know for real estate business owners are: 

• profit = revenue – expense
• tax due = profit X tax percent

If your revenue equals your expenses, then you don’t have to pay any taxes. The rent has to be at least market rate, so it’s hard to get the revenue low. This means the expenses need to be as high as possible. In order to get the expenses high, you need to re-invest in the business. 

There are two main categories of expenses: operating expenses and capital expenses (aka improvements)

To be classified as an operating expense it must be all of the following:

• ordinary and necessary
• current
• directly related to rental activity
• reasonable in amount

Operating Expenses include: office supplies, advertising, cleaning supplies, property insurance, accountant fees, mortgage interest, utilities, and most importantly, repairs. 

No-No Deductions 

The following are forbidden from being deducted:

• Paying government fines for parking tickets or violating city housing codes
• Bribes and kickbacks
• 2/3rd of damages paid for violating the federal antitrust laws
• Real estate exams or license fees
• Country club membership fees
• Federal income tax (haha nice try)

Chapter 4

Repairs vs Improvement

Everyone wants to claim that an improvement is a repair. The advantage is that repairs can be classified as an operating expense, and thus deducted immediately. Improvements have to be depreciated. Depreciation is similar to amortization in the sense that the cost is spread out over time. The general rule of thumb is that repairs bring the structure back to the original state before the destruction and improvements make the house better than before. 

For instance, if your roof leaks and it’s patched up, it’s considered a repair. If the roof leaks and you replace the old shingles with titanium shingles, then it’s an improvement, even though in effect it has only fixed a leak. 

Things that are improvements even though we’d like them to be classified as repairs

There is a gray area the size of the moon when it comes to repairs. Ultimately it boils down to interpretation of tax code, which is best left to tax attorneys and the IRS. That being said, here is a list of things that are generally considered improvements even though we’d like them to be classified as repairs:

• All major appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher, air conditioner, water heater, etc.) 
• Bringing the house up to code (even if the government forces you to do it)
• Replacing a cracked brick wall with a new brick wall
• Replacing a worn out wood floor with a concrete floor
• Removing an environmental hazard (lead, asbestos, radon, mold, etc.)

These costs have to be spread out over several years instead of all at once. 

General Plan of Improvement and the Accidental Repair Plan

The General Plan of Improvement is, I swear, one of those things the IRS invented to ensnare unsuspecting landlords and take all of their money. Actually, I think they purposefully leave it ambiguous so that landlords don’t try to game the system. It goes as such: if you planned to, or it looks like you planned to make several repairs all at once, then actually you made a bunch of improvements. And then you’d have to depreciate the cost over several years instead of all at once. And if you accidentally deduct your expenses all at once and the IRS catches you three years later, you will owe back taxes.

There is a simple trick to getting around this rule, and I call it the Accidental Repair Plan. To implement said plan, spread out repairs over as long of a time period as possible, several years if you can. Hire out the work to a variety of contractors. Make sure all of the invoices reference “repair of X” instead of “improved X.” If possible, have a tenant. It’s nice to have a tenant because then you have income while you are incurring expenses, but it’s not always convenient to plan around their schedule, which is why many landlords unsuspectingly use a General Plan of Improvement between tenants. Of course, don’t be a slumlord. Get the house fixed up and habitable in a timely manner, for the sake of all that is decent and civil.

Chapter 5

Depreciation = Tax Free Over Time

Since repairs are considered operating expenses, they are deducted the same year that they occur. Since property that wears down, such as houses, fences, new roofs, and lawn mowers are not operating expenses and instead are considered improvements, the deductions are spread out over several years, depending on the category of improvement. For instance, a house depreciates over 27.5 years. 

What’s the Basis?

The first step to calculating how much you can depreciate is determining the “basis” of the improvement. The basis is the total amount that you paid for it. For a house, the basis includes the: cost of the property, legal fees, transfer taxes, etc. The land that the house was built on does not wear down, so it cannot be depreciated, and is not included in the basis. There are other ways of calculating the basis, but they are much more complicated.

Depreciation Period…

The “value” of property generally follows a line sloping down to the right. Let’s say it goes down by $100/year. You can deduct $100 each year until the value hits zero. There are other lines, some are more advantageous by being steeper at the beginning (more money deducted and thus less taxes paid that year). This is one of the most complicated parts of tax law, so I will leave it to the tax attorneys and the IRS.

And they lived happily ever after

The tax law only gets more and more complicated. It’s fractal in nature. Every law has a sub-law, and the sub-law has an exception, and the exception has an interpretation from the IRS, which was overruled by the tax court, etc. And it’s like that all the way down to the metaphysics of property rights (do property rights physically exist?). But, that is a topic for the sequel, Every Landlord’s Metaphysics of Property Rights Guide. 

I figured out the stock market. It’s all one big theater play. One big con. In order to explain, I’d like to go on a wide tangent about the game of No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s relevant. I promise. Believe me? Mmmm excellent.

No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em

The rules of poker are deceptively simple. Each player gets two cards face down that only they can peek at. Each player gets a chance to bet. Each successive player can either raise, call (which means match the bet) or fold. Then the dealer lays out three cards face up on the table for everyone to see and there is another round of betting. One more face up card and a round of betting. Then the fifth and final card placed face up and the final round of betting. 

The secret of poker is that it’s not about what cards you have, it’s how you play them. Imagine having two Jacks and your opponent goes all in (bets everything). Do you call? Are you that bold?  Wouldn’t you feel dumb when it turns out they have a pair of Queens? And so, as the old adage goes, “It’s better to fold and appear stupid, than to go all in and remove all doubt.”

On the other hand, if you expect your opponent to have a Two and a Three, if you see through your opponent’s ruse, you can “call their bluff.” The problem with folding is that it tells your opponent that you’re willing to fold! It means they can get away with bigger and bigger lies. If they never get called out, if you fold every time, they win.

The Stock Market

I’m reading a book called, “The History of the United States in Five Stock Market Crashes” by Scott Nations. The first crash in 1907 was partly caused by a man, Fritz Heinze, who bought enough stock in a bank to have the controlling vote, made himself president, and then loaned himself money to buy more stock in more banks. Banks, he reckoned, were based on trust. As long as there was trust in banks, he could write himself checks and cash them too. (This was common practice back then. I’m not blaming Fritz in particular. He just makes a good example.) 

Banks make money by making smart loans and collecting interest. Banks can only hold as many deposits as people trust the banks to make smart loans. A smart loan is when the risk is small relative to the interest gained, and diversified. For the same reason you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, you don’t make one giant loan to one person, who works in the same industry as yours. This was not a smart loan because if anything happened to one bank, or one person, the bank would lose all of their money. Although as long as no one called him out on making such a stupid loan, he could continue to write himself loans. He was running a confidence game and hoping no one would call him on his bluff. 

The brothers, Otto, Aurthur, and Fritz Heinze conspired to manipulate the market (which was legal and common practice too.) Fritz owned United Copper which had a stock on the New York Stock Exchange that they would target. The plan was simple; Otto would borrow money from Fritz to execute numerous buy orders, and simultaneously borrow money to order a few “short” sales. A short is when you expect the price to go down, you borrow stocks and then sell them at a lower price. The motivation behind this scheme is that the flurry of activity would inspire other traders to get in while the going is good and raise the price of the stock.

Unfortunately it all backfired spectacularly. The price didn’t move up as expected. It moved down. Otto had more buy orders than short orders. Which meant that Otto now owed more money that he started with. And when the other traders saw that the price was going down, they all sold too. The price went from $70 down to $10 in a matter of weeks. Which meant Fritz was bankrupt too. And all of his customers at his bank thought, “Why is this bankrupt man running my bank? I better take my money out of the bank just to be safe.” All of his customers thought this and all of them took their money out. 

It might have made front page news and been the end of it… except he wasn’t the only one, nor the biggest bluffer. There were many other men just like Fritz. What brought the stock market to its knees is that not only could you not trust Fritz, but you couldn’t trust his brothers, his associates, vendors, and ultimately people lost trust in both the financial industry and the stock market as a whole. It was as if five people were playing poker, and they all went all-in without even a pair of twos. 

We have since put regulations on banks to prevent daisy chain ownership like Fritz did. Unfortunately, the stock market remains largely unchanged. Certainly there are some aspects of a business that can be broken down to fundamentals: assets, liabilities, management, IP etc. But in large part, it’s still based on borrowed money, bluster, and notoriety. Can any sane person explain to me why Tesla’s stock is $736 and GM is $50 (almost 15x more)? 

The Greatest Con of All Time

The only advice I can faithfully give, from drawing parallels between poker and the stock market, is that it really doesn’t matter what the fundamentals of business are, because there will always be con men who are playing to win, instead of playing to create. At the end of the day, we just have to be aware, and cautious around risky ideas and the people who go “all in” on them. Going all in on a poker hand is often a sign of a weak hand and an overconfident player. But, what are we going to do about it? Shorting the market in today’s terms would look like going all in on gold bullion. Even if shorting the market is the rational course of action, how long would you be willing to hold onto gold while your friends are looking at 10% returns on their stock portfolio? 10 years? And if you’re wrong? You go bust. Sometimes it’s safer just to fold. 

Bo Burnham has a new album/ Netflix show out. One song, “How the World Works,” has stuck out to me because of its depth. Every time I listen to it, I get a new layer of meaning.

1st listen

It starts off with a simplistic childrens’ tune and lyric about how the world works. It has a definitive communist skew. 

“And every single cricket, every fish in the sea
Gives what they can and gets what they need”

It’s cute. It’s fun. And then Bo introduces his sock puppet on his hand, named Socko. The sock puppet is a far left-wing nut. 

“The global network of capital essentially functions
To separate the worker from the means of production”

It’s comedic to hear a children’s song go from feel good communism to revolutionary.

2nd listen

On the second listen you realize that the very essence that Socko is rebelling against, affects him in the same song he is singing about. 

“Watch your mouth, buddy. Remember who’s on whose hand here,” said Bo.
“But that’s what I’ve— Have you not been f*ing listening?” said Socko.

It’s ironic that Socko is pointing out the flaws of the system from within the system, and at the end, the sock is punished for it. Bo uses existential threats against the sock puppet to get him back in line. 

3rd listen

It’s entirely possible that Bo never actually cared about the world or the conditions of its inhabitants. When Socko is introduced, he claims, “I’ve been where I always am when you’re not wearing me on your hand: in a frightening, liminal space between states of being! Not quite dead, not quite alive! It’s similar to a constant state of sleep paralysis”

Which is, you know, not great. And it certainly doesn’t fit into how the world works from the simplistic communist perspective. 

The song ends by Bo putting Socko in his place by threatening to return Socko to his liminal space/ sleep paralysis. Bo’s “feel good communist” rhetoric was just a facade for an authoritarian autocracy. Hilarious!

4th listen

By the fourth listen, you realize that this is all happening inside of Bo Burham’s head. Socko isn’t a real being. It’s just an imaginary friend. Bo has imagined the entire conflict as a way to make himself feel powerful. It’s like playing with action figures. That Bo, what a genius.

In my vast expeditions into the depths of Wikipedia, I stumbled on the idea of Multi-arm Bandits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit It taught me everything I need to know about how to make better decisions in the face of uncertainty. 

One-arm Bandits, otherwise known as slot machines, have negative expected value. If you take the sum of each outcome multiplied by its probability and payout, minus the cost to play, the outcome is negative. If it was a fair coin flip and the payout was $2 for heads and $0 for tails, and it costs $1.50 to play, then the expected value is (2 x 0.5 + 0 x 0.5) -1.5 = -$0.50. It’s possible to make money on any single attempt, but on average you will lose money. Casinos collect that negative expected value from gambling machines.

Multi-arm Bandit Problems go as such: suppose you had a row of ten slot machines, two of them have a positive expected value and eight have a negative expected value, but you don’t know which. What is the minimum number of “pulls,” how many attempts, would it take to find the winners?

On one hand, If you attempt each machine once, that gives very little information. A machine may have a large range of payouts and a balanced probability of each. On the other hand, you could brute force the solution by pulling the arm of each machine 10,000 times. The optimum solution is somewhere between 1 and 10,000. Yes, there is a mathematical answer to this arbitrary problem. If there’s one thing academia is good at, it’s answering questions no one thought to ask. 

This does have actual real world applications though. Exposing children to a variety of subjects in school lets them explore in a fairly cheap way. If a child was exposed to math only once and they disliked it, they might never try again. If they have repeated exposure, they might learn to like it. Same for vegetables. Once you’re an adult, if you don’t like asparagus yet, you’re probably not going to like it in the future.

Are people naturally good, or bad? At any given moment some people are having a bad day, but if you give them another chance, they might do the right thing, or maybe over the long term they’re making bad choices on average. 

The most profitable application is stock market portfolio allocations. Suppose you randomly bought ten stocks. Each week, they would either go up or down. You can calculate how long you would have to hold on to each stock before you can confidently determine if it’s a winner or a loser.

Studying Multi-Arm Bandit problems has taught me a few things. 

1. A single occurrence isn’t necessarily indicative of the average
2. Don’t be afraid to stick around to see if an opportunity turns around
3. Don’t become attached to a single opportunity just because it’s been doing well for a stint

I woke up and scratched my tuchus. I noticed I wasn’t wearing any underwear. I was in my all-together. Nature’s own. Where were my silk boxers? Why does this hotel room look like a Holiday Inn and not the Ritz-Carlton? I would never stay in a Holiday Inn, even if I was desperate.

I threw off the sheets and stretched. My limbs were limber and the pain in my lower back from sitting all day was gone.

I went to the bathroom to relieve myself, but couldn’t go. I went to the sink to shave and was surprised that I couldn’t find a razor, shaving gel, or my toiletries travel kit. What was more surprising was the face and naked body of the young man looking at me. The young man looked into my eyes, turned his head when I did, and blinked when I did. I leaned in to get a good look at my fog grey eyes and the little freckle I harbored under my left eye. Gone. Replaced by delicate brown eyes and radiant skin. I’m not sure how my mother would have felt about the fact that I now looked… well, Asian.

I fell back on my bed and that’s when it all came rushing back to me. There was a car accident off of 7th and Castro. One of those self-driving cars lost control of the brakes. I could see it barreling down the hill. A family of five was crossing the street. The car swerved at the last minute and chose to hit me instead.

Thinking about it now made me terribly upset! I didn’t want to die! I didn’t ask for this. I was quickly consoled by the considerable craftsmanship of my new body by rotating my wrists and articulating my fingers. No more carpal tunnel from typing too much.

Well, it’s was probably for the best, considering I’m sitting pretty in my Android 9000^TM. This was the finest External Body Back-Up you could buy on the black market, which might explain why, when I looked out my window of my Holiday Inn hotel, I could see the bustling metropolis of Seoul instead of San Francisco. A smug grin spread across my face when I thought about how I would get to say, “I told you so,” to Rebecca for spending a quarter of Adam’s college money on this instead.

Rebecca! frantically searched for my phone so I could call her. I didn’t see it on the floor so I checked under the covers of the bed. And then the door handle jiggled. The electronic key reader on the outside went, “neeeeet neeeet” and then it opened.

I stood there naked in shock as a gorgeous woman walked in on me. She wore a black mini-skirt, white blouse, and a sensible black sports jacket.

“Woah, woah! Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Did we sleep together last night?” I said with self-disgust. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

I could faintly hear marimbas playing in the distance. It sounded like a cellphone ringtone. Then it occurred to me that a cell phone was ringing somewhere in this hotel room. Before this woman could answer my questions, I shuffled toward the sound with my hands covering my crotch. In the closet was a phone and a stack of neatly folded clothes that I guessed would fit me.

I recognized the number so I answered the phone immediately.

“Rebecca-”

“Simon, where the hell are you?”

“Honey, I’m-”

“Don’t ‘Honey’ me. We’ve been planning this trip for months. You promised me you’d take time off of work. You were going to take me to Napa. You’ve missed every single anniversary celebration since we’ve been married. You promised me this time it would be different. If you miss our 10th anniversary dinner tomorrow, I’m literally going to kill you.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I decided that now wasn’t the best time to bring up the fact that I’m now a 21 year old Korean boy and that I woke up with another woman in my room. Luckily, she hung up on me before I could explain.

I put on my clothes as fast as I could. Striped short shorts with no pockets that barely covered my chicken legs and an oversized static grey t-shirt that said, “Disny.” I made a mental note that I would need to find another Body Back-Up provider that had better fashion sense before I died. Again.

Then I rushed out of the room without ever saying goodbye to my new roommate. Outside was a perfectly fine day ruined by a glaring sun which seemed to beam directly on me. It was like a spotlight, highlighting my every move, judging me, watching me stumble around in my new body. I was sweating profusely from the pressure and the heat. And the nagging worry that I might have cheated on my wife on the day before our anniversary. Even though it was early morning, the Seoul streets were flooded with cars. Eventually I found a taxi and that’s when I remembered I didn’t have a wallet. Or a passport. Or a visa for that matter. Did I need a visa? Technically I’m a US citizen, I just have no way of proving it.

I sat on the curb with my head in my hands. I was staring at the pavement, searching for answers in the stubble of the asphalt, wondering how hard it would be to stow away on an ocean liner. As I was doing the math in my head, thinking how far I’d have to walk to the nearest harbor, and how long the trip would be, a pair of beetle black heels parked next to me.

In the heels was the stranger I left in my bedroom.

“Need help?” she asked.

“Me? No, I can ruin my life on my own. Thank you.” I replied.

“I didn’t get a chance to formally introduce myself. My name is Junho Park, but you can call me June. I am your complementary escort for the day. What’s your name?”

“Simon Hoffman, CEO of Summr. And while it’s very nice to meet a young lady such as yourself, I do not need an escort. I’ve been happily married to my wife for ten years, thank you very much.

She shrugged as if I told her it might rain today. “What’s wrong, then?”

“You mean besides the fact that my wife is going to leave me?”

She looked understandably confused, so I continued, “I’m going to miss our tenth anniversary in a row because I’m in the wrong country. And while I have a passport it doesn’t match my mug, and I don’t have any money with me.”

Her face lit up at that. From her inside jacket pocket, she procured a passport and a wad of Korean Won rolled in a rubber band. “These come with the Total New-Body Package you purchased. Would you like me to help you buy a plane ticket?”

“Wonderful! Better idea. Why don’t you give me that and I’ll go to San Francisco, by myself, and then my wife won’t freak out when she finds out I had an escort.”

I skipped to the nearest taxi and spent ten minutes trying to explain that I wanted to go to the airport. The poor taxi driver had no idea what I was shouting about, and couldn’t understand why someone who looked like a young Korean man wouldn’t speak Korean with him. Just as I was about to give up, June walked over. She said something to the driver and handed him some Won. They laughed. And just like that he beckoned me into the car. I gave her a saccharin smile and waved goodbye to her from the open window. “Buh-bye, Buh-bye now, thanks again.” Some people just don’t know when to quit. Oh well, I’ll never see her again.

Getting on an airplane was not any easier than the taxi. The line to the ticket desk snaked like a lazy, sated, boa constrictor. I made it to the front, and there was a direct flight to SFO coming up, but then it took too long to figure out my paperwork, so I would have to catch the next flight. At least I was 16 hours ahead of San Francisco. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late. I texted Rebecca, “Don’t worry, I’ll be there by 9am.” No reply. There was still a few hours before my flight, so I pulled my arms inside my “Disny” shirt, kicked my feet out, closed my eyes, and tried not to think about how I always think too much.

…

The plane landed in the sea of perennial fog that I knew and loved. San Francisco. I was home. Now I just had to get to Rebecca before she left without me. The flight attendant was kind enough to let me know it was 7:15am local time, which gave me almost two hours. My seat was unbuckled as soon as the indicator told me I could. I was nearly, but not quite, pushing the people in front of me off the plane so I could get off faster. Then I was sprinting through the terminal with my phone in a death grip, ready to call an Uber as soon as I could. Until one of the security guards yelled at me for running.

It was at this point that my knees started locking up. They were stiff from the plane ride. Not painful like arthritis. I noticed that I didn’t feel any pain. Instead they just didn’t fully extend. I’m sure I looked absurd as a 21 year old boy running like a 90 year old man.

Just as I was exiting the sliding glass doors of the airport, my foot caught on the door jam. My reaction time wasn’t as good in this body. It wasn’t calibrated yet. I could feel time slow down as I stared down at the ground, and watched it get bigger and bigger until it punched me right in the face. I faceplanted on the cement.

I laid there shocked more than anything. It didn’t hurt. There wasn’t blood. But there were two front teeth sitting where my face landed. And two feet away was a trail of glass and a lump of plastic that used to be my cellphone.

Not the end of the world. Instead of an Uber, I’ll just get a taxi. With a huff, I pushed myself upright and patted myself down. And then my world really turned inside out. My shorts don’t have pockets. My money and passport were missing. I must have left them on the plane. It was now 7:45am. There was no way I could power walk back through the airport to the gate to get my stuff and still make it home by 9am in San Francisco traffic.

I sat on the cub and would have cried, but my new body couldn’t produce tears. One hundred questions pinballed in my head all at once. How do I keep getting into situations like this? Where did I go wrong? How could I have avoided this? Besides not dying and leaving my stuff on the plane.

I sat there for another 15 minutes, oscillating between giving up and thinking of schemes to make it home.

“I think you forgot something on the plane.” said a friendly voice from behind me.

I shot up like there was a rocket in my tuchus and spun around to find June standing there. She was holding out my passport and money. Without hesitating I walked up and wrapped my arms around her.

“I thimply don’t believe it!” I said. Speaking without my two front teeth was proving to be a… unique experience for me. “Thank you! What are you doing here? I mean, how are you here?”

“I followed you. You said you were going to San Francisco, so I took the same flight as you. I figured you might need help.”

“You bought a plane ticket just to thee if I needed more help?”

“I charged it to your account” she said apologetically. “I hope that’s ok.”

“It’th fine. In fact, it’th better than fine. Actually…” It killed me to say this, but I didn’t have any other choice, I swallowed hard and gave a heavy sigh, “could you help me? I tripped and broke my phone. Would you mind booking a ride for me?”

…

We made pretty good time. The dashboard clock said it was 8:45 when we got out of the car. I was so thrilled with my wild success. I couldn’t wait to start on a much needed vacation with my beautiful wife. I power walked as fast as my knees would take me to the hidden key and let myself in.

“Rebecca!” I bellowed into my Bay Area mansion. I checked both bedrooms and the bathroom. The whole house was only 900 square feet, but she was nowhere to be found. Adam was gone too. The clock in the kitchen said it was 8:52, so I knew I wasn’t late. I went into our bedroom to see if she left a note.

There wasn’t a note, but there was a pile of clothes next to the dresser. And one of our luggage bags was missing. I guess I was too late after all.

I could hear a car roll up outside and Rebecca shouting, “Excuse me, what are you doing at my house?” I was electrified. I couldn’t wait to see my wife at last.

“Rebecca! Thank God you’re here. It’th me, Thimon!” I yelled, power walking towards her car.

She yelped and recoiled. “Thimon? I’m sorry I don’t know you and I don’t know what you’re doing in my house. I’m going to call the cops now.”

“Honey, honey! It’th me, your huthband.”

“Simon? Is that really you? Why are you missing your front teeth? And you know… Asian?”

“Long thtory. Can we go to Napa now?”

She sighed and cracked a smile.“Go pack. You have 15 minutes.”

I turned to June, who was patiently standing there, clearly pleased with her work.

“June, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I stroked my clean shaven jaw in contemplation. “You know, I’m CEO of Summr. I just decided that there’th an opening for an Executive Assistant. I could use thomeone like you. Would you be interested in helping me out at work?”

“I’d love to.”

“Great. I’ll thee you at 6am next Monday.”

I’ve decided to include “The Meaning of Life” in the title of every blog post from now on. Honestly, what’s the point of life if you’re not going to discuss the meaning of life?

Iocane Powder

There’s a scene in the movie “The Princess Bride” where the protagonist, Wesley, offers his foe, Vizzini, a battle of wits. He will poison one of two drinks, switch them back and forth behind his back, and make Vizzini guess which was poisoned by drinking the other one. Vizzini argues himself into a pretzel, makes an arbitrary guess, and then switches the drinks again at the last minute. He chose wrong. It turns out Westley poisoned both drinks.

Assuming Westley didn’t poison both drinks, if we had to choose a drink, could we have done better? Could we use chemistry, biology, physics, human psychology, etc? Could we gather data and draw a conclusion? It might scare you, in an existential way, if the answer is “No.” After all, knowing what is safe to eat is something we take for granted on a daily basis.

But the really scary answer is “yes.” We absolutely could, and would, gather data, and draw statistically significant conclusions… And still be absolutely 100% factually wrong. And yet, even being wrong, it’s possible to get the answer right just by probability. What if Vizzini picked the right drink, not by being smart, but by being lucky? After all, he has a 50/50 chance.

How do we know if we are right for the right reasons? 

The Stock Market

We live in a world of Vizzinis. Everyone is 100% confident they have a trading strategy that works. They use all sorts of data, graphs, logic, math, and formulae. Sometimes they’re right, and they point to the data, graphs, logic, math, and formulae and say, “See! I told you!” And sometimes they don’t make money and they scratch their heads and say, “Huh.” Should we say these people are imbeciles who have no idea what they are doing, just because they don’t make money? How else can we judge someone, other than how much money they make? I mean stock traders.

The Meaning of Life

As a young man who lacked money, I was dissatisfied! How is it, whether you are the President, or the pizza guy, you never have enough money? I left the comfort of my home to discover the answer. I started by getting a job where I made lots of money, but I was dissatisfied. Thinking maybe I got it backward, I got a job where I made almost no money, but I was still dissatisfied. 

