Mike Wazowski

Haha and that's totally fair - though Dallas doesn't even really have that, you can get a 1-bedroom fairly affordably, especially if you're willing to compromise on spaciousness and/or newness. ^honestly, when I first went off the deep end into personal finance, I would get sad that I was single *because* my spending per person was so much higher than if I was pooling income and expenses with a life partner (not a healthy approach to relationships, in case anyone was curious ). BIG OOOOF, indeed. Note to self: aim hard to avoid that particular relationship pitfall.

Hahahahaha that'll do it! And very good to know re: getting an even finer finish on cast iron - my current inability to scramble eggs in the pan without them sticking is probably the only thing making me consider extreme measures, though honestly I'm guessing some diligent continued use and seasoning will fix that issue. Haha it honestly might've happened during my mom's childhood - they taught all the kids (4 girls and 1 boy) how to do something to help at the family shop, and apparently my mom was among the best punch press operators they'd ever had (she decided not to make a career in the extremely misogynistic career of working as a machinist in the 70's, and instead chose the very misogynistic field of accounting in the 70's). Ah gotcha - I've been in the bad habit of waiting for a too-dull knife to cause me to get an injury in the kitchen (usually, a small but annoyingly bloody cut on a fingertip) as the impetus to sharpen the knives - 0/10 would not recommend the system, a monthly reminder to sharpen knives seems much more prudent (and probably something I could fold into a general home maintenance routine I want to start up in the new year).

Yes, thankfully it's amply available! Now I'm just trying to figure out timing - I *think* it makes sense to wait til tomorrow since PCR tests are supposed to give results in 3 days around here (though technically, I'd need to be tested Wednesday or later to meet Chicago's travel orders, were I traveling into the city - I'm going to the suburbs so it's somewhat moot). Basically, I'm trying to balance the "get tested when you're most likely to test positive if you are, in fact, infected" alongside "get tested so that you'll have your results in hand to inform travel decisions" (yay, uncertainty! lol). And true, very true - a nice wood cutting board or two might very well turn into a birthday wish list item. Oh, to be fair - I *absolutely agree *on the affordability of medical care (especially mental health, and ongoing care for some chronic conditions) being a huge issue that plays a big part of my politics, and housing affordability to a lesser extent (there are quite a few affordable places to rent in my metro area, but there's definitely a homogenization of housing at a narrow band of price points within neighborhoods that leads to the issues you'd expect, and I'd like to see my local government take steps to try and address this) But I was thinking about some people in my circles who say things like "you can't afford to live in Dallas on less than $100k a year these days" which is a WILD take, imo - without going into my exact financial situation in terms of income, I will talk about expenses and say that I live a very comfortable bougie bachelor life in Dallas on roughly the equivalent of what someone making the median household income for the US (mid $60k range), saving 20% pre-tax in a 401(k), and paying taxes as a single guy with no major deductions would (it's in the neighborhood of $45k take home, when last I calculated it). So basically, my life is a living counterpoint to that (essentially, my lifestyle shows "hey, you could probably save for the future and live a comfortable life in Dallas on around $60k a year of income), even if I do have a few factors in my favor (no student loans, well managed health conditions / reasonable insurance from my employer, no dependents), that gets me dismissed out of hand and someone continues on their rant about how no one can afford to live in our city (despite it being far and away the most affordable of the top 4 most populous metro areas in the US: NYC, LA, and Chicago being the other 3; and despite a reasonably large number of people getting by well enough on far less than $100k a year). Ok, that was really a rant about one friend who I really disagree with on the issue, probably.

+1 for everything Paul said, especially giving us a chance to ogle desserts!

Ahh gotcha - I got the impression from a quick google on Santoku knives that they always tended to be even shorter, in the range of 6" long. Apparently that's not true! Fair fair, I imagine the "fragile" label follows the general trend that whenever you make a particular alloy of a metal harder (which typically happens whenever you throw more interstitial atoms into the matrix, e.g. by throwing more carbon into a steel) you tend to also make it more brittle (and therefore prone to chipping). Stainless tends to also be more brittle, and it looks like that's a general trend with high-end knives, so probably moot for my purposes in choosing a material (though the knives paul linked are gorgeous, and I'm very tempted to go with letting someone else do my research for me, because I'm a "satisficer" when it comes to a lot of decisions).

