LuxVenture's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
LuxVenture
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2017 9:59 pm

LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Howdy y'all!

Procrastination is a fiendish habit. I told myself I’d start a journal here late in spring. Here we are well into the fall time and the other shoe is finally dropping. Better late than never, eh?

I’m LuxVenture. I discovered Jacob’s ERE website late in January 2017 while visiting my girlfriend in D.C. I had the afternoon to myself while she was on a train-harried day-trip meeting to NYC for her non-profit. I was contemplating what I wanted out of life and realized I didn’t really have a strategy--I hadn’t thought things through much.

I was (still am) a self-employed music teacher living in Houston, TX, USA. After a freak car accident left me with a lemon of a car that ended up needing over $3k in car replacements the prior summer, I had finally sat down to try and figure out my finances. I realized how much I had been living by the seat of my pants all through my twenties, coasting through ups and downs thoughtlessly. I’d gotten engaged, then had that engagement broken, and consequently went through a couple years of hard depression. I’d played more hours of online video gaming than I care to admit. Around the time that car repair bill came due in the summer of 2016, I realized how much I had settled for in life. Willful blindness toward my own well-being had resulted in me building up $10,000 in debt.

I decided I needed some drastic changes in my life. I began working hard again, expanding my music studio thrice-fold. While visiting my best friend in D.C. last September, I met my lovely girlfriend (we just reached one year together!). I slowly began paying off bills I owed and set aside the money for my self-employment taxes that would come due in April 2017. Through the support of my friends, family, and wonderful girlfriend, my life really came around. I was truly happy again.

Then I discovered ERE this past January. I was smitten by the idea of it. In the course of re-discovering happiness and its cousin, purpose, I realized how badly I want to do different things with my life. I want to learn and engage in car maintenance and sewing, the guitar and writing, astrophysics (I live down the street from NASA) and environmentalism. For this, time is of the essence. I feel my own mortality acutely for the first time in my life--it feels so short. I want to do something with myself before I’m old and tired.

I have now grown my studio to around 80 students, or a solid 40 hours of teaching every week. This equates to making $2000 a week, though in truth, I am presently making closer to $1700 a week due to inefficiencies like illness, unplanned schedule changes (football season and marching band, ahoy!), logistics issues of commuting all over the southeast side of the city, holidays, testing days, hurricanes named Harvey, and the like.

I am now free of debt and currently have close to $20,000 saved/invested. I’ve read a couple dozen books this year on investing, taxes, and accounting, retirement funding, and general strategies. I’ve been very lucky on my returns this year but remain very bearish about a market correction looming in the next few years.

My goal is to optimize my business so that I can keep at it at the present pace of summer 2019. At that point, I’m hoping through savvy use of solo 401(k), solid accounting, and the like to have $200,000 saved up and enter semi-ERE, though I think that may be a long-shot. Still, I’ll try. I’m currently working long hours--some days I start teaching in the schools at 7 am and finish at 8 pm. I get home, have a little time with my girlfriend (she’s now in Houston), and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat the next day. I’m living fairly frugally, especially now that our relationship is no longer long-distance, but need to get better about food and eating out. It’s a give and take--I like treating her to tasty food and experiences. It’s the least I can do for her… She’s wonderful to me and has been so supportive of my goals and dreams, including ERE. I love her. :D

Once summer 2019 arrives, I plan on shuttering music teaching--or at least winding it down significantly--and pursuing the rest of life. I recently began writing a bunch in my free time and self-published a 15k-word story. The numbers are still coming in, but it seems to have sold decently! I’d very much like to have more time to write. I’m a natural introvert and teaching 40 hours a week is very draining for me--but I make sure to do the best job I can for my kids, no matter what (I do my best to be the teacher I wish I’d had when I was a teenager). Writing has acted as a salve for unwinding the mind as of late.