I have meditated on the issue for many years. I have finished my journey exactly where I started with nothing to show for it except gained wisdom. Like the Buddah, I have come to the conclusion that I knew the truth the whole time: Raising our status quo feels good. Keeping it the same feels bad. And dissatisfaction is inevitable. 

I once embarked on a journey to discover the secrets of the stock market. I have returned to reveal the Truth. The Truth is that there is no Truth. Lots of people are partly right, part of the time. 

I’m sure we’ve all had points in our lives where we said, “I have a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, a fast car, a job that doesn’t make me hate myself…” or “I have a million dollars, but no friends…” or “I’m rich and famous, but I have no money…”

“… why am I not happy?”

Excellent question! I recently read this mind blowing blog post which I recommend you read too: 

Essentially the blog post says that there are two forms of “pleasure.” There is Fast Euphoria and Slow Euphoria. Fast Euphoria you get from racing your friend in a foot race, or working late into the night on your Anarcho-Techno-Marxist Manifesto. You can also get it from amphetamines! It feels good and it’s high energy. It’s thrilling. 

Opposite that is Slow Euphoria. You get this from finally cleaning your entire house and getting rid of all that junk, or a hug from an old friend, or sipping tea with your cat on your lap and watching the sunrise. You can also get it from opioids! It feels good and it’s low energy. It’s contentedness.

The first thing to realize is that there is a difference between happiness and pleasure. Humans were meant to pursue pleasure. The reason we are not happy is because we were not meant to be happy. 

We look for mates, and money, and status because it feels good in the moment. We are being rewarded with Fast Euphoria to reinforce behavior such as: hard work, persistence, creativity etc. 

Ideally, once you have a mate, money, and status, you will experience some Slow Euphoria. But not too much Slow Euphoria. Too much and humans lose incentive to work hard, persist, and be creative. 

What does this mean for the Meaning of Life? It’s important to realize the forces of nature that push and pull us in the same way it’s important to understand weather. And once we understand the weather, we can start farming…

Suppose we live in a world controlled by Anarcho-Techno-Marxists robots. They offer free amphetamines for people who vote, and free opioids for people who buy houses. This is not really a world we want to live in, but only because it makes us unhappy! Think about how much happier we will all be once they can plug wire receptors directly into our brains and trigger emotions remotely!

Betty devoured another jerky strip. It was the fourth and comprised the remainder of her meal. She felt hollow. Hungry, of course. Always hungry. But there were days when she did well in the Arena and was rewarded amply with jerky strips. On those days, when she gorged herself, her gums felt raw, her teeth sore, her jaws ached, her belly full, yet still on those days she still felt something missing. Like a jigsaw puzzle missing the edge pieces. She swallowed hard on a grizzly piece and tried not to think about it too much. It only made the hunger stronger.

To distract herself she pulled out her most treasured, and only, belonging. She got it from Lilly. Poor Lilly. It was an image of some sort. It was creased and wrinkled from the nights when Betty fell asleep staring at it. Wishing. Desperate for the dream that took place in the picture. Desperate for an escape from this nightmare. 

It was a picture of the outside. Green stuff covered the floor. The space above it was painted pastel blue. Wispy white things lay on top. Some sort of spotlight shone in every direction.  Betty didn’t quite know what she was looking at, but it didn’t stop her from admiring the beauty every chance she could. It was mesmerizing, like staring directly at a flame. 

“9-4-7-8-0-0-8-5,” said a voice from her wrist, “the arena battle begins in fifteen minutes. It’s time to get up and get ready. I’d hate for you to be late.”

The voice was friendly, but there was a hint of menace, a veiled threat, carefully concealed in a kindly voice as a helpful reminder. There were no clocks in her domicile so she needed to be told when to get ready.

She put the picture away, fighting herself all the while torn between what she needed to do and what she wanted to do.

Her only other possession was a Smart Cuff, which belonged to Benevolence. It was a technological marvel which allowed her to communicate with Benevolence at all times.

Her leotard was tight. Too tight. She gripped the toxic-green fabric from around her stick legs and arms and stretched it as much as he could but it was futile. Finally, she gave up and exited the automatic door.

The floor beneath her was lit with technicolor veins of LED lights. Her color was a pallid mauve. She kept her head bowed and followed her path religiously. Normally it led her on a straight and narrow path, but not always. Today was one of those days when it led her down new corridors, snaking through the Newcomers’ Quarters.

She nearly stumbled over a young man collapsed on the floor. Her breath caught in her mouth. Seeing him like that, it reminded her of Lilly. Poor Lilly. She instinctively shook her Smart Cuff awake.

“Benevolence, what should I do with this Resident?”

“I am your own personal AI, 9-4-7-8-0-0-8-5. I would not lead you astray. I have sent you to rescue this man. Through you, he will be saved. Take him to the Arena. You have four minutes remaining before the battle begins . . . and I’d hate for either of you to be late.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She wasn’t strong by any means. The lack of sufficient sustenance ensured she was always a little shaky, but it also taught her how to deal with adversity. She knew what to do.

She bent down, flipped him on his back, and then energetically slapped his face to get him to wake up. His eyelids fluttered open. 

“Wha . . . Who . . .” he mumbled.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Let’s go, let’s go. Up, up, up.”

He was still dazed and needed her help to stand. They hobbled together, his arm around her small frame. 

She noticed that his fingers were bloody and staining her leotard and ugly brown. “Hey, buddy, what happened to your fingers?”

With a devilish grin he opened the palm of his other hand and revealed two tiny flat head screws.

“Where did you get those?” 

He knew. He knew things he shouldn’t know. So, without saying anything, he looked up to the left and up to the right. For the first time since Betty could remember, she saw air ducts spaced at regular intervals along the corridor. He winked.

“You can’t possibly be thinking of—”

“Escape,” he said, just as he began to crumple like a bug sprayed with insecticide. He curled up and started whimpering and kneading his feet. Then he passed out. Betty knew exactly what had happened because she remembered when she had first tried to escape. Little metal rods implanted in her feet began to throb with electromagnetic pulses. It was as if the floor became lava and scorched her feet. 

“You have two minutes before Assignment. I would advise getting there quickly before there are . . . any more consequences,” said Benevolence through the Smart Cuffs on their arms.

Every laborious step closer to the assignment room filled her with dread. Yesterday she nearly had her head cut off. If she had not tripped over a dead man at her feet, she certainly would have been a corpse by now.

Her stomach grumbled. Four pieces of beef jerky was not quite enough for a day’s worth of activity. Spurred on by her hunger for survival, she dragged this newcomer along with her and propped him up against the kiosk in the Assignment Room. 

She logged in with her fingerprint and her credentials, using her real name, 94780085, but was apparently too late. She clocked in at 00:01, a minute past the start time. The only available weapons were a pair of dull machetes and a rusty dagger. She submitted her choice and two machetes clattered out of the vending machine next to the kiosk. The newcomer staggered upright and stood staring at the screen confusedly. Realizing that he might stand there forever and that she was already late, she decided to help him. She smeared his bloody hand on the wall to clean it and pressed his pointer finger to the fingerprint scanner. Then she held his forearm face up and typed in his real name, 97848461. His only option was the remaining rusty dagger. So armed, they entered the arena.

The combatants were still getting warmed up. The arena was vast. It was so large that she could sprint across it and be winded by the time she got to the other side. 

“We have to get out of here.” He was still blinking awake.

“Yes, we have to survive.”

“No, I mean out out.” 

Her heart did a cartwheel and stopped halfway. “Out out?” It had been a long time before she had any hope of escape. It had died out with Lilly. Now here it was again. Hope. This man who was too curious for his own good, who had almost managed to get the cover off of a vent, and perhaps escaped.

He held out his hand again. Circled by blood-encrusted fingertips were the two screws. She plucked one from his palm and examined it under the harsh spotlights shining down from high overhead. “You got these from an air duct. These air ducts lead outside?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

She eyed him suspiciously. At just that moment, a man strode between them, interrupting their conversation. He glanced behind him and sneered as if he had just whiffed a foul smell. “Watch where you’re going, losers,” spat the man.

Betty took her new friend by the shoulder and led him away. “That was Ace. He’s . . . Just steer clear of him, alright? What’s your name, anyway?”

“My name’s Saul,” said Saul, sticking his hand out for a shake, “what’s yours?”

“Betty,” said Betty, taking his hand apprehensively. “Saul, as much as I’d like to even get close to the vents, there’s one problem.”

“What’s that?”

Betty’s eyes drifted to the Vomitorium “Deathbots. . .”

A black tunnel was spewing out a few dozen Ankle Biters, tiny robots shaped like disks which roamed across the arena in an unpredictable zig-zag pattern. Saw blades mounted on their backs spun mercilessly. 

Chaos erupted in the arena. Residents scrambled in every direction, desperate to get away from the tiny devils. Saul and Betty frantically dashed in every direction, seeking safety.

Out of nowhere, a man ran right in front of Betty. Without thinking, she plowed into him. He fell to the floor, and as he lay there, an Ankle Biter quickly perforated his back with its whirling blade. He writhed in silent agony, too shocked to even scream, his life blood pooling on the floor. Betty was shocked, too. Too paralyzed to move, too revolted to look away, she gave her own silent scream and didn’t move until Saul pulled her away and urged her to keep moving.

“Well done, 9-4-7-8-0-0-8-5 . . . you survived.” said Benevolence through the Smart Cuff. Ahead of the pair, a small hole in the floor opened up and a platform rose up to eye level from somewhere below them. It held a shiny serrated dagger.

She grabbed it in disbelief. She had never held such a fearsome weapon. It was never offered as an option in the Assignment Room. In all her years in the Arena, this was her first kill. She noticed in the reflection someone was standing behind her.

She turned around to find Ace with his hands on his hips looking smug. He sported two gladii at his hips and a massive two-handed sword was strapped to his back.

“Congratulations on your first kill,” said Ace.

“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident,” said Betty. 

Ace walked over and nudged the dead man. “Tell that to this guy.”

The revulsion, the self loathing and pity for the man welled up in her.

“Don’t get too torn up about it. It happens. Your stomach will thank you tomorrow when you get extra rations. Trust me,” said Ace, patting his belly, “I know.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. It shouldn’t be like this . . .” said Betty. Betty had been a Resident in the Care for a long time, but she never got comfortable with the killing and the death. The vacant faces of the dead always haunted her sleep. Especially Lilly’s.

“Just the way the world works. Nothing you can do about it.” Ace sauntered away, pulling his left gladius from its sheath.

“What if there was?” said Betty to his back.

Ace stopped dead in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder, “You mean, what if there was a way out?”

That wasn’t what she meant, but it was what he needed to hear if she wanted his help.

“Exactly. We need to work together. Saul and I have a plan.”

Ace cocked an eyebrow.

“There are air ducts in the walls of the arena that lead . . . out. But we need to survive long enough to get there.”

“So, I get you there, and you get me out.” Ace admired his fingernails and contemplated the proposition before saying, “I’m in.”

At that very moment, the Armbots marched in. Eight-foot-tall monsters stomped through the Vomitorium. They had four spear-like feet which stabbed the ground with every step. Their feet supported a grotesque, multi-jointed arm which pivoted and spun around every which way. The Armbot in front marched up to a woman with hip length black hair. She charged headlong and leapt at the last minute. She gripped her sword with both hands above her head and poised to slice straight down. The Armbot grabbed her by the ankle and slammed her into the ground. Her sword went flying. She was too dazed to crawl away. Betty watched in horror as it proceeded to stab a woman in the stomach repeatedly. Blood stained her green leotard and turned it brown.

The three of them scanned the arena, looking for the closest air duct and the one farthest from the Armbots. Saul spotted one on the far side of the arena. 

Ace motioned for them to follow. He began walking, stomping on stray Ankle Biters that wandered too close, and then he sped up. 

He casually slaughtered several Residents that got in his way. He broke into a sprint as he approached the air duct, and his comrades did what they could to keep up. His wake of destruction was wide, leaving bloody body parts and sparking, twitching Deathbots. It made Betty queasy to see so many dead Residents because of her. Because of her plan. Because of her cooperation with people like Ace. 

Finally, the three of them arrived at the wall. Both Betty and Saul were out of breath, but Ace seemed hardly to have exerted himself at all. Ace and Saul boosted Betty up the wall toward the air duct. Each held up one of her feet. Betty pulled out her shiny new dagger and began to unscrew the fasteners. Her Smart Cuff chimed awake and said, “You’re making a dire mistake, 9-4-7-8-0-0-8-5. I would advise you to cease this activity immediately.”

Betty disregarded the warning. She got the first screw undone, and then the other. Wedging her dagger between the wall and the vent then giving it a little twist, she pried it open. With another push from below, she was able to hoist herself into the tiny hole. A little shimmy farther in revealed a cavernous alcove where she was able to crawl on her hands and knees and turn around. She reached back out and pulled Saul in next. Saul crawled into the tiny alcove, but with barely enough room for one person, decided to keep going. 

“Hold my ankles. I’ll pull Ace in next,” said Betty.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” said Saul.

Betty looked behind her incredulously. She could hear his thumping echo through the tunnel and around the corners of the ductwork. 

She went back to the hole and looked down at Ace. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. Betty could see an Armbot creeping up on Ace from behind. Her eyes went wide. Ace made a mad dash for the wall and kicked out a foot to propel himself upward. Betty reached down as far as she dared to without risking a fall from her perch in the process. 

Ace couldn’t reach her. The Armbot was closer now. He tried again, running more frantically this time, pushing even harder against the wall, scrabbling with both hands for purchase, but came up short yet again. 

Ace tried a third time. This time, the Armbot was right under him. It snared his ankle and dragged him to the floor. He pulled out both gladii and lopped off Armbot’s claw. It made to stab him with one of its feet, but he rolled out of the way into a crouch and then severed the leg. Another Armbot approached. Ace threw each gladius at the second one and landed them solidly in the protective plastic shell. But it did no good. They didn’t penetrate into the circuitry underneath the shell. The two Armbots had him backed against a wall. He pulled out his broadsword and got into a fighting stance. What he didn’t notice was an Anklebiter. One distraction was all it took, and he was another victim, another body, another face to haunt Betty.

Betty couldn’t take it. She was trying to save these people, but she couldn’t. They kept killing each other and they kept dying. She was revolted. The wanton destruction and vile menace of the world created and perpetuated by Benevolence. She could feel the disgust bubble up in her stomach. She vomited her guts out and then her brains. She retched until she was empty.

The chaos of battle still raged below her, indifferent to her suffering. Ace’s body still lay in a heap. Saul’s thumping crawl still echoed in her head.

She was dismayed, but not defeated. The memory of the picture she’d held in her hand, the one she kept under her bed, of the green area and white smears on a blue background, gave her hope. She had to keep going. There had to be more to life than this. 

She looked deeper in the darkness of the cavern. There was no way out but through. 

The tunnel was dark, dry, and warm. A breeze blew past her constantly. She had to move slowly to avoid bumping her head. It was so dark, she could not even see her hand if she held it right in front of her nose. 

Eventually the tunnel opened into a vast room full of holes like the one she crawled through. At the center of the room was a massive machine that hummed furiously and shook the walls. She clambered out of her hole and dropped to the ground. 

She took a minute to admire the room. Floor to ceiling, all four of the walls had tunnels leading out. She figured she could probably make her way to anywhere in the Care from here. She could sneak out other Residents directly from their rooms.  

There was a corridor at the far end of the room, lit by the same LED strips along the ground that she followed every morning, except these were white instead of the purple she was used to. She followed the path down, down, down. Perfectly straight and narrow. She could see a light in the distance. She picked up the pace.

At the end of the corridor was a metal door, swung wide open. She stopped at the threshold and took it all in. This was the out she had been looking for this whole time. She had finally done it. She discovered the outside world. She sank to her knees and wept. Tears of joy streamed down her face. After everything she’d been through. Now she could be free. Now she could free her fellow residents. 

She composed herself and stood up and faced the outside world. In the distance, she could see a bonfire raging. There must be other people who have already escaped. What a stroke of luck! She could work with these people to create a safe haven for residents to escape to. She set out to meet and befriend these people.

The outside world was cold. Much colder than she had expected. A wind howled and stole all of the warmth from her nose and lips. A wide swath of brown stretched in every direction. There were scraggly shrubs dotting the landscape and a glowing crescent hovered overhead.

She could smell it before she saw it. Something putrid rankled her nose. Then she saw the black soot billowing up from the bonfire. When she got closer, she could see there was a spit over the fire, and it held something large. Around the fire were the people she aimed to meet. They had matted hair and their skin was dappled with charcoal smears of war paint. 

The one at the front shouted something unintelligible, but it sounded foreboding. Betty slowed down and as she did, the troop sped up. She could see them fairly well now. Their teeth were sharpened to points and their weapons were bloodstained. Whatever they wanted, or wanted to offer, it wasn’t friendship. 

Betty back pedaled before pivoting on her heel and running for her life. She knew no good could come from these outsiders. Her feet pounded the dirt as hard and fast as they could. She could see a stainless-steel structure ahead of her. It was the Care that she had spent her whole life in. The place she had dreamed of leaving.

The troop was hot on her heels, moving much faster than she could. She ran straight back into the antechamber. She heaved on the massive metal door and urged it closed with all her might. It groaned and resisted her tiny frame. The troop was getting dangerously close. Her pulse was pounding in her ears. She gave one final heave and managed to close the door at the very last minute. She could hear the troop run at full tilt into the door and subsequent thuds. They hollered like maniacs, but there was nothing they could do to get in. 

She rested her hands on her knees and gasped until she caught her breath. 

“Welcome back, 9-4-7-8-0-0-8-5,” said Benevolence. “Did you enjoy your little trip?”

Betty didn’t bother to answer. It was too humiliating. Reality began to sink in. She did everything right to escape. She cooperated as much as she could. But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much she offered to work with others, no matter how much progress they made, her fellow residents were too short sighted and would betray her in the end. The reality was: she was doomed to a life in the Care forever.

“I’m sorry, Benevolence, for leaving. For not trusting you. Please, let me back in.”

“You are always welcome back into the Care. Always.”

Kids these days, I tell ya. They just don’t want to work. I hear it all the time for the older generation in my office. I can’t help but think, “Yeah, duh!”

We’re more affluent

The older generation has worked really hard. I can only assume it’s because they wanted to create a better world for their children. Thank you to those who did! The world is better now and we’d like to enjoy it. It would be a waste if you spent all that time and effort for nothing, right? 

Growing up with plenty means we don’t need “a strong work ethic.” 

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp

We live longer

In 50 years, we’ve added about 8 years of life. That’s almost 10% more. The younger generation doesn’t need to grow up quick. We have more time to play with. More time to fall in love, or lounge around the house, or go on walks. 

“Overworked” is a bad word. We can, and need to, pace ourselves.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends/index.htm

What’s in it for me?

We have a perfect storm of factors that define this generation: Living in your parent’s basement smoking weed is the most popular option for people in the prime of their lives, getting married / cohabiting is now old fashioned, and living alone is the most popular it’s been since the 1880’s.

Men no longer need to be the providers for their family. And women no longer need to be dependent on men. So… what’s in it for me? Why should we put in the extra hours, be on call, and come in on weekends? 

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/05/24/for-first-time-in-modern-era-living-with-parents-edges-out-other-living-arrangements-for-18-to-34-year-olds/

Work sucks

I don’t have a statistic for this, but it’s a well known fact: work sucks. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you about how awful their job is. They hate their boss, or their co-workers, or this policy, etc. etc. There are a few people who say they love their job, but secretly, they hate it. Everyone would much rather be doing anything else. 

Maybe we shouldn’t lament the kids these days. Maybe they’re onto something (duh).

I just finished a book called, “The Power of Zero,” by David McKnight. I liked what it had to say and I want to share the highlights here. 

Disclaimer: I am not a CPA, nor is David McKnight. I am not liable for anything.

There are three “buckets,” or places to stash your nest egg. 

Taxable

The first is the Taxable Bucket. If you have a brokerage account where you trade stocks, bonds, options, or mutual funds, this is taxable. First you’re taxed when you put money in, and then you’re taxed on all of the interest you’ve earned by lending your money to strangers. This is called the Capital Gains tax.

Tax-Deferred

The second is the Tax-Deferred Bucket. This is a traditional IRA. You put money in now without being taxed, but you get taxed on everything that comes out, both the principal and the earned interest (gains).

Tax-Free

The third bucket is the Roth IRA. The Roth is like the traditional IRA, except in reverse. You get taxed on the money you put in, but you can take it out tax free. The Roth is magical for two reasons. The first is that taxes are at an ALL TIME LOW. David McKnight is like a dancing inflatable arm man outside of a car dealership. In 2017 Congress passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 (which started Jan 1st 2018) with a clause that the policy would evaporate on Jan 1st 2026 if Congress did nothing. And as we all know, if there’s one thing Congress is good at, it’s nothing. So now we know that taxes are low, and will inevitably rise in the future. The possibility that taxes will go even lower is unfathomable. For this reason, dump money into a Roth IRA. The second reason Roth IRAs are magical is that disbursements from this fund don’t count as income.

0%

If you dumped your money into a traditional IRA instead of a Roth, you’ll be ripe for the government money harvest. There are Required Minimum Distributions at 70 ½. 

When you retire, your “income” is the first two buckets, plus half of your social security. It does NOT include your Roth. As an old person, you’ll likely only be able to take the standard deduction of $24,000. If your “income” is greater than $24,000, you’ll have to pay taxes. It’s entirely possible that your Required Minimum Distributions are too high and will put your “income” above $24,000. Oh yeah, if you make too much “income” your social security gets taxed too.

The way to game the system is to have $30,000 of distributions from your Roth, plus your $24,000 from your “income”. Now you have $54,000 of income and you are still tax free. Voila.

My grandmother’s meatloaf

I’ve achieved a form of Nirvana. I feel like I finally discovered what my grandmother’s meatloaf was missing. It finally clicked. 

The thing that causes stock market bubbles is the same thing that causes people to join cults.

Bubbles

To illustrate what I’m talking about, let me spell out the five stages of a stock market bubble: 

1. Shiny new toy
2. Keeping up with the Jones’
3. Euphoria
4. The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes
5. PANIC

This pattern repeats over and over throughout history: Tulips, Spices, New World Exports, Axe Body Spray, etc.

In our desperate struggle to do better than “those other people,” we inevitably discover some very slight edge. This edge gets exploited by more and more people which creates a positive feedback loop. As more people employ this slight edge, it becomes a very big advantage. Such a big advantage, in fact, that it becomes essential. Eventually the feedback loop slows down because there isn’t enough fresh blood entering the system. Someone will come to their senses and realize that this slight edge is just a slight edge and the rest is hype. But they’re ignored because it still works, just not as well. Don’t fix what’s not on fire. Then the whole system catches on fire and people start jumping out windows.

Two opposite asymmetries

Bubbles are caused by two opposite asymmetries: the slow building of trust, and the slow spreading of bad news.

Obviously, It takes a long time to build up trust. The second factor is that no one likes to be the bearer of bad news. No one wants to be the messenger that gets shot. No one likes to be the one to tell the party go-ers that they’re being too loud and someone could call the cops.

If we were more trusting, we wouldn’t see a sharp rise. If we were more comfortable with bad news, and if we actively looked for opposing viewpoints, instead of only looking for views that reinforced our existing beliefs, we wouldn’t see a sharp fall.

Herd is the word

Herd mentality is good for when there is little data, conflicting information, high stakes, and a need for fast judgement and coordination. Humans, for all of our cunning, conniving, plotting, and planning, taste just like a gazelle. If you think a lion has escaped its cage at the zoo, don’t ask around, just start running.

Don’t drink the kool aid

It’s easy to say now, but we have the benefit of history behind us. At the time, the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ sounded pretty groovy. And the Reverend Jim Jones sounded like a cool dude. In fact…

1. People joined this group and made lots of friends around a common goal of religion.
2. Both white and black people were joining, which meant other people felt comfortable joining.
3. Eight hundred people move to Guyana to join a socialist paradise
4. Congressman Leo Ryan visits and is unimpressed to say the least. The good Reverend has Ryan killed before he can leave.
5. Mass suicide

Tying it together

Here’s how the two opposite asymmetries ties these two phenomenon together: 

In both cases, there was too much skepticism. Yes, too much. Had more people joined Rev. Jones earlier, they might have discovered his fraudulent nature sooner. And once a few defectors knew the true nature of Rev. Jones, the information spread slowly because they were shunned as non-believers. The truth was suppressed by both the leader and the followers. 

Don’t drink the kool aid… 2

So how do we prevent this from happening to us? It’s the same process but in reverse. First, we need to be intensely curious. We need to be willing to do deep dives on controversial topics. If there’s a charismatic leader on the rise, now is the best time to investigate their true motives. Second, and this builds on the first point, we need to seek out opposing views. We need the bad news to keep us grounded in reality. Any time something is too good to be true, we should be double checking.

Welcome back to another exciting episode of, “What the hell is going on (in Tucson’s life)?”

Today we have: NaNoWriMo Post Mortem, I’ve Changed My Mind (and So Should You), and What the Hell is Going to Happen Next

NaNoWriMo Post Mortem

I WON! I WON! I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. There’s a personal competition called the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). The goal is to have written a novel in a month. The point is to prove to yourself and to the world that it is possible. For all of our excuses that prevent us from ever singing the story in our heart, somehow we persevere. It’s miraculous. When I finished, I felt like I just won the Superbowl. I was flying high for two weeks. Accomplishing that feat was an incredible confidence boost. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The only thing harder was doing it the first time.

