Quadalupe's Journey and Journal

[ben2000s]

I really enjoy reading your blog. I am a techie too. Keep writing! I am learning a lot.

[Quadalupe]

Below I'll describe my experiences so far. It has been a terrific experience all around! In a later post, I'll write more about my interactions with AH and what things I thought about while I was here.

Getting there: dealing diligently with delays
The first week at AH's place has been amazing! It started with a setback - or did it? I had a connecting flight to Los Angeles in Dublin. Due to a delay on the first flight, I missed the connection. Somewhat of a shame, even more so since the plane to LA was still at Dublin but we weren't allowed to enter anymore. It quickly got better once I was told that I could spend the night in a hotel, with all the costs (including meals) being paid for by the airline. It became a net positive (literally) when I discovered I could get 600 euros back due to the length of the delay - and the total costs of the flights (return flight included) was only 550!


My three person room, courtesy of Air Lingus

My burger and a pint of guiness in the hotel. I strayed from my vegetarian diet for this meal since they only had a vegetarian salad that didn't sound appetizing

The next day, I flew to LA and was picked up by AxelHeyst. I saw LA for about 30 minutes through a car window and that was more than enough. We arrived around ten and I got acquainted with what would be my new home for the better part of the month: Serenity.

Serenity is a beauty, well engineered and she contained everything that I needed. It has a stove, a sink, a bed and some cupboards. The bathroom is outside and contains a well engineered bucket toilet and a big tank of water for showering. She is cozy and already feels like home after a week!


Serenity on the left and the studio on the right


The toilet


The shower

The first day: welcome to the gun show
Monday was meant to allow myself to get familiar with my environment. I met the other residents of Ft Dirtbag - AxelHeyst's parents - and AH showed me around the desert. Within a few hours, I had seen hummingbirds, lizards, fire ants and various interesting desert vegetation. I discovered that dead Joshua Tree leaves are still very sharp.

We also crossed a big thing of my bucket list. I shot some guns! I shot a dozen times with a scoped .22 rifle and two times with a pump action shotgun. While the reload sound from a shotgun sounds like a redneck ASMR video to me, I did not enjoy shooting it as much. The kickback on these things is enormous! I was pretty good with the .22 though. We started with shooting at cans, but n the end I managed to hit shotgun shells and even .22 shells from a distance of ~30 feet / ~10 meters.

After the shooting we took the guns apart and cleaned and lubricated them. A calming activity that was satisfying to do. Getting the gunk out of a gun barrel feels good!


Me blasting some fools who only had canned responses


The next days: daily structure
Once I had mastered the American customs it was time to get to work. AxelHeyst and I settled in a good rhythm. In the morning, he would write some and I would work on my side gig for half an hour. Then we'd get an early start working on our projects, after which he'd prepare a great breakfast. During the hottest part of the day we would engage in our respective 'alone time'. He'd do journalling, thinking and other productive things. I'd read the Count of Monte Cristo.

After our respective introvert batteries where charged again we'd often sit of the porch of Serenity and discuss various things. It could be concepts of the book he is writing, web of goals, Maslow's pyramid or just how things are done in the US versus in The Netherlands. We were acting like true Stoics, who also practiced their philosophy on a stoa (= porch in Greek).

Having gotten the work and thinking for the day out of the way, it was time for fun activities. We have been hiking around in the beautiful desert areas and we have also been to some hidden crags/rock formations to go climbing. I had gotten my belaying certificate a few weeks before I flew to the US and AxelHeyst can lead climb, so we had a great time and great views.

When we got home and had eaten dinner, we would talk some more before heading to our respective shelters. We also watched the stars a couple of times. It is amazing how many stars - and also falling stars! - you can see out here in the desert.

The next days: building shade
The main project we worked on was building a shade structure near Serenity and the trailer. Being a great scavenger, AH had gotten his hands on a lot of old solar panels. They'd provide power, but also shade. A total homeotelical success!

Previously, AH and the Mooretrees family already placed old telephone poles and dug the start of a pit. Over the course of multiple days we worked on various aspects of the shade structure:

1. We enlarged the pit
2. We connected the two telephone poles with 12ft beams and supported those beams with a 45s. These are pieces of wood screwed onto the beams and poles at a 45 degree angle for more structural integrity.
3. We added posts at the end of the pit and connected those to each other and the telephone poles
4. We assembled the metal structures the solar panels would rest on and connected them to the wooden skeleton we had build.
5. We screwed the solar panels onto the metal structures. I am ashamed to say that I screwed one panel on the wrong direction so I had to fix it the next day.

Looking back, it is impressive what you can get done if you work for a few hours every day for days in a row. I was also impressed with how AxelHeyst approached this problem. He had a good high level idea of what he wanted to achieve, and was able to creatively deal with problems we found along the way. He also never raised his voice or got angry at his (sometimes incompetent) intern, i.e. me!

