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What I’ve Learned By Doing the NY Times Crossword 800 Days in a Row
Before getting into this post, I should come clean: there was actually one friday about 450 days ago where I thought that I had already done the day’s puzzle but I hadn’t. So far that reason I haven’t actually done the puzzle 800 days in a row, but rather 800 days with one day missing.…
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Long Term Valuable Output
There was a time in my life when I was singularly obsessed with output. I rated my days in terms of how much output I had produced that day and tried, within reason, to limit anything that did not produce output. It felt great to do this, as I had previously not been particularly good…
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Create a Stable Life, not a Stable Job
Just a few months ago I was talking to a new flight attendant about her job. I remarked at what a stable job it was, since people always need to fly, they have strong unions, and the airlines are big. Now she’s waiting to be furloughed once the conditions of the bailout money allow it.…
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3D Printing
When I first began quarantine I was extremely productive. I rewrote some big parts of CruiseSheet and got a lot of work done. Then after a week or so I had cleaned out my backlog of tasks and, with cruise sales down about 100%, wasn’t coming up with any pressing tasks to add to my…
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Thinking about Politics
I have almost no interest in politics, but I am interested in our country and society, so I inevitably get dragged into various political topics. If there’s one thing I’m certain of in that area, it’s that most people’s interaction with politics is both harmful to themselves and counterproductive for society. At the risk of…
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A Second Year of Writing 52 Posts in 10 Days
In 2018 I wrote 52 blog posts on a cruise and scheduled them for the following year. They actually ended up lasting more than a month longer because of other posts I wrote in real time throughout the year. I originally did this because I wanted to find a way to eliminate the weekly pressure…
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My Thought Process on Buying a Boat + Aftermath
Common knowledge says that buying a boat is a pretty dumb financial thing to do, and yet I find myself on the precipice of buying one. I’m in a familiar holding pattern where I haven’t actually made any committment to doing something, but I also realize I’ve done enough research to know I’m probably going…
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Finding Purchasing Sweet Spots
Feedback I get often is that I do a lot of crazy things that are really fun, but that they aren’t practical for normal people. I understand where this comes from. I marvel almost every day at how very good my life is, and how if I didn’t already have it, it would seem unattainable.…
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Exploration
A lot of people in my life seem to be at the end of a phase of great focus. They worked on a startup and sold or otherwise exited it, they built a business that’s now running without them, or they left a job and are taking time off before the next thing. It’s interesting…
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How and When to Give Advice
In some ways I’m professional advice giver these days. I talk to people monthly and help them make big decisions that will impact their lives greatly. I also do events where 7-10 people join me somewhere and we try to plot the course of their next few big moves. Giving advice is an enormous responsibility,…