There's a chance what I'm about to say will be helpful, and there's a chance what I'm about to say will send you into an anxiety spiral - I'm hoping helpful, at least in the long term. I find it really helpful to approach the world with an economist's mind - specifically, embracing that there is no such thing as "risk free" nor is there such a thing as "cost free" (my attempt to put the economic concept of "opportunity cost" into plain English). Basically, by choosing to avoid one type of risk, you're usually incurring another (or taking on a type of cost to avoid taking that risk) - for example, choosing to avoid investing money in any sort of equity (stock or bond) completely eliminates the risk of losing value due to market fluctuations (i.e. stock prices going down) while instead increasing inflation risk - even if you have it in a savings account that earns some interest while, in the US anyway, being insured against the risk of the bank becoming financially unviable (inflation risk is the chances of your money losing value because in general, modern economies all have currencies that become less valuable over time at a faster rate than a savings account pays out - there's an economic theory about why a small, positive inflation rate for an economy is a good thing that's *totally* outside the scope of what I'm talking about here). But applying it to a non-financial example, avoiding one type of risk (getting pregnant) has the risk of other side effects (as you've experienced with contraceptives) or the opportunity cost of missing out on a facet of human life (if choosing total, lifelong abstinence). Basically, every decision has a cost, and every decision comes with some risks (and choosing not to decide or to delay deciding is still a decision, so you don't get to actually avoid the decision). The short answer to that dilemma of "everything has risk, everything has a cost" is that you're always making tradeoffs to pick the right choice for you - and rather than avoiding risk completely, you're choosing things where the benefits outweigh the risks (possibly because of steps you're taking to mitigate the probability or severity of certain types of risks).

Unless you're gay*! 🏳️‍🌈 *And having sex specifically with same-sex partners, since there are plenty of homosexual people who have been sexually active in a heterosexual pairing at some point (myself included). +1, as someone who works with probability on a daily basis. Using more effective contraceptives doesn't completely eliminate chance of pregnancy, but it changes the p value of your geometric distribution such that your chances of unintentionally conceiving become a lot lower!

They are gorgeous! Though I'm already running into occasional length issues when using my 8" chef's knife sometimes, so the thought of going even shorter is probably a non-starter (and the engineer in me knows the extra length will help with chopping force), Interesting - I know you mentioned this as a material for pans like, forever ago, but I'm still thrown off by the naming (since by definition all steel contains carbon, carbon steel seems like a "no duh" name, except apparently it refers to specific, higher concentrations of carbon in the steel alloy). Lord knows I don't need more high maintenance kitchen stuff, 3 cast iron skillets of varying sizes is plenty for me!

Quick update from the rest of Sunday - it was restful, but I stayed up way too late researching possible upgrades to kitchen knives, among other things. I did make a ton of food for the week - homemade jalapeno cheddar cornbread and roasted broccoli as sides to go with some chili leftover from last week, plus some homemade chocolate chip banana bread for general delicious snacking. Also washed up my whole pile of laundry so I'm well set up to pack up and head to my parents' home for a week at the end of this week - just gotta survive the week and the several work deadlines between now and then. Somehow, in spite of staying up too late, my 6.5 hours asleep was still enough better than last Sunday evening that my nightly sleep average went *up* and not down when yesterday night's replaced a week ago's number. Definitely gonna be prioritizing sleep quality / quantity highly for the rest of the year and into the new year. ETA: also, in my researching of kitchen tool upgrades, I realized that to complement a fancy knife, were I to get one, I'd probably want to upgrade from my plastic cutting boards so that I'm *not* wearing down the surface of the blade quite so much with each use, though that's certainly more of a nice-to-have than a strict necessity. Oh, and probably a magnetic strip so I can have my knives always out on the wall (looks like Target makes an affordable one that fits with my general decor color scheme). Oh, and another little upheaval: a close contact I saw recently started showing Covid symptoms this morning, so now I'm researching testing options and might shuffle my travel plans around a little to make seeing my family, safely, still possible (of course, pending me testing negative and continuing to show *zero* symptoms beyond the usual anosmia I have from a chronic sinus infection). Though that all becomes a little less scary if said contact tests negative (fingers crossed!).

Not the first time I've seen this, but definitely a classic hot take. Gosh, I see some subpar usage of a theoretically simple health intervention around here.