We did not connect the solar panels yet, but it looks like a mixture of solarpunk meets Mad Max.


The Shadow Dispenser in an unfinished state


The Shadow Dispenser ready for duty

The next days: colonization
During the first week, some family of AxelHeyst came over. It gave me an opportunity to meet some more people and to play board games with the family. We played Catan two days in a row and I got my behind handed to me both times. I tried to apply all of my ancestral Dutch trading spirit, but to no avail. It was great fun though!


The visiting family brought a beautiful wooden version of Catan


This guy didn't participate in the game, but he looks pretty cool

Speaking of colonization, we also went out and colonized some mountains by climbing. AH knew some beautiful hidden crags that we went to and conquered a few (fairly easy) routes. I ended up feeling more secure in both my belaying and climbing skills.

It wasn't an easy road to get to that point though. Literally. Due to a hurricane that crossed California, many of the dirt roads leading to the crags where in dire shape. By which I mean that on some occassions about thirty percent of the road had fallen into a cliff. No matter though, AH blasted through them like a professional Dakar rally driver.


A pipeline that is supplying freshwater to LA


A part of the walk to the crag


One more colonization story: we went on a short hike through the desert. After a while we reached the top of a hill. After enjoying the view for a while, he pointed me to some sort of stick sticking out of a bunch of rocks. It was actually an arrow he planted there twenty years ago!

Present day: ERE Fest preparty
We finished the shade structure just in time before the first guests arrived for ERE fest. Jean and sodatrain arrived yesterday evening and after a round of introductions and beers we went to bed. Today we talked about various topics and they also solved some riddles I gave them! It's all coming together and I love it.

Future: ERE Fest and clown fiesta
The near future will be mostly about ERE Fest. I am looking forward to meeting the people I have conversed with either through the forum or through the mastermind group over the years.

After the ERE Fest, AxelHeyst and I (and maybe some others?) will go on a bit of a longer adventure. We will visit Yosemite for more climbing, and also go to a redwood forest. This is especially exciting for me, since I have been wanting to see these enormous trees ever since I saw these bad boys in a children's series called Bassie and Adriaan here. Bassie and Adriaan are a clown and an acrobat going on all kinds of adventures.

That's it for my update!

[sky]

Thanks for the meetup report!

[rube]

Very Nice, thanks for the update. Will be waiting for the next one. Have fun with the big meetup!

[ertyu]

How cool! Thank you so much for the write-up! You guys sound like you're having a blast

[J_]

Thanks very much for your elaborated report. How is your body coping with desert temperatures?

[DutchGirl]

Sounds really good, indeed. I hope you have a lot of fun and learn/experience a lot of good new things.

[Jean]

Hi, did you go to yosemite finally? How was it?

[theanimal]

How has life been for you back home since the meetup?

[Quadalupe]

Great question theanimal! It's been a while.

The direction I am taking with my life is doing less. I was struggling to think of a new project for the new round in AxelHeyst's Mastermind Group. Various ideas popped up, but none really stuck out. And then it came to me: my project was to not have a project. I was operating under the assumption that I should have always have a Project, a North star to actively strife towards. But why? There isn't much I want to change or add to my life, not enough to merit a Project anyways.

So I am doing less. You can divide 'doing less' in the amount of activities, quality of activities, intensity of activities and variety of activities.

What does that entail? Basically, I try to live more like people did in the sixties/seventies. (*)

I cut out a lot of online screen time. No more reddit, youtube or engaging in the 24h news cycle (+). I substituted this with:
reading
listening to music
playing with my cats
being physically active
playing some computer games (but not too much)
playing board games with friends
solving programming puzzles, like advent of code

Especially with listening to music and reading, I try to engage more with the material. Listening to a CD multiple times is actually more enjoyable than listening to a random playlist. Reading the Discworld series, Ovid or Unix manuals written by enthusiastic nerds in the 70s is more enjoyable than reading the daily news, reddit posts or op-eds. Rereading and relistening to a book or album over and over helps me to enjoy the work in new, deeper ways.

So the amount of activities decreased, the quality and intensity increased and the variety stayed around the same.

It feels really liberating to shake of that protestant work ethic where I felt like I *had* to do something productive or ambitious. I can still try out new things. And I am still a fan of the idea put forward in a SMBC comic of 'starting a new life every 7 years'. But I don't have to do anything and I'll enjoy my simple life in the meantime.

Hanging around on this forums, it's easy to read about so many wonderful, ambitious, succesful people, accomplishing great things. I have always felt a little out of place, lacking ambition and imagination. But now I feel like I found my own way of EREing. Maybe other people can recognize themselves a little in my journey too. And feel that it is okay to not have a big Project.

(*) at least, what I assume the privileged middle class lived like. Another way I put it in my MMG was 'to live like a Hobbit'
(+) I still visit reddit when researching a technical question, youtube for certain video essays and I update myself on recent developments once a week. The point is that I do those things to 'kill time' anymore.