In early retirement, I want to buy an R/V at the end and go see the world. I’d also like to hike the Appalachian trail. I want to bone up on science and math once more and get involved in the space program somehow. I want to help solve environmental issues and aid the human race in finding a balance with the world--and avoid the specter of humanity going extinct from ignorance-inflicted suicide in the not-so-distant future.

I also want to stay involved in my community. Working with children has opened my eyes to what matters to people, their hopes and dreams and fears and potential and astoundingness. It would be wonderful to continue making a difference in educating children and adults in matters that are important, especially learning how to navigate and work through feelings about oneself and relations with one another. As I age, I want to remain responsible for myself and my role as a member of the community from the micro-to-macro-level. I want to do good and enjoy life in the process.

In the meantime, I need to stay the course as far as ERE is concerned. Most current goals include:

-Setting up a solo 401(k) and switching over investments from my brokerage before the tax year ends (I still need to learn more about solos)
-Continuing to write and publish regularly
-Continuing education to be the best music teacher I can be before I retire
-Streamlining the business side of teaching, aka figuring out how to automate some aspects of communicating logistics with 80 kids and their parents
-Making quality time for my girlfriend, along with my friends and family
-Sticking to a training program for a half-marathon (feeling sufficiently recovered for right knee surgery two years ago, but left calf compartment syndrome has been acting up for over a year... bleh, lol)
-Staying somewhat accountable about it all here. Need to come up with graphics or something.

Cheers <3

wolf
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by wolf »

Welcome LuxVenture! I wish you the best to achieve your goals! ERE-like, there is no better place to learn than here. :-)

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Thanks MDFIRE 2024!

Much appreciated. The same to you.

I'll be posting more hard numbers about my situation and trajectory in the near future.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Hell's bells, taxes are a pain. Note to self: bite the bullet and hire help for next year. Or at least teach myself a thing or two about better accounting standards!

So, the score so far... sitting at approximately 30k net worth since starting saving for ERE. Considering I'm operating on a self-employed teacher's salary and I started a -4k net worth in January 2017, I'll take it. I'll post more specifics (hmm where have I heard this before) once I know how my final tax bill for sure. Still waiting for my bank to get back to me regarding check history to the IRS for quarterly payments, because if memory serves, the IRS processed and dated two of my quarterlies late even though I got them in the mail several days early... hummmm! Yay bureaucracy. Moral of the story: do anything involving banking or money transactions weeks in advance, not days.

On the plus side, I managed to execute my solo 401k strat beautifully with etrade. Knocked my end-of-year tax bill from 8.5k down to 2.9k. Mission accomplished.

Life in 2018 has already thrown a few curve balls at me. My eight-year-old cat Sun got dreadfully sick and nearly died several times a couple months ago. The first vet was dead-set on a diagnosis of a stroke due to symptoms, but a second opinion found my kitty instead had an inflammed polyp growing in his left ear and causing Horner's syndrome. Terrible vestibular disease symptoms like nausea and spinning led to Sun not wanting to eat or drink, which led to multiple UI infections. All told, dropped over $3000 on vet care over 2 weeks. My girlfriend and mom thought it best to euthanize, and I absolutely refused. They also got angry that I was spending so much money on vet care (???) and I countered by asking, "What's the point of money if you're not willing to spend it to save the life of a loved one?" Even if non-human. I was so grateful to have an ample emergency fund to fund just such an emergency.

Well, I'm happy to say Sun pulled out of it eventually. The polyp in his ear quieted and he finally regained the ability to eat and drink and use the bathroom and walk around without seeming brain-damaged or drunk. His dilated left eye even returned to normal. He's back to his gruff, affectionate self, and I'm grateful for his company.

Hum, speaking of my girlfriend, we broke up a month ago after two years together. I was quite sad for a while, but am doing my best to move on. We had wonderful times and travels, and I love her dearly, but we had some significant issues that needed work for us to keep together and healthy... and she didn't want to try for that. She left my place in Houston in flew home to Virginia. What can you do? Keep on living life.