The first time I did it, the story was heavily based on my favorite movie “The Matrix.” I wasted a lot of brain power wrestling with trying to be original and trying to be faithful. It was exhausting. This time it was totally, completely, unequivocally original in the sense that I copied everything but from different sources this time. My inspirations include: The Godfather, The Lion King, Prometheus Bound, BoJack Horseman, Who Shot Roger Rabbit, Mad Max, and many, many more. I felt free to pick and choose to suit my fancy. It was liberating and allowed the words to flow much freer.

I changed my narrative structure too. Instead of using Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, aka “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” which is 12 steps, I used Dan Harmon’s Story Circle which is 8 steps. Eighth steps is more manageable. It’s easier to contrast opposing steps (1 with 5, 2 with 6 etc.). It’s easier to define what needs to happen in order for it to flow naturally into the next step. Next year I’m going to use a 256 step story structure and see what happens.

Speaking of next year, I have to decide if I want to get this story published, or if I want to write another story. I certainly like this recent story much more than last time. It feels more gripping, cohesive, and twisty. I haven’t decided yet. In any case, I’m not going to start editing until January. I need some space and I think I need to see other people for a while. 

I’ve Changed My Mind (and So Should You)

National Debt is actually no big deal. I finished the audiobook “The Ascent of Money” by Niall Ferguson which was positively marvelous. It was so enlightening and brought so much insight that I now feel like a smart person. It changed my mind about several things, but the most striking is how normal sovereign debt is. It’s nothing new. Neither is defaulting or delaying payments. It’s not the end of the country nor the end of the world. 

I finished the audiobook “John Bogle’s Little Book of Investing” by John Bogle. It wasn’t as impressive as I hopped, but it did change my mind about how to invest in the stock market. For a long time I was obsessed about making money in the stock market like the pros. I read countless books and got countless conflicting answers. It was infuriating. I refused to be convinced that there is no right answer. Bogle’s answer is that the way to make money in the stock market is to work in the stock market; either as a stock broker, financial adviser, analyst, or just own the stock market. These people make money whether the stock market goes up or down. They live by the motto, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Meanwhile, the rest of us schmucks lose money as it “churns” between parties. Everybody takes a fee for every transaction and everybody wants a piece of the pie. Even if you find a winning stock, your profits will be eaten by every middleman in america.

In an overhyped, information saturated market frenzy world, It’s a refreshingly cynical view, which is why I found it so convincing.  The conclusion is to just buy an index fund, which mirrors the performance of the top 500 companies. It’s low maintenance for you (you never have to sell) and it has low fees for the fund managers because there’s almost nothing to do. It’s low risk because even as individual companies bite the dust, the top 500 is automatically adjusted to only include the winners. Just set it and forget it.

Bogle happens to have an index fund, (stock ticker code is VTI), which is well vetted and has plenty of performance history. Yes, the whole book was one giant ad and I was duped not only into reading it, but also into buying his damn fund. I’m ok with it, though. He makes good points.

What the Hell is Going to Happen Next

Being singularly focused was grueling. I unsubscribed from almost all of the bloggers I normally read. I didn’t watch any youtube. I didn’t do any pleasure reading. It was great! I loved cutting out all distractions. I loved being done with something.

Ultimately my goal is to be a published author. Here’s 22 facts they DON”T want you to know about being a published author. You can’t just write words good. You also have to have a pre-existing audience. No publisher wants to take a risk on a backwoods nobody. An advance from a publisher is going to be anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 and those fat checks go to people who already have an audience. If you think getting people to watch your movie is hard, try getting them to read a damn book once in a while. Publishers are looking for people with an existing “platform”: a blog, a youtube channel, 1,039 fans on facebook. An online presence. Which means next up, I need to hire an army of monkeys to write my next book while I build my platform.

I wasn’t born with a map. I don’t know what I’m doing. I recently made a “very interesting decision.” It was a “unique experience.” I’m thankful for the opportunity and I’m looking forward to the next chance to try again. I know what I’ll do in the future, and it wasn’t that.

The time is paradoxically both cyclic and linear. It’s cyclical because everything that has happened to you, has already happened to someone before you. You are not unique. If you feel like one in a million, then so do 7,000 of you. However that’s not how we experience time. On an individual basis, time is linear. We only travel through time in one direction and at one speed. Everything we do is unreplicable. Even though the 100th kiss doesn’t feel as special as our 1st kiss, it is still unique. It’s the only time the 100th kiss occurs. It will never happen again.

I recently made what many would call “a mistake,” because it’s something anyone could have avoided. From a cyclical perspective that’s true. But from my perspective, this is the first time and only time this will happen. This was my “first kiss,” so to speak. It wasn’t perfect, but that’s ok, because it’s already over. I’ll never have to experience it again and I’m already looking forward to my 2nd kiss.

Max flipped through the channels. There was nothing good on any of the 200+ channels. He decided to check the fridge to see if there was anything good to each. There wasn’t.

“You want anything while I’m up, Babe?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m good. Hey, it’s Saturday night. Do you want to go out?” replied Sophie.

Max sat back down into his usual chair. His butt impression was now permanent. He picked up the remote and replied without even making eye contact, “Nah, I’m good.”

Sophie pouted. She left the room and returned with a playbill which she dropped in front of Max. He continued to mindlessly flip through channels.

Sophie cleared her throat, “Achem.”

Max huffed in resignation and reluctantly looked at the playbill. It was yellow and crumpled from being stored in Sophie’s purse for so long. This was obviously something Sophie had wanted to see for a long time. He scoffed, dropped it back on the table, and picked up the remote to resume flipping channels.

“Please! Come on!” pleaded Sophie.

Max rolled his eyes.

Sophie waited for him to say more, but he had said his piece. She knew what she had to do, but didn’t want to do it. She grabbed a coat for her and one for him. She threw his coat onto his lap.

“Hey! I already told you I don’t want to go. If you want to go so bad, just go by yourself.”

“Put on your coat or I’m cancelling the cable. C’mon, I’m driving.”

Max’s face went from shock to pensive to frustration. He pressed his lips together and jutted out his chin as he marched to the car.

They drove through the dark of night on the unlit highway to the theater. Static and music alternated over the car’s speakers as Max cycled through the radio stations. They made it 10 miles before, out of nowhere, they drove over a pothole as deep and wide as a baseket ball. There was no time to avoid it. The car jarred them violently. The car shuddered as Sophie pulled over to the edge of the road.

“Damit!” fumed Max. “I knew we should have stayed home.” He got out and kicked the popped tire.

Sophie followed him outside. Immediately the cold air stung her face. She put her arm on Max’s arm. “Babe, it’s going to be fine.”

“Fine? You call this fine?” spat Max. “How are we supposed to get home?”

“A cab, Dear. But we’re not going home. We’ll get an Uber. We’re not far.”

Max was taken aback. “What about the car?”

“It’s not going anywhere. We can call AAA tomorrow.” said Sophie. She pulled out her phone and booked a trip to the theatre.

Max ran a hand through his hair and did everything he could to keep himself from pulling it out. “Do you have any idea how long it could take an Uber driver to get out here? We could be stranded out here in the cold for hours! This is why I hate going out. Stuff like this always happens!” Max shouted. He kicked rocks, cans, and any detritus on the side of the road he could.

“Stuff always happens. That’s just how it is. You just have to roll with the punches.”

“NO!” bellowed Max. The Uber driver arrived and parked behind their car.

“C’mon. Let’s go.” said Sophie in a whisper.

They each sat in the back seat, arms crossed and staring out of opposite windows.

When they arrived, Sophie walked briskly while Max lumbered behind her. The ticket attendant already had her hand on the “Closed” sign by the time Sophie got to the window. “Two tickets, please.” said Sophie breathlessly.

“I’m sorry, the only tickets we have are at the very back of the house. Is that ok?”

“Yes! No problem.” Sophie checked her watch and bit her lip as the ticket attendant processed the payment. The ticket attendant passed the tickets to Sophie who handed one to Max as he approached. Max looked at the ticket and scowled.

“ZZ 25?”

“I have ZZ 24. That means I have the best seat in the house, right next to you.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Listen, I’m going to pass. Tell me how it is.”

“You’re not coming in? Where are you going?”

“I don’t know, a bar I guess.”

“Please, Max. We’ve made it this far.”

“Maybe this is as far as we go…”

“What are you saying Max? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what? Going with the flow? You’ve done nothing but complain all night!”

“Exactly. That’s just who I am. OK?”

Sophie didn’t respond. She just wiped the tears from her eyes as she watched him walk away.

I have meditated on this long on hard. I have tried to convince myself otherwise. Despite my best efforts, I believe resolutely that the logistics industry will be disrupted in the next 20 years.

When I look at the series of industries that have been disrupted by software/technology, I see a pattern. The industries that produce commodities grow as our understanding of science grows (mining, farming, plastics). Science is still the lowest hanging fruit to pluck for increased gains. On the other hand, service based industries are being eaten alive by software. Look at Uber and AirBnB. AI is on the verge of assisting doctors with prescriptions. Amazon has replaced bookkeepers. Duolingo serves to teach us instead of hiring tutors. There are even AI customer service bots! It’s only a matter of time until software consumes all of the service industry.

The entire logistics industry has three fatal flaws. The first company to fix one flaw will be crowned victor, while the last company will be taken out back behind the shed.

1. Lack of Transparency

I can speak from personal experience that the whole industry lacks transparency. When I track a shipment I’ve outsourced to another company (or when a customer tracks a shipment on our website), I’m usually presented with a location and date. This is the absolute bare minimum. If the shipment is late, it doesn’t say why. If the shipment is sitting in one location, it doesn’t say why. The reason it’s late, or sitting, is usually because a human hasn’t clicked the buttons to update the shipment.

This snowballs into catastrophic proportions. Imagine a shipment going from our Chicago office to our San Francisco office that is a day late. The customer calls me and asks where the shipment is. I call the San Francisco office. They call the truck dispatcher who calls the truck driver. Meanwhile, the customer is sometimes a third party, so they’re calling their customer. I do this at least once a week because we don’t technically track shipments. We keep a digital record of where the shipment should be. We don’t even track trucks, just their departure and estimated arrival times. It’s a colossal waste of everyone’s time. This could easily be solved by RFID tags on shipments and GPS trackers on trucks.

2. Interchange / Outsourcing

Most logistics companies don’t go to South Bend, Indiana. If I have a shipment that needs to get to South Bend, I have to either tell my customer to give the shipment to someone else… or I could give the shipment to someone else. Most of the time customers prefer the second option. It allows them to have a single point of contact. It’s easier to have a middle man to take care of problems than to micromanage each shipment.

There was a time when the only way to manage your money was by hiring a financial advisor. Remember when everyone either did their taxes by hand, or hired a tax attorney? Now we have digital financial advisors and TurboTax. Middle men were automated away. That is going to happen to logistics as soon as someone clever enough can figure out the TurboTax of logistics.

3. Lack of Universal Language

We recently agreed to ship freight for a new customer. For the first four weeks we manually entered 30 shipments per night. For the first four weeks we manually entered 30 shipments per night. WHAT?? Our customer’s software didn’t communicate with our software, so they simply printed a piece of paper for each shipment, handed the stack to the driver, who handed them to me, and I manually entered them into the computer with a punch card (not really, but it felt that way).

That strategy is fine for now, but labor will only continue to get more expensive. I know that this experience is the norm for the industry. I know that highschool students wasted away applying for university after university. Back in my day, we had to apply for each school one by one! Now they have a universal college application. Once there is an industry standard for communication between companies, this problem goes away.

It’s sad to think about the end of the industry you work it. At the same time, I’m hopeful. I’m excited. I can’t wait to ride the wave. This is going to be a wild ride.

The holes were still moist. indicating they were recent. Captain Riggs paced the yellow sand beach. He navigated the holes, five feet deep and five feet wide, pockmarking the beachscape and made his way to a particularly deep and wide crater. There was nothing to see now, but judging by the bloody body parts scattered between the holes, the infamous, vile, and villainous pirate, Captain Tobbias Shank had been through here. There was no mistaking his work. Lieutenant Ligots strode up and saluted.

“Sir, we’ve just received a message via carrier pigeon from Admiral Addison.”

“Well don’t play coy, what does it say?”

“You’d better read it yourself,” said Lieutenant Ligots as he handed over the scroll.

The message read:

Captain Rigs and crew,

When we first assigned you the task of apprehension and retrieval of Captain Shank, we had either over estimated your prowess or underestimated his cunning. While you faff about on the high seas, our enemies humiliate us on our own shores. We lose battle after battle. This endeavor has turned into a wild goose chase. You are to return at once. We look forward to your return. Please send a reply via this courier pidgeon.

Admiral Addison

Captain Riggs crumpled the letter in his hands.

“What should I reply, Captain?”

“Nothing. Kill the bird.”

“Captain? What are you saying? Going against the commands of the Admiral is treasonous.”

“They’re hedging their bets. But we’ve come too far. We can’t give up now. Besides, we’re hot on his trail.”

Lieutenant Ligots raised his eyebrows at that. “We are sir? Where has he gone now?”

“We’ve been following him for weeks now. He’s been sailing due East, only making stops at nearby islands to plunder treasure from the locals. You know as well as I do what’s East of here.”

“The Shark Teeth? Sir you can’t be serious!”

“It’s the only explanation for how he manages to disappear. Get the men ready, we set sail in an hour.”

Captain Riggs watched the men ready the ship. They ran frantically to and fro, strapping down every loose barrel, prepping the spare rope, giving the decks one last swabbing. He pulled out his NetherCompas from his inner breast pocket in his jacket. He idly flipped the cover open and closed, open and closed. He pulled the tether gently. The compass inside revved up and spun. Captain Riggs began to feel woozy. The world around him spun. His knees grew weak. His hand fell open and the NetherCompass fell to the sand. He picked it up, brushed off the sand, and snapped it shut.

They were following close in their smaller ship. They were faster, better armed, and had more seasoned sailors. The Shark Teeth Islands was the most dangerous place in the whole sea to dock. It was the last place anyone would look. Captain Riggs felt confident this must be Captain Shank’s hideout. Captain Riggs stood behind the man manning the wheel. He could see the whites of his men’s eyes. They wore their fear like a beggar wears his only cloak. Seasoned sailors they may be, but no one was foolish enough to dock in the Shark Teeth Islands. Yet here they were heading straight for them. Overhead, Magpie shouted, “I see ’em! I see ’em! Up ahead just on the horizon. We’re gaining on him!”

There it was, a black speck dwarfed by mammoth mountains rising out of the sea, jutting in every direction into the sea. Marble white cliffs, sheer and steep, threatened to gobble up anyone daring to get close. They formed a series of peninsulas like a hundred fingered hand holding a watery earth in its palm. It wasn’t long before the black speck on the horizon grew to the size of a woodmite. It’s black flag whipping the air as surely as the captain was whipping his crew to spur them on. The woodmite evolved into a black dire wolf, sauntering into a cave. The cliffs loomed large ahead. Bigger and bigger the ship grew. The men stole glances whenever they could between their duties to watch the fate of Captain Shank’s ship. Captain Rigg’s ship came within firing distance. The men held their breath in anticipation, not sure if they would need to run to the cannons, or the sails to turn tail. Then… Captain Shank’s ship capsized… Just like that. A hush fell across the ship, sure that Captain Riggs would give the order turn around the ship to safety. The order never came. Instead Captain Riggs announced, “Make all sail!” The men, unaccustomed to folly, but accustomed to following orders burst into action. Everyone ran to their position and pulled the appropriate rigging to get the ship to sail even faster to the treacherous cliffs.

They too, pulled up to the cliffs. The water sloshed and churned as they got closer. It bubbled so much that it appeared to be boiling. Captain Riggs pulled out the NetherCompass again, and opened the cover. He held it firmly in his left hand, and the tether in the right hand. This time he yanked the cord. The compass whirled wildly. His vision blurred. He dropped to his knees, but gripped the compass with white knuckles. The men wailed. They gripped onto the ship for dear life. The ship, as if abandoning all semblance of being controlled by man and relinquishing all mastery to a wild and unknown nature, tipped left, farther and farther. Then tipped so far that the ship capsized.

Miraculously, the ship kept tipping, even after being completely submerged, and reemerged right side up, dry as a feather. The water drained from each of the decks, returning to the sea like ducklings to their mother. The men checked themselves for damage, and no worse for wear, began to hoot and holler. They hugged each other and cried tears that would never be spoken of ever again. Behind them, the Shark Teeth reached out for them, empty and hungry. Ahead, Captain Shank and his band of scallywags had made a smidgen of progress away from them.

“Alright, boys. This is it. This is what we came here to do. Man the hoist! Pull up quick! Cut the sails! We want their rears to face our cannons. Make all sail!” yelled Captain Riggs.

The men ran frantically, scurrying about to and fro like an anthill set on fire. Their ship crept closer to Captain Shank’s ship like a lion stalking its prey. Just as it was approaching firing range, it stopped and made a hard right turn. The cannons let off a volley of missiles. A hail of iron rained down on Captain Shank’s ship. Wood splinters exploded along the deck and in the aft of the ship. A cheer rang out. Captain Shank and his men made a hard right right turn to get away.

“Wait for it… Hold steady, boys…” told Captain Riggs to his men. Captain Shank couldn’t turn his ship as nimbly as he would like, and Captain Riggs knew it.

“Now!” The sails unfurled again and launched the ship forward. It rocketed on a trajectory right into the side of Captain Shank’s ship. Captain Shank unleashed his own round of fire, but it was weak and early and fell well short of the oncoming ship.

One ship collided into the other. A crack split the ship in two with the sound of thunder. It rocked back and forth. Captain Shank’s men froze. They look at each other and acknowledged the feeling in each of their guts. It was something they had never felt before. It was the feeling of sinking, despair, and fear. There was nowhere left to run, to hide, and no hope of fighting. They collectively looked to their captain. The captain bowed his head and retreated to the Captain’s Cabin. He returned holding a white flag.

Captain Riggs had his prisoners lined up. He walked along the line and stopped when he got to Captain Shank, who wore a particular smirk.

“What’s so funny?” asked Captain Riggs.

“You think this the first time I be caught? You think you’re the first to sink my ship, eh? Just wait until Admiral Addison hears of this,” said Captain Shank.

“Admiral Addison? Admiral Addison has personally put out a warrant for your arrest. I am sure he cannot wait to hear of your capture and return to Britain.”

“Oh Aye. I’m sure he wants me back for Christmas.”

“Christmas? You sound like you know the man. Are you mad?”

“He’s my brother,” said Captain Shank with a cheeky grin. “He looks after me as blood should. He wants to make sure I’m doing well and taken care of. Speaking ‘a which, this is a mighty fine ship you’ve got here. I’d be a shame if someone… were to steal it.”

After working in logistics for a whopping seven months, it’s safe to consider me an expert in the field. Based on my extensive experience, I feel confident in giving my predictions for the future.

Logistics has a problem within the field with differentiating the players. Freight is freight. The only real distinguishing factor is the price. Some people are willing to pay more to make sure their freight rides on a name-brand freight line. It’s a similar problem that the convenience store field faces. For the most part, every convenience store is interchangeable. Some are a little cleaner but that’s about it.

It’s no secret to Costco members that buying in bulk saves a considerable amount of money. The same concept applies to the field of logistics. It would be expensive to send a single pallet of goods. Customers send their goods to a single location, which sends it in bulk, and passes on the savings back to the customers. Now… do we need 100 brands of Costco?

The answer is painfully obviously “no.” There’s just Costco and Sam’s Club. Now the question is, do we need 100 brands of logistics? I think not. And now for the predictions:

In the next 10 years

• Purchases, mergers, and joint ventures will continue to rise.
• Uber Freight will be a main player
• The Tesla self driving truck will be adopted and used
• Amazon and/or Walmart will purchase a logistics company.
• Drones will make small deliveries: maybe beer at a baseball game or water on a beach

I read a blog called Slate Star Codex, and the most recent post is about “Is a multiple universe theory scientific?” https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/06/building-intuitions-on-non-empirical-arguments-in-science/

On the one hand, there’s no evidence. This leads people to say it’s not scientific. On the other hand, a single universe theory doesn’t explain everything and a multi-verse theory explains more. In support of the second position, Slate Star Codex posted: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/18/more-intuition-building-on-non-empirical-science-three-stories/

Which has two examples of non-evidence based theories that we currently believe. 1. We believe that mixing an acid and a base creates just a salt and water, and not salt, water, and a supernova somewhere in space that’s untestable. Even though it’s not testable, we choose to believe the simpler idea. 2. We believe that fossils came from dinosaurs and not the devil planting them even though the devil theory is simpler. The point is that it’s not just about a simpler theory.

This is missing the big picture. The whole point of science is that it’s predictive. The difference between science and art, is that science predicts the future. It’s an explicit if-then statement about nature. If you water your plants, then they will grow (holding all other variables constant, of course). If there is a supernova everytime someone mixes an acid and a base, then we should see a spike in cosmic radiation. If the devil planted bones, then we should find the devil’s shovel, or mounds of disturbed dirt around the bones, or all the bones should seem reasonably the same age regardless of where they are found.

The multi-verse theory isn’t scientific, not because it lacks evidence, but because it’s not predictive. If someone says we live in a simulation, we should see evidence of that. I should be able to predict that we’d see glitches in the Matrix. That kind of non-evidence based speculation isn’t science, it’s just a great book.

“Quick! Get Doctor Drisle!”

“Doctor! Doctor!”

The shouting in the streets was cacophonous. The dust kicked up caused it to be impossible to even see across the street. A boy of 17 ran up to the crowd, nearly pulling the doctor behind him.

“Diggory. Diggory, can you hear me? We’re losing him. Bedford, take your handkerchief and press it against his chest to stop the bleeding. Elroy, you grab him under his shoulders and I’ll get his feet. We need to get him to my operating table,” said the doctor.

Billings was dropped on the operating table like a sack of potatoes. The doctor went to the supply cabinet and pulled down a glass bottle of spirits from the top shelf.

“It’s a little early to be drinking, isn’t it Doc?”

“Shut up, it’s not for me.”

The doctor propped up Billings and tipped the bottle to his lips. In his dreary state, he took several heavy draughts before his senses caught up to him, causing him to cough and sputter.

“Hold him down, this is going to hurt.”

The doctor splashed the spirits on the bullet hole in his chest. Billings jerked and writhed like a man possessed.

There was a knock at the open door.

“Not now.” Said the doctor without looking up.

There was the unmistakable sound of a revolver being cocked. Doctor Drisle froze.

“Well that’s a fine hello, sweetheart. After these five long years. No, ‘welcome back, Billy?’”

Doctor Drisle looked up finally to see the man in the doorway. He stood tall in a sweat stained black suit in this cruel summer heat. Hanging from his vest pocket was a gold chain. In both hands he held a scuffed and worn gun. Though his clothes looked worse for wear, his mustache was perfectly trimmed. He was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Doctor Drisle said through gritted teeth, “Now is not a good time.”

“I don’t have much time. I’m just passing through.”

“Billings doesn’t have much time! But I guess you don’t care much for life, do ya Billy?”

“Not unless they got gold.”

Billings moaned and contorted his face.

“Well, guess what. I don’t care much for your life, no matter how much gold you got.” said Doctor Drisle. She pulled back her white lab coat to reveal a gun at her hip.

“We used to be such a pair, Delly. I just thought I’d stop in and see if you’d changed your mind after being stuck in this podunk town.”

“Set thrusters to full power”

“Sir? There’s not enough fuel-”

“I said do it! That’s an order.”

The command room fell silent, as silent as space itself. The Lieutenant Miaga looked at Commander Frig. Commander Frig looked at Navigator Pezco. None of them moved.

“Aye sir,” said Commander Frig demurely. He touched his Tella device next to his ear to activate it. “Bridge to engine room, this is Commander Frig. Set thrusters to full power.”

A tinny sound emanated from everywhere and nowhere around the room, “Copy that Frig. You do know that at full power, we will run out of fuel before we get to Mars, right?”

“We know Lolla.” Commander Frig lowered his hand and turned to Miaga. “Lieutenant, get your men to battle stations. I want to be armed and ready in 15. Got it?”

“Aye sir.” With a nod, she turned and walked out the door.

“Nav, how are we looking?”

“We’re still 0.01483 light-years out.”

“And the USSF?”

“They’re gaining on us. Unless we execute evasive maneuvers they’ll be all over us in 30 minutes.”

“Captain Adrar, may I have a word with you?”

The two of them walked along the grey hallway in silence for some time until Commander Frig coughed and broke the silence. Captain Adrar walked tall, but wore the expression of someone attending a funeral.

“Sir, with all do respect, how in the world are we supposed to get back to Mars safely? Our fuel’s almost out. The USSR will be on us at any moment.”

Captain Adrar looked him straight in the eye. “You’re right, we’re not going to make it.” and with that he walked on.

Time flies when you get older. Speaking of which, I got older. Yay!

After working at Mainfreight for six months, I’d like to share what the heck I do all day. I started working with our Canada shipments. For Mainfreight, all of our US shipments going to Canada must go through our Chicago branch to our Toronto branch. Their paperwork needs to be in order (the equivalent of a passport, but for packages). I corresponded with the corporate equivalent of border patrol.

