As a kid in middle school, I remember my dad taking me to a diner downtown before dropping me off at school. It was a diner where everyone seemed to know him. A breakfast plate of food that included eggs, bacon, and biscuits was $1.99. My dad would go there for breakfast often but the…
Unemployment Benefits
Now that I’m unemployed, I signed up for unemployment benefits and it’s an interesting experience. First, there are many hoops to jump through to get started but after going through the gauntlet I finally got my benefit statement. It seems the state makes it as hard as possible to collect benefits. Evidently I am entitled…
Taylor Swift Buys Music Rights Back But Suno.com Will Eat Everyone’s Lunch
The headlines for the past couple of days on every news feed I get has something about Taylor Swift buying the rights to her early music back. Well congrats TS but the bad news is that I now spend most of my time listening to my own music I create on Suno.com. The days are…
I Got Laid Off
Well today was my last day at work but don’t feel sorry for me as I got a generous severance package. And it came at the perfect time, right before summer so I can take a very long vacation traveling South America where it’s nice and cool. It’s strange but the three times I’ve been…
Zepbound: My Health Journey – May Year 2
Great news, the new 10 ml dose pushed me to lose 2 pounds. The somewhat bad news is that 10 ml dose makes my stomach nauseous most of the time. It’s not bad enough that I can’t cope but it really takes the hunger out of my system. I feel the way I did back…
If You’re Not Terrified of AI, You Should Be
I love AI, aside from the creation of the Internet back in the 90s there hasn’t been anything developed as helpful nor as terrifying as AI. If you haven’t seen it already, the latest AI video generator Veo 3 is making headlines with fully AI generated videos that look like the real thing. A TV…
Memorial Day
On this solemn day, best wishes to everyone on Memorial Day.
Retirement & Sacrificial Lambs
As I get closer to retirement, I’m getting really excited but there will be some “lambs” that will need to be sacrificed to make retirement work and last. So I’ve been taking inventory of things that I/we are willing to go without. Here’s a partial list: Sacrifices Gains There are other things we’ll miss but…
AI As Religion?
This isn’t a personal finance post so feel free to skip this post if that’s what you’re looking for today. I’ve been spending a great deal of time with AI and I’ve gone down so many rabbit holes that I finally had to take a step back and ask a much broader and more philosophical…
It’s Too Tough For Young People
Over the past few months I’ve had numerous conversations with a variety of people. Many are friends that we’ve known for decades and all have adult children now. In talking to many of them there is a consistent theme: Young adults are having a very tough time. The Crisis Matrix The year 2000 generation has…