With this multitude of free time I now have on my hands (used to be I felt I scarcely had a moment to myself, between teaching and coming home to the missus), I'm trying to fun and educational things to do. Lots of reading happening! Ready, Player One is great fun, while Codependent No More is helping me work through my personal issues and tiding me over until I can get together with a proper therapist once the school year begins to wind down.

I bought a cheap $60 inflatable kayak and am going to make a point of exploring the wetlands that surround my area of the Gulf Coast. I don't know a damn thing about kayaking, so suffice to say I'm rather excited to get going. Package still hasn't arrived and cold front blowing in tonight dropping the temp to 40 F today, so I'll get going next weekend. If I never post here again, it's likely because a croc got me. Or a real big fish... Rockin' it, Old Testament-style.

Also want to pick up an old Apple laptop in order to run Vellum and get back into publishing my writing. I've published 6 shorts on Amazon and have about $150 trickling in monthly. Part of me dreams of stepping away from my present job to write full-time, like my ex, and have the opportunity to get out of the schoolyard more. Maybe, maybe.

Lastly, I downloaded Robinhood because I wanted to learn about trading. Being an utter novice lapping up all sorts of contradictory information, I threw in 3k to "play" with and test out various strategies. I grew that to about 5k in a month, then promptly went right back to square one the two days following my breakup because I napped and didn't set stop losses. El oh el. Since then my beginner's luck has gone the way of the dodo and I'm up a couple hundred one week, down a hundred the next. I've learned quite a bit during the process about how the markets function in a way that required not just reading a book or article. Only downside are the tax ramifications of wash sales and cost basis, which I'm just now coming to terms with... again, el oh el.

tl;dr net worth 30k. My life has had more downs than ups lately, but nothing lasts forever. Getting back on my feet.
Last edited by LuxVenture on Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

jacob
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by jacob »

Just in case you don't already have an IRA, you can open one of those too and knock the tax bill further. (You can have a 401k and an IRA at the same time.) Since you're self-employed you can also open a solo401k (higher deductible but more paperwork) or a SEP IRA (same paperwork as IRA) and further knock it down. You have a few days left to do it.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Thanks Jacob! (And thank you for your ideas and writing. You have directly helped my life in a very positive way, and I'm grateful for you.)

I opened a solo 401k and recently deposited 20k into it for the 2017 tax season. Between that and other deductions, I've lowered my taxable income to just 9k. Most of my taxes due at this point come from SE taxes.

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Viktor K
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by Viktor K »

One of my cat's got sick this month too! We spent until there wasn't any more to spend on and he's doing better as well. I've gotta agree with you here and happy that yours is better!

Sorry about the girlfriend. I like to think, it would have lasted if it was worth lasting.

Be safe out there kayaking, don't go too far from shore! I know nothing about the ocean but I remember a story a year ago maybe where these two boys out in Florida went missing and they found their boat with no one on it. Dreadful

Jason

Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by Jason »

@LuxVenture

Your roll with the punches attitude is a breath of fresh air. I could see your next post being something like "I really enjoyed the kayaking despite a shark biting off my left leg. Thankfully I have saved enough for the prosthetic!"

Your anecdote about your cat makes me rethink some of the decisions I made with our pet. Although I can't help but think there's a correlation between you dropping 3K for the vet costs and your girlfriend moving back home.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Viktor K wrote:
Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:00 am
One of my cat's got sick this month too! We spent until there wasn't any more to spend on and he's doing better as well. I've gotta agree with you here and happy that yours is better!

Sorry about the girlfriend. I like to think, it would have lasted if it was worth lasting.

Be safe out there kayaking, don't go too far from shore! I know nothing about the ocean but I remember a story a year ago maybe where these two boys out in Florida went missing and they found their boat with no one on it. Dreadful
Hey, I'm glad your kitty is doing better! :D And thanks for the condolences. Much appreciated.