[Quadalupe]

Last year, I had an saving rate of 74%. This is how I spent that 26%:

1. 48% on Fixed expenses (mortage, taxes, utilities etc)
2. 18% on Entertainment (holidays, concerts, bars, netflix, bouldering subscriptions, gifts, games, cats)
3. 13% on Wedding (venue, rings)
4. 9% on Groceries
5. 8% on Health (health insurance, dentist)
6. 2% on Stuff (household items, electronics)
7. 2% on Commuting/ (train costs, bike costs)

I'm happy to see that Fixed expenses + health + groceries are 65% of my spending. Fixed expenses are almost impossible to lower without moving or paying of the mortgage. Health insurance will keep rising every year, I already take the cheapest option. Groceries is an area where I could decrease costs, but I don't spend too much there.


Entertainment is the obvious other *big* category where I spent most of my money. Below is the breakdown:

1. 43% on Holidays
2. 16% on sports (mostly a bouldering subscription)
3. 11% on restaurants/bars
4. 7% on cats (vet bills and food)
5. 7% on gifts
6. 7% on books, streaming, games
7. 5% on takeout
8. 4% on trips/concerts
9. 0.14% on food at work canteen

Ideas to lower expenses in the entertainment category:

• Holidays: house sitting instead of hotel/airbnb.
• Sports: Work/volunteer at bouldering gym to get free subscription? Replace it with a free sport? Not very enticing, since it is fun + healthy + social, so I'm gonna go ahead and be WL6+ and keep this in my WoG.
• Restaurants/bars: learn a few delicious home cooked meals, invite people over
• Cats: Make their own toys and repair the scratching posts instead of buying 'new' ones secondhand.
• Gifts: make my own gifts, second hand store.
• Books/streaming/games: only keep my subscription to the library.
• Takeout: Just do it less (TM)/get the takeout instead of getting it delivered.
• Trips/concerts: I feel like this is a good amount.
• Get Food at work: almost never happens, so I'm good.

But in truth, I'm content with my spending. Side gig 1 generated 42% of my spending. Side gig 2 generated 17% of my spending. My stash (which excludes pensions and home value) at a 3% rate of return would generate 60% of my spending. So 119% of my spending is generated by (low intensity) side gigs + investment returns. And in the coming years my expenditures will decrease (due to one off wedding costs this/next year) and my stash + side gig revenue will increase.

So in short: money, schmoney, time to focus on other things!

[bos]

Catched up on your Journal. Congrats on the savings rate! It seems like the money side of things has been sorted out. What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you say you’ll focus on other stuff?

So I am doing less. You can divide 'doing less' in the amount of activities, quality of activities, intensity of activities and variety of activities.
What does that entail? Basically, I try to live more like people did in the sixties/seventies. (*)

If I check out my fellow Dutch Opa, that guy is still tackling 'projects' in his 80s. He’s fixing up bicycles, doing some woodworking, and all that stuff. I think the more free space you create in your life, the easier it is for things to naturally fill that space.

[J_]

Only several years ago we met the first time in Utrecht, and now: schmoney!

Well done Quadalupe. But even more your ( new) developed perspective on life looks great, relaxed, striving to quietness I think/suppose.

[Quadalupe]

Catched up on your Journal. Congrats on the savings rate! It seems like the money side of things has been sorted out. What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you say you’ll focus on other stuff?


If I check out my fellow Dutch Opa, that guy is still tackling 'projects' in his 80s. He’s fixing up bicycles, doing some woodworking, and all that stuff. I think the more free space you create in your life, the easier it is for things to naturally fill that space.

Thanks bos! I want to focus on living simply, healthy and fulfillingly. Though I do have to say that this two weeks of PTO showed me that I don't have that fully under control. When left to my own devices for too long I do read news and look at youtube shorts for example. What has worked well is to do things with others. I can easily spend an afternoon (or morning) bouldering with friends, and afterwards I feel more content to just read for a while.


And wrt your grandpa: that's pretty cool! I also do want to still do those kind of 'projects' like bike maintenance, gardening, small home improvements etc. Hobbits still do those! What I don't want is to have the feeling that I need to complete Large Projects (write a book, hike the world, ...) in order to feel like I am being productive or living properly. It can be somewhat of a tricky balance, but worth exploring.

Only several years ago we met the first time in Utrecht, and now: schmoney!

Well done Quadalupe. But even more your ( new) developed perspective on life looks great, relaxed, striving to quietness I think/suppose.

@J_: thank you! I feel like I've come a long way since our meeting in 2017, and I am thankful that I have met you a couple of time since then!

Tomorrow I'm returning to work again. I'm actually looking forward to it, so much cool stuff to do and learn! And I am also off to a great bouldering start this year. Went thrice this week and I'll try to keep that frequency. What works for me is to offer a couple of options to my friends that all work for me. When they pick some, I am also committed to go. Even if it is pouring, I'll still put on my rain gear and get out there.