Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

but aren’t some lawyers actual mediators though?

I saw some stupid article that said for my personality type to avoid being a lawyer, but it recommend "legal mediator" as a profession; well, I don't know any "legal mediators" that aren't also lawyers. I'm sure they exist, but I've never used one.

[Alphaville]

I saw some stupid article that said for my personality type to avoid being a lawyer, but it recommend "legal mediator" as a profession; well, I don't know any "legal mediators" that aren't also lawyers. I'm sure they exist, but I've never used one.

as a leo with mars in libra you should....

ps i do enjoy reading a bit (generally) about “mbti cognitive functions” because they indicates some reasonable preferences that are more or less verifiable, but i’d go easy on extrapolations that are just contemporary versions of the psychic friends network.

basically everyone is capable of more or less everything, we just prefer some things.

[Hristo Botev]

Reading update:

- Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (just finished; should have read it a long time ago)
- Greer, The Long Descent (just finished; excellent recommendation @mooretrees)
- Tim Soerens, Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church Right Where You Are (just finished)*
- Bogleheads Three-Fund Portfolio (just finished)**
- Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow (currently reading)
- Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (currently reading)
- Accounting and Finance for Lawyers [i.e., Dummies]
- Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
- Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Larson, The Splendid and the Vile
- Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929
- Graham, The Intelligent Investor
- Slavin, One Million in the Bank

*This was this month's book club selection. I definitely didn't enjoy the book, for a long list of reasons, but it did result in a very lively book club discussion.

**Let's be honest, I'm not likely to veer too far from this sort of simple index fund investment strategy; the idea of taking the time to try and pick individual stocks sounds exhausting to me.

[Hristo Botev]

Fortuitously, after listening to a Blinklist on Graham's Intelligent Investor on my walk home from work (thanks alphaville for the recommendation on the (borderline illegal) Blinklist platform), I saw this morning that my favorite podcast just released part 1 of their review of the book as well: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/8 ... 0489327345. I'm definitely Carl in this scenario, and it was great to hear Scott break this stuff down in a way that I could understand. Perhaps I will eventually try my hand at some "value investing." And from a renaissance skills perspective, I get that by getting good (or at least marginally competent) at value investing means building up your understanding of a whole lot of things that, to date, I've just not really needed to understand for my particular legal specialty (valuing businesses, balance sheets, understanding assets and liabilities, digging into to understand what a business actually does, understanding that airbnb doesn't actually own much in the way of assets, BUT, a franchise-based hotel chain (e.g., IHG, sort of) doesn't necessarily own much in the way of assets either). Anyway, this is something I think that would be very enjoyable to slowly ease my way into.

[Hristo Botev]

Last night DW and I popped open bottle 1 from my very first homebrew attempt. I was going to wait until this weekend, but I was just dying to know if I had 60 bottles of junk sitting in my coat closet. The result? Fan-f'ing-tastic! It tasted and looked like a really, really good west coast IPA. Seriously, it's good. I'm encouraged and am really looking forward to making this just a thing I do, all the time, and from getting better and better at it, working my way eventually from kits to recipes to experimenting on my own and working without recipes provided by others. Also looking forward to trying out some homemade fruit wine.

I'll say that when I hear the need to develop DIY skills, I tend to think of those skills as being mostly limited to handyman type stuff. And honestly, while I am willing to tackle honey-do items around the house, it's not something I really enjoy doing at all. I get that there can be creativity and art involved with drywall repair or updating a bathroom, etc., but to me it just feels like work. Likewise, I don't particularly mind tinkering around with the family's bikes to keep them in good working order and to avoid the costs of paying someone else to do any repairs, but I don't particularly enjoy doing that either. Homebrewing does not feel like work. Using the grill/smoker does not feel like work (using the Instant-Pot does). Writing doesn't feel like work (I think I want to try my hand at writing some short histories on largely forgotten people/events.) I imagine that if I were to learn woodworking, that would be enjoyable as well.

[CS]

@hristo
Congrats on the brew. My ex-husband made an excellent gluten-free beer but then lost interest which was too bad.

It seems like if you cultivate 3 or 4 things you like to do then you could trade for the others. It is still one level (more?) up from buying everything and being a straight up salaryman.

[JenAR]

@Hristo

I only enjoy building stuff when it's natural materials. If it's all drywall and foam insulation and PVC I am just demoralized, but building a house or furniture out of trees I felled myself is great! There is a YouTube blogger in China (pretty much the only YouTube I watch) who bodges a lot of really cool stuff out out mostly natural materials, as well as doing a lot of amazing gardening, foraging, and cooking:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... 0%E6%9F%92

I find her stuff really inspiring, and it always makes me want to make things (as well as level up my cooking).

