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My Top Favorite Places All Over Japan
One of the best travel deals out there happens to be in the country that most people (mistakenly) believe to be one of the most expensive. Japan has the JR Rail Pass, which, for under $300 gives you unlimited access to nearly every train in Japan for a week. Using this pass you can easily…
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My Friends and I Bought a Condo in Hawaii
My friends and I have individual condos in Vegas, an island in eastern Canada, and a flat in Budapest. It’s not the same group for each property, but there’s a lot of overlap. I realized that none of our places are ideal for winter, though Budapest does have its charm, so I started thinking about…
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My Unusual Computer Setup
A while back, around the time I switched to Linux, I had the realization that any amount of effort I spent customizing my computer would probably pay off. I use the thing just about every day and gains are cumulative so I may as well think about how to make my computer better for me.…
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How to Automate Your Curtains
This is such a niche thing, but you’d be shocked at how many requests I get for information on how I did it. A couple years back I gave a talk about automation, ranging from home to habits to business, and almost all of the follow-up emails I got were about the curtains. I first…
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How I Choose What to Work On
I get asked often how I choose what to work on. From the outside, I can see why people ask. The projects I work on are fairly wide-ranging, from coding CruiseSheet to writing blog posts to random adventures and building things. Things make a little more sense when you understand that making money is only…
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Living Frugally and Loving It
I’ve talked before about how important it is to live frugally. A lot of people probably brush it off because it sounds like too great of a sacrifice or not relevant to them, but I think that’s a mistake. It is possible to live frugally and to love it at the same time. In general,…
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Eliminating Minor Vices
I don’t think I’m qualified to suggest how to kick major vices like heroin and alcohol, but I have plenty of experience with minor vices like procrastination and time-wasting activities, both with myself and people I coach. The fundamental first step that many people skip is determining why they want to eliminate a vice. That…
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Four of My Favorite Teas, and How to Brew Them
Maybe this is true of most things, but the variance between great tea and terrible tea is absolutely enormous. If tea was what nearly everyone thinks tea is, I would never drink it. A great cup of tea, though, is one of life’s great pleasures. And despite being a luxury and an indulgence, it’s very…
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Treating Your Todo List As One Task
Last year I had a truly spectacular todo list. It ranged from building a cabin on the island (with no idea how to do so), getting the floors replaced on a rental property in Las Vegas, a huge number of Cruisesheet bugs and fixes, work on a book, a few dozen emails, and then tens…
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Kazakhstan
I had never been so happy to have a sore throat, especially such a bad one. My throat hurt so much that it actually woke me up. Surely this was a reasonable excuse to get out of the talk I was supposed to give in a couple days. I sent a text to the organizers…
