guitar player's journal

[guitarplayer]

Inventory of stuff would be great, DW started that a while back but even with minimal amount of it, there is still so much stuff.

Turns out Glasgow has enough of a population of hoarders so we manage to give away quite a few things we found in the flat + some of our things. Onward and downward (wrt amount of stuff).

I am also thinking, business framework how it maybe used to be some time back when people were not thinking prices when asked about values. so maybe business as in 'mind your own business' or 'business = being busy'. Or maybe business as carried out by Dickensian Mr. Fezziwig.

===========================================================================================

2023 update 37/52

Job

050/156 weeks in.

I am now set on working mostly in R at work, R is going to be my language for now. I will be climbing beginning of the curve with Python as a second language in the learning environment of the data science graduate programme.

There is heaps of work to be lifted from SAS to R, and then expanded.

That said, I will still attend a 2 day workshop on VBA. To understand VBA.

Even though I got a good mark at a review chat with my manager, I think I do at most an 'ok' job at work. I consciously capitalize on learning opportunities available.

With various project, it is sort of quiet now but there will be quite some work later in the year.

Next week or the week after that I anticipate a rollout of adverts regarding posts I can apply for.

Investment Curriculum and Maths

I am doing Applied Computation Mathematics this year. I will learn about applied computational mathematics in Python. This will support my learning of Python as the second language alongside the data science graduate programme.

I picked up the Economics textbook as well but went as far as some revision.

Took the ERE book with me for the conference last week and am finishing re reading it now.

Flat

Still need to unscrew doors in the bedroom to then plane them at the bottom so they run smoothly above the carpet. Also planning to re-caulk the bathtub as the previous owner did a very poor job with it. He left some silicone but I read that the expiry date is Feb 2023 so not going to use it - read stories of it not curing and ending up being an absolute mess.

DW has been giving away various things left by the previous owner. It is surprisingly easy to find people to get the stuff we have, and we are very happy for it!

I think there actually is a bit of a water hammer effect from some pipes, it is just very short. I am going to go up and turn the taps of the outgoing pipes off a bit see if this helps.

Future

I am spending a lot of time sorting out the money now that there are actually some variables and parameters to play with and also I have time to play with them. Building a Power BI model for it.

We booked the 'Life in the UK' test for next month. When we have it, then we will put together passport application and apply for the UK passports. I guess we will then get them in 2024 which is not that much of a lag from the intended 2023. I started reading the book, it is a nice read, happy to learn more about the country!

[guitarplayer]

2023 update 38/52

Job

051/156 weeks in.

I finished one internal product, I have a few folks reviewing the R code and the PowerBI derived variables + links. It has been rewarding, I diverted from SAS to R with the analysis.

Also, started contemplating building synthetic datasets. This is because I am awaiting one dataset and meanwhile don't have anything to work with. But I have specs of the dataset. So can build a synthetic one given distributions of various fields (I can guess them when not given).

I now have a mentor which is semi work related because they are the same profession but different organization - this is through my professional body. We are going to chat for the first time next week.

Next month is the start of the data science graduate programme.

Investment Curriculum and Maths

Economics: read the chapter on firm in the short run and reading the one on the long run.

I have online access to the maths module material but still waiting for books. I always like getting the parcel with fresh textbooks

Psychology

Finally read the 100 pages article about 9 stages of Ego development. I was keen on Loevinger's model when doing developmental psychology years back.

ere1

DW and I are wrapping our heads around money matters. I probably more than her, but in fact she acts more than me. DW has got a defined contribution pension scheme with employer contributing 10% of salary + offering salary sacrifice option. This is good in that the money sacrificed goes straight to pension and sees neither social security contributions nor taxman - this is 32% unseen income in the case of DW. She is sacrificing 34% of her income + 10% from employer. There's also another scheme where she buys company's shares (effectively) at half price. There are strings attached to the share purchase scheme, this can be liberated only after 5 years from purchase and DW has to be in employment. So it is not a stellar deal, but it might be a mildly favourable deal approaching a very good deal, depending on how the future pans out.

I am yet to decide what do to with my excess cash. I could buy a lot extra of the bullet proof income at a stable but meager 1.7% above inflation, with the caveat that this can start being taken out only in about 30 years. I could put it in a tax sheltered account and get a 20% bump on savings, then though start taking it back only in about 20 years. In two years I estimate we will have about 10 years living expenses in 'good' money and a paid off flat.

I also like my job at the moment. I am facing some freedom-to dilemmas in the coming years, lest I continue liking my job after 3 or 5 year mark. I am thinking of employing the vine strategy when the time comes.