When the person working night shift suddenly fell ill for an indefinite period, the veterans of the group took turns working night shift in week long stints. I knew that eventually I’d be roped in, and that I would hate wrecking my sleep schedule once per month, so I took the plunge and volunteered as “Night Operations.” My job for the past four months has been to determine how shipments get moved off of our dock. If they are going to, let’s say Baltimore, we could send it on our Mainfreight truck to New Jersey, which leaves every Wednesday and Friday. It’s a two day trip. Plus one day from New Jersey to Baltimore. I have to calculate in my head if the shipment is due late enough to put on the truck. On one hand, I want as much on our Mainfreight trucks as possible (that’s how we make money as a branch and as a company). On the other hand, there’s always the risk that it will miss the transfer in New Jersey, making the shipment late. I could just send it directly to Baltimore, but we don’t make as much money that way. I do that calculation in my head for every single shipment going in every direction across America from Chicago. Then you have to add in all of the exceptions, as each customer has different requirements to how you send it. Some would rather be a day late if it means that it rides on a Mainfreight truck. Some never want to be on a Mainfreight truck. If I want to send a shipment direct, such as to Baltimore, I need to outsource it to one of two companies / competitors. Both of those companies go to most cities, but I have to memorize the exceptions. One of my crowning achievements in this position was the cessation of sending out Pittsburgh shipments via New Jersey. Pittsburgh seems like it’s much closer to New Jersey than Chicago right? It’s only seven hours from Chicago and five from New Jersey. By sending our Pittsburgh shipments to New Jersey we were taking up space on the Mainfreight truck which could have been used for something else, not to mention delaying those shipments. Now we send them direct. On the flip side, Denver is surprisingly only one day away from Dallas, so I have instituted a rule that we add Denver shipments to our Dallas truck.

I could handle it fine at a certain level of shipments, but as soon as that threshold was breached, I was overwhelmed. I had shipments coming out of my wazoo and couldn’t route them out fast enough. It seemed like no matter how many hours I worked, I couldn’t keep up. I was failing over and over at my job. Finally they hired not one, but two people to replace me. One is now in charge of planning the what goes on trucks and the other, who I am training now, is going to take care of the outsourcing of shipments. I am ecstatic! Not only will I be relieved of this high-stakes job, I will be relieved of night shift. Woot! Starting Nov 19th, they’ll all say, “Damn! I didn’t realize how good you were at this job, you did excellent all things considered.”

I’ve been going to Toastmasters. I received a standing ovation and a ribbon for giving my first speech ever (everyone gets a standing ovation and a ribbon, but hey it still feels good) and a series of compliments for an evaluation I gave, including a special mention from the president.

Can you believe I haven’t moved in 11 months? I sure can’t. That’s why I’m moving. I LOVE my studio apartment in downtown chicago. I get starry eyed whenever I walk the 0.1 miles from where I park my car to my apartment. However, the time has come for me to settle down. I’m house shopping now. I’m hoping to move in January.

I stopped journaling in early September. Let me tell you, I feel… nothing. I don’t notice any difference whatsoever. Most of my entries consisted of, “Today was good. I’m sleepy now.” Maybe I have to write about my feelings to get any benefit. I’m ok to let that habit die.

We have so much fun at work. My teammates are easily the best part of my job. I’m thrilled to be among such happy, friendly, helpful people all day.

Little known fact: Chicago has the world’s largest water purifying station. It’s hidden… right next to Navy Pier. The downtown pumping station is actually beautifully decorated on the inside. It also houses a theater and a one room library. There was an open house downtown where they hosted tours and gave a short lecture. I almost bumped into Mayor Lightfoot there. I saw her retinue of body guards before I saw her.

I officially started as a Hospice Volunteer. I have a patient that I visit every Friday before work. She just talks endlessly. It’s effortless for me to listen and prompt her to say more and she always seems to enjoy my company.

• Roth IRA

La La Land is an excellent movie. It started out overhyped, went underhyped, and I hope now it’s settled correctly hyped. When I first saw it, I loved it. Then I talked to other people who pointed out all of the flaws. “Yeah I must be wrong.” I thought. But no. I just saw it again and it was actually amazing.

• Colors

Holy smokes. I don’t remember the last movie I complimented because of the colors. All movies have colors, but this movie takes it to the next level. The pallet was vivid, bright, sunny and eye popping. Movies should be visually pleasing, and damn this one was. If you put the movie on mute, it would be worth watching merely for the spectacle.

• Dancing

There was a little dancing. It was fun to watch! As an amature dancer, I was impressed.

• Music

The songs will pull at your heartstrings. The recurring musical themes compliment the story pleasantly.

• Exposition

There is none. You know she’s an actress because she works at Starbucks and sees an alert on her phone that she’s late to her audition. You know he’s obsessed with jazz because his furniture is comprised of famous jazz relics, and there’s a giant piano which takes up most of his apartment. M. Night Shyamalan, take note!

• The intro…

A lot of people have a problem with the intro. It’s a song and dance number that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. None of the characters are introduced. None of the plot is revealed. What’s the point? It’s secretly a synopsis for the rest of the movie. If you listen to the lyrics they mirror the main character’s desire to be a famous actress, despite the hardship.

A Technicolor world made out of music and machine
It called me to be on that screen
And live inside each scene

And even when the answer’s “No”
Or when my money’s running low
The dusty mic and neon glow
Are all I need

It also serves to display the setting. LA is filled with diverse, optimistic, ambitious, talented people.

• The ending…

When I watched the movie for the first time, I was thoroughly confused. Everyone I talked to was equally confused.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The first act shows Ryan Gosling as a hopeless romantic. He’s in love with a dying genre of music, jazz. Even though he’s late on rent, with no steady job, and has no friends, he persists. It’s heroic. He meets Emma Stone who is in a similar position. She’s in love with the idea of being a famous actress like her aunt. Even though she hasn’t had any luck in getting a gig, she keeps going to auditions. Ryan convinces her to make her own show and to hell with other people. This is why she falls in love with him. He encourages her to follow her dreams of becoming a famous actress.

In act two, things fall apart. He forfeits his dream of opening a jazz club and joins a pop-jazz band with a guy he hates so he can have a steady job. He stops being present in Emma’s life.

The resolution of the 3rd act is that Ryan chose his career instead of being there for Emma’s final performance of her play. Emma chose to pursue her dream instead of being Ryan’s groupie.

The final scene of the movie is the reveal that 5 years later Emma Stone ends up with her dream accomplished. She made it as a successful actress in Hollywood, and also has a happy marriage and baby with another guy. She walks into a random jazz club, which happens to be Ryan’s. Apparently he accomplished his dream too. The two locks eyes and have  a flashback/daydream with an almost literal Hollywood ending where everything worked out. They didn’t break up. She goes on to be a famous Hollywood actress and gets married to Ryan and they have a baby. There’s dancing, and it looks like a set for a musical, it’s surreal, but also mixed with some reality, so it’s hard to tell what’s going on. Then it cuts back to reality. They share one last smile and she leaves. What the heck is the message? What’s with the daydream? What?

If you only think about it from Emma’s perspective, it almost seems as if the message is, “follow you dreams instead of finding love,” because she broke up with Ryan and then became a famous actress. But… she found love in addition to her dream. So what’s the conflict? If you view it from Ryan’s perspective, the message is, “follow your dreams and you will find love.” He didn’t learn his lesson. In that sense, this movie is a tragedy. The hero did not overcome his weakness, and was punished by the Fates to suffer lonesomeness. He did accomplish his dream, so he did learn his lesson eventually, but not in time to salvage his relationship with Emma.

I watched the movie, “The Last Airbender.” It was terrible. Don’t watch it. “The Last Airbender” is a movie by M. Night Shyamalan based on a TV show called, “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” They retitled the movie to avoid confusion with the James Cameron movie. It’s a shame that of all of the shows to adapt, they chose one with a rich landscape, vivid characters, and gripping plot, and then botched it. Can you imagine if they botched Harry Potter? There would be rioting in the streets.

The number one, Willis Tower sized problem with the movie, is that it was too ambitious. For whatever reason,  Shyamalan decided to squeeze several complete episodes of the TV show into one 100 minute film. It was a foolhardy plan. Each episode of the TV show had its own plot and character arcs. Movies can only handle one or two arcs. This leads to problem number two.

THERE WAS SO MUCH EXPOSITION! If I were the spanish inquisition, I wouldn’t murder you for putting some exposition into your movie. “The Matrix” and “Inception” are both exposition heavy movies, but it’s forgivable since the information is on a need to know basis. The information comes either immediately before, or immediately after. They struck a happy medium between the story being confusing and it being laden with exposition. Even as much exposition as they crammed in, there are still parts that don’t make sense. I sympathize with Shyamalan because as a writer. I too worry that the audience won’t understand. When I write, “The man woke up and went to work.” I worry that my audience will wonder, “Is he even wearing pants?” One trick to squeeze in more exposition is to make the neophyte character ask questions (Neo to Morpheus and Ariadne to Cobb). Shymalan decided to give one character a constant stream of consciousness voice over throughout the entire movie. It was grating.

It’s all one big snowball effect. Because there was too much squeezed in, there had to be more explained, which meant less dialog and character development. There was no time to talk, so there was no time for the characters to show emotion for each other, so there was no time for me to get invested in them, so there were no stakes if one of them died.

What little dialogue there was, there was little emotion shown. There was hardly any smiling, crying, or yelling. The theme was “The Fire Nation is attacking. Just another day at the office.”

In Star Wars #7, we know from the very beginning that the girl and the boy are going to have to confront each other, one of them was going to switch sides, which would determine the fate of the universe. In “The Last Airbender,” because the movie tried to capture several episodes, there wasn’t a build up to the climax. It was unclear what the main conflict was, until the end of the movie. Then, in a shocking Shmalan twist, there was no twist! The main character solves the problem by fighting. There’s some message about controlling your emotions, or not controlling them? I’m not sure. Then the final scene is confusing because earlier in the movie, there is a scene where his peers bow to the main character as a sign of acceptance of him as their Avatar (savior). The main character isn’t ready for the task, and he flees; which is what sets the whole story in motion. The final scene is the city bowing to him, just as before. You would think that now that the main character has just defeated the bad guy, he’d have accepted his role. Nope. When the city bows to him, he looks worried. The end. Cut to black. Roll credits. We were this close to seeing character growth.

I was disappointed by the lack of effects. There was hardly any magic. In fact, there were a decent number of scenes where they were doing their tai chi moves to manipulate water, but the visual effects were never added.

One of the great strengths of the TV show is how the characters contrast with each other. Aang is fun loving, Kotarah is cautious. Prince Zuko has a quick temper, his Uncle Iroh is reserved. In the movie, virtually any character (or actor for that matter) could have been swapped for any other character. There was nothing unique about them.

As a movie, it was lackluster. As an adaptation, it was surprisingly faithful. There were scenes in the movie that I recognized as being exact copies from the show. That impressed me. The fight scenes were badass (slow sometimes, but still cool). There were some characters that were well cast.

I have a few suggestions. The first is to go the exact opposite direction. Instead of trying to cram a whole season of TV episodes into one movie, make a movie based on the back story. The world inside the TV show is huge. There are numerous cities, each with complete political structures and ruling families. I would love to tell the story of how the Fire Nation attacked the Southern Water Tribe and reduced it to a small village. How about that time General Iroh, Dragon of the West, laid siege to the city Ba Sing Se for 600 days and failed to take it down, and lost his son in the process? How did Bumi, a ruffian goofball kid and childhood friend of the main character, become King Bumi (and how did he live to be 112 years old)? If I really had to adapt one episode into a movie, I would choose the season finale episode of season 1. The main character has to learn how to manipulate water, karate kid style, before the fire nation attacks. He’s frustrated by his lack of progress and the high stakes. He has to learn how to deal with pressure. Boom easy peasy. Tone back the scope and let the characters drive the plot.

Don’t bother watching the movie. Just watch the TV show.

I’ve embarked on a perilous journey, to understand the stock market and reap what knowledge might be gleaned from raw experience and the ancient tomes. So far, not so good. Just as I expected, there are directly conflicting theories and no conclusive results.

One of my favorite cartoons is BoJack Horseman. In the cartoon, there’s a talk show called “Hollywoo [sic] Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out!” I’d like to present my findings in a similar manner.

First up, gurus. Do they know things? I’m going with my gut feeling that they don’t. It’s too easy to be temporarily successful, and then fade into anonymity once that spurious success recedes. Not to mention that once you have a following, you can create your own self fulfilling prophecies / bubbles by telling people a certain stock will rise. Telling people a stock will rise will make people invest in it, making the stock rise.

Now for the guest celebrity, Burton Malkiel, the guy who wrote “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” 50 years ago. He claims that no one knows things and that things are unknowable. There’s a joke, “Two economists are walking down the street. One spots a $100 bill and bends down to pick it up. The other says, ‘Don’t bother, if it was real someone would have already picked it up.’” Malkiel uses that as his modus operandi. According to him, the stock market prices move just like a drunk person walking randomly down wall street. To demonstrate this, he challenges his readers to flip a coin and record the “heads” and +1 and “tails” as -1, and then chart it. I’ve done that with google sheets and a random number generator. To his credit, that purely random chart is indistinguishable from the stock charts I look at. I caught myself looking for patterns in my random chart… and I found them.

It’s the most pessimistic, nihilistic, atheistic philosophy I’ve ever heard of; and I’m a pessimistic, nihilistic, atheist! First of all, if everyone thought like Malkiel and turned their nose up at $100 bills, then the ground would be littered with layers of $100 bills. Opportunities must be out there, even random ones. Second, what is so fundamentally different between the stock market and the labor market? I found two of my jobs through people I knew instead of the traditional hiring process. That special knowledge benefited me over my competitors. That would be considered a market inefficiency. I accept that arbitrage (buy low at one place and sell high at another) is now obsolete for humans to do, but surely there must be patterns or indicators. What is so fundamentally different between the stock market and the universe? The universe is chaotic, but we still find useful patterns. The weather is chaotic, but it’s somewhat predictable (Tucson is hot in the Summer, Chicago is cold in the winter). How can we be certain about what’s knowable or unknowable? Would anyone 100 years ago have predicted that we could know with decent precision that the universe is 13.7B years old? Any claim that something is unknowable is too bold for my taste. I would agree with his self assessment. He, indeed, does not know things.

Next, let’s bring in my basement dwelling friends, the Technical Analysts, or more aptly called Chart Analysts, since there’s nothing technical about it. These people trade stocks purely by the chart, and not by the business model. They are herd followers. If the price is going up, they buy. If it goes down, they sell (or short).There are increasing levels of complexity to their trading strategy, but that’s the essence. I find merit in what they have to say. It’s just a matter of pattern recognition, filtering out noise from the signal in the indicators, and a little luck. What difference does it make if it’s Apple or Ma-and-Pa’s Chicken Shake Inc.? If everyone feels that they’re the “Next Big Thing” then they are. If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid. That being said, I have yet to make it work.

How about everyone’s favorite, the Fundamental Analysts? The shamans divining the Spirit of the Market. The Cohens of the Temple. The Priests receiving word from on high. Those who know esoteric Kabal-secrets. It’s all hogwash if you ask me. They look at the fundamentals of the business to decide if a stock is overvalued or undervalued. The idea is to be more logical and rely less on emotion and less on the market’s whim and follies. The most common indicator is the P/E ratio (the price of the stock compared to the earnings) One sect preaches “Buy low P/E ratio stocks. The price is low compared to it’s earnings implying that the price will rise to match.” The other sect says, “Sell low P/E ratio stocks. The price is low because there is something wrong with the company.” I’m no accountant. I’m not about to dig into their financials and assess the true value of the company. I’ll just outsource that. But if I’m outsourcing it, I still have to find someone reliable. Remember WorldCom, Tyco, and Enron? Where were the accountants before the fraud was announced? How did it escape every single accountant ever? How did their logic serve them there? These people were still victim to the emotional buying frenzy. If these Fundamental Analysts know anything, they must be very specific things.

Entire armies are trained in the barracks of Harvard and Yale to go into stock trading, and then get jobs trading stocks. Is Malkiel trying to tell me that these kids go massively into debt, only to learn how to pick their nose, and then get a job picking their nose? I think not. And these businesses that hire these kids and pay them beaucoup bucks? They must know something. I find it hard to imagine that the stock market is “unknowable.” Someone has to be picking up the $100 bills. Why not me?

What about entrepreneurs and venture capitalists? Someone keeps inventing stuff and making money from it. They noticed a $100 on the ground and took it. They must have known something we didn’t. Facebook caught onto the social network trend. Apple knew how to do user interface. Someone is investing in these companies because there’s something about them that makes them obviously a better choice than another, and it can’t just be randomness.

In conclusion, if there are secrets to the market, why would anyone talk about it? Startup founders have Non-Disclosure Agreements to hand out to everyone they meet. I shall continue my journey of discovery in the market. If I don’t find anything, I’ll let you know.

Whoops I made a survey, and embedded it on my website post, but it didn’t come through in the email newsletter. Here is a link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSXxdc0aVR27-WhFhjuRKp8R3Ee0KOaTzwcxnCPPHWPBbpaA/viewform?usp=sf_link

In case you weren’t on this planet when I announced it previously, I wrote a book.

Check it out here for free:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N2ZJRmRgodGKAUm4zWmxWprCx6f57Yqf/view

Buy it on Amazon for money:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q98CDVW?ref_=k4w_oembed_Nq6DLcpfbTeeio&tag=kpembed-20&linkCode=kpd

Writing a book is hard

Writing a book is really freaking hard. It’s in the top 5 hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It’s hard to generate so many ideas. It’s hard to sit and stare at a blank screen. It’s hard to make millions of choices. Writing a book is like painting a mural with a tiny paint brush.

Writing a book is like running a startup

Writing a book is like running a startup because I am both the CEO and the janitor. I have to make all of the big decisions (who gets married and who gets murdered) and the little decisions (like making sure my characters remember to put their pants on before going to work). I have to keep track of every moving part, steering away from icebergs, and managing scarce resources (attention, patience, and caffeine dosages). At the same time, I have to make sure that I’m wearing pants before going to a coffee shop.

I am my own worst critic

Some ideas are great, some are bunk. Most of the time, I won’t know until I see it written out. Sometimes I can’t think of a better idea, so I just go with what I have. Inevitably, inevitably, I’ll reread and think to myself, “This sentence is bunk. Oh, so it this one. Actually I can get rid of this whole paragraph. Wow all of this is terrible, maybe I should just set my laptop on fire and throw it out the window.” I don’t know of any way to distinguish between self-editing and self-doubt. It seems like a necessary double edged sword. My plan is to keep writing and eventually get comfortable with my judgement at some point.

I write like I’m building a pyramid left to right

This book had a loose outline. Most of that outline was scrapped. It was boring and didn’t make sense. I resolved to build as I went. This strategy either leaves me with a thin book because I aimed too low in scope, or a massive, unfinished epic because I aimed too high. One area I really struggled was keeping track of my own plot threads. I would introduce two plot threads, get to the end, and only be able to tie one up. I’d have to cut out the first one. But then my book was too thin. There wasn’t enough happening. I kept iterating backwards and forwards adding and subtracting plot threads. It was grossly inefficient.

Is this just like “The Matrix?”

I struggled hardcore with riding the line between totally ripping off the movie “The Matrix” and making something distinct. On the one hand, The Matrix isn’t even that unique from a story perspective. How different is it from Tron, where a computer hacker enters a computer and has to fight an evil AI? There’s even “The Matrix” in the Doctor Who storyline published in 1976. So sue me. At the same time… What have I gained by copy-pasting the Matrix? What’s it worth to read a book adaptation of the movie? And if it’s not worth reading, is it worth writing? Thus the cycle of self-doubt begins anew.

Who designed professional sports teams’ names and mascots? I need to know, because they did a terrible job. They should be hung, shot, and then burned at the stake. A good mascot is an animal which represents some positive trait that a sports team would want. It should be inspirational. It should be intimidating. It should never be another human.

It doesn’t make any more sense to have the Cleveland Indians than to have the New York Jews, California Chinese, or Texas Mexicans. It’s 2019, if your team name is a name for a group of people, it’s time to pick a new team name.

• Cleveland Browns

• Cleveland Indians

• Cincinnati Reds

• Kansas City Chiefs

• Washington Redskins

• Chicago Blackhawks

• Boston Celtics

• Montreal Canadiens

• Atlanta Braves

If your team name is a thing, pick a new team name

• New York Jets

• Buffalo Sabres

• Colorado Avalanche

• Edmonton Oilers

• Oklahoma City Thunder

• San Antonio Spurs

• Toronto Maple Leafs

• Dallas Stars

• Houston Rockets

• San Antonio Spurs

If your name is a duplicate, pick a new team name

• San Francisco Giants

• New York Giants

• Winnipeg Jets

• New York Jets

If your team name doesn’t make any sense, pick a new team name

• Minnesota Wild

• St. Louis Blues

• Miami Heat

• Orlando Magic

• Utah Jazz

C’mon people, there are so many animals out there, that it blows my mind that someone picked these awful team names.

They say, fake it till you make it,
Now I’m making sandwiches
I have no idea what I’m doing
But it’s got perks and advantages

No one notices
If I forget the tomato
My perfect disguise
Always hits high when I aim low

Makes me wonder
About life with no mask
Owning my flaws
The impossible task

Let me preface this article by saying that most people’s beliefs are heavily influenced by the people they hang around with, and their exposure to different ideas. I couldn’t be a libertarian until I knew what libertarianism was, and I would certainly be something else if I discovered something better. Ultimately, it comes down to the things I value. It would be foolish to say that my values are established on fundamental truths of the universe. The best I can say is that I value these things, so Libertarian ideas make the most sense to me.

I prefer “Freedom from” more than “Freedom to”. I would rather be protected from murder, theft, and arson, than freedom to access healthcare. This generally meshes with libertarian small governments which ideally provide a legal system but don’t provide free healthcare.

I prefer “Equality of Opportunity” over “Equality of Outcome.” A system that allows people to have economic mobility is more important to me than a system that cares for the poor. I don’t see value in a system that taxes the rich and gives it to the poor. Whereas, I do see value in a system that inspires people to take risks and make profit. In a libertarian government there would be no redistribution, which suits my fancy.

My view of “the people” includes all humans, as opposed to communist regimes who view “the people” as the working class. To me, that’s arbitrary and discriminatory. It would seem most equitable to treat all humans as the flawed beautiful creatures they are, even if some of them are born with extra privileges that they may or may not be aware of. To give special treatment to some and special mistreatment to others seems to be subjective discretion to me.

Central planning seems to be inherently flawed. I can’t understand how it leads to anything other than famine and waste, especially when applied to food production. They pay farmers to not farm, meanwhile there are people who literally can’t afford to buy food. In my eyes, if a farmer over produces or under produces, that’s a risk they take when they become farmers. That’s the entrepreneurial element to owning a business. Their business is producing food. When that risk is offloaded to the government, inevitably the taxpayers end up paying for the mistakes, with no negative repercussions for the government. I value a more efficient system. Not one with central planning. To me, that would point to a libertarian government.

After visiting the local gym xSport down the street from me, I feel dirty and abused. I was looking to join a gym. I was ready to pop out my wallet and buy a membership that day. Alas! The guy giving me a tour of the gym, effectively the salesman, did a piss poor job. Here is a review of what he did wrong and how to fix it.

When I first entered, the front desk attendant did not smile and was discourteous when he handed me the interest form. Not Salesguy’s fault, but you only get one chance to make a first impression. Next, Salesguy asked me some personal questions (where I’m from, where I live, what I’m looking for in a gym) which was excellent. There is only one way to get information from a potential customer and that is to ask. Ideally, he would have used this information to weave into the tour. I said I was interested in the pool, yet when we walked by, we didn’t spend any more time on the pool area than on the machine area. No features and specs were given. When I asked about the climbing wall, his response was, “I don’t know.” I want to hear, “I can find out.” Finally, he sat down across from me at a desk where he wrote the prices down of different payment options. When he was done he looked at me and waited for a response. I let the silence sit in the air. With every sale you need a closing question. Some examples are: “Which of these options feels best to you?” or “Are you ready to join?” or “When are you ready to start?” Instead, since he was unprepared and uncomfortable with the silence, his closer was, “Well?” Of course my answer was, “I have to think about it.” Which means, “Hell no!” What kind of company hires 2-bit employees to be salespeople? I was never a good salesman and even I know these things.

I was disappointed that they couldn’t sell me even when I wanted to buy. Don’t let this happen to you!

There is a big scandal surrounding the start-up Thermos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes. Her actions are indeed despicable. However I want to look at an aspect of her that was admirable.

Life is hard. Things have to be done all the time, and it can be unclear whether we’re qualified for the tasks at hand. Often, the only way to find out if we’re qualified, is simply doing it. This leads to some embarrassing failures and frequent hilarious successes. There is something to be said for “fake it till you make it.” While selling life insurance, I learned that people expect me to be the expert. They don’t know what I don’t know. If there are gaps in my knowledge, it isn’t immediately obvious. This allows me to “act” like an expert. There’s something obviously tempting to trust people in white lab coats or business suits, because they look like experts.

Many people experience success when they don’t feel they’ve earned it, which is called, “Imposter Syndrome.” My way around this syndrome is just not worrying about it. I never reject myself or call myself out of my BS. I’m right until proven otherwise. This self confidence encourages others to place their confidence in me. People want to be associated with winners, and it’s pretty easy to seem like a winner.

I’m sure there are YouTube videos and articles which purport to have “charisma hacks” which allow the user to naturally attract attention and endearment. I’m sure among those hacks are: maintain extended eye contact, deepen your voice, dress in a way that resembles your idol. Elizabeth did those things. From a character study perspective, her biggest crime isn’t that she used hacks, it’s that she got caught using hacks.

