January 22, 2023
News
My girlfriend moved her stuff into my apartment this week. Baby steps towards being a real adult. She is working on finding a renter for her condo then we will start splitting the rent at my place. Thank god, I have been paying way too much to live alone in this apartment when I really don’t want to be living alone. I always guessed that about myself, that I would not like living alone, but I am glad that I have had the past 6 months to confirm it once and for all. Things are great so far with the relationship situation at the house. We’ve continued to handle issues maturely and nicely with each other as we’ve always tried to.
I went to a small little party and met a guy who renovated a school bus and lives in it. He spends most of his time parked in Seattle but he said he is going to drive it down to the bay area soon since it’s pretty cold in Seattle. It was great to meet him and talk with him, because that’s dope, and because I’ve read about people who do that on the internet so it was surreal to meet someone who is actually living like that in real life. And what’s great is he seemed like a perfectly normal guy, head on his shoulders, intelligent and witty. Sometimes my perception of people who live like this when I read about them on the internet is that they probably don’t really have everything clicking right in their brain. There’s no good reason why I think this, it’s just the bias that comes up. Anyways, he was a great guy to meet and it’s always cool to think about the wildly different possible ways there are to spend ones life.
Sports
At the end of my run this morning an old man was walking ahead of me on a narrow sidewalk no more than .2 miles away from my house. He started out on the right side of the sidewalk, then started drifting over to the left as I got right up behind him, aiming towards passing him on his left side. It was too late to change my direction, so as I narrowly passed him on his left I heard him startle very loudly, then immediately he shouted something that I didn’t quite hear. His tone of voice was unmistakably one of anger, but still I slowed down to a jog and turned around to ask him, “What was that?” He stared at me for a good 10 seconds then said, “Sound off next time.” I replied, “Oh ok, I’ll do that next time.” He replied, “Before you get punched in the head.” I said, “Oh no, I wouldn’t want that to happen. But it’s a good thing I’m running, so I can run.” I meant to say something like “so you I don’t think you could catch me,” but I think he got the message. Anyways, he was an old man and I am guessing that he fought in a war once given that 1) he is an old man and 2) he instructed me to “sound off.” So I may have triggered some sort of PTSD in him, for which he would be very rightfully upset. I think it is a little bit much to say something before passing every single person on my run, but it’s probably a good idea to at least warn the older men I pass to try to avoid triggering any trauma.
Anyways, I recently ran the Walt Disney World marathon and am now training for the Atlanta marathon, which will be on February 26. Running the Disney marathon (my first), was a really unique experience. Besides getting to run through Disney World, exercising for that long (I was out there for nearly 6 hours) felt like a sort of psychedelic experience. At least, if a psychedelic experience can be defined as a perceived drastic altering of ones consciousness, then it was a psychedelic experience. When people ask me how it was, I say it was painful, because that is very true, and the other part of it is tough to describe. But I think the best way to describe it is as a very deep meditation. I recently read the book by Michael Pollan about psychedelics, and it discusses how both meditation and psychedelic drugs quiet the activity in the brain’s “default mode network,” which is the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking and much more abstractly, “the ego.”
Business
I have been working on an iPhone app for some time now. The general idea is for the user to set a daily goal for the amount of time they want to exercise and to set an amount for their monetary penalty if they do not achieve their goal. The exercise time is tracked via smartwatch and the monetary penalty is automatically charged via their credit/debit card they enter in via a Stripe plugin (80% of the money is going to charity, 20% to me). The core functionality is finished, but I originally built this out for myself to use, and I haven’t wanted to use it so far. I love the automated nature of this app, as you can’t just create a goal then forget about it or give up on it, or else you will be bleeding money every week. However, I think there are legitimate reasons why someone would not be able to exercise. For instance, I got sick for a week and was not able to exercise. I definitely don’t want this app charging my card when I get sick, because it’s really best for my health that I don’t exercise when I am sick, and I want this app to penalize me only when I do NOT do what’s best for my health. So I think a solution needs to be thought of for this (it could be as simple as continuing to let the user turn off payments whenever they want). I also think daily charges are too often, I think this should be changed to weekly, with the user setting a weekly goal instead of a daily goal. I feel good about my exercise when totaled up over the week, if I have a day off I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. So I’m gonna try to get this app in a place where I want to use it, then I will do the fun work of preparing a launch.
Opinion
The single best purchase I made last year was my big green egg. This thing is amazing. I think I balled out a little bit too much and I would have been equally as happy with a regular grill (maybe like a nice Weber kettle grill). Actually, no, I feel like a boss grilling on my egg, it was definitely worth the extra money (got it used for $400, probably could have gotten a Weber Kettle for $200). Anyways, I used to hate cooking and preparing food but the grill is so fun. I am consistently making outstanding food to eat on the grill. My girlfriend says I should’t do it very often because it’s gonna give me cancer (something about the smoke), but I say let me live a little. We agreed on 3 times a week, which is probably as much as I would get out to grill anyways. I’m cooking vegetables on the grill, steaks, burgers, sausages (weenies). I even made a blueberry tart. A freaking blueberry tart. Who would have thought? Me, making a blueberry tart. It’s all the power of the big green egg. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to move anywhere where I can’t bring me egg. We’re a package deal now.