It seems to me that it is really hard to hit the middle ground with wealth, it is an unstable equilibrium. most likely either one ends up 'having to' work, or there is a big leftover at the end.

I also ponder the future of the new state pension. Have access to Financial Times through my uni so getting some fresh views on it since it is currently in the spotlight.

Flat

Got rid of some more things.

The 'short water hammer' is still there, turning all the taps upstairs to about 3/5 capacity did not help. I think I know which valve is faulty as one of them sounds funny when turning on/off. I will try to go up again this or next weekend and see if I can confirm it + find out what I can do on my own.

We re-caulked the bath tub today, did a pretty poor job actually! But still better than the previous owner, before there were holes in the caulk leading god knows where. Our poor job still looks better and at least I am not going to be inviting damp issues and rot around the bathtub.

consumerism

I splurged and got myself Analects.

[Western Red Cedar]

It seems to me that it is really hard to hit the middle ground with wealth, it is an unstable equilibrium. most likely either one ends up 'having to' work, or there is a big leftover at the end.

Why is it a problem to end up with excess money at the end of one's life? If someone really dislikes their work then I can see the problem that "working too long" in the pursuit of FI poses, but that doesn't sound like it is the case for you.

I don't see this as a problem to optimize. Or at least something you can easily optimize given all of the unknown variables. If you've found a challenging and fulfilling career, then extra funds in the portfolio seems like a pro rather than a con. I also think those extra funds could potentially open up some additional opportunities down the road.

[guitarplayer]

Hi @WRC!

To me, on some level ending life with excess money feels a bit similar to ending life with excess stuff. Maybe the crossover is that both are something one needs to deal with when the party's over. I feel it would be great to just wrap up and go without giving anyone headache.

But yes, it's a good shout to call out the fact that the challenging and fulfilling aspects of what I now do are likely better to focus attention on compared to that rather ephemeral problem above that I in fact don't even have yet!

[Western Red Cedar]

I think just about everyone I know, including myself, would be fine if a family member or friend passed along some extra money through an inheritance. This is one reason I don't worry too much about having extra income at the end of life. Antiques, mementos, or other things maybe not so much. It probably depends on the individual and the respective relationship.

In fact, if I had my own children, I would probably be more focused on creating intergenerational wealth.

[AxelHeyst]

Yeah, if it'll make you sleep better at night, just will your excess money to me to save your relations the headache. I'm there for you guitarplayer.

[guitarplayer]

Thanks, I appreciate you engage with this stuff it helps me brainstorm things.

I think just about everyone I know, including myself, would be fine if a family member or friend passed along some extra money through an inheritance. [...] It probably depends on the individual and the respective relationship.

For example anecdotally, my immediate family is okay now, we all like each other and are reasonably fine spending time together. But going a few generations back, I don't know about 40% of my extended family because of some money quarrels and people getting upset with each other nearly a century ago. Maybe there were some terrific natural EREites there with whom I would now manage to have unique relationships, and it never came about. I am aware though that the same argument can be made the other way around (that money can unlock such relationships, somehow).

In fact, if I had my own children, I would probably be more focused on creating intergenerational wealth.

@Ego (but other on the boards too) has some good points about inheritance. At this point my thinking is that if I there's a child, I would hope for them to develop such that financial inheritance matters would not be on their radar. I'd be more keen for them to inherit some of my ways of being.

My best thought now is that if I have excess money, I will get a forest. Forests fit DW and I's aesthetic and I think it is hard for them to be externalities net negative. Maybe a bit like the shire.

Or I'll donate it for @AxelHeyst to build a desert oasis.

More immediately, I think we will set up a simple automated process for loading up the tax sheltered accounts, then think how to continue spending 30s, 40s and 50s adventurously.

It almost feels like going back to front where at the start you have early retirement extreme and getting over with it by the time you are 30, and ending with a rather mainstream retirement planning. But then not quite!

[guitarplayer]

Today someone who had taken my old entrance door a while back dropped in to lend me a hand circular saw and a drill with heaps of bits. I cut the bottom 1cm of four doors in the bedroom. That bedroom had a new high carpet fitted by the previous lousy-diy-owner. The doors in it would hardly swing and I was worried the door frames would eventually give up. Now the doors swing nicely. I also finally have my guitar hanging on the wall and a white board for brainstorming, too. I am very happy about these accomplishments and more generally about the fact that my food scavenging endeavours spill over to giving away and getting other stuff, and also to lending / borrowing stuff, and just meeting interesting folk. This fellow is ramping up for a classic early retirement (my guessing 55-60) spent touring the world in a converted van of his own making (he showed it to me the first time we'd met).