Dude, thank you for the thorough knife-splanation (it's late and I don't think twice about cheesy portmanteaus I'll regret in the morning). I probably should've provided more info to give you context: I do sharpen my knives (though not on a regular schedule like I should, maybe that'll be a "life management" 2021 and beyond goal to cement) with an electric sharpener (because while I'm a machinist's grandson and therefore slightly crazy about quality sharp edges, I haven't gone full on bonkers into. I'm assuming you've already dove deep down the rabbit hole of "how often should you sharpen" so any advice there? I currently have an 8 inch that I think is French style, but it was probably a budget / entry level pick 8 years ago when it was new and thanks to a clumsy drop on my end (chipping the tip area) and a roommate who used it to butcher a duck he hunted without asking me first (I'm still a bit annoyed by that years later, I'm sure you can relate ) it's well positioned to become an older beater knife for tasks like cutting open a chicken's ribcage (that's what happens in spatchcocking, right? clearly I don't get fancy with how I cook meats in my kitchen). I didn't know that 10 inch vs. 8 inch was even an option, I'll for sure be upgrading to a 10-inch knife when I upgrade my kitchen knife. I also love my mom's kitchen knife from her wedding registry (Chicago cutlery, though I imagine their production now may not be the same high quality as 40 years ago) But basically, you answered all my questions and some I didn't know I had! It may be because you put so many disclaimers around the video, but I was blown away by the quality of the playing and singing! Definitely keep up the practicing if you're enjoying it and keep treating us to videos! Speaking of crazy kitchen gearhead stuff, have you ever been tempted to or actually tried sanding down a cast iron pan to get a smoother surface finish (and theoretically a more nonstick surface as a result)? It's an idea that's been kicking around in my head ever since I read serious eats' article that mentioned how modern stuff isn't as smooth as older produced pans (but also, it'd require me tracking down a friend's garage and possibly sandpaper that's sufficiently strong to smooth out cast iron, so I haven't bothered to try yet).

Seems very plausible - obviously not something I have any data on (nor am I sure it'd be easy to collect said data, since getting reliable data would involve getting people to admit something they maybe would rather not or being clever in how you got them to indicate that and having that cleverness be a reliable substitute for the thing you're trying to measure that you can still use it in research - ok, this has just turned into a run on parenthetical aside about the difficulty in collecting social science data when it relates to people's internalized beliefs). Ahh yes, that's wonderful!!!! I actually have a teensy update there - we had leadership elections for the corporate diversity council I'm on, and while I'm a bit bummed I didn't win my election (ran for Vice Chair) I was really pleasantly surprised to only narrowly lose (3 votes out of 28) to what I considered a really strong opponent (and now I get to work hard with no official title, which isn't all bad either - makes it easier to decommit when I'm not feeling super excited to do something).

D'aww thank you! I can't claim it's an original thought, more a distillation of the things that have resonated with me in both the health and general life management spaces as I've matured as an adult (I.e. what resonates now is veeeeery different than what resonated way back when I was just starting out on my journey in health and fitness or in personal finance).

