July 2024
Tracking:
Job 1 Income: ~3-4x expenses
IR: 2
Annualized SWR: 4.56%
Actual, amortized (includes multiple already-paid annual expenses): 4.19%
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So apparently the stock market has come off its peak, thankfully. Like crypto, while promising, the productization(wc) of AI has me scratching my head in terms of real revenues. Eventually LLMs will have an important impact, but I think this recent froth in tech and hardware has been mostly speculation with bored money**.
Fortunately for me, I had no idea the above happened until I went into my dashboard to check stuff for this post. Nice! I can't really feel the negative impact of something I don't know about; a good lesson -- important to apply wisely lol! I need to check it *enough* to know I'm in the green, but given my income already covers 3-4x expenses per month, I've become increasingly agnostic about portfolio performance / optimization. I might just buy total market and chill forever. Less is more when investing into something I don't have control over, I think.
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I purchased an electric guitar, my first. Bought a USB audio interface to connect it to my computer. Bought a very cheap bluetooth MIDI pedal controller. After way too much time switching my arch install from pipewire to pulseaudio to enable the highest fidelity JACK service settings my computer could muster, I'm making loops and music.
I'm using Ardour as my DAW, Guitarx and "Neural Amp Modeler" lv2 plugins.
All of this is totally new to me. How electric guitars work (magnets how do they work?), racks, amps, effects, pickups, techniques, my goodness there is so much to enjoy discovering here. I'm having a blast.
I'd never been interested in lead guitar or frankly to do much more than strum chord progressions that I love until this year. For some reason, probably having my little kid, I got hooked on a melody on my classical guitar, very lullaby-y, and ended up learning enough finger dexterity on both hands to play it better and better. It was satisfying, enough so that I thought I'd noodle around more on the instrument as a secondary project for next year then take the audio (alongside other audio I've recorded of my kid) and video I've shot and put together a "music video" of my guy's second year of life, all recorded and edited by me (perhaps ambitious for a secondary project)*.
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Took my kid backpacking for the first time and tried for a second time as well but had to bow out early -- as I told my wife, just being able to even try to go backpacking mid week with our sub 2 year old is completely nuts and such a victory. What a privilege.
Soft movement:
https://i.imgur.com/7Sbv8j1.mp4
^^ Modest loadout for a short overnighter. Props to @theanimal and his fam for doing this for flipping 2600 miles.
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Lots of time with cousins, siblings and my mom in July. Lovely, chaotic, great food.
Perfecting a new salsa / hot sauce this summer and it's food-snob approved:
thef0x's Green Goodness:
3 avocados
6 tomatillos
4-6 jalapenos, deseeded
2 large cloves of garlic
1/2 red onion
bunch of cilantro
2 tbsp avocado oil (neutral taste oil)
1.5 lime juice
2 glugs white vinegar
salt
Blend: red onion, tomatillo, jalapeno, garlic, oil, vinegar, lime juice until finely diced. Add the remaining ingredients and lightly blend until incorporated. Taste, re-season with salt and lime/vinegar as desired, stirring them in.
Use seeded jalapenos for a spicier but bitterer flavor, supplementing with honey if required. I prefer adding 2 more deseeded jalapenos or a single very hot pepper (let it sit for the capsaicin to incorporate).
Best eaten a day later, cold. A+ on a veggie omelette. Great for a party dip. A less spicy version is baby approved.
Fruity, tart, spicy, luscious, and bright.
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Stuff's growing outside! Hey! Nice!
Productivity wise, maybe 20% of the yield as previous, paying attention years. Maybe next year I'll figure out something automated.
Blueberries and strawberries have been most productive for us. They are now netted or caged to keep the baby out. 100% not kidding, 100% eats green fruit (anything he can get his hands on) and after spitting it out, insists on making eye contact to tell me "tart".
We will direct sow some seeds soon.
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I've definitely been off of the forum for a few months, ahhh, the summer air. I expect this fall I'll be back here more. I think this might be a good natural rhythm to things as well for my life in general. Winter for introspecting and consolidating, summer for expression and expansion.
* For his first year, I did a photobook because .. sleep.
** I really do enjoy using chatGPT, though; I use it ~every two days. Recently: planning travel, linux-y stuff (JACK server), music, book recommendations, movie recommendations.