Noedig's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

She sent herself! Signed up with the Girl Scouts Of Alaska. Is sending us pictures of the sun while canoeing after midnight. Seems to be loving it. We will have her back for two weeks before she goes off to university in Scotland in September.

TBH I am enormously relieved she did it, rather than continuing to spend all summer playing Overwatch (the team-deathmatch video game of choice) and playing D&D and Earning No Money. She is even as I speak, being responsible for herself and a group of campers. She is teaching inter-personal and intra-personal skills through demonstration (One of the 7 named skills is "Grit"!). And likely singing Kumbaya. I am proud. Of course then she ends the summer with a week in New York so she might turn up with a tattoo. I just hope it's not on the face.

Thanks for the good wishes and underlying concern, Jason. Similarly, Halfmoon. We will wait and see what the next card is from the deck.

Jason

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Jason »

Baits you with Hunger Games and switches you with Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.

Kids are smarter than you think.

Allagash
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Allagash »

calixarene wrote:
Tue Feb 07, 2017 9:46 pm
Also, just read through your whole journal and you have a delightful writing style. I have an image of you in my head as an jolly but dignified Briton who says phrases like "old chap" and remains wryly stoic against all obstacles. (80% of that may just be my idea of what British people are like, which mainly derives from murder mysteries and Waugh novels.)

And as a daughter myself, your clear fondness for your daughters is heartwarming.
Anyone with a British accent here in the U.S. is a chick magnet. They love that stuff here. Heck extend that to an pretty much any Euro accent. And Aussies, NZ. But especially British. I know your married but just sayin' for those not.

Jason

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Jason »

Mick Jagger is older than the Magna Carta and women are still killing themselves over him.

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

Daughter #1 has returned from the States. She got paid in cash for three months and headed straight to Vegas from Alaska.

Yes, paid in cash, and by the Girl Scouts. Obviously that organisation is merely a cash rich money laundering front. I just *knew* that all that "Alaskan Gold Chaga" fungus they encouraged them to collect, had other purposes than making tea. Tea, my aunt Sally! I am not so easily fooled. Probably they wanted her to recycle the money to their mobster overlords down South.

If so it didn't work. Vegas was a base, she didn't spend a dime there on gambling, not even a dollar on the slots. Saw the Grand Canyon etc, then off to Yosemite, then San Fransisco, now home for a week before I take her off to college.

It's been a good month also for the investments - they keep going up. Mind you, the major reason for that is that Sterling is dropping ever lower in response to our genius govenment's Brexit negotiations with the EU. I have run out of metaphors for how much of a major error Brexit is for the UK and am just hunkering down into stoic mode about it, just occasionally muttering, fuming, grinding my teeth and predicting doom and woe.

On the bright side, my daughter is off to Edinburgh and my money is on the next independence referendum (and there will be one, oh yes!) may go a different way from the last one. Which means she will get to stay in the EU after all. I give that a solid 50% in the next 6 years.

Wife had a couple of weeks in hospital for cardiac and post-operative probs for her cancer. Seems to be on the mend. Fingers crossed.

Things I Have Fixed This Year:

Shoes: using glue on heels and sewing a flap.
Bicycles: fixed one, am rebuilding another. First was secondhand, the other was free
Trousers: popped a button. Because yes, I am a lardy no good greedy chubster. Good with a needle though.
Lawnmower: Make that "Attempted to fix and failed"
Computers: fixed old laptop, and changed the HD on an imac
Hallway lights: installed a whole bunch of these, chosen by my wife to add ambiance that I think looks like something my grandma would have liked, but my wife thinks looks classy. She's probably right.
iPhone cracked screen. Never doing that again:- all those petite asian ladies with good motor skills, have me beat. Took me 4 hours.
...plus the never ending homeowner's litany of small thinks like cracks, paint touch ups, door handles, dishwashers and the like.

I like fixing things. Always have. Sometimes it doesn't work, that's OK. Sometimes it's simply not cost effective - that's OK too, if not so smart.

That's me done with the update. Look out for yourselves, people.

wolf
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by wolf »

Noedig wrote:
Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:53 pm
It's been a good month also for the investments - they keep going up. Mind you, the major reason for that is that Sterling is dropping ever lower in response to our genius govenment's Brexit negotiations with the EU. I have run out of metaphors for how much of a major error Brexit is for the UK and am just hunkering down into stoic mode about it, just occasionally muttering, fuming, grinding my teeth and predicting doom and woe.
Hi Noedig, it is great to hear that your investments are still rising besides the stress of the BREXIT. I am on the same page with you regarding the BREXIT. I think it is not good either for Britain or the EU. But take this as no offence against the decision. I would have voted against, because I think we are better off and more fit in the long-term future together (EU within/plus Britain). Still, I hope that it is not going to be as drastic/bad as one could imagine. Beside that, I think you and I are on a good ERE path which is more or less independent from EU/Britain politics. In the end, I would like to live independently from EU politics and rules, e.g. retirement age, ... Having money buys you independence with or without the BREXIT. Take care.

suomalainen
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by suomalainen »

Just caught up on your journal. Was cheered by your break from work (as well that you were able to re-enter at your desire) and saddened by the cancer curveball. As you have noted many times, I agree that working towards the FI goal is fine, but the present (especially the people) must be kept front and center. Best wishes on the treatment, recovery and hopeful remission!