Makes sense - and unfortunately, personal finance is another area where the overwhelming bulk of the information out there focuses on the relatively easy information ("spend less than you earn" is the PF equivalent of "eat fewer calories than you consume" and you could equate lots of money heuristics to nutritional ones) while papering over the much more important and much more difficult challenges of how to customize an approach to one's lifestyle for long-term, sustainable adherence to a plan that is [good enough, but almost certainly suboptimal in a theoretical sense] but is [far superior in a practical sense to a theoretically superior plan with very poor chances of adherence]. In part because "do something that's good enough for you to get results, and do it consistently but also don't lose your sanity over occasional times where you don't do that thing" both makes for a terrible headline and a terribly wishy-washy sounding article in all but the best of writers' hands. You prompted me to look this up - looks like something in the ballpark of that (maybe 37% of all new mortgages in 2019, but ~58% if you include FHA and VA type insurance as well) based on pages 7-8 of this report: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/mortgage-insurance-data-glance-2019/view/full_report. I think for an individual borrower, you could just account for it by upping your mortgage rate in the calculator, assuming that your lender is correctly rolling the impact of PMI into the APR (and assuming my understanding of that is correct - I've never had a mortgage and my professional experience in the banking sector was entirely with auto loans where the only costs were interest, principal, and late fees). It's probably imperfect for modeling the cashflows (PMI falls off once you hit 20% equity, I believe, but I'm not certain), but I consider any calculator more of a directional read* given its sensitivity to hard to predict for certain factors (including macro ones like home appreciation, rent increases, and investment returns as well as micro ones like "how long *will* you live here, anyway?") *In case that's more business jargon-y than I realize, essentially I'm reducing the calculator outputs down to "renting is way better", "renting is a bit better", "it's a toss-up", "buying is a bit better", and "buying is way better" in how I'd interpret the results. Now, it's going to be a bit of an economic data project for me to crunch through the numbers and get a sense of what the approximate correct values should be for the different inputs to my situation - which I'm pretty excited to do, because I'm likely to buy a larger space than I currently rent and that's not something that often gets factored in when talking about buying vs. renting a home. Totally could see that - and definitely do, to some extent, within my peer group (though there are some big income gaps among the people I interact with and I don't know exactly how big because money's kiiiiinda a taboo topic that I don't always feel comfortable broaching). Some folks don't seem to have any noticeable money concerns and really enjoy their lives and what they're able to do, and others often complain about how the cost of living is "just too high" these days. Also, student loans are a confounding factor as all the people I'm thinking of have a university degree (and many also a graduate degree) and I've been in the relatively lucky camp of finding well-compensated work after just an undergrad degree (and getting that degree without loans thanks to very generous scholarship / grant support from the university, my family buying savings bonds to help with college costs when I was very young, and my own summer earnings filling in the small remaining gaps). But still, the point is that happiness with one's financial situation among people I know seems to be as much about approach and mindset as about actual level of income (/ wealth - though the two are correlated enough, with obvious outliers to that correlation, that I don't often distinguish them).

Ooooh yes, gumbo is an excellent Sunday meal!! Fun fact - I'm in the no-challenge challenge boat as well this go around (unless "enjoy the f*ck out of eating Christmas cookies" counts as a challenge). Because at the end of 2020, honestly we all could use a big ole break.

Scaly! I'm late but following. Couple things: 1) I didn't know I needed an edgy cover of Idina Menzel in my life, but I'm happy that it's here (and now I want to hunt for a similar cover of "Defying Gravity") 2) My sole knowledge of Qveen Herby is "BDE" but I love that she's got a self-care anthem! 3) Sorry to hear on the rough day yesterday - I hope it was a short-term spike and you're feeling much better now!

Ooof, fingers crossed it is just a cold and that you're back on the upswing real soon! Lol Mr Harriet - two hours at a time on the elliptical feels like...a lot, no?

I read this and immediately thought "time to see if I can con Paul into helping me reorganize my kitchen!" haha. Because I love a nice functional, organized kitchen.

Wow, you are much braver than I would be with homeschooling your kids - I'm not 100% sure there are options like that for kids in the US (I'm not a parent, nor am I even remotely close to becoming a parent, so that's a long, long way off from something I need to concern myself with). BUT, it jives a ton with something I read recently about curiosity being an incredibly powerful force to motivate learning - for better or worse, the prevalent western education system does a great job of systematically requiring the covering of a curriculum, but it doesn't do near as well motivating the learning process or fostering a love of learning in kids (based on my experiences with other folks who came up through the US ed system, and my own experience). I was relatively lucky to have access to programs that challenged me (at least more than the basic curriculum) in math from a young age, and eventually (come high school) in some other subjects as well (and like you, KBG, I was luckily allowed to do lots of solo reading while other kids finished their work - and apparently luckier because my school had a pretty fleshed out library and my dad had *lots* of sci-fi on his shelf besides). But I do wonder if I'd have taken a different path if math hadn't been the primary place where I could get challenged in school - in some ways, I feel like I was presented with more opportunities to grow in math relative to other subjects and as a result I've forever been a bit better on the quantitative side of things. Also, in case it's not clear - you're a rockstar of a parent for being so invested in nurturing your children, and I genuinely hope you're successful in keeping their curiosity spark alive (and that the Internet makes it possible to have a self-driven curriculum for them even when it's going beyond the scope of your own knowledge - which based on your topics for the past week I'm guessing it has, or you have some very eclectic knowledge). ETA: Yay, congrats on feeling recovered, and fingers crossed your daughter survives her current stir crazy spell!