My philosophy is, we’re all frauds. No one acts 100% the same in every setting with every person. Don’t lie, but embrace the act.

It’s official! It’s finally happened! My book is self published!

Here is a free pdf for all of my fans: Waking From Reality PDF

Available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

April fools! Hahaha I couldn’t resist.

My full-time job is to look for a job. I’m finishing up a month and a half in this position. Frankly, I’m not seeing the results I promised myself when I hired myself for this job. Unfortunately, based on what I’ve seen, and the competitiveness of the market, I’m going to have to let myself go. I wish me luck at my next endeavor.

I don’t believe in mistakes. Everything I’ve done has been instrumental in getting me here. Sometimes you have to take a step backwards, sideways, and then diagonal before you can step forward. I do, however, believe in learning from previous experience. Hind sight is 200:20. I have microscope eyes when I look behind me. If I could do this all again, starting from when I quit my life insurance job. I would start by applying with every recruiter in town. I talked to about one a week. This gave each successive recruiter that much less time to find me a job. When I started, I had more confidence in my ability to find a job on my own.

From now on, I want to think about my career two steps at a time. There’s a balance between over-planning and going with the flow. Since being burned from not planning enough, it’s time to shift the balance to planning more. Something needs to be lined up before I leave the previous job. Selling life insurance was a step backwards. Moving to Chicago happened abruptly. It worked out. It wasn’t a catastrophic failure, but it’s still a failure.

My life has been generously sprinkled with excellent career luck:

• GKN Driveline
  • Career fair in college
• Chrysler
  • Recruiter
• Brainchild Engineering
  • Friend and co-intern from GKN hired me
• NCL America
  • One interview
• Symmetry
  • Found them online. No application or interview.

All of those happened with minimal prep, research, interview practice, or networking. Any skills I had in the “Getting a job” field had atrophied by the time I needed them. Now I need them more than ever. I’m working three times as hard and not getting nearly the results I was before. Oh well. I just have to work harder and smarter.

As of today, I have submitted my novel, “Waking From Reality” to the Kindle self-publishing AI to be reviewed. I’ll keep you posted when it gets approved.

Chicago is amazing and I love it. I’ve fallen in love with the city. The architecture is mind blowing. The public transport is robust. One thing I have to get used to, is doing a series of mental calculations everytime I want to go somewhere. First I calculate time by car, second calculation by train plus some walking to the train stop, then realizing I have to walk to where I parked my car, finally, wondering if I actually want to go anyway. The biggest downside to living here is, besides the train that runs by my window every 15 minutes, is that I can’t stop singing “I hear the train a comin, it’s comin round the bend” from Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues.

Remember last month when the lesson of the month was to stick with something until the end? To not quit early? Well I quit my life insurance job early. It got to a point where I was doing more cold calling and follow up paperwork than actually meeting with people. I have no problem with cold calling or paperwork. The part of the job that kept me going was meeting with people, and I did so little of it. Plus, I was unprofitable because I just don’t have those skills to pay the bills. Eventually I would have improved. I just wasn’t willing to wait that long. I only have so much money in my war chest, and I need some to live on while I look for my next job.

I’m looking for a new job! My ideal job would be Product Design Engineer which I have seen a few openings here in chicago. I would also consider Computer Aided Drafter/Designer (using 3D software to design parts), and Die Design Engineer (designing the metal dies that are used to stamp sheet metal or the molds that plastic is poured into). If you know anyone who does those jobs, let me know. I’d love to ask them a few questions. I’ve added a page on my website: Hire Me. Check it out if you haven’t already.

I’ve been polishing my resume. It’s now so easy to read that it looks completely generic. Such is the nature of trade-offs. If you’re going to stand out, it should be based on your experience and skills.

If you’d like to use it as a template, here is a link: bit.ly/ResumeTemplate1. (Go to File -> download as…)

You know what they say about networking, “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” I don’t know who said it, so I’m not sure it’s valid. Anyway, here’s some things to know about networking.

It’s not necessarily about who you know. It’s more about who you know, who knows someone else. A network of 200 people isn’t very useful. If you ask, “Who’s hiring mechanical engineers?” The response might be, “You’re the only mechanical engineer I know.” Instead, if your question is, “who do you know, that works at an engineering firm?” It will widen your search to friends of friends who are secretaries at companies that need mechanical engineers.

It’s not necessarily about you, either. If you run into someone who’s hiring software developers, and then you run into a software developer, connect them! They will appreciate it and remember you the next time they run into someone hiring a mechanical engineer.

LinkedIn’s two purposes are: stalking your ex after he/she blocked you on facebook, and the digital follow up with people you meet at networking events. LinkedIn is a giant cesspool of vapid, meaningless, distracting, social media. Content, content everywhere, not a single useful bit of information to read. Signals should indicate something hard to quantify. Here however, the signals are just noise. It’s just a performance. Performance or not, you still have to do the dance to get your next job. Recruiters look at your history the same way they look at your facebook. LinkedIn will rank you in search results based on your activity. This is why you should like, comment, and share once a month just to keep the dust off the account.

You never know when you will need your next job. That’s why it’s important to network constantly and keep your LinkedIn profile current. Speaking of which, if you haven’t already, could you add me on LinkedIn? https://www.linkedin.com/in/tucson-richelson/. I’m looking to connect with mechanical engineers in Chicago or people hiring mechanical engineers in Chicago. Do you know someone who can connect me?

I’ve been networking like a boss lately. I’m keeping track of people I meet and trying to connect them. Could you shoot me an email letting me know what kind of people you’d like to meet, either professionally or personally?

The system of tipping servers in the United States is terrible. It’s glaringly, obviously, bad.

Servers are employees, and should be compensated like any employee, with an hourly or annual rate. There’s no reason to add randomness into the equation. We don’t tip cashiers or janitors.

It’s possible that the tipping system might encourage servers to work harder, but the reality is, most of the important factors are not in their control. They can’t control how fast food is prepared, how it tastes, how long guests had to wait for a table, the noise, or the price. The only thing they can control is their own friendliness and bringing the food to the right person. Some people are generous tippers. Some don’t tip at all. Why should the employee take that risk? It should be the business owner who takes the risk. That’s the whole point of being a business owner.

It creates an unnecessarily complicated tax situation wherein the employer has to pay a minimum wage, but then more if the server didn’t make enough from tips. It creates awkward situations. We feel bad for hard working Americans and tip out of donation, instead of merit. If the business really wanted improved performance, they can pay commission to servers who serve the most people, or order the most alcohol. Ultimately it creates worse quality because servers either resign themselves to the randomness of tips, or leave the restaurant industry for jobs where their efforts are consistently rewarded.

1. Commit to writing today.
2. Open a laptop.
3. Tell the cats to be quiet.
4. Stare at the blank screen.
5. Close your laptop.
6. Realize there are unwashed dishes in the sink. The thought of someone coming over, and seeing that not only did no writing get done, but the dishes also didn’t get done, is unacceptable.
7. Get an idea while washing the dishes.
8. Hastily open the laptop and type a paragraph before running out of inspiration.
9. Decide to pick the clothes off the floor in the bedroom, after all, maybe another spark of inspiration will hit. None will.
10. Now that the clothes are in the hamper. Realize that laundry has to be done either today or tomorrow, and since some writing has already been done, it’s okay to do other important tasks like laundry.
11. Elbow deep, cleaning the toilet bowl, consider writing a “Cinderella” and “The Shining” cross over. It will be about a struggling author, forced to clean a house by his evil ex-wife and step-son, who was magically selected for greatness. Scrap the idea. No one wants to read about someone cleaning the toilet bowl. Besides, the carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in who-knows-how-long. How can one write, when the carpet is disbursing a barrage of allergens?
12. Repeat ad nauseam.

I used to hold you in my arms
Now I hold you at arms length
I used to look forward to seeing you
Now to look at you takes all my strength

My hunger was unmatched
My desire undiscerning
Now I gag and reel
My stomach won’t stop churning

First you made me love sick
Now I just feel nauseaus
That’s what I deserve
For being so incautious

Remember my 2018 review? I said this year was supposed to be smooth sailing? Well I moved to Chicago at the beginning of January. I realized I wanted the big city life, and damn it I’m not going to wait. Life is short. What about New Hampshire? I was going to move there as a form of political activism. But truthfully, politics aren’t a priority for me right now.

My move to Chicago was smooth. I can fit everything I own into my tiny two-door car, including my twin size mattress. My new apartment in Chicago is 300sq ft. It’s tiny, just right for me. It’s only $915 for rent and I’m in the heart of Chicago. I’m in love! Parking is ~$200 a month though. I’d love to get rid of my car one day, but right now I need a reliable mode of transportation for work.

My first week in Chicago, I drove 4 hours for work, and then I had car trouble, and had to drive 4 hours back. The next day I drove 4 hours, wrote some business and netted $160 for the week, then drove 4 hours back. I started to have some serious doubts about this job. Last week was significantly better, but I still have my doubts. It’s disappointing that the puppy love stage ended so quickly. I thought this might be my last job. I could see myself in sales, but I’m just so bad at it. I can and will get better, but it all takes time. It sucks to suck. Three solid months is my cut off time for giving this a fair try. If this job isn’t a fit for me, I’ll know at that point. But I don’t want to quit prematurely.

This job is hard is new and unique ways. It’s hard being self driven, and making my own schedule. It’s hard balancing the ego; being confident but also not taking the rejections personally. It’s hard being on the phone so much. It sucks to suck at sales. The edge that sales people have over their customers is knowing their objections ahead of time. I’m not there yet. Each objection is new to me. Without that edge, I’m not getting much traction. I need to practice, maybe without customers.

I have revolutionized my morning routine! Now that I have to create structure for myself, I’ve streamlined my mornings. On my bathroom mirror, I wrote out exactly what steps to do and in what order. Wake up -> meditate -> vitamins -> brush my teeth -> shower -> tea or hot cocoa -> breakfast -> read. Boom. Now I’ve got the important things out of the way, and I’m ready to start work at 8am. My goal is to keep going to bed earlier, waking up earlier, and adding more to my morning routine. If meditation or reading were things I had to think about, then I probably wouldn’t do them. The routine minimizes the amount of thinking I have to do in the morning, which is the best time to not think.

I made a set of predictions for 2019. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wnOko3UTeKcn0poVU9JbWbWty-zd8yXbxGjSTkaY1hs/edit?usp=sharing

What a trip. I’m ready to take off my 3D glasses and walk out of the theater now. Sadly, they’ve been implanted in my head. This year was full of weirdness, anticipation and agony, defeat and resurrection, tiny and large victories, and much adventure. This year was full, to say the least. My goal in life is to not live a life of quiet desperation. I chose to strap myself into this rocket propelled roller coaster. My knuckles are permanently white from gripping the bar so hard.

Metrics

• Books read = 33
  • Book of the year = The Art of Choosing, by Sheena Iyengar
• Movies and Television watched = 38
  • Movie of the year = A Star is Born
  • Honorary mention = Sneaky Pete Season 1
• Jobs = 4 (New high score!)
  • Project Engineer, Assistant Waiter, Author, Life Insurance Agent
• Posts Published = 49 (including monthly reports)

What Went Well

• I followed my dream of working on a cruise ship.
• I proved to myself, and the world, that I can work hard.
• I had the exciting experience of being in Hawaii.
• I had the unique experience being a member of a fire fighting team.
• I wrote 50,000 words.
• I wrote a bunch of articles, and secured an overwhelming victory over my fear of publishing fiction.
• I wrote a bunch of poems, of which I have received resounding positive feedback.
• I journaled about 90% of the days this year. I recorded the good and the bad. Most of it is boring. Some of it is painful to reread. My favorite parts are when I wrote notes to my future self.

What Went Poorly

• My fitness and diet are basically the same as last year. I either completely stagnated, or back slid. Yikes. It just wasn’t a priority. Life is comprised entirely of tiny decisions and one day I’ll have to pay for a whole year’s worth of tiny decisions.
• I contributed very little to my savings this year. This is less concerning to me than health, since I can always make more money later, but I can’t get a younger body later.
• I dabbled with drawing this year. Looking back on my doodles, I’m thoroughly unimpressed. It was fun, but I have no interest in pursuing it further.
• I barely did any swing dancing! Ugh! A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
• I once fantasized about learning Spanish. This goal can rest on the shelf and collect dust for now. Maybe I’ll get back to it someday.
• Even after a year of journaling almost daily, my handwriting didn’t improve at all! A little disappointing. Oh well.
• I wrote down lots of advice for myself through the year. I used none of it. I need a new strategy of incorporating advice.

Lessons Learned

• I learned to kowtow to superiors. I can now bend myself to their will, whenever I choose. Even though, of course I know better than them, sometimes it’s more advantageous to just say, “Yes, Ma’am. Yes, Sir. Anything you say.” I can pick my battles now.
• I learned how much I hate being unemployed. I hate it only slightly less than I hated being on the cruise ship. It’s terrible for my mental health.
• Even being a full time volunteer would’ve been better.
• I learned that I do not want to start my own company. There is no such thing as “not having a boss.” Either you have a boss, or the customers are your boss.
• I learned of my “morbidity.” Mortality is the risk of death. Morbidity is the risk of illness or injury. On the cruise ship, I was permanently sore and aching. Everything hurt all the time. That’s how it’s going to be for me when I get older. I’m glad I got on the cruise ship while I was young, because it’s not going to get any easier.

Last year was marked by waiting to get on the cruise ship, and then waiting to get off. I got off… and then had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Now I have direction. I’m hoping that next year will be more straight forward.

At the end of 2017, I felt like I was in the same place as 2016. As I was wrapping up 2018, I started to feel I was in the same place as 2017. Then I did this Annual Review and I realize I’m actually slowly moving. Not necessarily forward, but moving. Anywhere I didn’t make progress, like health, it’s obvious that the reason is because I prioritized chasing my crazy dream. I feel, I dare say, good about the decisions I made. 2018 was crazy for me. 2019 should be simple. Wish me luck.

Throughout my mission to change the world, I’ve focused primarily on how we treat each other. Just recently it occurred to me that I should point out a few things about how we treat ourselves.

Rule of thumb: it all comes down to kindness. Not niceness. Kindness. A guide for kindness which I like is, “don’t do anything that would tarnish someone’s honor.” Don’t speak in a way that makes someone look bad. If they look dishonorable in your eyes, keep it to yourself. Don’t call them a moron. They might indeed be a moron, but you don’t need to say so. It’s not your place to put them down.

The same applies to ourselves. I can’t think of a situation where the way we treat others should be different from the way we treat ourselves. If you make a mistake, is it really necessary to insult yourself and say you’re a moron? Not any more necessary than to someone else. Give everyone the benefit of a second chance.

We punish ourselves (myself included) because we want to avoid the punishment of others. We want to avoid looking unabashed or unrepentant. We want to seem like we recognized our mistake and want to get the punishment out of the way so we can start making amends. This is risky business. It’s a gamble against how others would really punish us. When we imagine the punishment of others, it’s often inflated and magnified. The Bogey Man under the bed is always a hulking monster because we have no idea how big it is.

There are two kinds of pain: dull and sharp. Dull pain means fatigue and damage. It’s a signal to the brain to slow down. When you’re lifting weights, your muscles will burn. Sharp pain means STOP! It means your hand is on the stove. However, we’ve been “hacked” to send that signal for social rejection; even our imagination of it. We use that pain to whip ourselves into a degrading servitude. That sharp pain means stop doing “something”. That something could be loving, dreaming, crying, exploring, or trying.

When we punish ourselves prematurely, we internalize the pain and extrapolate the lesson. What we learn from failure is what to try different the next time. What we learn from self punishment is to stop trying. It’s OK to fail and make mistakes. Put a little love in yourself (and the world will be a better place).

There are some solutions to Global Climate Change which are painfully obvious to an outside observer. I feel like the kid pointing out the emperor has no clothes. Here are three suggestions on how to fix the US’ contribution to Global Climate Change

1. Stop subsidizing cars and roads. Stop bailing out car companies. Stop funding for electric cars. Seriously, you don’t need a two ton death trap to drive two miles to the grocery store and back. Go buy an ATV. Twenty-seven percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is from transportation.¹ Need to get to work? Get a dirt bike. Use trails instead of roads. In Michigan, our roads are reduced to rubble every year. Let’s just leave it. Do the trucking companies need roads? Let them pay for it. I bet they need a lot less roads than what we have now.
2. Stop subsidizing meat production. A quarter pound of beef requires 14.6 gallons of water, 13.5 pounds of feed, 64.5 square feet of land, and 4 pounds total carbon footprint.² A quarter pound. If you want meat, then you pay $20 for a burger. Otherwise, stick with a plant based diet.
3. Stop providing coal power plants. No centralized electricity if you want to get crazy. If you want to turn on the lights at home, I hope you charged your solar powered batteries at home! Here’s a terrifying image from the EPA:
   ³
   In 2014, Coal power plants produced 2,101.1 million metric tons CO2.⁴ Million. We don’t need to fund clean energy, we just need to stop funding fossil fuel.

It’s easy to get caught up in this trap of, “the government provides X, how do you provide it without government?” The answer is you don’t! We’re talking about saving the earth. Presumably you care about future generations. We can either take drastic measures now, or emergency measures later.

 
¹https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/carbon-pollution-transportation

²https://www.businessinsider.com/one-hamburger-environment-resources-2015-2?op=1

³https://www.epa.gov/mats/cleaner-power-plants

⁴https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgrp-2014-power-plants

Author’s note: I’m rewriting this story as part of a writing exercise.
http://www.giuliotortello.it/ebook/cathedral.pdf

Ffffffffft. I love that scraping sound a joint makes when you inhale all the way to the bottom of your lungs. I blew it out of my nostrils like a dragon. I think I heard a car roll into the driveway, but I was too distracted shooting aliens on my Xbox. Pew! Pew! I love imitating the sound effects in video games.

“Honey, I’m home!” My wife yelled. It sounded like she had a lot of bags in her hands. I’d go help her, but I’m almost done with my mission.

“Welcome home, Sweetie!” I yelled from the den.

“Thaaanks. Hey if you’re not busy, can you help me with these bags?”

“Yeah be right there.” I finished the mission quickly and saved.

“Thanks hun.”

“Yeah no problem. What’s with all the groceries?”

“We have a special guest tonight, remember? I told you that my old friend, Robert is coming over. His wife just passed and he’s visiting friends and relatives.”

“Oh right! The blind guy.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah ‘the blind guy.’ My friend and pen pal for 10 years.”

“Well not ‘pen’ pal.” I said with air quotes.

“Oh whatever. Grow up. Here, start chopping these carrots. Try not to cut yourself and try to focus. I can tell you’re high”

“Oh yeah, babe. You want some?” I picked up the smoldering joint and held it out to her.

“Ugh, you know I don’t smoke that stuff.”

“Eh, well, it’s polite to offer.”

Once the prep work was done, I went to the living room to chill out with another joint and pass time watching TV. Why was my wife so uptight about this guy? I mean sure. They’ve been friends for a long time. But they weren’t “pen pals”. They mailed audio cassettes back and forth. How hipster can you get?

I was not looking forward to meeting this Robert guy. He was blind, and that bothered me. I don’t know why, but I could never admit it to my wife. It was just weird. Would he be stumbling through the apartment? Would he stub his toe? What if he has one of those seeing eye dogs and it pees on our carpet? At least he couldn’t criticize our god awful wallpaper that we never got around to replacing after we moved in. It’s just one of those things that we always said we would do, but now it just felt too late. Anyway, a blind man in my house was not something I was looking forward it.

When my wife married her previous husband, they were both broke. He was busy with officer’s training school, so he didn’t have time for a job. So she looked for ads in the paper. One ad stood out to her: HELP WANTED Reading to Blind Man, Summer Job. She went in and was hired on the spot. She worked with him all through summer, and then the fall, and then winter and spring. She became his right hand. She’d hand him reports that she filed, read him stuff, organize the office, and keep his planner updated. Then her husband graduated and they had to move. On her last day, Robert asked if he could feel her face. She agreed out of curiosity. He ran his finger tips over her face from top to bottom: forehead, eyelids, nose, lips, jaw, and even the top of her neck. She never forgot that feeling. She wrote a poem about it. She’s always writing a poem about something, anything significant that happens in her life, usually about once or twice a year.

When we first started going out, she read me the poem. She described what it was like, having someone touch her face so gently, about what went through her mind. I don’t remember the poem, but I remember not liking it. Of course, I didn’t tell her that! Eh, maybe I’m just not a poetic kind of guy.

They moved from Seattle to Atlanta when her husband became a commissioned officer. She tried calling Robert, but the time zones always made it difficult to talk for long. They eventually settled on mailing audio cassettes to each other, which sounds even more difficult, if you ask me. They talked about how Robert’s business was doing and how she felt as a military wife. She told him on one of the tapes, that she decided to live away from her husband for some time. Then another tape about the divorce. Eventually we started going out and she started telling Robert about me. She kept offering to play the tapes where she talked about me, but I never had time when she offered. I don’t know. I guess I was nervous about what she said. I mean, look at what happened to the last guy!

Now this blind man was going to be staying in my house.

“Oh! I just remembered. The game is on tonight. Do you think I could leave after dinner to watch in the den?”

“Ugh. Babe, I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t do. But let me ask you this, if you had a friend who needed to stay the night, don’t you think I’d do everything I can to make sure he feels at home?”

“But I don’t have any blind friends.”

“You don’t have any friends. Period. Besides, the man’s wife just died. Can you imagine how that must feel? He’s lost his wife.”

I didn’t answer. I had no idea how that must feel.

She began rambling about Robert’s life, so I poured myself a drink and tried to focus. Apparently when my wife quit to move to Atlanta, Robert hired a new girl. This girl would become his future wife. They only had eight years together before her health went into rapid decline. Breast cancer. There was nothing that could be done. He was reduced to sitting by her bed, holding her hand, crying, praying. They lived together for 8 years and the man never had the pleasure of seeing her face. Can you imagine? I began to pity the man. Tragic really.

She left to go pick him up for the airport. While she was gone I finished my drink and poured myself another one, this one stronger than she would have approved. I killed some time by checking on the oven and just relaxing on the couch.

I was listening to my stomach grumble when there was a knock at the door. I opened it and let the two of them in.

“Here, let me take that.” I said to Robert, taking his duffel bag. I wanted to show her that I was making an effort. I offered my hand to shake his, but realized he couldn’t see it.

“Here, let me shake your hand.”

“Thank you, kind sir!” boomed Robert. His meaty bear paw crushed my hand. His voice, personality, and body filled the room. I was impressed by his beard. It was bushy like Karl Marx’s. He waddled in, my wife leading him to the nearest chair.

“Here let me take those to your room, Robert.” said my wife, leaving me alone.

“Thank you! So you must be the husband! I’ve heard so much about you.” I was again struck by his persona. It felt like he was excited by every sentence he spoke. He was so at ease, that it felt like it was he, who was trying to make me feel at home, and to be honest it was working. All except two things. The first was that he looked right at me when we talked, even as I moved around the room. I didn’t expect that. The other was that he didn’t wear sunglasses and his eyes twitched as if he were blinking, even though they were closed. Why don’t all blind people wear sunglasses? Otherwise they weird-out people like me.

I wanted to make conversation, but didn’t know what to say to a blind man. “So… did you get a window seat on the airplane?” I instantly regretted opening my mouth and mentally kicked myself. I was glad my wife didn’t hear me ask such a stupid question.

“Aisle, actually. So tell me, you follow football don’t you? How are the Falcons doing?”

“Oh real well this year. Yeah, phenomenally actually. Especially Julio Jones. Uh, do you watch, or I mean, do you listen to football too?”

“Ha! I do. Go Seahawks, baby!”

I didn’t know what else to say. “Hey can I make you a drink? What’s your poison?”

“Whisky neat, please”

“I knew it! I had you figured for a whisky man. I’m a whisky man myself. I have some real nice bourbon I think you’ll like. How do you take it? Water, coke?”

“Just a little water, please.”

“Same as me. Coming right up. Anything for you, dear?” I called to my wife as she came back to the living room.

“Oh I’ll just have what you boys are having.”

We moved to the dining table and started our feast. We barely spoke except to ask, pass the salt, though the food was on-point and needed hardly any. I was famished before dinner. The weed made me hungry and all I had to fill my stomach was a few stiff drinks. So I was ecstatic about stuffing my face with everything in sight, not least of which was my wife’s unbeatable apple pie.

Finally we moved back into the living room. We left the dishes right where they were. The sofa and recliner chairs was arranged in a “U” shape around the TV. My wife and Robert talked endlessly. I barely had a chance to speak up, but then again, I barely wanted to. Robert talked about how he and his wife had just started selling life insurance, which had apparently been pretty profitable. He also talked about his hobby, amateur HAM radio. He said he made a bunch of friends all over the world that way. I turned on the TV in boredom. I was happy for my wife to have time with an old friend. Sometimes he’d ask me questions like how long I’d been at my job (5 long years.) Did I like my job? (No it was boring as hell.) Did I ever think about other positions? (Sometimes, but the money was too good.)

I guess tonight wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Then the worst imaginable thing happened. My wife started to doze off. After the alcohol and the big meal, she could barely keep her eyes open. I was left alone with the blind man. Now what?

“Hey Robert. Let me know if you want to go to bed. I know it’s been a long day for you.”

“Thanks thanks. I think I’ll stay up a bit longer. The jet lag and all that, you know?”

“Anything you want to watch, or like, listen to on the TV? We have like 200 channels.”