[guitarplayer]

2023 update 40/52

Job

053/156 weeks in.

Recently I had my first anniversary at work.

Last week I spent time building synthetic datasets which is fancy talk for dummy datasets. I had a really good time writing code on various distributions and thinking how the variables are interlinked in order for the dataset to be realistic. I am getting this ready because we will be building something with this data but will only get the data next month.

Next week I will have my first series of trainings on data science, I will have 24 3-day sessions on a monthly basis.

I am getting a bit impatient over promotion interview since the application window was meant to be opened from mid September but it is going to be more like mid October. There are openings for a slightly different role already on and they caught my interest. Should not be getting impatient in the first place. I am realizing that even though I felt like having momentum a year ago, I have perhaps more momentum now. Logistic curve.

That other thing I was building, I incorporated R code within the PowerBI shell so that PowerBI is R's environment. It is gratifying, someone who knows nothing about behind-the-scenes will be able to just click 'refresh' and it should work. It is also a tricky set that dataset, I need to build some variables iteratively from one day to another, so I am even more happy.

I met with my mentor last week but I think I am not going to be taking this forward. The mentor is a bio-statistician from the pharmaceutical industry and now in his early 60s I would think. I don't feel I would gain much from this relationship and more importantly I got the impression he was so unnatural in that interaction he made me nervous. So yeah, probably not going forward.

Investment Curriculum and Maths

Economics: I read chapters on perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Reading on resource market now.

Maths: I got books for Applied Computational Mathematics. Looking forward to learning numerical methods in Python.

Psychology

The local library kindly lend me 'Stoicism and the Art of Happiness' by Donald Robertson. It is surprisingly non pop for a popular literature. Maybe due to the fact that Donald Robertson is from Ayr which is just south from Glasgow on the West Coast. Lots of citations from philosophers in it.

Holidays

I find myself missing my family so will be heading over for Christmas and New Year.

[guitarplayer]

I have this old merino wool jumper that DW once got me. It had gotten holes on the elbows because it used to belong to a taxi driver (that is my theory - there was also a trace of a belly). I fixed those holes a long time ago - one by felting and the other by patching. When the felt wore off, I thought maybe it was finally time for that jumper to go. But DW thought it was too good of a material to get rid of. So I still use it informally. I put this jumper on as a second jumper earlier today to be cozy. This somehow lead to me asking DW if we are bohemian. But we were not quite sure of the definition, so I looked it up in Cambridge Dictionary to read

bohemian - a person who is interested in artistic and unusual things, for example art, music, or literature, and lives in an informal way that ignores the usually accepted ways of behaving

So yes, we are.

[guitarplayer]

2023 update 41/52

Job

054/156 weeks in.

Run an experiment ingesting 3/4 GB of data into powerBI directly from csv's or via R pipeline (with a potential bonus of cleaning names etc). The R method is 6 times slower so a no-go. It might still be worth performing analysis in R and passing on ready-for-visualisation data sets to Power BI. We have no infrastructure for Shiny apps and for other reasons are sticking to Power BI.

I started the Data Science graduate programme.

Learning

Maths: Am going through the first unit of Applied Computational Mathematics. This in conjunction with:

Psychology: Principles of Synthetic Intelligence by Joscha Bach - excellent stuff. Exploring computational models of self and the ontology of what is knowable. I am 1/3 through. An alternative to psychophysical parallelism which is the tradition I was educated in wrt the mind. 'Computational' = 'testable' is important.

Also, reading the 'Stoicism and the Art of Happiness' by Donald Robertson.

Economics: on the back burner now, again.

[guitarplayer]

I have been hand writing diary notes over the weekend and feel it is nice as it slows me down in my thoughts. I think then I will probably use this space more for monthly updates, spontaneous thoughts and some such.

[guitarplayer]

October 2023

I think I will be reformatting the journal to monthly but aim to continue updating as it hopefully brings some value. I will think to structure it so it is more to the point (the below is not to the point!). Though at the same time, I recognize that posting weekly earlier on was conductive to getting stuff done. Maybe I have now entered a period of reflection for a moment.

General

Work-wise, I feel like both DW and I are as if we are learning how to drive a nice modern car. It sometimes takes a while to learn it, but it is all pretty comfortable. I am naturally an explorer, so I am exploring various ways of doing things. Think generalist in a specialist environment. I am okay to do it, so I do it. It is somehow nice to see how things come together. For example, I signed up for a VBA training recently. You would think that VBA is old and definitely less fashionable than Python or R. May be so, though in the VBA course we went through Power Query in Excel which is the same as Power Query in Power BI. Independently, turns out that R has been acquired by Microsoft a while back. All platforms are happy to take SQL queries.