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

Life update

Last week, took my eldest off to university in Scotland, installed her, and left her to get on with it. I see many cheese toasties in her future. Hopefully also some timely completed quality coursework. She is a redhead with the complexion of the Irish so I suspect she will fit in. May Providence bless her on this further lurch towards independence and self-determination.

After that, I then took the sleeper back to London to go to work the next morning. I hadn't booked far enough in advance to get a berth so I had a "sleeper seat": a cheapo no frills version... they just give you eyepads to keep it dark and leave you in what seems like a premium economy airline seat for 8 hours. I slept like a baby. I was next to a nice retired lady who had been visiting a friend in Inverness, and told me her life story before lights out: "I worked hard, I saved hard". Seeing as she was about 70, I withheld from sharing ERE. Recommended dirt cheap way to travel.

This week, last night, I took my youngest to a public lecture at the London School of Economics as she is considering politics & economics for college. It was by a really old guy, so old his white beard was turning yellow, a geographer, who has been teaching Marx for 30 years and drew parallels between the water cycle and the recycling & transformations of Capital. Really fluent and a clear thinker, albeit proceeding from some assumptions I found questionable. Daughter loved it and the guy was treated like a star afterwards ... queue out the door to buy his book & get it signed. All LSE public lectures available on web, I see, though not that one yet.

Wife still not well, on triple antibiotics to help get her well enough, to have another operation. Cancer sucks.

I finished a contract on Friday. Am thinking I will just take some time off to spend with the wife, and deal with the immense backlog of Things Left Undone that I have let build up during the last, er, twenty years or so. I did a list to get started, while on the train to Scotland. After it reached two double-column pages in tiny scrawl I stopped adding, ... it doesn't look like I will run out of things to do, there is something for every mood.

I tried spin class this morning. Knackering but oddly fun to be yelled at by a young lady wearing lycra while standing up on a stationary bike watching a huge video screen of mountain-ascending bikers in Denmark, to early 90's Throbbing House Music, and trying not to gasp

Also went canoeing in Cambridge yesterday, past the colleges on the Cam, and down three weirs.

Also went to gym day before that.
Lest it seem like this is a preening excess of claims towards fitness, I will share that I am quite a chubby bastard and I am confident of my potential to shortly lapse into curry-fuelled binge-watching of Netflix, midnight gaming, and wakening past noon.

I sniff the air, smells like... freedom!
Last edited by Noedig on Tue Sep 19, 2017 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

jacob
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by jacob »

Noedig wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:59 am
... drew parallels between the water cycle and the recycling of Capital.
Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVOhYROKeu4

Noedig
Posts: 191
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

Yes! That said <whoop whoop pedantry alert!> Bill Philips' hydraulic model concerned mainly the money supply, David Harvey's was more about the transformations of capital, beginning with money used in a certain way being turned into Capital, then transformed into Commodities. Also, the lecture was so storming it would have seemed ungenerous to allude to the core analytical idea not being entirely novel.

FYI The relevant diagrams are on page 2 and 6 of the intro to his book "Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason", can be previewed here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marx-Capital-M ... 8&qid=&sr=

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

Wife had another op to remove rest of the RHS lymph nodes today, in case more of the evil critturs got off the reservation, so to speak.

She is up and moving around and hungry .... and on a ton of antibiotics so as to avoid the post-op infection she got last time. Including stuff that turns her pee orange. Thought you'd want to know that.

Otherwise, all OK. D1 at college. D2 doing last year of school. Not a lot of drama from them right now.

Due to my investing genius (i.e. "leaving money in the market") like everyone else I am wondering whether to pull and sit on it for a while.

Won't though: market timing is not for me, though I might just regret that old fruit, this time next month.

Contract ended a few weeks back ... have zero interest in going back to work or looking. Sick wife is a reason, but also an excuse. Just don't wanna and don't have to, so won't.