I'll be as safe as can be! I'm making final preparations today and planning on striking out tomorrow on a local body of water known as Clear Lake. Deep, but not terribly so, and surrounded by shoreline on all sides, so no chance of being swept out to sea. Not gonna go exploring the wilder waterways of my local bayou until I have more experience.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Jason wrote:
Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:09 am
@LuxVenture

Your roll with the punches attitude is a breath of fresh air. I could see your next post being something like "I really enjoyed the kayaking despite a shark biting off my left leg. Thankfully I have saved enough for the prosthetic!"

Your anecdote about your cat makes me rethink some of the decisions I made with our pet. Although I can't help but think there's a correlation between you dropping 3K for the vet costs and your girlfriend moving back home.
Hah, thanks! I went through my fair share of depression coming out of college, and like to think I've gotten a handle on how to manage feelings of sadness and make the most out of life. And yes, having money saved up for that prosthetic is one less thing to lose sleep over at night. ;D

As for your pet... it's a terribly hard situation to be in. Caring for a sick animal isn't comparable to being responsible for the well-being of a human infant, but there are a fair number of similarities to be drawn. When they get sick, they become completely dependent on you for their continued existence. In nature, they'd likely succumb rather quickly. But a pet at home isn't in nature, and they are part of the family, and there is emotional attachment there. Making decisions about their well-being is so challenging. They can't tell you what's wrong, they don't even "think" by our standards of sentience, but we can see them feel pain. Seeing them suffer is terrible. Not knowing whether you can help them tries the soul. The healthcare costs rack up quickly.

Whatever you chose to do, I'm willing to bet you acted with compassion, and considered everything there was to consider before you acted.

I should set the record straight: the 3k didn't play into the breakup, actually. I think I did a horrible misrepresentation of my mom and girlfriend when I wrote that paragraph.

They were both very supportive of me and my cat Sun throughout that ordeal. They did everything they could to help out, and consoled me when I was experiencing strong feelings of grief and confusion. There were times when they tried to help me understand that I needed to be ready to detach and make the hard decision of ending my cat's life, but I found myself poorly equipped to receive their well-intentioned help. I felt crushed by the responsibility for my cat living or dying, and a feeling of utterly lacking control over the situation beyond getting him medical help and caring for him. Inwardly, I raged and begged, and cried many nights in the shower out of overwhelming sadness as I faced the idea of death of this animal, and death in general as a fact of existence. I felt like I was losing my mind for a few a while there.

But it passed, and Sun recovered, and I acknowledge that my mom and girlfriend did everything they could to support me while I was calling the shots. They always meant well, including when they pointed out the cost of his healthcare--they were looking out for me and my dreams of FIRE. It was petty of me to characterize them so 2-dimensionally in my original story, and likely speaks of an irrational resentment on my part after-the-fact, and is something I need to work on about myself. I'm taking responsibility for that.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Budget

There's are velociraptors that lurk outside my bedroom window. Or at least, creatures that I imagine sounds exactly the way a velociraptor would sound, had they survived that little Armageddon all those years ago. It really gets rowdy right when the sun comes up. Turns out they're some kind of waterfowl that has taken to roosting in a branches of the magnificent old oak gracing the courtyard adjacent to my home. I took out trash a few minutes ago and noticed the ground for several hundred yards is a blanket of white. Every pebble of the sidewalk, all the stones covering the ground, the spreading roots of the trees... the birds be eating well, it seems.

This townhome I live in is nice. Dates from the 60's, I believe. Signed an asbestos warning when I moved in, i.e. "There may or may not be asbestos in the walls, we don't know, if you get cancer in a few decades, tough luck kiddo!" Oh well. I think it's worth it. A spacious living and dining area on the second floor, kitchen and bathroom, patio that opens on more trees. Then a cute staircase to the third floor. My bedroom is on the left, all minimalist white walls with a simple queen bed I've used the past two decades and a nightstand I've had for even longer. Not much else, aside from all the clothes I leave all over the floor in my newfound bachelorhood. Such a slob.