This learning to drive the work-car pays reasonably well, I am learning MMM sort of stuff now, or Bogleheads maybe. Think asset allocation, planning for retirement, so on. I figured since I am UK based and this will likely remain in place for a number of years, I will read Tim Hale's 'Smarter Investing', but Monevator's blog pointed to a more basic 'How to fund the life you want' (the first chapter in the book is called 'Your Money or Your Life? ) so I had read that.

I feel like I am happy enough to stick around at work for a while, no tension to leave, it is interesting. I am finally applying for a higher position, will apply next week.

I think, for me it is important DW enjoys herself. In the previous countryside care job, I was fine there but DW fundamentally wanted to change that job, and because of the arrangement there that meant I needed to change the job too. Now DW has a 'high status' job at a company that signs up to the 'sustainable governance' type thing, it is a job with green stamp on it - so is mine. I am less attached to the status thing, but my one is also reasonably high status locally.

So lots of things are in place for just coasting to retirement - the conventional one. It is challenging in the 'specialist' sort of way, but my generalist is occasionally neglected.

I am giving DW lots of space because she still studies cybersecurity, but at the same time I need to navigate to keep on doing generalist stuff of common interest together. Today we are aiming to go for a +11miles adventure to look for mushrooms.

Investing in the relationship with DW is probably the best investment to be made.

I cannot help but notice the differences between me and other people at work due to lifestyle. This is fine, just that there are few common interests outside of work matters (maybe all the better?). So yes, people talk food and going on holidays, and TV programmes. Someone recently mentioned their partner going over the weekend to buy art at charity shops, I referenced to Ego's enterprise of funding a big chunk of life with buying art for nothing and selling it for big bucks - the work conversation finished at talking about a BBC programme that I don't know. But it is fine, the environment is sd.green enough that, to give an example, I don't care to show up on calls wrapped up in a scarf - can easily justify it in the context of climate change which is accepted enough on the communal level (certainly not acted upon on a personal level when I see all the people in t-shirts on those calls).

We still get more than half of our food for free, and generally spend very little money on personal matters. I have made something of a personal brand for taking fruit and veg off of people's hands with a smile on my face, so now I am being contacted about 3kg lots of washed mixed green at a market value of +£20 to be picked up nearby and some such.

Paying for flat is automatic, this increases monthly expenses - in just under two years this will go down to zero. I have always maintained that having a paid for abode in a reasonably large city is a game changer - ever since my first university times. It opens the horizon of possibilities, allows the option to just stop engaging with society on many levels and think - or this is my perception of it, anyway.

When we scavenged an office chair for DW from freecycle last weekend, we went for a 2.5miles run to get it and walked back in the rain in the Stoic fashion to get it home Admittedly, we then had a cup of tea with a cake (made from ingredients that we got largely for free, in a microwave that we got for free and brought home same way as the office chair - though the weather was nice that day). Then we used the boiler for the second time while in this flat to make a hot bath. Nice wedding anniversary!

It all makes a ton of sense to me, but how do I square it with your typical person?

After a long stretch of drinking green tea only, I then moved to black tea too and now to ground coffee again as DW got some for me recently. I got a bulk of past best before Viennese coffee from Ebay best before Nov 2023. I wonder if this is also hard wired this liking of coffee or a learned thing. I remember the first coffees I have consciously made myself when I was a teenager, they were a blast. My mum loves coffee, my dad goes for green tea. I think this type of thing is my main 'vice' as otherwise I don't touch alcohol in everyday life, workout every day and so on. Maybe in another life I will go without coffee.

I appreciate this online community of interesting people.

Thank you for reading!

[ertyu]

Welcome, I don't always commend but I do read, to the point or not. To me, these exploratory thought-pieces are often more interesting than a more highly structured point by point report. Things are looking up for the two of you, and I'm glad

[guitarplayer]

Yeah I know what you mean @ertyu sometimes the free flowing bits are pleasant to read.

We managed to go on an adventure today and got some goodies. I will post in the Foraging log, but the photos are here:



I am very excited about finding chaga (the black one in the white bowl) for the first time.



@Shaz, if you are reading this, I have shown you Turkey tale before. On the general photo above you also have birch polypore in the lower left corner of the picture and chaga in the upper left - reportedly also having anti-cancer properties (here is a research review ). Chaga is not common (hence I am excited about it) but Birch Polypore is super common - just look for a decaying birch somewhere and you should find it pretty quickly.

