Failing at ‘Optimal’

A lot of effort goes into finding the most optimal paths for various aspects of life. My thoughts gravitate toward finding this on a regular basis, but the truth seems ever elusive. I get tired. I get frustrated. Recently, my car developed a thunk going over bumps, in conjunction with a slight creak whenever I […]

Minimalism: Stuff Quantity vs. Stuff Size

Well, it finally happened: I ordered a PS2. Of all the things I’ve gotten rid of over the years, the PS2 is one of very, very few things I have regretted getting rid of. Downsizing the collection of video games wasn’t bad in itself, but I ultimately blocked myself from ever playing certain games normally […]

Paying Money to Save Money: The Strange Economics of DIY

Several months ago, I had an interesting thought concerning the actual cost of working on my car. Back at my old apartment, I had the option to rent a garage for an additional $75/month on top of my rent for the apartment. I never took this option because I was too cheap for that sort […]

Additional Media Thoughts

Due to the flexible usage of DVDs and the inflexible usage of Blu-rays, as mentioned in my last post, I kind of wish I had focused on buying DVDs instead. However, maybe half of my Blu-rays include both, but these are strangely unpredictable. For example, I have The Hunger Games on Blu-ray only, but my […]

Media Rant

I ventured back into the world of Netflix last month, after probably a 4 year hiatus. There were a few series I had been wanting to watch for years, but for whatever reason I had been too lazy to get around to. I have access to Netflix through the account of my friend who owns […]

The Structure of Financial Decisions

I’ve had a dozen things to write lately, and all of them have been worthless, but as I was thinking how best to categorize my own financial strategy as compared to other financial strategies, I remembered some loose ideas I’ve had over time about how our financial decisions don’t operate in a vacuum. Too much […]

Similarities Between Investing and Driving in Traffic

Saturday I got a late start driving to the mountains for some ruin hunting. I almost chose not to go, but decided that a little traffic with hiking was better than no traffic with no hiking, so I took off on I70. And traffic there was! I prefer to get started early to avoid the […]

Rethinking the Future: Work, Missions, Housing, Life

Thus far, my late 20s and early 30s have been marred by quite a bit of instability. Getting established in a profession took awhile, building friendships and community took awhile, and developing a sense of self and purpose has taken awhile, too, all in the midst of mass scatterings of friends, comings and goings of […]

Rebuild vs. Replace: More Automotive Economics

Most car parts behave as a unit but consist of smaller parts inside. When these internal parts fail, the unit often requires replacement. If you do this yourself, you can save a lot of money, but you can save even more money if you diagnose which internal parts failed and change those rather than the […]

Predicting the Future

Life is full of predictions about the future. In fact, whole industries exist to make these predictions and sell them to people. Being able to predict things accurately carries with it a tremendous amount of prestige and influence, so it’s no wonder so many people pursue this. But predicting the future largely isn’t possible: nobody […]