Noedig
Posts: 191
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

Update:

1. Wife now has all clear, no chemo, no radiotherapy. Tamoxifen for 5 years but that's a detail. Major surprise, especially as she's a doctor herself and expected the full postop gamut. So, major relief that is not so. Is so much counter to former expectation, that it's a bit 'Now what?". Now, on with life.

2. New goals: exercise/diet regime change, as documented
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9441
124.7kg @ start. Major feature: reward plan (I am my own lab rat. I like rewards). First major challenge will be end of next week annual dinner with old buds - will need to climb back on wagon afterwards and go back into ketosis. Will try major gym session to provoke that.

3. I seem to be thinking about this a lot:
http://www.raptitude.com/2013/09/an-int ... h-the-man/
He is quite plain about what he is doing, also that we do it all to ourselves. I hate to say it ... but I kinda agree with him.

4. Not gone back to work. Not intending to go back to work. Someone may call me and I respond, or not. Don't care, have too much else on to worry, and the bills are covered.

halfmoon
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by halfmoon »

Noedig, I'm so glad to hear that your wife is done with active treatment. As you say: now on with life.

Moving on after being so focused on the fight for life is a process. On some days, your wife may not feel as great (or grateful) as she thinks she should, especially if/when longer-term effects from the treatments show up. I just mention this so you can be supportive instead of incredulous in those moments ("But you're alive! Think of all the people who died from this!"). Not speaking from personal experience, of course. :|

Good for you on taking time off to be together, and for spending years laying the framework so you can afford to do so.

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

@halfmoon, that's kind words indeed. I am mindful of the situation with your DH. For which my kindest thoughts in return.

Woven through your blog posts, your DH strides, epically independent and stubborn and fixing stuff up. Bless you both.

halfmoon
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by halfmoon »

Noedig wrote:
Sat Nov 18, 2017 6:34 pm
Woven through your blog posts, your DH strides, epically independent and stubborn and fixing stuff up. Bless you both.
Noedig, this is beautiful and poetic. I love your writing style. Thank you.

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

It's been 18 months since my last post. Here's what's up:

Wife still cancer-free. Gets very tired, looks much older, but she's still in the game and that's what counts.

Started a keto diet 55 days back. Lost 11kg so far. Rate has slowed a lot, but still hanging on in there. Trying not to let this go the way of previous attempted diets. 20kg at least to go.

Hit my FIRE number just this last Friday. It was a pretty arbitrary number, calculated to be 1k GBP a week by virtue of the 4% rule i.e. 1.3m GBP. I think we can live fine, on that.

No big emotional reaction. I suppose because it's a theoretical event rather than anything "real-world". So, am mulling it over.

As it happens, I am mid contract, so will be carrying on working for a few months. Such dark fantasies as I may once have entertained of just walking out, so as to Stick It To The Man, have drifted away over time. Along with my level of work commitment it must be said. I am content to just fade out. In the meantime, will be "Phoning It In".

Another variable: Brexit. Leaving aside how deeply unwelcome I find it, it has worked in my favour to meet my number, because of the inverse relationship between sterling and the FTSE (GBP falls==FTSE rises).

At the same time, it donates uncertainty to my numbers, because the outcome arrangements for Brexit are famously yet to be determined.

So just as well I carry on working for a while. Until actual Brexit. I want my lazy drift down the Mississippi of later life, to begin after the waterfall, not just before: "What's that rushing noise, Huck?" "I ain't an idea. Also, why's the river getting mighty fast all a sudden?"

Also, I am actually working on Brexit itself. So I can't leave, until it is like, done. Well, unless I actually do walk out, in which case it would analogous to a "No Deal Brexit" where one party just walks away: tempting when it gets frustrating, but likely counterproductive overall.

So in the meantime, I will view the next few months as "Being Paid To Diet Into FIRE By Brexit"

My best wishes to you all in your own journeys.

prognastat
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by prognastat »

Congrats on good fortune in avoiding recurrence so far and hitting FI.

Also nice work on losing 11kg. That's some really nice progress.

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Noedig »

I gave notice last week. Friday is my last day.

Since announcing it, have had nothing but "Why did I wait so long?" in my mind.

The stock market is currently tanking, but I am still just above my Number.

More importantly, I simply don't give a monkey's.

I had thought, that I would carry on working out of habit and prudence for a few months. But no, it seems I simply yearn to be out of the working environment. The project, management, co-workers are fine: but "It's not you ... It's me".

Goodbye to all that. And best wishes to you all.

Edit: Still on Keto, down now 15kg since mid-Feb.

Kipling
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Kipling »

Sincere congratulations.

Earlybath
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Re: Noedig's Journal

Post by Earlybath »

Congrats, habit and prudence can do one, I'm sure the digital satanic mills will continue to grind on without you. Be sure to swipe some post-its on the way out.

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