For better or worse, I’ve “played by the rules” my whole life. Better, because it’s probably best that I’m no scoundrel. Worse, because probably maybe I’m a terrible bore. I also drank the Kool-Aid followed the advice that my parents, schools, and society generally imparted. Do well in grade school. Go to college and maybe…
How to Run a Crappy Business and Piss People Off
Those who know me personally would probably universally agree that I am a cynic, with a natural tendency to not just see the glass as half-empty as opposed to half-full, but maybe empty instead of half-empty. I do not project that on this blog. Or at least I’ve tried not to. Rather, I try to…
Must Be the Season of the Switch
If one were to make a visual of my brain in the form of a road map, it’d look a lot like President Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system program leader got an extremely time-limited crack at redesigning some ancient city. Picture a few super highways piercing through a latticework of untold numbers of small, crooked…
Ignorance Is Not Bliss
A while back, I wrote about that it’s OK to be dumb, but not stupid. The gist of that is that ignorance (“dumb” in my crude personal parlance) is excusable, but consciously hurting yourself and/or others—physically, mentally, or even financially— (“stupid” in my personal parlance) isn’t. I make no bones on this blog about my…
YOLO. O.
One of my favorite dumb movies from the 1980s was a film called Johnny Dangerously. It starred Joe Piscopo. For my younger Dear Readers who may never have heard of Joe, he was a rising star in the mid-80s. Also starring was Michael Keaton 1.0. If you know Michael Keaton from Birdman or later movies,…
Time out of Mind
Notwithstanding recent events that . . . ummm . . . show the United States in a hair-raising, house-is-on-fire, sound-the-alarm-bells poor light, I’m incredibly proud and privileged to be an American. But while I think that we Americans as a group have any number of traits to be admired and that distinguish us (hello, creativity,…
Headphone Lessons
FIRE bloggers often warn against sacrificing things that bring you real joy (so long as they’re not harmful to others, of course). Maybe you can be creative and hack the expense. Or enjoy the item/service less often but more intensely. But it can be counterproductive to give it up altogether. I agree. Unfortunately for me…
American Beauty
I recently took a walk down one of the more beautiful streets in our city. . . . I should clarify. The actual street itself wasn’t beautiful. After all, asphalt is asphalt is asphalt. I think it was Einstein who said that. No, maybe Voltaire. OK, I confess. I’m not sure who said it. But…
360 Days
With deepest apologies to Carl—of the 1500 Days to Freedom Carls—who committed no sin grave enough to be associated with this blog, the title for this blog post shamelessly steals a bit of the concept behind his blog’s name. That is, similar to Carl setting the goal of FIREing 1,500 days from the launch of…
Good News for a Good Price
It’s been a minute since I last wrote a gratitude-focused post. Not because I’m not grateful. Anything but. Every . . . single . . . day I think about how incredibly fortunate I am. My embarrassment of riches—monetary and nonmonetary alike—is just that: embarrassing. But as I wrote earlier this year, 2020 has been…