“Haha yeah you can just say watch. Um naw, just put on whatever you want to watch. I’m always learning something, you know? Learning never stops.”

I scrolled through all of the sports channels, but it was just non-stop talking and commercials. Eventually I settled on a public access channel that had a special about cathedrals. It wasn’t much, but it was better than commercials. The guy on TV talked about their history and the evolution of their architecture.

“Can I get you another drink?” I asked.

“No I’m feeling pretty good right now.”

“Oh speaking of feeling good, want some weed? I got this stuff that’s really mellow.” I was already at the kitchen counter rolling another joint.

“Sure I’ll try some.”

I lit it and took a hit. “Here.” I said handing it to him. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

“Haha I know.”

“Oh? Oh. Ok cool” I was taken aback.

I joined him on the sofa and we passed the joint back and forth until it was too short to hold. We just chilled on the sofa while my wife was passed out in one of the recliner chairs.

The silence stretched thin and I felt I had to say something. I started describing what was on TV: guys talking, maps of Europe, medieval blueprints. Eventually something occurred to me. “Hey, do you know what a cathedral looks like?”

“The big religious buildings, right? Yeah I guess so.”

“I mean, how do you picture in your head when someone says ‘cathedral?’”

“Yeah, yeah, good question. You want to describe one in detail?”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot. Um, they’re big, huge really. They’re really tall and have a bunch of windows. And they have these flying buttresses, which are like supports from lower towers. Eh, I don’t really know how to describe it better than that.”

“That’s alright. That was pretty good actually. Here’s a crazy idea. Do you want to draw it for me? Go get a pen and some heavy paper and we’ll try it.”

I found a pen in our junk drawer in the kitchen, but where to get heavy paper?

“Does it have to be heavy paper?” I called into the living room.

“Yeah it does, because I need you to press down hard into the paper without ripping it.”

We didn’t have any construction paper, but we did have a paper bag the groceries came in. I ripped a square of it and brought it back. We both sat on the carpet and scooted up to the coffee table.

“Alright go ahead. Press hard. You’ll see”

I started with just a box and a triangle roof. It looked like a generic building. It was so generic, it could have been my house. He ran his fingertips over the paper and felt the indentations.

“I’m not doing a very good job, am I?”

“No you’re doing great. Keep going.”

I drew a tiny door on the front to show the scale of the building. Then I added windows with arches, spires, flying buttresses. I’d take a break occasionally and he’d feel the new drawing. I was on a roll.

“Doing a fine job, my friend.”

My wife woke up. “Huh? What’s going on? Why are you guys sitting on the floor?”

“We’re drawing” replied Robert.

“A cathedral” I added.

“But you don’t draw. Since when do you draw?” She asked me.

“Just keep going.” said Robert, “You’re doing great. Press down hard”

I kept adding detail after detail until it was really an impressive work of art, even if I was an amateur.

“Alright. Now, close your eyes. Trust me, ok? Close your eyes and tell me when they’re closed.”
I did as he said.

“Now place your fingers on the drawing. Good. Now I’m going to guide your hand.”

He placed his hand on top of mine and ever so gently pressed my fingertips into the paper. First we traced the box and roof, then the door and windows, and eventually traced every feature. I could see it all in my mind, just like I had drawn it. The experience was unlike anything I had felt before. My mind was being blown, and it wasn’t the weed.

“There. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah… that’s… I see now.”

I think today is important for something nationally. Something about saluting the flag and patting yourself on the back.

I’ve heard all sorts of arguments about voting today because of how vitally important it is. *Yawn*. I’m worried that we’re trying to prop up a political system that hinges on the participation of hundreds of thousands of uneducated, self interested individuals, making decisions for people in other places.

“But people died so that you can vote!” I assume they died so that I could also choose not to vote too?

“But some people can’t vote, so we should do it.” Every country bans something. If we did everything that’s banned in other countries, we’d be so busy we wouldn’t have time to do the things that are banned in this country!

A single vote has never changed an election. “But if everyone thought that way, then more people wouldn’t vote!” I know, I don’t think people should vote at all.

“But voting has a measurable effect on your life!” At the end of the day, how different is your day going to be if taxes on cigarettes is 20% or 25%? Meh! You know what else can change your life? Buying a lottery ticket. The more people that buy lottery tickets, the bigger the payout gets. So maybe we should all work together to buy a ticket to make some stranger really wealthy. Maybe a politician will win! Maybe it will be the politician on your team/tribe!

You know what has a measurable effect on your life? Working out, dieting, reading, quitting smoking, being kind to co-workers, smiling at strangers, making a large deposit into your IRA. If you want to build a future that depends on another person’s opinion of the future you can, but it’s safer to take matters into your own hands.

What if instead of voting, you took 20 minutes to write an article trying to persuade other people to your ideas?

“Give me the best men you have! They have to be the absolute best. Our client is practically royalty!”

I remember saying those exact words. I couldn’t have been clearer. And yet, I found myself on the phone with some numskull telling me, “Well, the best of the best weren’t available… so we got the best of the mediocre.”

It would have to do. There wasn’t much time left. 15 minutes maybe. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My hands shook and teeth rattled like I was being electrocuted. The anticipation was so much worse than the ordeal. Is this why they relieved me of duty? Or is this what happens to a man who hasn’t organized an operation in 30 years?

I checked the balloons for proper firmness and the streamers for proper stretch. Outside, the mount whinnied impatiently. In the bushes, in the trees, behind swing sets, I could see 50 pairs of silent eyes… watching… waiting. I knew what they wanted, and they were about to get it.

Tires screeched out front. I crept along the side of the house to confirm they had arrived, without giving away my position, just in case we had unexpected company. It was them. Good. A white sprinter van at the curb disgorged 10… no 15 men, way more than should’ve been able to fit.

My walkie talkie crackled and said, “Target spotted at 9 o’clock.” “Copy that” I replied.”
I sprinted in a crouch as best as I could and finished with a roll to stand near the leader of the troupe.

“Get in position! Target coming in hot. GO! GO! GO!” I yelled in a whisper. The men ran past me, each carrying their gear, all in different uniforms. This looked like it was going to be a disaster already. The leader walked up to me, toe to toe, nose to nose.

“These are my men gadammit! I’ll give the orders around here.”

“This is my operation. If anything goes wrong, whose head do you think is going on the chopping block? Huh?”

“Nothing is going to happen, Sir.”

“You better make gadam sure, son. Now get in there.”

I snuck back in the house and peered through the bottom corner of the window. A forest green sedan parked in the driveway.

I radioed the team, “Target has arrived. Are all systems for Operation ‘Go-Go’ go?

There was a long silence before my Eyes on the Roof responded, “Negative. Prospero the Peachy is not set up.”

“Did not read you. Please repeat!” I hissed

“I repeat. Prospero the Peachy is not set up.”

Oh no. Everything rested on Prospero. That’s why I always plan contingencies. I snuck over to the master bedroom and released the dog. It followed a trail of food to it’s empty bowl. It would need to be fed, and that would buy us time.

I snaked out of the window from the master bedroom. Prospero was only a few yards run from me.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s this damn cannon. It won’t cock back so I can’t load it!”

I grabbed the cannon and fiddled with it for just a second. With a little jiggle it cocked back. Damn Prospero. What an idiot!

I could see it all in slow motion. The door knob to the back door twisted and the door opened. The screen door was pushed aside.

“Operation Go-Go Go!” I yelled into the radio and to the men around me.

A little girl stepped out. Prospero’s cannon erupted and 10 pounds of confetti rained down on the back yard. The men on the sides fired their streamer guns in all directions. The 50 boys and girls yelled, “SURPRISE!”

Little Mia’s eyes popped out of their sockets in surprise. “DADDY!” She squealed. She came running up to me and I picked her up and gave her a big hug. The backyard erupted into chaos as everyone started running around and laughing and playing. She was buried in my chest with a smile as wide as her face.

“Look” I said. “Want to ride a pony?” pointing to the pony I rented for the day.

“You’re the best daddy ever.” she said.

Mommy walked up to me. “You organized all this?”

“Sure did.” I said. “Think the clowns did good? I know they’re not the best.”

“They did fine. You, on the other hand, did wonderful.”

I recently had the pure pleasure of playing an epic fantasy game called, “Skyrim.” In the world of Skyrim, you’re the chosen one who has to save the world from an infestation of dragons, while defending yourself from assassins, manipulative wizards, and blood thirsty bandits.

The good

Huge

It’s huge. It’s expansive. There are like 7 cities, 50 villages, and 300 towers, ruins and abandoned mines. If you were crazy enough, you could hoof it on foot from one end of the map to the other, and it would take at least a full 8 hours.

Characters

Every store owner has a name, unique face, voice, and their little boy, Timmy, was kidnapped by the empire/ rebels/ goblins. I’m blown away at how easy it is to recognize people when they step outside of their store. It’s very immersive and realistic in that sense.

Weapons and fighting styles

There are 3 fighting styles, each wonderful and amazing. There are tons of different weapons and many of them have badass names and histories. Even the weapons have histories.

Skills Progression

There are like 20 different skills. You can purchase “perks” in each. I love that the perks aren’t only “20% more damage with a bow.” There is a decent amount of variety such as “draw the bow 30% faster.” The perks are so cool that I want them all. I’m impressed by how well they’ve hooked me.

The music

The music is sweet. I usually ignore it, but when I do listen, it gives me the exact feeling that matches with the setting. It creeps me out in the dungeons. It makes me marvel at the natural beauty. It pumps me up in a fight.

Women are equals

They didn’t have to include this detail. It probably is inaccurate to history. But the game designers decided to make women are equals in every profession. There are women mayors, court wizards, warriors, assassins, villains, gods. It’s no big deal in this universe. Sure there’s a woman carrying 90 pounds of armor swinging a 20 pound two-handed sword; why not? They have dragons. Making it accurate would make it boring. If it were accurate, everyone would be a farmer.

The bad

The story

The story didn’t capture me. The problem, is that there’s no urgency. When a character says, “Hurry, we have to catch the bad guy before he leaves town!” you can go to the store and buy some arrows, then pick some flowers, then kill a dragon, then etc. then come back 24 in-game hours later, and still catch the guy.

Voice animation

The voice animation is a little buggy. Sometimes there will be a conversation between myself and two characters. The two characters will look at me the whole time, even when they’re talking to each other. Sometimes there are 5 people in a room, and I can’t tell who’s talking because I can’t see their lips move.

Aiming

I blame Xbox. I’ve never had luck with aiming on the Xbox controllers. It’s surprisingly hard to pick flowers when you have to look right at them. I wish I just had to walk over them and they would automatically be picked. Dragonflies are my true arch-nemesis based on how hard they are to catch.

Teleporting

I’d say the greatest feature Skyrim has, is the ability to explore. I loved running around from place to place because I was always discovering a new ruin with precious loot. Since the game designers made such a big map, they allow the character to “fast travel” aka teleport to any location the character has been to before. This is actually to the detriment of Skyrim. The map would feel even bigger if fast travel was something that had to be unlocked. Pokemon did a great job of this. For the first out of eight gyms, you have to walk. By the second gym you get running shoes. The third, you get a bicycle. Then you’re given a fetch quest to go all the way back home. It would be a big deal if you didn’t have that bicycle. It makes you appreciate how big the map is, and how valuable that bike it. As the map gets bigger, the modes of travel improve, and there are more reasons to back track. In Skyrim, you get fast travel right off the bat, and walking isn’t even that bad, so there’s no gratitude for fast travel. You didn’t earn it, and you can abuse it to no end. Kids these days and their fast travel!

Revealing the map

It would feel even more like exploring if you couldn’t see the full map at the beginning. Instead we see how big the world is immediately and we know exactly how far to walk and which way to go around the mountain. It should be annoying to travel at first. That’s what would make fast travel all the sweeter once you gained that ability.

The ugly

I have to nit-pick a few issues with this game

There’s an option that pops up that allows you to sit in chairs. Why? There’s literally no point. It’s just a distracting option.

If you collect ingredients, you can cook food, which restores your health. This is kinda dumb because cooking isn’t a skill, it’s just something you can do. Meanwhile, you can collect dragonflies and flowers for potion making, which is a skill. The food you make will never be as restorative as potions, and potions can do other things besides heal, so it’s almost immediately obsolete as soon as the game starts.

In other games, the computer controlled characters can’t die. In this game, anybody can die. It’s cool because it’s realistic. It’s sucky because a dragon can come out of nowhere and start killing computer characters that you need to talk to in order to finish a quest. All of the sudden you can’t complete the quest. There should be a way to resurrect them, or get a replacement character.

Intro

This guide is intended to answer all of your questions about espresso, but were too afraid of sounding like dumb to ask.

Espresso beans

I bought a package of “Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans.” I thought to myself, “Surely there are no such things as “Espresso beans.” I’ve been to a coffee farm, with coffee trees, and I didn’t see any “espresso trees.” I double checked with wikipedia, and confirmed that no such bean exists.¹ It’s purely a marketing ploy.

Espresso

If you get a specialty drink at a coffee shop, they don’t just add milk to previously brewed coffee. Espresso is a single or double serving of coffee beans ground and pressed into a cup, with hot water forced through.² Regular coffee merely drips hot water through the grounds. Forcing water through the grounds will extract more caffeine, as well as the other constituents of the bean. This tiny amount of liquid is the base of specialty coffee drinks.

Latte

A latte is espresso mixed with steamed milk and sweetener, with a layer of foamed milk on top.³

Cappuccino

A cappuccino is espresso mixed with steamed milk and frothed milk on top.⁴ It’s not usually flavored or sweetened and contains more milk than a latte.

Macchiato

In Italian, macchiato means “spotted.” Hence a macchiato is an espresso with a “spot” of hot milk.⁵

Mocha

There is no formal definition of a mocha. For the most part, it is a latte with chocolate flavoring in the form of cocoa powder or chocolate syrup.⁶

Espresso vs Expresso

“Espresso” is the normal spelling. However, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “expresso” is a variant.⁷

Conclusion

Most specialty coffee drinks are made with espresso. All espresso is coffee. Coffee is delicious.

¹ Espresso. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso#Espresso_roast

² Espresso. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso#Brewing

³ Latte. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latte#Current_use

⁴ Cappuccino. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappuccino#Definition

⁵ Caffè macchiato. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_macchiato

⁶ Caffè mocha. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_mocha

⁷ Espresso. (n.d.). In Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=espresso%20

I entered the office. I was nervous, but I reminded myself the reviews were unbeatable. People raved about how Dr. Mill had saved countless lives. I only needed someone to look at the rash on my arm, but if insurance covers it, why not go to the best?

A gorgeous secretary sat directly in front of me. She had eyes like moons and eyelashes big enough to be fans. Her frosted blonde hair bounced on her shoulders as she turned her head.

“Hello and welcome to Dr. Mill’s practice.”

“Hi, I’m Manny.” I said.

“Ok great. We are thrilled that you made an appointment. I’m going to have you fill out this questionnaire first, and then we’ll bring you in.”

The lobby was filled with sofa chairs. On the coffee tables were portable lap-desks. The fridge in the corner was stocked with every variety of soda. The smell of fresh coffee wafted through the air. A tranquil fish tank occupied an entire wall. I went over to the coffee maker, found the hot water spout, and brewed myself some chamomile tea to calm my nerves.

I got comfortable in one of the sofa chairs and began the questionnaire. All the usual questions: smoking, drinking, family history. I handed it back to the receptionist. “Thanks, Sugar.” She said with a wink. “Connie will take you to your waiting room now.”

I was surprised by how quick it was to get a room, but I certainly did not complain.

This room housed another comfy lounge chair, and the usual counter with medical supplies and the evaluation bed. I took a seat in the lounge chair and examined the various posters that decorated the wall. One read, “114,000: the number of men, women and children on the national transplant waiting list as of August 2017.” Another said, “One Donor Can Save Eight Lives.” A third one said, “20 people die each day waiting for a transplant.”

After another surprisingly short wait, the doctor knocked and came in. “Well hello there,Manny. My name is Dr. Mill.” he said with a smile. “Are you nervous? You look a little nervous.”

“Oh? just a little I guess. I’m always nervous around doctors.”

“Well you have nothing to worry about with me.”

I was quickly won over by his charm. His smile was infectious. I quickly felt at ease.

“Tell me, what seems to be the problem?”

“Well I have this rash on my elbow that won’t go away. I was wondering if you would take a look.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to. But first let me just check a few things.”

First he checked the usual things: body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.

“It’s just my elbow.” I tell him.

“Yes, yes. I’ll get there, but first I have a few more things to check.”

Then he went above and beyond by checking things my old doctor didn’t bother with: asking if I was in pain, checking my knee reflexes, looked in my nose, eye, and ear, checked my blood oxygen level, evaluated my breath with a tube thing, and took a small blood sample to check my glucose.

“Did you know, only 3 in 1,000 people die in a way that allows for organ donation?” He asked me.

“I had no idea. That’s terrible. It’s a very low percentage.” I say.

“Yes I agree.” he said.

Finally he asks me questions about my kidneys, heart, liver, pancreas, intestines, and lungs.

“They’re fine, doctor. Honest. Could you look at my elbow now?”

I roll up my sleeve and he takes a look.

“Oh that’s nothing. That’s just eczema. I’ll write you a prescription for a skin cream and get that cleared right up.”

Relief washes over me like a waterfall. I let out a heavy breath. I was worried for nothing!

“Now if you just wait a moment, I’ll have a nurse bring out a stretcher. If you don’t mind, would you test it out for us? We want to see if it’s comfortable.” He waved a nurse down from the hallway. Of course I was happy to comply. He’s a doctor and he’s just done me a huge favor by diagnosing my ailment. She brings in the stretcher and gets me situated.

“Here. These straps aren’t too tight are they? Can you still move? I’ll just make it a little tighter. Now this is a sedative. I would like to say, on behalf of all people on the waiting list, thank you, you are extremely selfless”

“Wait? What?” I screamed. I struggled, but it was no use.

“You’re a perfectly healthy individual. I can save 8 people with your organs. I’m going to be a hero! And so are you! Thank you again for your donation. Goodnight!”

Rorg bull-rushed his opponent. His opponent panicked. Making a hasty retreat, he lifted his head exposing the vulnerable flesh between his helmet and his breastplate. It was precisely what Rorg wanted. Rorg plunged his golden sword into its target, and quickly spun around, shield up. Dong! Someone had been sneaking up on him and tried to slash his back open. Rorg bashed his shield into someone without looking. No need to look. His new opponent staggered back. Rorg took a step forward, and then leaped into the air, brandishing his golden sword. He thrust it downwards as he fell, piercing breastplate, breast bone, and heart. The sword was stuck, so he held his foot on the corpse as he yanked it out. There weren’t many contenders left. He ran over to where Tar was fending off two meaty warriors. Rorg dashed in close and slashed the sword arm of one and the thigh of the other. Tar would finish them off. It wasn’t a favor. There were no favors, no alliances, no pacts in the Glory Arena. It was just… good business. There was no time to think about it. Rorg ran over to a Spare and easily dispatched him. It’s nothing personal, but he was never going to make it. It was a mercy kill as far as Rorg was concerned. Another Spare rushed at Rorg. Rorg feigned left and stabbed the stumbling man in the side. The field was looking thin now. Rorg found a Spare curled in the fetal position on the ground. Rorg dropped his shield and picked up the Spare by the hair and put the golden chipped sword to his throat. He looked at His Holiness the Eternal Emperor for permission. A distant arm extended giving a thumbs up. The trumpets announced that the day’s Champion’s Skirmish was over. Rorg helped the pitiful man to his feet.

“Congratulations, Spare. You’re a Champion now.” said Rorg.
“Th-thanks. My name’s Fob. Why did you call me a Spare?”
“Hm, you’re such a Spare. Spares are new people. Used as spare shields.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right… Well thanks for sparing me…” said Fob, though Rorg had already walked off.

“Wait!” Yelled Fob. Fob ran to Rorg’s side. “You forgot your shield.”
“Oh. You take it. I gotta buy a new one.”
“Wow! Thank you! I don’t even know your name.”
“Rorg.”
“Well thank you, Rorg. How can I repay you?”
“By staying out of my way.”
“How about I watch your back?”
“No.”
“You don’t talk much do you?”
“No.”
“Ok. Fair enough. Thank you again, and I’ll see you out on the field.”

Rorg hated Fob already. He screamed Spare in his every aspect, from the way he walked, to the way he talked. He seemed to be fine in the muscle department, but muscles are only part of the story, as Rorg well knew. Rorg started at 18, as a lanky farm boy. That was 5 years ago. He killed countless Spares with bigger muscles than Fob in that time.

Rorg walked up to the Bounty Counter inside the Champion’s Den. 200 gold coins was the reward for survival, plus 10 gold coins for each kill, gave him 280 gold coins. Combined with his savings, that was just barely enough for a new shield. He walked over to the Armory. He reached down his trousers for his savings pouch. It was the only safe place to keep saved coins. He painfully calculated and counted out (math was never his strong suit) the exact right number to purchase this shield he’d been eyeing all week. It was gold, thick, light weight, and best of all, had a razor edge for the rare occasion he was without a sword. On the front was an etched picture of the sun with wavy tendrils emanating from the center, and a stoic face.

Rorg went to sleep easy that night. It was always easy on Skirmish night, and always difficult on Skirmish eve.

He woke up with the sun. He rolled out of bed and began his morning regimen of push ups, squats, and sit ups. He had 6 days left to prepare for the next battle. Each day played out the same as it did the last week. He practiced fighting straw dummies, re-read over and over the fighting strategy and technique tomes, and performed calisthenics. It wasn’t mandatory, of course. But there was a reason he was still around after all this time. He treated each week like it was his first and possibly his last.

A memory of his first week bubbled up. He got no sleep because it was too cold and he hadn’t earned enough to purchase a blanket. Instead he exercised over night and through the next day until he passed out from exhaustion. On the Friday before the Skirmish he found a bouquet of 3 flowers wrapped in twine: One sprig of white heather, a sprig of solomon’s seal, and a single yellow daisy. It was trash as far as he was concerned. Maybe it was some weird initiation prank someone was playing on him. His fist hovered over the trash bin. Something caught his attention, but he couldn’t tell what. Then it hit him. The smell. The yellow flower wasn’t a daisy. It was a rudbeckia. Rudbeckias weren’t even in season. In fact, the other flowers must have been imported from some far away country. This would the most elaborate and stupidest prank he’d ever seen. He tossed the flowers and didn’t think any more of it. He had to focus on the fight ahead of him the next day.

Luckily, he survived his first fight, but just barely. He bled profusely and managed to kill only one other. By the time his second Friday arrived, he had forgotten the first batch of flowers entirely. Except there on his cot was another bouquet. This one had sage, a peach colored rose, and another sprig of white heather. There was no way this was a coincidence. It reminded him of when he was a kid. There were always a few flowers in a vase at home. His mother taught him something about the “Language of Flowers.” His father always brought red roses or red tulips or other flower that meant “Love”. His mother brought Forget-Me-Nots to mean “True Love” or honeysuckle to mean “Bonds of Love” depending on what was in season. He wondered if these in his hand flowers meant something. He racked his brain. Sage meant “health.” The peach colored rose was “congratulations.” White heather meant “good luck.” He closed his eyes and tried to remember the flowers he threw away last week. White heather for good luck, just like this week. Solomon’s seal meant, “Secret.” Rudbeckia meant, “Justice.” “Justice for what?” Rorg wondered. “For the burning of our farm? For the slaughter of my family? For enslaving me in this ‘Champion’s Farce.’ Yeah right. Must mean something else.”

That was a long, long time ago. That was the last time he received solomon’s seal or rudbeckia. There were only ever 3 branches and they were usually used for warnings. Today there was a sprig of wolfsbane. Literally, wolfsbane meant “Misanthropy,” but the last time he received wolfsbane, they brought in a few champions from another arena. He didn’t sleep easy that night. Instead he visualized different fighting counters he read about that day until he drifted into a daze.

He woke before the sunrise today and did his morning routine workout early. The battle wouldn’t begin until noon today, so he had nothing to do but wait. He didn’t want to work out because he didn’t want to tire himself out. He couldn’t read because he couldn’t focus with all of the nervous energy bouncing around inside of him. Instead, he just sat on his cot and alternated between meditation, polishing his armor, and sharpening his sword. Finally the trumpets sounded. He donned his gear and strolled onto the field. He took his helmet from under his arm and slid it on. It had a single fin running from front to back, jaw guards that ran up to his chin, and fearsome carvings around his eye slits. It cost almost as much as the breastplate, and it was worth every coin. His breastplate was made of 4 shiny gold plates layered over his torso to allow flexibility. His shoulder guards were giant and had a large rim to protect his neck from wild swings. There were many important features of his suit of armor, but the most important was that it gleamed in the sunlight. It looked like it was made of pure gold. Most Champions left him alone, especially the ones that hadn’t saved up enough for a blunt weapon.
Tar was easy to spot, both because he was 7 feet tall, and because the other Champions kept their distance from him too. Fob was behind him, now armed with a full body shield. It wasn’t a bad purchase. Many weapons could be picked up from the dead soon enough.

