April 12, 2023
News
I'm trying to play tennis all the time this Spring. The weather is amazing, and I love getting out and hitting. I bought a new racket instead of a watch. This has brought me much more enjoyment and costs much less. I am so lucky that the sport I played growing up is one that I can keep doing for the rest of my life. I'll keep that in mind when I have kids. It seems like it's somewhat of a disservice to children for adults to lead them towards spending a huge amount of time playing a sport like football or baseball only for them to never or rarely be able to play this again when they grow up.
Easter Sunday came and went. I got to see our family friends who we only see about twice a year. And I went to church, which is also a thing that happens only about twice a year now. I am thinking that I will start going to church with my mom on Sundays. It would make her happy, since I think she goes alone most Sundays, and I think it's a nice thing for me as well. A lot of people have poor opinions of religious institutions, not without good reason, but I think it's important to recognize they provide immense benefits as well. There is no other institution solely focused on cultivating strong morals and happiness among its constituents. A lot of religious institutions don't do this in a good way, but I think many do and we shouldn't overlook those and their value to people and society.
I am somewhat considering buying a home. I've found some areas in Atlanta where starter homes are between 250k and 350k. One is by a new park on the West side and one is southwest by a golf and tennis center. I drove through these areas today, and they seem fine. I'm not totally sure if and why I should own a home though. According to the rent vs buy calculators online, if I pay 350k for a home then I would have to live in it for 4 years to make it cheaper than continuing to live in the apartment I am renting. OK, that seems like a reasonable amount of time. I love the location of my current apartment, but some more space would be great to put something like a weight room and a sauna. But I'm also happy with going to the gym, so I don't really need the space. Ilana would appreciate a nicer bathroom and kitchen which a lot of these houses have, but she would dislike the location even more than me. So I'm not sure it's gonna happen, but I'm softly considering as I do every half a year or so.
Business
Work is so ridiculously slow. I used to think that I would love it if I had a job that didn't have much for me to do, but I can see now this is not a good thing. I was just about ready to start giving my all to my job and doing really really well at it, but they haven't had anything for me to do and now I am starting to spend time with my personal projects again. Life feels so meaningless when there is nothing to do during the day. I think in America there is less work to do than there is people to do it. At least at large corporations. I've seen my Dad struggle with this same issue in his career, that there is just not enough work to do to make him feel like he is contributing towards some greater goal. Work is a good thing, as I've said before in the newsletter, I love work. Of course it has to be managed properly so as to not overtake one's life, but the complete absence of work is definitely not a good thing.
As I look towards my personal projects, I have an interesting project brewing with a friend. But for the moment I am sitting tight and waiting on more details from him. The other one (this newsletter), feels more or less in a good MVP state, so I had stopped working on it for a bit. But I think that it has no use in just sitting, if I want the website to get users and potentially grow some revenue then I need to keep building on it. But the nature of the building will be different — while before I was strictly programming the functionality of the website, now I need to start working on things like SEO, design, and marketing so that I can drive traffic to the website and convert that traffic into active users.
All of this is going to be a big learning curve for me. As difficult as creating the MVP website for the newsletter was, it really wasn't that difficult because I am pretty ok at programming. I learned some new technologies in the process, but it was nothing crazy and it really didn't take a ton of time or mental straining. However, all of this other stuff is completely new domains for me to work in. It's going to be really exciting and fun, but also much more difficult and mentally straining than the building process was. But I love a challenge and, as I said, I love work and to work towards a goal that will build something great. So lookout.... if you want to start writing newsletters like this you can go ahead and do it at friendmail.co. When you create an issue it will be added to your webpage and I will send out the newsletter for you in the mail for free.
Culture
The Mario Movie is one of the greatest movies of all time. A lot of you are going to read that and say "No way, Evan loves childrens movies, he's talking out of his ass because he thinks it's funny to talk about how good childrens tv shows and movies are." Nope, not this time. This legitimately is one of the greatest movies of all time.
My brother has a blog that's fairly popular in the niche music scene. Check it out if you have time at nobells.blog. The most recent post shouts out The Hu and Benjamin. Also check out The Hu. They are a Mongolian throat singing rock band, but it's not a joke and they are actually really great.
Another reminder here that Bruce Springsteen is on a world tour and you should do everything in your power to go see it. There's no concert or event like a Bruce Springsteen concert.
Sports
CACAWWWWWWWW. Hawks in the playoffs. LFG. Ilana and I are definitely going to one of the home games. Everyone says we are gonna get worked by Boston, and these people saying this are extremely reasonable people. But beyond all reason I think it's gonna be competitive. The Hawks are so good.... so so so good, if you just look at their lineup. If you just look at their lineup then they look like a top 8 team in the whole league. But for some reason, they suck. But not anymore.
How the hell am I supposed to watch tennis. No one is this damn country cares about international sports so it's impossible to watch them. We are all trapped in the American media's sphere of influence and can only consume what they force us to. Well I've just been watching tennis youtube videos, so the american media can suck it. Except google I guess.
I'm about to go play tennis so I've rushed these last two sections. Wish me luck, I'm starting to feel really good about my forehand and decent about my backhand and getting more consistent with the serves. One day I'll be confident enough in my game to join a random league so I can play matches all the time. But that day is still far away, for the present moment I suck and am getting better every time I play.