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Hua Shan
It started about five years ago. On the internet I saw a picture of a really janky looking pathway that was nothing more than some two by fours bolted high into the side of a mountain. I immediately wanted to go do it. I did some searches, but came up empty handed. The name and…
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Exploiting Societal Weaknesses
In poker you often win not by playing your cards, but by playing your opponents cards. My good friend and sometimes poker mentor once told me that to become a winning poker player, you must learn to win the pots that no one has a legitimate claim to. If you have an excellent hand, you’ll…
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Stuck in Canadian Customs
I slept most of the flight from San Francisco to Vancouver. I was up until one thirty in the morning the night before, and had to wake up at five in order to get to the airport on time, so I was exhausted. Upon arriving in Vancouver I shuffled half-asleep to the customs station, which…
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My Eighth Bloggiversary
Eight years ago today I started my blog. It actually started as a livejournal blog which I used to chronicle my third (and successful) attempt to get onto a polyphasic sleep schedule. I had no readers and had no intention of attracting any. I had just remembered how hilarious my attempts to get on the…
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A Low Success Rate
About a year ago I was in my bed, working on my laptop. A fist pounded on the wall of my RV, moving from the front to the back. Then more pounding on the other side. Finally I hear someone yanking on the RV doors. I slowly shut my laptop, turned off the lights, and…
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Things Other People Don’t Do
When someone gets an idea, what determines whether that idea gets put into practice or not? There are a lot of factors, but one of the largest is whether or not he believes that the idea can actually be executed. The problem is that while our mental models for things we have experience with can…
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What Your Priorities Are
It’s always better to look at actions than words. If someone says that they’re committed to being healthy, but then they order a fat stack of pancakes… well, maybe they’re not so committed after all. Recently I’ve been thinking about this truism in terms of goals and priorities. Your priorities are what they look like.…
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Tulum
When you write every day, coming up with topics becomes the hard part of it all. So whenever I go on a trip, I try to wring a post out of it. In some cases, like the Peru trek, the thread is easy to find and get on paper, but today is my last day…
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If Not This One
A friend of mine founded a company with another guy. When they started out, their lives and ambitions were very similar, even if the principles bubbling below the surface weren’t. One thing they both had in spades was hustle. They did what it took– no matter what– to keep their business going forward. Over time,…
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Happiness and Satisfaction
Seven years ago, I wrote a post called “How to Be Happy. Always.” It’s pretty poorly written, but starts off with an important concept– we live in a society where happiness is the number one priority. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No one really questions that, but maybe we should. Is happiness really…