[Hristo Botev]

@JenAR

Thanks for the YouTube recommendation; I'll definitely check it out. Looking at my YouTube viewing history, it looks like the skills-development hobbies that most interest me involve, not surprisingly, being creative about eating and drinking well. I've really been enjoying this guy as of late: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCntxIE ... bWG-BCApeQ; because it's all just about experimenting with all sorts of different foods and drinks (and he shows you how to make an Italian-style pizza oven with flower pots, which I'm dying to try). And this guy is great as well, for many of the same reasons: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClrMJR ... VlB-7c61PQ

[Papers of Indenture]

Hristo are you still interested in trying to grow a muscadine? I was sorting through my little makeshift nursery area of the yard and realized I have a self-fertile vine back there that I don't have space for. I'd be willing to mail it to you with a few notes on care if you want it. Although if you're down in dixie you can probably find a mislabeled one for $8 at Wal Mart

[Hristo Botev]

“They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cats and frozen food. Don’t you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won’t be a robot!”

“But, Ignatius, they help out a lot of people got problems.”

“Do you think that I have a problem?” Ignatius bellowed. “The only problem that those people have anyway is that they don’t like new cars and hair sprays. That’s why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions.”

[Alphaville]

when i read that book is was being marketed as hilarious, but i found it extremely depressing. then i found the author had killed himself. of course i had been right...

[Hristo Botev]

I feel the same way about Walker Percy, who "discovered" Toole (i.e., Toole's mother wouldn't leave Percy alone until he agreed to read the manuscript her dead son had written). Percy's stuff is funny, in an absurd and ridiculous way; but below the surface a bit that absurdity says something depressing about the human condition.

[Hristo Botev]

Realized this weekend there's really no reason for me to not treat my work life as if I'm already semi-ERE. My billable expectation is 1,400 hours for the year, which works out to 28 hours/week in a 50-wk year. There's no reason I can't bill 9-10 hours a day, 3 days a week, and then spend the other 2 days a week (mostly) focused on pursuing other interests. Or even bill ~8 hours a day 4 days a week, giving myself a 3-day weekend each week. I'm pretty much already doing this, in a way, as my days of being a "gunner" trying to bill gobs of hours in pursuit of bonuses are long behind me. I've just been spending that extra time wasting time on the Internet. I need to be more focused and more regimented as to how I use that extra time. I need to get in the mindset that my firm gets 3-4 days a week of solid performance from me, and I get the remaining 3-4 days a week to focus on other interests. At present, those interests are: (1) trying my hand at researching and writing a biography or a history of a specific event, likely of a local figure/event, or some other niche figure/event; (2) value investing; and (3) exploring more the possibility of buying into a small business of some sort as a side hustle.

[Hristo Botev]

Basically, my mind likes to wander (INFP?), and I need to give myself permission to let it wander, but in a structured way.

[Hristo Botev]

I'm building all sorts of social capital via the home brewing project. I've already gifted out half a case (15 bottles) to friends and neighbors, to rave reviews (not that it's likely anyone would tell me if they didn't like the beer). I did my boil of the next beer, a Scotch Ale, on Sunday, and it's currently fermenting nicely in the basement. DW is already enjoying coming up with all sorts of name possibilities for the Scotch Ale (e.g., Seamus On You; Scot Free); I think she actually likes naming the beers more than drinking them.

Also, we went out to a friend's 25-acre farm in the exurbs this weekend to pick up some pears they were desperate to get rid of, and it turns out that they have way more pears and muscadines than they know what to do with; and they said they'd happily give me all the fruit I wanted in exchange for a bottle or two of country wine. So, that will be the next project. From what I've seen online it appears that pear wine can actually be pretty good.

Also, I think employing the new sort of semi-ERE mindset at work is going to work well; yesterday I clocked a solid 10 hours, and today and tomorrow I expect to do the same. Thursday and Friday then I plan to be able to take it a bit easier at work and focus efforts pursuing other, non-work interests.

[Hristo Botev]

Sorry for the delay in responding; just saw this. I think we've got a good source for muscadines from a friend who has a farm just outside of town. Thanks for the offer!

[Hristo Botev]

Listened to on my walk in to work this morning. Good manifesto from my side of the aisle in support of resiliency and actually doing something, rather than just day-dreaming all the time: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t ... 0488370759

Also, very, very true about the snowflake thing; I really don't think these folks are actually that fragile, and we're naive to dismiss them as weak and ineffective. However, also true that there's not a whole lot about our "culture," whatever the hell that is at a national level, that I'm not kind of fine with being torn down as well. If Disney and Amazon and Facebook and Google and Netflix and Pandora and all the rest of our oligarchical overlords get sacrificed to the alter of the progressive/woke movement, good. If they start coming for my church and for my ability to raise my kids the way I decide is in their best interests, and my ability to live my life the way I choose, then we got problems. And my guns, obviously.

[Alphaville]

i don’t wanna reinstall apple podcasts—what is that supposed to be?

[Hristo Botev]

i don’t wanna reinstall apple podcasts—what is that supposed to be?

Good call; sorry about that: https://www.scotthambrick.com/podcast/2 ... re-losing/

[Hristo Botev]

Recently switched to keeping a pair of dress shoes at the office and wearing running shoes for my commute to/from work. Really should have done that a long time ago; I've been spending way too much money at the cobbler.