A spacious walk-in closet filled with pretty much everything I own, which isn't much. An alcove in my bedroom room with a sink, something of a curiosity, leads to a shared full bathroom that mildews quickly due to a complete lack of ventilation. On the other side lives my hippie, weed-smoking, alcoholic roommate. He's great, full of charisma and energy, a real firecracker. I've known him since 6th grade, when we both joined band on the euphonium. After he moved away our second year of high school, he popped back onto the radar two years ago when I needed a new roommate. He's gone 4 days out of the week, during which I have the place entirely to myself. Being an introvert that talks all day long, this is a blissful situation for me.

I split the cost of the townhome with him. $1037 a month, with electricity, water, and sewage included, so I pay $518.50 every thirty days for my home. A pretty sick deal, given its waterfront and wooded and spacious, next door to NASA Johnson Space Center and therefore in a very nice part of town.

Now, for the entire budget as of April 2018 (thanks, Mint):

Rent and Utilities: $519
Internet: $80
Gas: $100 (I drive a lot for work, probably 3 full tanks a month in my tragic '07 Ford Fusion.)
Car insurance: $102 (I could bring this down to $50, but after being hit by a car full of high school seniors a few years ago, I have more peace of mind being fully covered)
Cell phone: $40
Netflix: $11 (I don't actually usually use this, just loan it out to friend and family as a perma-gift.)
Gym: $33
Groceries: $160
Dining out: $250 (I need to lower this hugely. This took a huge hit after the breakup due to my own laziness and lack of cooking habit.)
Health insurance: $209
Discretionary purchases like haircuts, kayaks, etc: $100
Library: FREE!!!!!

TOTAL: $1564


I had it down to $1300 last year, but again, eating out takes its toll. My internet is way overpriced due to being the fastest in our area and Comcast having their typical monopoly. Gas is non-negotiable because I drive to different schools every day to teach, averaging 30 to 75 miles any given day. Cell phone bill drops to $15 in a few months due to paying off my smartphone and convincing my dad to let him stay on his family plan (having my own plan makes no sense in terms of cost efficiency; I just pay my share of the bill to him). Gym is pricey compared to the $10 gyms in the area, but I opted for the shorter commute since I already drive enough as is. Health insurance is catastrophic and cheapest I could get in the marketplace. And HSA eligible!

If anyone sees any holes in this or ways to reduce, please do point out.

My savings rate per month varies seasonally. At peak efficiency, I make about $1800 a week teaching, or $7200 monthly. But that is a rarity, given student absences, holidays, contest days, my own time off, and a slew of other factors. In truth, I make closer to between $1000-1200 or 4k to 5k a month, which leads to a rough estimate of saving from $2436 to $3436 or 61% to 69% of my income any given month. These are weekly/monthly averages, since my work load operates on a on-and-off cycle. I bring in closer to $1500 during a typical week, $2000 when everyone shows up, and $0 around Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring Break, etc.
Last edited by LuxVenture on Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

DutchGirl
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I'd definitely try and make things as tax-efficient as is possible. So put as much in your solo-401k as you can (while, of course, also leaving enough in savings for a buffer and to allow you to pay your taxes and bills). I assume you chose a investment company for the solo 401k that has low fees and the right investment options for you?

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

DutchGirl wrote:
Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:39 pm
I'd definitely try and make things as tax-efficient as is possible. So put as much in your solo-401k as you can (while, of course, also leaving enough in savings for a buffer and to allow you to pay your taxes and bills). I assume you chose a investment company for the solo 401k that has low fees and the right investment options for you?
For sure! I have a solo 401k with etrade. Full access to markets, $6.95 trades, plenty of ETFs comparable to Vanguard's. So far it's been smooth sailing with them. I've been putting as much in there as makes sense to and lowered my U.S. tax bill (not including mandatory business taxes for medicare/medicaid) to a -4% rate for 2017 (largely thanks to activating increased subsidies for my marketplace healthcare plan by reducing my MAGI below key thresholds).