[shaz]

@guitarplayer thank you for the fungus education. I have continued to look for Turkey Tail but haven't seen any yet. The most likely problem is that I am not good at seeing fungus. I am great at seeing rocks and notice interesting ones everywhere. But I rarely see any mushrooms. My second idea about this is that it is too dry here to be favorable for mushrooms. So I have been going to places near streams and still see few mushrooms. I particularly have checked decaying logs and found few mushrooms but I did notice lots of logs that have been torn apart by bears. That was interesting and an unanticipated good thing so it wasn't a waste. Also I discovered some lovely new trails. I will continue looking.

A thought about getting along with office colleagues - there is a good chance that most of them have one or two interests that you might enjoy discussing you just have to discover what those interests are. In many cases people who work in offices have learned to stay to "safe" topics such as tv shows and sports, but over time you can draw them out about their odd interests. It is fun to read about your adjustments to office life!

[guitarplayer]

True @Shaz, fungi love moist. I have the opposite problem here in the Atlantic North where in a fractal fashion, fungi I find often are already part consumed by other fungi i.e. mould. There is also a lot of competition from slugs and maggots, though these tend to leave the medicinal species alone in favour of the tasty edibles. Also true that going foraging has many positive externalities so a good thing most often even in the event of finding nothing.

Yes in my adjustments to office life I would sometimes think of this book Laboratory Life which I had come across when on a scholarship in Turkey. I consider my anthropologist muscle extensively at work.

[NewBlood]

[...] aim to continue updating as it hopefully brings some value. I will think to structure it so it is more to the point (the below is not to the point!).

I always enjoy your posts and find inspiration in them, I hope you continue updating here if it brings you value!

(and thanks for the foraging education!)

[guitarplayer]

2023 update 45/52

Job

058/260 weeks in.

Extending time frame and giving myself 5 years in total for my current work arrangement; this is 260 weeks. Rounder of a number. Also, if I started studying maths and stats in October 2020, it will have been seven years for life by the end of it.

Two people had read and gave comments on my job application. I will amend the application today and get it for another round of comments on Sunday. Then I will submit it on Monday.

Getting involved in a bunch of things at work now. The honeymoon is over, job has felt like a chore recently. This is partly the reason I have reinstated the ‘clock’, or weekly countdown. Makes me feel like there is end to it. At the same I moved the post further, so I don’t feel urgency to ‘achieve’ or ‘accomplish’. I don’t know how this will work in a year or two.

Polish sentiment

On the wave of recent parliamentary elections in Poland, I ended up watching interviews with Polish politicians and intellectuals from the early nineties. Then ended up watching a few interviews with Kieslowski.

Optimism, realism and pessimism

My wife tells me I am an optimist more than her. I think that I induce optimism because I want to have a long life and I fool myself into thinking that inducing optimism will subscribe me to the group of people whose members live long life, according to some studies. I think deep inside I am a pessimist more than her.

It seems to me pessimism tends to follow from rich imagination. If imagination is indiscriminate in terms of its imagines, there is an equally likely chance of imagining something optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic. In subjective experience though they have different weights if you think of how they stick in memory with the above order being from least to most stickiness. So, there you have it.

Art

I take on board the view that art helps people express something they would not be able to express themselves. Additionally, art gives people a common third (this as a technical term) to look at and experience together and find themselves in it, then talk about it. Art as canvas for projecting one's self onto, by design - I am talking art as experienced, not as created.

Meditating

I spent about an hour this morning meditating over the sunrise, sitting on my balcony (a neighbour calls these 'verandas' - since used for nosy watching I suppose, heh). On the right-hand side there's this industrial age church tower towering over the roofs, and on the left-hand side chimney of the whisky distillery. Contemplating the juxtaposition, and the steam cloud leaving the chimney as the sun rises.

Exercise and health

I am about 30cm from doing side split. doing 200 burpees every second day, and stretching otherwise.

We are buying lots of trial mix and I eat a lot of it and I think combined with reduced frequency of doing burpees (i.e. more time to regenerate), I am now gaining some muscles.

Who am I

This is to do with MBTI etc. In today's meditating I pondered this again, thinking that I'd naturally fall into INxx or INxp.

Foraging

We went for a sunset walk around a cemetery nearby and I'd found another apple tree there. I think I will go and get lots of apples today.

[delay]

Thanks for sharing an update!

I am about 30cm from doing side split. doing 200 burpees every second day, and stretching otherwise.

Cool, that's about getting a supple hamstring. I've been trying to improve from a very low baseline. In your experience, which exercises help you get closer to a side split?