Daily Entry: September 6th, 2017

Wed Sep 06 21:30:32 UTC 2017

Public-facing thing I'm working on at Mixpanel will be deployed soon. Will link it here when it is.

Wed Sep 06 22:02:15 UTC 2017

I'll actually keep tweaking it after it's live, something I haven't done in a work environment before.

Thu Sep 7 04:45:58 UTC 2017

Today was a good day.

Work thing not pushed to main Mixpanel site, yet. Will definitely be pushed tomorrow.

I didn't throw anything in my tickler to the future. And have a good setup for tomorrow's folder so that I tackle it before leaving for work. I also have some alarms tomorrow to remind me to do some things to setup work stuff for my home computer (ssh keys woo).

Yesterday I got a standing desk from a guy who made it himself but couldn't keep it because he moved into a boat (I already think he's a super cool guy, Stephan).

The desk is amazing and I love it and it is causing a probably-temporary-but-wouldn't-it-be-awesome-if-permanent spike in productivity.

I lurve it.

Thu Sep 7 04:54:21 UTC 2017

Anyways, now that I have a receipt scanner (that thing on top of my filing cabinet....

You know, now that I think about it, that's a perfect place for it, as I may just digitize a lot of the stuff that's old and in there so that I still have it if necessary. It's pretty good at scanning all kinds of documents.

....

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.)

Anyways, now that I have a receipt scanner, I've taken all the receipts I've saved (basically everything since I started the move here) and have divided them up and thrown them into future days into my tickler. At the same time, I'm thinking about the next step in this data crunching process. What form do I want this data to take?

Thu Sep 7 04:59:24 UTC 2017

It is at that question that I started pacing around the room fantasizing about building a site that let users upload receipts, try to scan them, and correct errors in that scan to improve/train the machine learning engine reading the receipts and....

Woah, step back. What's a nice simple step forward that I can do in a five-hour chunk at one of the Saturday Indie Meetups I go to?

Thu Sep 7 05:03:04 UTC 2017

Just got a reminder to meditate. Which reminds me I want to start doing that every workday at least (if not everyday), and that I want to do it around 1400 PDT. I'll go ahead and do my 10th session (finally) right now, though, as I don't want "poor timing" to be an excuse to skip my meditation. More important to consistently meditate each day than consistently meditate at a particular time of day.

Thu Sep 7 05:19:19 UTC 2017

Glad I did that.

I will seriously consider signing up after I get superfluous spending (alpha version) thought out. If I don't have 25-times the yearly spending of something in an index-fund, then each spending requires spending 25-times that amount into an index fund so that I have that item paid for within a year. This limits my spending on new superfluous things greatly, but allows me to add new things as I finish paying off old things. Also, if I want to cancel a monthly expense that is "paid off", I can apply that to a new thing.

Regular spending that occurs less often than yearly can be considered in a different way. For example, I'd like to build a new computer every 3-5 years or so. I'd like to devote $3000 (that number will surely slowly grow, which is the whole point of factoring inflation) to the new computer. So, that's $1000 per year (at worst), or $600 per year (least frequent buying). I want at least $15000 saved for the 5-year window. Probably $18000 so that I have $15000 after buying the first computer.

Further, I'd like to at least "match" my required spending per month, so that I have a proper stash in case things go horribly wrong. I'd maybe want to keep 6 months of spending in proper savings just in case economy tanks and I lose job, which given the nature of my work it's possible that me having a hard time finding a job will line up with a short stock-market fall.

This is where analysis of spending will become important.

Thu Sep 7 05:31:15 UTC 2017

So, I keep coming back to this, but I haven't wrote anything down here yet.

My uncle Tom died today.

He wasn't a super close uncle, but his death was sudden. From what I hear, yesterday he was having a good day, doing chores and working on projects, and this morning he was gone.

And as I start thinking about it I cry, and it's good to cry.

I had thought about visiting during my six-month sabbitical, but I put it off and eventually forgot. They were family I simply didn't visit with as much as other extended family. And as I didn't pay attention to time, and as my time ran out faster than expected, I ended up prioritizing other things.

It is a regret, for sure. And hopefully something I can internalize so that I can prioritize the right things in the future.

Uncle Tom scared me as a little kid. I don't know if he was actually scary, it's just that he was quiet, and I had internalized quiet to being scary (as my family was either loud happy, loud angry, or scary silent). Another uncle, Uncle Larry, gave me the same vibes but he's the least scary person that I've ever met. I got to visit with him a little bit a couple years ago when they hosted the family reunion at their house. He wasn't scary anymore then.

That was the last interaction I had with him. I can't really remembering ever saying I loved him. Not even the times when it's used to say goodbye. Which I feel now does in fact have its merits.

I love you, Uncle Tom. I'm happy you had a good last day, I'm sorry it was so soon.

Thu Sep 7 05:50:21 UTC 2017

Just told a bunch of people I loved them.

I'll probably add some more people to that list tomorrow.