Jason

Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by Jason »

LuxVenture wrote:
Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:40 pm

Whatever you chose to do, I'm willing to bet you acted with compassion, and considered everything there was to consider before you acted.
Now you're going to make we weep worse than a Sunday Morning TV Evangelist after getting caught with a crack whore in a hotel room.

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Viktor K
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by Viktor K »

What's your kitchen setup look like? Without a crockpot, I wouldn't have any home-cooked meals here. If I could get decent bread, lunch meat, and cheese, I would also like to have a George Foreman grill for spontaneous paninis.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Jason wrote:
Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:46 am
LuxVenture wrote:
Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:40 pm

Whatever you chose to do, I'm willing to bet you acted with compassion, and considered everything there was to consider before you acted.
Now you're going to make we weep worse than a Sunday Morning TV Evangelist after getting caught with a crack whore in a hotel room.
...so, Joel Osteen? :lol: (Pure conjecture, plz don't sue me Joel!)

Oh lordy, that's no good! I wish you peace.
Last edited by LuxVenture on Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Viktor K wrote:
Sun Apr 22, 2018 10:40 am
What's your kitchen setup look like? Without a crockpot, I wouldn't have any home-cooked meals here. If I could get decent bread, lunch meat, and cheese, I would also like to have a George Foreman grill for spontaneous paninis.
Hmm, my kitchen setup... well, I we gots us a microwave, a fridge, a working oven and electric range, and best of all, an instant pot. I hear ya about the crockpot being a godsend; the instantpot mainly serves me as a rice cooker when doing Chipotle-style rice and beans with veggies. The grill is a great idea.

I used to meal prep actual meals. Had a thing for prepping tilapia, and chicken fried rice. Mmmmmm. Gotta get that habit back.

What's your favorite go-to meal?

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Stat sheet:

Alias: LuxVenture
Sex: Male
Age: 29
Current Disposition: Laconic
Occupation: Music teacher (self-employed)
Yearly income: $49,000
Net worth: $30,000
Yearly savings rate: 61-69%
Current projects/hobbies:
  • Adapting a workout plan to my specific physical hardships (thoracic outlet syndrome right shoulder, compartment syndrome in calf)
  • Doing something new every weekend
  • Reading as much as possible, with present emphasis on financial education
  • Learning best accounting standards (including spreadsheet language) for my music business
  • Writing and publishing shorts (need to get access to Vellum for formatting)
  • Setting short, intermediate, and long-term goals and following through on them to promote life fulfillment a.k.a. getting organized
  • More to come

LuxVenture
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Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by LuxVenture »

Update: Did not swim with the fishes, get swept out to sea, or be eaten by alligators. First-time kayaking was a success! The wind was blowing in the same direction as the bayou's flow... tough rowing into the current, but did make for a fun joyride when I finally turned around!


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I've also made a point of getting out more on the weekends lately to have new experiences. Right after getting off work today, I drove into Galveston and discovered an amazing museum on the top floor of the city's public library. Quite a collection. The helmet has a bullet hole in the back of it. :shock: And though it's hard to tell perspective, that chant book is roughly four feet across, like something out of a fairy tale--the largest book I've ever seen, designed to be read by an entire choir at a distance. Who knows how many thousands of hours went into its creation?

Read at a hip local coffeeshop on their outdoor garden patio as the sun set. Watched horsedrawn carriages roll past, chatted about island life with a sweet new mom (who had given birth six days prior and had ventured outside for the first time in a week), and smiled at the sight of little birds frolicking about on the pavement while a guitarist crooned soul-warming folk melodies for an appreciative audience.

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Jason

Re: LuxVenture's Journal

Post by Jason »

LuxVenture wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:25 pm
Update: Did not swim with the fishes, get swept out to sea, or be eaten by alligators.


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It's also an occasion when one can say that it was a good thing that the Challenger blew up.

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