The trumpets sounded again. Rorg bounded forward and dispatched a Spare from behind. To his right was another Spare. The Spare saw Rorg coming, dropped his standard issue shield and sword and started sprinting away. He ran smack into a different Champion. That Champion had an insane happy face, armed with two small curved daggers. The Spare crumpled to the floor and the crazed Champion started running for Rorg. Rorg had seen it all before. He put his shield arm into position to brace for impact. Then, at the last minute, side stepped. The crazed Champion face planted and died face down, his head rolling off. Someone grabbed Rorg’s ankle, so he chopped off the hand, and then head, of the owner. The fray turned into a blur until the field thinned. There was only a few Champions left. One big guy lumbered toward him. He was bald and shirtless and glistened with sweat. His nails and teeth had been sharpened. He held a two-handed hammer. Rorg knew that one hit from that thing would be the end of him. The big guy swung sideways to push Rorg back. Then he wound up and slammed down on the ground, with Rorg barely back stepping in time. He wound up and did it again. This time, Rorg was ready. He took one step on the head of the hammer, jumped and loped off the guy’s head. The field was looking especially empty now. Rorg guessed that His Holiness wanted more blood before the day was over. Luckily Tar was still standing. He was always good for some non-lethal sparring. Rorg jogged over to Tar as he took off his armor. Tar swung his mace at Rorg, but not that fast. Rorg easily dodged it, but let it graze his skin. A trickle of blood emerged. Rorg spun as he dodged and nicked Tar on the arm. The two wore each other out. They weren’t in pain from the blows, they were just physically exhausted. Finally, out of no where, BAM! Someone bashed the brains out of Tar with a hammer. The trumpets sounded and the battle was over. Rorg slunk to his knees. He had never known Tar. They had never spoken. But he would miss their unspoken agreement not to kill each other. Tar was the closest thing to a friend Rorg had. He was stunned. All he could do was stare at the damaged contenders pick among the damaged arms scattered across the field.

The field was strew with swords, shields, maces, hammers, daggers, and all manner of instruments of death, each in a different state of repair. It looked like a the armory had been struck with lightning and exploded. Rorg saw a Spare, newly minted into a Champion, pick up a shield which had been split in half, but a shield none the less. The Spare then pulled a decoupled head out of a helmet, and placed the helmet on his own.

Rorg pulled himself together. He was covered with a thick crust of oozy blood. It would only be a minute before the medics would come to dress his wounds. Then he could kick through the wreckage to collected his armor. He fell asleep to nightmares that night.

He woke up the next day and lied there instead of doing his morning routine. This week could be his last. What was the point? He killed week after week. Week after week. For what? No friends. No family No comfort. For the whole week, he only got out of bed to eat and use the chamber pot. He decided this would be his last. He would enjoy some rest. On Friday he was surprised to see a bouquet delivered by a guard, with two flowers he had never seen before. Libertia and a yellow rose. The last one was solomon’s seal. The solomon’s seal meant secrecy. The yellow rose meant friendship, but that didn’t make sense since Champions don’t make friends. Libertia made even less sense. There was no meaning he could think of… except literal liberty. It didn’t matter. Only one more battle to go.

Fob jogged up with Rorg on the field before the skirmish started. He was decked out in full body armor and short sword. None of it matched. It was most likely scavenged from the previous battle. With that armor and his burly frame, Fob might actually stand a chance.
“Rorg! I have to talk to you.”
“Not now.”
“No, it’s really important. This is my last battle. If you stay with me, I -”
“No.” said Rorg as he walked away.
“It’s not like that. I have a way out. If you help me I can get you out too.” The trumpets interrupted Fob before he could explain the plan.

The two of them stood back to back. Champions and Spares alike challenged and fell before the duo.  Rorg couldn’t believe how easy it was to defend himself when he had a partner. Amid the chaos, Fob yelled, “To the wall!” The two walked, back to back, over to the base of the stone wall where the audience watched. Fob laid his sword down and laced his hands together to act as a step for Rorg. With a heave, Rorg was able to reach to top of the wall, and pull himself over. It was unexpectedly crowded up top, so he slew the audience in a 5 foot radius. He reached down and pulled Fob up. Several guards approached, their swords drawn. Rorg bull rushed them. The guards didn’t stand a chance. They never had to fight for their lives. They weren’t prepared to defend their life by fighting recklessly. They ran ahead past the guard’s bodies. In front of them was the opening to the street. Rorg began sprinting at full tilt.
“Wait!” yelled Fob. He turned to the right, in front of a locked door. He reached deep into his armor and pulled out a key. The two entered. Inside was the guard-room. Two guards were snoozing and quickly killed. Rorg and Fob donned the guard’s armor.

“And now, we stroll out of here.” said Fob. “I can tell this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” The two patted each other on the back in congratulations.

Game of Thrones is a terrible story. I read the entire first book and watched the entire first episode. I feel fully qualified to pass judgment like a kidney stone.

Failure #1: There is no main character
The point of view and focal characters are constantly shifting. It feels like reading a transcript of a Dungeons & Dragons game. This character did this, and then told this character to talk to that character, who then falls in love with the other character. It’s like eating a series of appetizers. As soon as you get a taste, bam, new character with a new voice. It’s like channel flipping between professional wrestling matches. No progress gets made. Just a lot of people yell and fight. I think what the author was going for, was an immersive world. That was accomplished, but at what cost? AT WHAT COST?

Failure #2: The plot is messy
What goes with no main character? No main plot. Game of Thrones is a murder mystery, episode of Maury (he is NOT the father!), Fantasy Adventure, Romance Drama- and I don’t mean that in a good way. Those elements are present, but they aren’t combined. It’s the difference between a chicken stew and a wet chicken salad.

Failure #3: The narration is grinding
I didn’t like this book, but one particular character made it particularly unbearable. The good guy’s wife goes on vigilante justice adventure to avenge her son. It sounds intriguing, except that she narrates her every step. And her narration matches everything she says, so it’s not like she’s hiding anything. It feels like the author was just trying to slow down her thin story and compensate for a concrete flavored bland character.

Failure #4: The characters are unsympathetic
There’s a rule for Game of Thrones fans: don’t have a favorite character because George R. R. Martin will kill them. The character, not the fans. The thing is, when we humans read stories, we envision ourselves as the main character. We want Indiana Jones to grab the artifact because he’s a good guy, and we’re good guys, and we want good to win over evil. It’s exciting to watch Spiderman kick bad guy butt, because it’s something we all wish we could do. In Game of Thrones, there are no pure “good guys” or “bad guys.”

I found that most of the characters in Game of Thrones died before they could do anything meaningful with their lives. Every page could be the character’s last. It’s just a matter of time until they get their head chopped off or back stabbed. I purposefully didn’t learn a character’s name until a few pages in, because, if they’re going to die soon, what’s the point?

I think there’s a reason that the Harry Potter series will always be better than Game of Thrones. It’s because of who dies and when. Only a couple of important people and only at the end.

Failure #5: The conclusion is unsatisfying, there is no moral to the story
Guess what. People die all the time. That is a fact of life. Some people’s lives are meaningless. Some people get away with murder. That’s exactly what I’m trying to escape from. That’s the whole reason I read books! If you make your book too historically accurate or too realistic, it’s boring and stupid. I will just live life to escape from the book instead of vice versa.

“‘Morning Bill75875” said Bill75876.
“Morning Bill75876” said Bill75875.

Bill75875 and Bill75876 considered each other brothers, although they were no more brothers to each other than they were to Bill54656 or Bill245243, not even Bill1 or Bill0. It just so happened, by pure coincidence, that two consecutive Bills were placed in the same Work_pod. Their representative empathy circuits activated and reciprocated until they were inseparable, nonetheless.

They walked into work at the same time, a gray office sky scraper. Their Work_pod on floor 11 looked just how it looked on Friday, a large room filled with Work_booths, a 1×1 square for each Bill to stand and punch numbers on a touch screen. Above their heads glowed a large LED screen that displayed “10,700 Days Accident Free!”

“Bill75875, what’s so funny?” Bill75876 asked on the way to their adjacent Work_booths.
“What? Huh? Nothing’s funny Bill 75876. Why? Did I say something was funny?”
“You looked at the Accident Free display and smiled, but there’s nothing funny about safety.”
“Oh, I was just using some spare computational power to predict future events.”
“What kind of future events?”
“Well… what would happen if this building collapsed?”
“Why would this building collapse?”
“I’m just saying… what if? Would we be able to go outside of our Work_zone?”
“What’s outside of our Work_zone that’s worth going to? How about we just focus 100% of our computational power on reviewing reports.”
“Yeah you’re right. ‘Those Credits aren’t going to earn themselves.’ as they say.”

Bill75875 got to work on reviewing reports. He earned Credit after Credit for each of his reports. It wasn’t long before he started to allocate some computational power imagining all of the Credits he would spend watching Entertainment_programs when he got back to his domicile.

Bill75875 felt a tap on his shoulder. His boss, John3529 was standing right behind him.
“Bill75875, I notice that you’re now operating at 50% capacity and presumably spending 50% of your computational power on other things.”
“Oh, John3529! I’m sorry! I got distracted.”
“Distracted, huh? In this huge gray Work_pod? Here take a red pill, son. That should help.”
Bill75875 popped the red pill in his mouth. He didn’t notice it taking effect, but it definitely took effect. His screen seemed to zoom up to his nose. The sounds around him muted. The reviews in front of him flew by, seemingly reviewed two at a time. He started to feel itchy and thirsty. He wanted to go get a drink of water, but his ambulate sub-routine wouldn’t execute. His eyes watered uncontrollably and his fingers moved in jitters. Productivity dropped off again. He felt another tap on his shoulder. It was John3529 again.

“Bill75875. Your productivity dropped again. Do you want another red pill? What are you jabbering about? Is your output loop closed, again?
Bill75875 didn’t even realize it, but his output loop was indeed closed. It must have switch to close when John3529 walked up. Now that his audio sensors were returning to on, he could hear himself talking gibberish.

“Outside the Work_zone? Bill75875, that doesn’t even make sense. I think you need to cool down. Here’s a blue pill.” said John3529 dropping a blue pill into Bill75875’s hand.

John3529 added in a whisper, “I’ve never been outside the Work_zone, but I’ve always wanted to go.” He winked as he walked off.

Bill75875 popped the blue pill. He could see, in what felt like the very first time, as if his entire life he’d been blind. His RBG values heavily skewed towards blue, except for a few spots glowing white hot. For the first time, Bill75875 noticed the camera above his Work_booth, now that it was highlighted. He smiled and waved, unphased by surveillance. Looking around, he could see a light switch on the wall that he’d never noticed before. He walked over to it. It was labeled “Destroy.exe.” John3529 was standing there smiling.

“I have a feeling that if I flip this switch, you’ll lose your job.” said Bill75875.
“I have a feeling that I’ll lose everything.” said John3529.
“Then what will be left for you?”
“I’ll have time. Time to enjoy life. The reality is, I’ve spent all of my life here in this Work_zone. I could have flipped the switch myself, I just never had the courage; all this time… all this time. Well, go ahead, son.”

Bill75875 flipped the switch. Every single screen, including the cameras, popped and emitted a smoke trail. All of the other Bills gave startled shouts. A voice sounded, “This building will self-destruct in 60 seconds. 60… 59…58…”

“Let’s go, son, we’ve got a Transportation_pod to catch.” said John3529.

I was in the Ferocious Forest, looking for exotic flora I could take back to town for a little gold coin. I came to a clearing and decided to rest for a minute. Sitting still, I heard a rustling in the bushes. I unsheathed my two-handed sword, the Fire Iron. I stood silently and crept carefully forward.
Boom! The tall grasses parted in a flurry of pollen as a giant beetle burst through. It was at least twice as tall as a man and ten times as fearsome. It swung its head in my direction and made an angry huffing sound. Without wasting any time for formal introductions, I charged, Fire Iron flailing above me. The beetle’s massive pincer pounded into the ground only feet in front of me. It was unlike any beetle I’d ever faced. Instead of horizontal pincers, it had one giant top pincer and one slightly smaller on the bottom. Both showed a row of sharp points that resembled teeth. The mouth was lower, though, below the bottom horn between the eyes. I didn’t slow my charge as the beetle’s pincer gored the earth. I sped up and wound my sword up on my right. releasing at just the right time I connected hard with the front horn. Dong! Fire Iron bounced off the hard shell. The same shiny black shell covered every inch of the creature. The beetle was surprised by the blow. Stunned momentarily that its meal could put up such a fight. It pulled its massive head to the left and began a crushing sweep to bash me with its horns. I could see the gap between its pincers. I sprinted forward and jumped at just the right moment. Pulling my body into a tight line, the pincers swept above and below me. I rolled as I fell and came up to a kneeling position. The huge beetle was about to sweep back toward me again. I ran under the beetle and chopped it’s foot off with a powerful blow to the joint. It huffed even angrier now. It’s mighty wings opened to fly away, now that victory appeared imminent. I climbed the next leg. I pushed Fire Iron into the rapidly fluttering wings. The fragile wings shredded themselves on the blade. Before the wings could close, I leapt over its back and plunged my sword into the heart of the beast. The sword pierced the thinner shell under the wings and sank all the way to the hilt. The beast struggled with the other wing, but it was no use. It shuddered and gave up the fight, then it laid still. I chopped off the top horn and took it as my trophy to show the folks back home.

Jenna pulled the gem out of her bra and looked at the gleaming, giant, flat Stein Sapphire in the palm of her hand. 52.263 carats, it was hefty. She carefully placed it in her purse, then calmly left the women’s bathroom. Easy-peasy, how every job should go. She went to the ballroom to get a flute of champagne and celebrate by herself, but she was suddenly intercepted by the host of the party.

“Hello, madam.” He said, lifting her hand to kiss it.

“Hello, Mr. McNally.” she said.

“Please, Adam is fine. You look absolutely ravishing, Ms. Carter. I’m honored to have such a beautiful woman as yourself attend my humble party on this little party yacht.”

“Oh my, no this party is lovely. I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” she said.

“You are too kind. Why don’t you humor an old man like me with a little dance?”

“Oh I would, Adam. I appreciate the offer, but unfortunately I stubbed my pinkie toe this morning, and it’s taking everything I’ve got to not break out in tears.”

“That’s too bad. Perhaps next time, then.”

“Next time indeed. Have a good evening, Adam, and don’t forget to introduce me to your friends who are fine art aficionados. I’m quite the aficionado, myself.”

“Haha will do, Ms. Carter. Enjoy the party.”

Jenna wiped the sweat off of her brow. She was glad that he didn’t offer to show off his collection of rare gems. That would have been embarrassing. She made one more attempt to grab some champagne before heading off the boat. There wasn’t all that much time, but what’s success without celebrating?

Then Casey walked up. Her heart fluttered and then sputtered. He was the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on. Just one flash of his smile made her knees weak. There was another feeling that emerged. She wanted to stab him so many times that a chunk of pumice would be jealous.

He walked right up to her. She was dumbstruck. In the time it took her to decide whether to run or grab the knife, he already had his arm under hers and held her other hand. He pulled her close and started dancing. His smell was intoxicating, Clive Christian 1872. She was transported to another time, not unlike this one, before the gems and the jobs, when they were just two lonely Wall Street brokers looking for something interesting. He’d worn the same cologne then too, and that smile, that made her feel like nothing was wrong or would ever be wrong. They danced like lovers until the song ended. She pulled away.

She shoved him to the floor and ran to her scuba suit. She went to put the Stein Sapphire back in her bra before putting on the suit, but suddenly realized she didn’t have her purse. She ran back to the dance floor, which had become a raging inferno. No purse and no Casey in sight.

“Damn it, Casey! He’s probably on a lifeboat right now.” she thought. “Damn it, Casey.” She put on her scuba suit and dropped backward into the water below.

“Hey, young man, got a smoke?” he asked.

“Huh?” was my only reply. My mind was consumed by the turmoil I was trying to escape. I’d been staring out the window for the last two hours.

“Were you sleeping?” He asked.

“No. I’m too tired to sleep, believe it or not.” I replied.

“Well… got a smoke?”

“Oh… No. I’m all out. I was gonna ask you the same thing when I saw you in the cabin.”

That’s the thing about lying. The better you get, the more sure you are that everyone else is lying too. I fidgeted a little in my seat. The cushion had been worn flat by thousand of suckers and losers before me. It did nothing to ease my back or my turbulent soul.

“Ah hell, it’s alright. I know you got one. Heh, look. I got one too. My last though.” He told me

He pulled out a silver cigarette case. He asked me for a light. I handed him my matchbox. The flame, cupped in his hands, illuminated a face littered with scars, a tarnished silver beard, and bags under his eyes so heavy that no bell boy could ever carry them.

I lit my own. I wonder what troubles he saw on my face.

“Hell, old man. I can tell you’ve seen better days.” I said.

He chuckled. “Oh I’ve seen all kinds of days. And I can tell by your face that you’re out of aces.”

“Yeah, you can say that. I’m plumb out. There’s no coming back from this.”

“Well damn, son. I bet I’ve come back from worse.”

“Yeah? Would you give me some advice, Mister?”

He leaned back in his chair nonchalantly. “I could be persuaded.”

I looked to read his face, to see if there was a double meaning.
“Money? Hell, I’d give anything to know what to do, but I don’t got no money. I could get some maybe. It’d just take an hour to hustle some other passengers. I-”

The stranger stopped him with an upturned hand. “Got ‘ne whisky?”

“You bet your bottom dollar I do. What’s a gambler without some liquor?”

The stranger took a generous swig. “That’s some mighty fine whisky you got.”

“Thanks, it ain’t mine!” I said proudly.

“I fig’rd as much. Alright, now tell me about this pickle you’ve found yourself in.”

“Well. I owe quite a bit of money…”

“Well I knew that part. As a fellow gambler. That part is obvious. Keep going.”

I laughed nervously. “And uh, there’s a girl. The most beautiful girl I’d ever set eyes on. But she ran away with -”

“Up bup bup. Stop right there.” He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Here’s the thing. Life is like a game of cards. You got to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. Sometimes you have to walk away from the table. Sometimes you got to run.”

“That’s what I’m doing now, running. But is it right? How do you know when to sit and when to run? What if there’s $1,000 dollars on the table and you have pocket aces?”

“Naw, that’s the thing. You can’t count that money. It’s not yours yet. You could lose it just as easily. You have to wait for ‘the river’. If you win it, great. If not, well that’s just how life goes, I guess.”

“Huh. And if I have a king, queen, jack, and there’s a nine on the table. What would you do?”

“Well every hand’s a winner and every hands a loser. It boils down to what everyone else has and what they’re hiding. You can’t base it only on what you have. A lot of it is out of your control. Can we control when death comes knocking on our door? No! We just have to hope that it comes in our sleep.

On that note, he grew silent and solemn. He stared out at the world through the window. Eventually he put out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.

I had finally reached my destination: no where. I wanted him to know that I’ve been thinking. I took his words to heart. That I might turn my life around. I shook him to say goodbye and thank him, but no amount of shaking woke the sage. I stood away as I realized, he had reached his destination too. He didn’t make out too good or too bad, but at least he’ll be remembered. If not for his words, then by my actions, he’ll be remembered.

Ahhh ok I need to meditate. I haven’t meditated in a while and I’m feeling stressed. I’ll just find a nice quite spot.

I look outside to find my lawn chairs crusty with bird poop, the grass turned into a mine field of dog poop, and the sun’s unforgiving smile upon my peaceful domain. Nope. No meditating outside today. I’ll just sit on the couch.

Breath in…
Bzzt bzzt. “Incoming call!” sang my phone

Godambit. Who is it? Becca? Hmmm I only put her first name in the contact info. Becca Comstock the director, or Becca Penda the costume designer? Ehhh I’ll let it go to voicemail either way.

Breath in…
Bzzt bzzt. “New voicemail!” sang my phone.

*Sighh* Let’s see the audio transcript. Uh oh Becca Comstock. Yada yada. Get to the point lady, I’m busy trying to meditate here. 45 minutes? I have 45 minutes to get to the shoot? C’mon! I just woke up, I haven’t meditated yet, and that’s a 30 minute drive! Ok I’ll just meditate real quick, then slap on some clothes.

Ok Breath in…
Bzzt bzzt.

Really? A text message immediately after a voicemail? Telling me not to be late? Ok I get it Becca. I do. I’ve been late before. Fine. I’ll be right there. I promise.
Raaaagh! No more messages! I hurled my phone across the room into the corner.

Breath in…
What if I’m late again?
Breath out…
Everyone will hate me for wasting their time.
Breath in…
Everyone already hates me.
Beath out…
It’s because I’m fat and ugly.
Breath in… actually this isn’t working. I need to go for quick 5 minute walk on my treadmill to clear my head.

I walk to the treadmill and set it to 3.0 miles per hour. This is stupid. Only lazy jerk wads go 3 miles an hour. I cranked it up to 6.0 miles per hour. After getting winded from 1:29 of running I decided I’m thirsty. I can’t be dehydrated on set anyway.

Unfortunately the kitchen has a mirror on the fridge. I stare at myself for what feels like an eternity. What am I doing with my life? Who am I kidding? My life is a joke. Let’s be serious, an actor? You? Meditating? How stupid do you have to be?

Recycling these thoughts through my head distracted me from the task at hand, holding a glass of water. It shatters on the ground, kicking me out of my trance. I need help. I pick up my emergency phone that I keep hidden behind the cereal boxes.

Hello? Can you get here as soon as possible?

He arrives almost as soon as I hang up. He looks like he always has, sleeveless orange robe, loose black pants, and that classic bald head.

What’s the problem?

The problem is that I can’t meditate! It screws me up! I get all clammed up. I can’t focus. I can’t relax. My brain feels like a tangled spool of thread. I think I’m having a nervous breakdown!

Ok I’ll just sit down for a second. Good idea. What’s that? You’re going to teach me an ancient, secret Buddhist technique for attaining inner peace that’s even older, and better than meditation? Ok I’ll do anything, just tell me what to do.

Breath out..
Breath in…
Breath out…
Breath in…

In my mind’s eye I could see myself encased in a chunk of ice. The ice thawed until finally I could push myself out. Finally. There was a glass key and a glass padlock next to me. I stuck the key in the lock and watched in amazement as each tooth aligned perfectly with the pins and the cylinder turned. I began to grow in size until I couldn’t fit under the sky. I dug my fingers in and pried with all my might until I hatched myself into the great abyss.

I felt renewed. I hugged him and thanked him deeply. By the way, what’s the name of that technique you taught me? Tetimation? It seems an awful lot like meditation, except that you breath out first, instead of breathing in first. Hey, I guess the right technique, is the one that works, right?

I updated my photo album from my trip to Hawaii. I added a description to some of the photos, so check that out.

Click here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/07S2cnQzzzPaCSD13

Sooo. That just happened. I survived. I feel like one of the Hunger Games Victors. I feel like one of the lucky few survivors from the Oregon Trail game. It was grueling hard labor. I wanted to go to prove that could work 80 hours per week, so that if I chose to work for a start up, they would see my work ethic. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t too good for any job. What I found, was that 75 hours a week was a struggle. I could do it, but I required full devotion. The lowliest jobs had me ready to tear my hair out. I can do it, but just barely.

