I’ve always wanted to take driving tours away from the Bay Area to see more of California, especially along the coastal roads. This June, I did long tours of both Northern and Southern California, and had a great time in each location. In this post I’ll give maps, a few details on things to do, and cover budget for the Northern trip.  Northern CA: Bay Area to Mount Shasta, west to the coast, Avenue of the Giants, Ft. Bragg/Mendocino  I found the northern portion of California beautiful. Once clear of the city and the weekend Napa/Sonoma traffic, Route 5 clears right out and it’s smoothRead More →

Forensic Files: Real Reality TV I’m a big fan of Forensic Files, one of the most successful true crime shows ever. It pioneered the use of dramatic re-enacted crimes interspersed with interviews with the detectives, families, and witnesses from the cases, along with scientific explanations of forensic tools. Some of the episodes have to be seen to be believed, like the Canadian doctor that fooled three different “unbeatable” DNA tests, or the mad scientist neighbor who manufactured poisoned soda (in sealed bottles) because the teenagers were too loud. The series ended in 2011 after fourteen seasons, yet in 2016 it was still on its homeRead More →

As I mentioned in the previous blog posts on investing (Part 1 and Part 2), one way to generate passive income is through dividend stocks and funds. Today I’m going to walk through my investments, discuss some numbers, and provide some simple information if you’re interested in pursuing passive income yourself. Dividend Basics First, it’s important to realize that not all funds have dividends. Some don’t. Many tech stocks in particular, such as Alphabet/”Google” (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and so on don’t offer any dividends. Some stocks, such as Apple, pay a low dividend (say 1.4%, we’ll cover this in more detail below), whileRead More →

Passive investing is a huge buzz phrase right now. There are tons of blogs covering it, like Sam Dogen’s at financialsamurai.com where he generates over $200,000 a year through a combination of real estate, stocks/bonds, and eBook sales. He doesn’t include his website revenue, because it requires regular maintenance and updates, aka “work”. Often the message conveyed is something aspirational like “break free and live the life you were meant to”, perhaps with a picture of a cocktail on the beach. Maybe you don’t want to quit your job and sip drinks on the beach all day, but you’re looking for some small amounts ofRead More →

Some people love it, some people hate it. Many know they should but don’t, harboring guilty feelings in the dark, like eating ice cream at midnight. Let’s talk investing. Disclaimer: I am one of those people who has never particularly liked the intricacies of market investing. However, I do believe many people think it’s more complicated than it is, and avoid it entirely out of fear. I’m therefore going to keep this article super simple and focus on high-confidence, easy approaches. What you need to remember is there are many highly diversified index trackers that, in the long run, will almost certainly yield returns. YouRead More →

I’ve been watching the Netflix documentary Fyre this week like everyone else, and find it totally fascinating. I remember reading the news at the time the music festival crashed and burned back in April 2017, but I didn’t appreciate just what a disaster it really was. How could the pilot who learned how to fly a plane by playing video games be the smartest guy in the room? As most have seen from watching, Fyre Festival was a train wreck of overpromising and underdelivering at an epic scale. When they lost access to Norman’s Cay, the private island experience that most people were buying intoRead More →

2019 just rolled around, and I’ve been looking into the #vanlife and #rvlife movements. I’ve always been intrigued by the tiny house movement (though existing “accessory dwelling unit” [ADU] laws mean that most people have to mooch off friends/family or break the law to do it, unfortunately) and have been considering, if I took a gap year or more from full-time work, how I’d spend it. In addition to international travel, writing, and possibly some sweat equity on an investment property, I’d like to do some road travel. Bringing my retired parents along would really make that a fun way to spend time with family,Read More →

Friends: “What will you blog about, is there a theme?” Me: “Not really, I’d probably just do a running log of the weird stuff I research anyway on a daily basis.” And on that note, let’s look at the nuclear bomb in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Once again, the world is threatened by a nuclear device (or three). Eventually, Benji gets around to describing it for us – a man-portable bomb with a 5 megaton yield. This sounded off to me. As it happened, I’d just been researching nuclear bomb yields and detonation effects (don’t ask) and had some of the information ready at hand. TheRead More →

For years now I’ve been interested in real estate investing. I like the idea of a tangible asset that I can see and touch, versus stocks and ETFs. I enjoy working on homes and can put sweat equity into it “someday” if I choose. And as the saying goes, they aren’t making any more land (random volcanos and wealthy Middle Eastern countries aside)… So I set myself a summer job task of learning about it, talking to people who’ve done it, and making the leap myself. Research mode: You’re reading what? I went to my local library and browsed through several books on the topic.Read More →