Hmmm, maybe this explains why I like licorice flavors less than most. Your cookies look *fantastic* - if you're looking for more regional ideas, kolaczki are a Polish favorite from my family (there are multiple spellings of the name I've encountered, but that one returns quite a few recipes) and seven layer bars are one that might be distinctly American but is another favorite for my family.

You take some amazing dinner photos, my man!! Also, can confirm from a high school choir trip - Salzburg and Innsbruck are both absolutely stunning to visit, 10/10 would go back. And great job on the first workout back - fingers crossed you're able to figure out good fixes for the hip and elbow stuff soon, joint issues are definitely no fun to be dealing with. ETA: Also, any recommendations on fancypants kitchen knives, were one to be treating oneself? Saw you mention yours in another thread and I suspect you put a lot of thought and care into picking yours out.

Yep! It's one of the best ones I've seen around, though I think some of their default assumptions are a bit off and I'd want to tweak them based on data as a result (4% nominal investment return? that's lower than what US 10-year treasuries delivered over the past 25 years, to speak nothing of less conservative investments). To be fair, if you don't have the cash for the down payment, "rent or buy?" is sort of a moot question, no? My only other quibble is it doesn't have any sort of estimation for PMI for <20% down payments, although that's probably too in the weeds or something that could be lumped into the nominal APR in the calculator. But your point about the behavioral aspect more generally is entirely fair and unfortunately too personal for any online calculator to account for (though I can totally imagine and old school BuzzFeed style quiz "Tell us your favorite sandwich condiment and pizza toppings and we'll tell you if you have the financial discipline to buy and hold investments!" in my ridiculous brain). The psychology of personal money management is a very real problem that undermines results for tons of folks, and unfortunately it probably helps perpetuate wealth gaps across generations as well - I admittedly have no data to back up this claim, but I've noticed anecdotally that I've internalized many of my parents' attitudes towards money and had to combat some of the insecurities I inherited from them with troves of data. Hi!! And welcome aboard the Minimalist Mike Meandering Musings Metrobus*. It feels good to lower expectations to near-zero for a hot minute and let the fire rebuild inside. *Literally the only M word I could think of for a vehicle, wish I could throw in a better one. Update from the past couple days (Holiday 1.5-17): Friday was a dull work day, followed by a very, very nice dance lesson - my coach's new partner was in town for some training time with him, and as a result he had her jump in on our lesson to offer a different perspective to what we've been getting from him. She started us down a really cool path of a different way to approach posture and correct foot articulation that's immediately made some things click for me in ways that they haven't with previous explanations of the same concepts. Unfortunately, my partner may have overworked a calf muscle to the point of spasming, so we took today off of practice to let him rest it up and massage it out. Saturday was a dance practice working the new topics (including my partner's calf spasm) and then a really nice date night with the BF - we stopped by a friend's virtual zoom holiday party for like an hour (unfortunately it was mostly friends from his other friend group I don't know super well, so it felt weirdly like I was an outsider looking in), got takeout from a new-to-me Indian place that was quite good, and cuddled while watching "The Prom" on Netflix. We were both pretty into it as a movie-musical dealing with coming out stories and how they affect parent-child relations, but idk if it'd be as enjoyable for others Today, I'm doing mostly a whole lot of nothing - did some budget tweaking to plan for expenses for the coming year (mostly taking advantage of new features in YNAB, my budgeting tool of choice), took a trip to a new-to-me donut shop in the pouring rain (leaping over puddles was needed, but worth it to get myself a churro donut), and now I'm thinking I'll watch a movie, do some year-end planning / reflecting, and research the bodyweight beginner workout routine I'm likely to use to regain some noob gainz to start off the coming year (specifically, the Recommended Routine from reddit's bodyweightfitness sub). Also, will probably drink some hot chocolate and stare at my Christmas decor - it's really cozy and making me very happy I put it up, especially this year of all years.

Friggin’ awesome!!!!!

Okee, quick updates from Wednesday and Thursday): Sleep's been spotty on both the quality and quantity fronts - I suspect my habits need some tweaking to support this getting back on track (also, two restaurant margaritas after about a month of no drinking was one too many, and definitely f*cked with sleep last night) Weather here has been amazing, so I've gotten out for walks most days Went out for a really fun double date after work last night - and got some good home project time in to tie up a couple loose ends around my place Back to dance practice today for our last weekend of practice til next year - crazy how quickly the end of the year and the holidays are upon us!

Or you can make it all about just desserts! I sure as heck wouldn't complain!