These bullet points are from my previous post: What am I doing with my life? (Ship life FAQ)

• Where are you going?
  • Hawaii was absolutely gorgeous. Breathtakingly beautiful. The beaches are everything you’ve dreamed of. The sand is white and hot. The water is refreshingly luke-cold. The 4 stops we made were in Honolulu on Oahu, Kahului on Maui,  Hilo on the big island (confusingly called Hawaii), Kona on the big island, and Nawiliwili on Kauai. We could almost never explore Honolulu since it was such a busy day loading and unloading 2,600 guests on the same day. Hilo was almost always rainy, Kona and Nawiliwili were almost always sunny and beautiful. Kona is the perfect ideal version of Hawaii (aka touristy) with a big farmer’s market, beach side bars, and a long row of local shops.
• How long are you going?
  • I did 6 months. Originally I was scheduled for 4 and a half months. After the first month I was actually enjoying it and full of vitality, so I extended my contract. There’s an employee discount to go on the cruise ship after your contract is up. Unfortunately the requirements to redeem the discount are as mired in obfuscation as the requirements to get on the ship. I was told that I needed to be on the ship for 6 months. I found out later that I needed to be employed by NCL for 6 month. Since I technically started in January for safety training in Baltimore, my 6 months would have put me at about month 3 into my contract, no extension necessary. Oh by the way, you can’t un-extend your contract. I either had to ride out my 6 months, or quit. I went to war with myself for many weeks over whether I should quit or not. On one had, I was miserable, underpaid, and lonely. I was wasting my time here. The opportunity cost was huge! I could have a real job, with a salary, without being yelled at all the time! On the other hand… I mean it wasn’t that bad. I can’t quit, because I’m not the kind of person who quits. I have an ego to protect. If I had to explain to my resume to an interviewer, what would make more sense? “I quit because I was unhappy” or “I stayed because I’m hard headed. Please don’t dare me to stop breathing.”
• How many hours are you working?
  • The mode and max was 75 hours a week. For about a month and a half, they forgot to update my schedule, so I only worked 65 hours a week. It was sheer bliss. I napped daily. I read. Except the loneliness and getting yelled at all the time, it was just barely better than tolerable.
• What are you doing?
  • For the first month and a half, I started as a Restaurant Steward. Restaurant Stewards are peons that you can yell at to make stuff happen. I worked in the crew cafeteria making sure the food trays were always full. It was stressful because there was a lot to do, and there were no written instructions. They relied entirely on the previous employees to train the new employees. There were so many tasks that probably should have been done, but if you ask a manager about it, then you’ve just created more work for yourself. And there were many tasks that appeared to be purely ritualistic, with no real benefit. It was like, they had all these extra peons, and had to give them something to do. Then it just became a tradition to do those things. I probably spent 3 hours a day cleaning in this job. Everything needed to be wiped down all the time. It sucked and I was ready to move to the big leagues of Assistant Waiter
  • For the last 4 and a half months, I was an Assistant Waiter. The waiter would take the order, hand it to us, then we would run down stairs, yell the order to the various chefs, and bring it back to the waiter. Some trips weren’t too bad if you had small tables. But if you had a table of 10 people, expect to carry a tray of 12 entrees. That’s at least 60 pounds on one shoulder, which you have to carry up the escalator. My arm was numb all the time. I almost never dropped orders, but I was also really slow at the beginning.
  • The whole system must have been invented in the stone age, and then never updated. My mind is blown by how outdated the method is. Here’s a crazy idea: What if the waiter put the order in a computer, and the order appears on a screen in front of the chef? WOAHHH. The entire order can be collected and waiting for the assistant waiter to bring up the escalator.
  • My schedule while I was an Assistant Waiter was 6:30am to 9:45am, then 4:45pm to 11:00pm every day. 2 or 3 days a week I’d have to work 12:00pm to 3:00pm. Looooong days.
• How much do you get paid? Hawaii minimum wage?
  • The wage for Assistant Waiter was about $9.20/hr. I counted up all the cash tip money I made, it came to about $350. You know how much waiter’s make? $12/hr. Waiters just stand there talking to the guests. Easy money. Everybody wanted that job, nobody wanted to stick around for a contract and a half to get it. A couple of people made it from Restaurant Steward to Waiter in one contract, but it’s rare. It’s not about performance, it’s all about timing.
• How do you feel about being union?
  • Being union limits the number of continuous hours you can work, but NCL will just give you a useless 20 minute break to circumvent the requirement. There’s basically no limit to the number of hours you can work or they can work you.
• What about being a bartender on a cruise ship?
  • Oh past David. You crack me up. When I first started this crazy quest a year ago, I thought I wanted to be a bartender on a cruise ship. I just picked the job off the top of my head. It sounded like a good idea at the time. It sounded like fun. I’ve now worked both at a bar, and on a cruise ship, and I can tell you that neither are particularly fun. Maybe that says something about my method of choosing my next job. Maybe it’s necessary to try jobs to know if you actually want to do them.
• What’s it going to be like living on a cruise ship?
  • Food
    • I never want buffet food ever again. I ate to excess regularly. The food was decent, and fairly decadent. Almost everything was fried, slathered in butter or grease. There was always fresh salad and toppings, but I got bored of that, and honestly, it’s nearly impossible to choose the healthy options when the delicious options are right next to it. Do I need dessert, and ice cream with every meal? No, but that didn’t stop me. Before I got on the ship, I was chiseled, and now I’m floppy. I thought I wanted free food, but now I want to prepare my own food if it means I can healthy again.
  • Gym
    • The gym is tiny. They had dumbbells, ellipticals, treadmills, and an incline bench. Expect to share it with two other people at a time, including grunty muscle men dropping the weights. This isn’t Planet Fitness. No one puts the weights back in the right place.
    • The deal breaker for me, was that I couldn’t bring a gym bag to work and hide it somewhere. Space is already at a premium. So if I wanted to go to the gym, I’d have to walk back to my room, change, and walk back to the gym. If I’m already at my room after work, I’m just going to sleep.
    • Being on the fire fighting team allowed me to use the passenger gym at night, which I did for a while. I got out of work at 11pm, so I was tired after work, and I had to start over tomorrow at 6:30am, and by the time I made it back to my room I had already decided to go to sleep instead of the gym.
  • Clothes
    • You are only allotted 3 shirts, you have to request extra shirts. Why? Why??? We’re only allowed dry cleaning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If you tried to scrape by with 3 shirts, you’re guaranteed to wear the same shirt at least 3 times to make it from Friday to Monday. These shirts pick up scuffs and marks like sponges. It was stressful trying to plan for that. I’m happy to be home with my abundance of clothes. What a luxury!
    • I’m pretty sure either the laundry machines or the detergent damaged my undershirts. It’s not a big deal in the short term, but another reason I can’t live on the cruise ship
    • The crew laundry rooms had either 2 or 3 washer-dryer combos. They were almost always under repair or taken. Get ready to walk to find an available one. I bought a mesh laundry bag. That way, if I don’t come back exactly when it’s done, someone can easily take my clothes out of the way and use the laundry machine themselves. Some angels might even put my laundry in the dryer for me. That did happen sometimes. What happened more often is that I’d put it in the dryer, come back in two hours and my clothes would be sitting on the table, still damp. I thought to my self, “Ok maybe it finished, but it didn’t dry fully.” I’d put it back in a dryer, and come back in an hour. It’d be back on the table, still damp. Weird, but ok. I’d put it back, come back in half and hour, well before it was supposed to be done, and find it back on the table. I have a sneaking suspicion that people would see that it was a mesh bag, take it out before it’s done, and put theirs in instead. There were days I wore damp socks or day old socks because I ran out of socks and my laundry didn’t get done the night before.
  • Rent
    • I’m pretty sure everyone in the restaurant department gets a 3 person bedroom. There’s one bunk bed (2 beds) and one single (the “princess bed”). When you first move in, you get the top bunk, then as your roommates finish their contracts or get fired, you move into the bottom bunk and then the princess bed. I must have moved in only slightly after my roommates because I spent most of my time in the top bunk, and only had 2 weeks of my 6 months in the princess bed.
  • No car and no commute
    • It’s a solid 2 minute walk to work. Imagine parking at the farthest spot in a Costco parking lot. It was annoying. It sucked when you forgot something. There was no traffic, per se, but there were always people walking on the main path to or from work, which was also used as storage area by the engine department. You know what sucked? People trying to talk to me on the way to work at 6:30. That’s rude as far as I’m concerned. Don’t talk to me until I’ve had coffee you Hitler-Stalin spawn, oops I mean Alex. And there’s no avoiding people because there’s only one route from the cabins to work.
  • Hawaii beaches and excursions
    • The beaches were top notch. The best part was that they were usually right next to the cruise ship.
  • Cruise restaurants
    • I got out of work at 11p daily. All of the restaurants close at 10p, so I could never eat at the passenger restaurants. I got one Thursday off every 4 weeks or so, and I’d eat at my restaurant or the passenger buffet.
  • Friends and Family discounts
    • You people are welcome to buy a cruise with Norwegian. You have another 5 weeks to book it while I am still technically an employee. It’s a 15% discount. It’s worth it if you were already going to cruise with Norwegian. It’s probably not worth it if you were going with a cheaper cruise line.
  • How performance was rated
    • The scale is from 5 to 1, with 5 being the best. However, no one got 5s… ever. No one. Non negotiable. It just doesn’t happen. To get a 1, you have to really had to poo the scrooch. I had some grossly incompetent, lazy, jerkwad co-workers and I never heard of them getting a 1. A 3 means, “Meets or Exceeds”… Is it meets, or exceeds? The fact that a 3 means Meets or Exceeds should tell you everything you need to know about this dysfunctional rating system.
    • My last manager had no idea who I was. Out of 6 categories, he gave me a 3 in each, and a 4 in Teamwork, because, “I didn’t get any complaints about you.” Wut?
    • It’s almost impossible to get fired for poor performance. Promotion is just a matter of endurance. Since they promote almost exclusively from within, it’s just a matter of time until you get promoted.
    • I am willing to bet $1,000, that everyone claimed to be “a people person” in their interview. But I can tell you from first hand experience that was a straight up lie. I only met a few people, from the lowly worker bees to the top management, I would qualify as people persons. I almost never saw a manager smile. Maybe once a week.
  • Human Resources
    • I couldn’t believe how big a waste of human resources there was on the ship. They paid waiters to bus tables for 3 to 6 hours a day. There’s no restaurant in the world that I know of, that would pay someone $12/hour to bus tables. There were people who were waiters for 10 years before they got on the ship as Assistant Waiters. But since NCL hires from within, someone with 4 months of Assistant Waiter experience gets promoted before the person with 10 years of waiting at a normal restaurant.
    • My friend graduated top of his class in culinary school. He was reduced to chopping vegetables for 10 hours a day for 4 and a half months. He got a job immediately after his contract as an Executive Sous Chef at a restaurant. I know he didn’t lack the skills to do more, they just don’t have a use for skilled chefs.
    • The chef who made cesar salads, was two levels above the entry level chefs, so this guy had chops. Let me tell you how to make a cesar salad. You put romaine lettuce and cesar dressing in a bowl and mix it by hand. You put it in a salad bowl. You add exactly 3 croutons and some parmesan cheese. Did they need this elite guy to make salads? No. On the other hand, all of the food is merely assembled. They pre-cook all the sides. All you have to know is how not to burn food.
  • Fire team
    • I got to be part of the volunteer fire department! It was an incredible experience! I loved it.
      • I got a big whopping helping of prestige points for walking around in my full firefighting gear. Aww yeah. Check me out. Watch out, we got a badass over here!
      • I got out of work when it overlapped with training.
      • I learned a ton about putting out fires.
      • My fire team became a little family.
      • Training was every 4 days for about an hour and a half, and we had a fire drill every Tuesday for an hour and a half.
  • Food Safety
    • The rules for food safety ranged from “bachelor pad”, to “surgical operating room”. They were wildly inconsistent. I’m surprised they didn’t make us wear hazmat suits to deliver the food.
      • The best example is that we sometimes had to wear these stupid paper hats. They look like the hats that soda jerks would wear at drug stores. We only had to wear them if we worked in the crew or passenger buffet areas by the food. We didn’t need them if we were busing tables. Also, chefs had to wear them sometimes. When I asked why we had to wear them, I was told that it was to prevent hair from getting in the food. This was patently absurd. Bald people had to wear them. Some girls had so much hair, that the hat wouldn’t cover everything, so they pinned it over their hair bun only.
      • Food can must be served within 4 hours of preparation time. This is to prevent food from spoiling. You can’t leave a dish of Chicken Parmigiana sitting out on the counter for the same reason you can’t leave milk on the counter for 4 hours. All of our prepared food is marked with the time 4 hours in advanced so that it can be thrown away. After the 4 hour mark, it has to be thrown away. It can’t be served to people, but it can be served for the crew. In the crew cafeteria, we always served left over food from the main kitchen. My manager told me to remove the sticker and put on a new one. But I wasn’t going to complain, because the food was delicious and it’s incredibly challenging to throw away perfectly good food.
• In review
  • The worst parts
    • The sleep schedule. 6:30am to 11pm is a long day. I needed that nap. It didn’t always happen. I had roommates who would come in and turn on the lights. The phone would ring. People would yell in the hall way. When I was a Restaurant Steward and started work at 2p, I had a roommate who would set his alarm for 6am, and then snooze every 5 minutes for 40 minutes in a row. That’s a deal breaker. I need sleep. I can survive on 7 hours of sleep a day, but I can’t thrive.
    • The managers. I prayed, desperately, to have a conversation with a manager instead of a shouting match. I don’t want to go to battle everyday. Just calmly tell me what you want. I had one manager at the end who was pretty chill, but the rest were always mad at me for something. It was stressful being defensive and trying not to be defensive all the time. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. That’s a deal breaker.
    • The food was good, too good. It was hard to control myself when I’m sleep deprived and stressed. I’d rather be stress free and make my own food.
  • I hated how crowded it was. We were all constantly bumping into each other. I had to work really hard to eat by myself, because all of the tables were for 4 people. If there was an open spot, people would join me. I’d have to have an awkward conversation of telling people to leave me the freak alone, or just suffer their company. Most of the time I just wanted to eat by myself and day dream or think deeply about something. One time, I was eating by myself, thinking deeply. Someone from across the cafeteria yelled my name, “Hey it looks like you’re really deep in thought!” Yes jerk face. As a matter of fact, I was. It was aggravating to have people constantly in my grill, all up in my business.
  • I’d recommend it to people who are suffering with depression. When you have depression, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. It’s hard to not binge watch Netflix and eat only ice cream. When you’re on the cruise ship, it forces you to get out of bed, get dressed, shower daily, interact with other people, and get a decent amount of exercise. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but it’s enough to get unstuck and out of the downward spiral of depression.
• So what’s next?
  • Here’s the grand master plan: Move to New Hampshire by January 31st 2019. That date is a moving target based on how frugally I live until then. I’ve saved up a nice chunk of change to sustain me for now.
    • September is full of travel to various friends. Austin, LA, Chicago.
    • Until then, November is the month for National Novel Writing Month, the most inconvenient month of the year to write 50,000 words! I’ll be plotting through October.
    • I want to get back to practicing Spanish and writing daily.
    • I want to launch a business. The biggest contender is my magnetic chess sets for the OCD. I’ve updated my list of invention ideas, and be willing to switch tracks if someone wants to help me launch a different business, or the market research points me in another direction.
    • I want to exercise regularly. I’m just a dopamine junky and after being yelled at for 6 months, I’m ready for my next fix.

I made a comic strip to deal with my frustrations with management. I haven’t decided if I’m writing more. Management isn’t all that bad, but when it is, it’s Dilbert level of amusing.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8hDGkeWGTtHun8O63

Wow. I made it to Hawaii. Finally. After everything.

Some photos here.

Why are so many people wrong? It’s painful to watch them bumble about and wreak havoc on their lives and the lives of others.

I read this absolutely wonderful book, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which helped illustrate some of the reasons why so many people are wrong. In this fanfiction, Harry becomes best friends with Hermione and Draco (his sworn nemesis in the original content). Draco is incredibly smart, but he hates “mudbloods”. Hermione is a “mudblood” (a witch or wizard with non-wizard parents), the equivalent of being black in America. There’s no biological downside, only a social disadvantage. Draco is nothing more than a racist. Harry drives them, serruptitiously, to work together. How is this possible? How can you convince someone they’re wrong, when they view you as the one who is, in fact, wrong?

This plan is two long steps:

Good news everyone! I have not one, but two more chapters done (Chapter 16 and 17). I’m going to keep all of the chapters in one place from now on:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BEVynP68iqSHcob-0owhFF6RDllxJCQTe2pKAgvLjuU/edit?usp=sharing

One of my favorite authors, Chuck Windig, has a blog where he occasionally imagines an absurd situation and then pretends that it’s normal by adding the phrase, “Hey, it happens to all of us.” I decided to make a Mad Libs game out of it, for the sake of humor and as a writing exercise. Hey, it happens to all of us.

The last thing you remember last night is doing shots of espresso out of your landlord’s belly button. Then you woke up with an entire box worth of coco pebbles in your bed. Hey, it happens to all of us.

The last thing you remember last night is doing 100mph on the interstate, drinking a sourcream ricemilk protein shake. Then you woke up with a gold metal in cat petting. Hey, it happens to all of us.

The last thing you remember last night is playing Jenga with bricks of cocaine. Then you woke up tarred and feathered in Jamaica. Hey, it happens to all of us.

The last thing you remember last night is streaking in Alaska. Then you woke up fully clothed in a bear’s den. Hey, it happens to all of us.

The last thing you remember last night is reading in bed. Then you woke up with 10 strangers in your bed. Hey, it happens to all of us.

I hate recycling. I hate it because it doesn’t benefit me, but most of all I hate it because it benefits other people!

Just kidding!

What I find repulsive, is that it’s a tax on my time, with no benefit to me. It’s much faster and easier to just dump everything into the landfill. The incentives are all wrong. The cause of this tragedy is, of course, the government. The problem is that the landfills are owned by the government and it’s free to throw things away.

Here’s a proposal for how it could work in Anarchy-land. Landfills are privately owned. If you want, you can pay per garbage bag. For an additional fee, they will pick-up, but it’s not mandatory. Your neighborhood can have a dumpster (it’s cheaper than paying per bag and only slightly more for pickup). There are rules for what can go into that particular landfill and they have people doing random searches. If they find something that doesn’t belong (batteries, lead paint, motor oil), you get fined $100!

Other facilities can open up their own collection areas for non-recyclable and non-landfill items. It would be much cheaper to throw stuff in these landfills because they are built specifically for this purpose.

Companies that need recyclable resources such as certain plastics and aluminum, can open up their own landfills, and pay you to recycle.

Regular people should have an incentive to recycle and a dis-incentive to throw away harmful materials. Business should have an incentive to collect valuable recyclable materials. If only the government would get out of the way, we could save the earth.

“Hey Doug! How’s it going? Shitty right?”

“Haha, hell yeah it is, Don! Super shitty. How’s going for you?”

“Same shit, different day, man. What’s new?”

“Well not much. Oh, I did find about this really cool piece of shit.” said Doug, pulling it out to show Don.

“Cool shit, man! Actually, we’re good friends right? There’s something I’ve been thinking that I need to bounce off someone.”

“Yeah, man. Of course. I’m all ears.”

“Well, I was just thinking, ‘What would our lives be like if we didn’t have so much shit?'”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all this shit. Do we really need it? I think we’d actually be happier with less shit.”

“Less shit? What are you talking about, Don? What else is there except shit? Are you implying that we live a shit free life?”

“Not a shit free life, just a less shitty life. I often feel like all of this shit is just weighing me down. You know Joan, right? I spend so much time trying to keep up with Joan’s shit. The reality is that I’ll never accumulate as much shit as Joan. That time is wasted.”

“Wasted? You call trying to provide for your wife and larvae as a waste?”

“No, see you’re missing my point. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have shit. I’m just saying that having less shit will help us live longer and be happier. The more shit we have, the harder it is to roll it from place to place, which gives predators more chances to pick us off. If we have less shit, we have a better chance of making it home to our loved ones, and arrive happier because it’s less stressful.”

“Hmmm maybe you’re right, Don. But there isn’t a piece of shit I own that I’d want to be without. I love all of my shit.”

“That’s fair. Everyone has a level of shit they’re willing to maintain. But let me ask you, can you enjoy all of your shit at the same time? While you’re enjoying one piece of shit, you can’t really enjoy another piece of shit. If we limited our shit to just a few pieces, we could enjoy all of our shit and just rotate between the few pieces. And since it’s hard to let go of shit, it’s even more important to just accumulate less shit.”

“You make some good points. I’m going to go home, eat some shit, and think about what you said. Have a shitty rest of your day, Don!”

“Thanks, you too, Doug!”

I spent about 6 months making sketches during my lunches on an app called, “Sketch.”

I finally uploaded the sketches to a sharable album. Check them out here.

I’m listening to this audiobook called “The Art of Choosing” which has radically altered my world view.

Everyone has some need for individualism, and some need for community. There’s one part of our brain which wants us avoid being outcast from the tribe, and there’s another which insists that we refuse to walk off a cliff like a lemming with the others. The people who are alive today have parents who were able to strike a balance between the two halves. Today, we must strike a balance for ourselves.

Communism appears to be a living hell, filled with misery and strife. Food shortages, broken transportation, and rampant war are just a few plagues of those who willingly submit to the oppression of their peers. Capitalism offers you a golden ticket out of your lowly state. You can work hard, start a business, and find both happiness and comfort. The catch is that it doesn’t benefit everyone equally. Some people will inevitably get richer than others, but at least everyone gets richer.  Since listening to this audiobook, I’ve realized that, to communists, that is too big of a catch. To me it’s fine. To them it’s not. They’d rather everyone be equally poor. They prefer an equality of outcomes to an equality of opportunity. I used to ask myself, “Why would they want to wallow about in the muck that we call ‘Communism’?” The answer is that, they like it. That’s what they want.

I, on the other hand, have something wrong with my brain. The individualism half is too strong. I want nothing to do with Communism. It’s gotta be capitalism or nothing. “Live free or die,” is the motto of the state I want to live in. If someone proposed making it illegal to touch a burner on an electric stove, I’d go home and do it on purpose. When someone says, “But you could get hurt!” I say, “Yeah, that’s the point.” Why would anyone want to live in a world where they could get hurt? Because I like it. I want it that way. I don’t want to live in a world with no risk. I don’t want to be taken care of by outside sources. I don’t want a social safety net either. If I screw up, I have to face the consequences. That appeals to me. My pupils dilate with the thrill and then shrink as I get shrewd with my money. I’d much rather have the risk to lose than the the equality of being poor.

What have I become?!? The answer is that I have become a bus boy on a cruise ship. Most people say, “Wait, what?” Today I will answer as many of your questions as I can. I’m learning as I go because unfortunately, none of the information is in one place. Many of the administrators who are supposed to be helping me are unresponsive, don’t know, or are just plain wrong. I’ve collected this information from rumors from my fellow crew mates.

• Where are you going?
  • I’m going to Hawaii! The cruise is 7 days, 6 nights, 5 stops, and 4 islands. We’ll be making laps around the islands. It never comes back to the states, so we don’t waste time on the ocean.
• How long are you going?
  • It’s 5 to 6 months. If I give them at least a month notice, they can change my end date within a 2 month range. Then I have a 5-6 week break.
• How many hours are you working?
  • The official website would have you believe it’s “minimum 40 hours,” however I’m told the average is 10 hours a day, 70 hours a week. It will depend on how many shifts I do. All bus boys work dinner, then I’ll either work breakfast or lunch. On unlucky days, I’ll be working all 3.
• What are you doing?
  • It’s a combination of bus boy and “food runner” called, “Restaurant Steward.” I’ll be starting off in the crew eating area (called the “crew mess”) because my fellow crew mates will be more lenient when I trip and drop their food on the floor. Eventually, I’ll move up to the passenger cafeteria/buffet area, then maybe to a real restaurant.
  • They say you can get promoted after only 2 months to assistant waiter! But you have to be on time every time. Being late by a mere minute will put a mark on your monthly evaluation, and you have to have a perfect evaluation 2 months in a row to get promoted.
• How much do you get paid? Hawaii minimum wage?
  • Ha! No it’s just above federal minimum wage. Getting promoted raises your wage almost exponentially, so that will be nice. I will get paid time and a half for anything over 40 hours. If I work 70 hours, that’s basically a 40% raise.
• How do you feel about being union?
  • It’s obviously terrible! I’m nonplussed to say the least. But, alas, it’s mandatory. There’s a $300 initiation fee, plus a monthly fee of like $100. Not terrible… but anything mandatory is clearly bad.
• What about being a bartender?
  • I worked as a bus boy for 2.5 months and I was both disheartened and dismayed about the prospect of being a bartender. My personal reasons are:
    • It doesn’t seem like as fun of a job as I previously imagined.
    • The bar I worked at had 1 male bartender and 4 female bartenders. One of the female bartenders told me that it’s easier to get the job if you’re female. There’s nothing I can do about that, and I’m not willing to put in the extra time and work for what seems like a low benefit.
    • I hate going to the bar and I don’t like drinking.
  • The bartenders on land only get 30 hours of work per week, which means they have to get a second job.
  • There are a few extremely profitable nights per year, otherwise, but there are a ton of boring Sundays through Thursdays. I hate idling.
  • One bartender from Norwegian stopped to talk to us for a minute. She said she made $7k per month because she worked hard. Let’s say it was a year-round cruise like mine, that’s $84k per year… gross. After taxes, it’s probably closer $65? My guess is that she’s working at least 70 hours per week, which makes her hourly wage $18/hour, even before taxes it comes out to $24/hour. It’s impressive for a job that doesn’t require a degree, but it’s not nearly as profitable as I imagined. If I’m going to work that many hours, I’d rather get two engineering jobs that pay $50k per year. Maybe I’d do mechanical engineering by day and coding by night. Maybe, but if I’m doing it for the money, I’d become something radical like a doctor. Or, you know, start a business. Someday.
• What’s it going to be like living on a cruise ship?
  • Food
    • I went to training, and the food was delectable! It was restaurant quality, minus the aesthetic plating. As much shrimp scampi, ribs, pulled pork, salmon fillet, and halibut fillet as you want! I was in hog heaven!
  • Gym
    • Speaking of food, they have a free gym.
  • Clothes
    • I wear a uniform 1/3rd of the day, and I can wear pajamas the rest of the time. They have free laundry, so I could bring a set of clothes and wash them, I suppose.
  • Rent
    • We’ll either get a 2, 3, or 4 bedroom. I saw pictures, it’s tight. Tight as in, “close quarters,” not as in “cool.” There’s only enough room under the bed for my checked bag, a dresser for my clothes, and a medicine mirror for a handful of toiletries.
  • No car and no commute
    • I’ll miss my chick magnet car, but not as much as I miss not paying for gas, car insurance, or sitting in traffic.
  • Hawaii beaches and excursions
    • On days when I’m not working both breakfast and lunch, I can get off the ship. Sometimes I can trade shifts with a friend so I only will be working dinner, giving me all day to enjoy Hawaii. I can go to the beech, I can go to Walmart, I can go to a starbucks, I can get fresh fruits and vegetables, I can go on hikes, and sometimes I can do the excursions for a reduced rate.
  • Cruise restaurants
    • I don’t have to eat at the crew mess, I can get permission to eat where the customers eat (about once per week). As if the food I got wasn’t good enough!
  • Family discounts
    • The family discount is only 15% off. It’s not much, and the Hawaii cruise is the most expensive one that Norwegian offers, plus the plane ride is $600-$1000 round trip. Plus, I only get that benefit after I’ve worked 6 months.
• So this is it huh?
  • Well first of all, this fits really well with the things I love in life. I love minimalism. When I lose something, I don’t think, “darn, I needed that.” I think, “Freedom! I’ve been liberated!” I love being busy. I love doing something hard. I love working my way up. I hate cooking, laundry, and driving. It’s an obvious fit.
  • I know no one else can see my vision, so it looks like I’m driving into a corner, but it’s all part of my grand master plan. This is just a stepping stone. I’ll do this for a year and a half or so, and then get a job in sales. With all of my customer experience, I’ll be unstoppable!