LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 4
Nick's LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 4
The probable source of where fun points are generated. I must suck at this game.
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. A warm few weeks where us in Minnesota are filled with hope and optimism as we dig out of our winter cocoons to spread our wings. A few excited weeks of being vaccinated and seeing most of our friends joining that ELITE CLUB.
- LIFESTYLE NOTICE: Back to the normal amount of bullet points due to the excitement of a new email provider running out. Still love Buttondown tho.
- Due to the trend of warmth, Melonie BROKE THE RULES and put linen sheets on the bed today before Memorial Day. Bed activity faux paus, MELONIE.
- Speaking of Melonie, she is playing Yakuza 0 and enjoying it. I'm super surprised she gave it a shot and stuck with it. She will be the Pocket Circuit champ in no time! (As we all know the favorite activity of 80's Yakuza is slot car racing. Duh.)
- Don't know where you fall on the Wil Wheaton spectrum, but he participated in Punk Rock Karaoke and fucking slayed the Dead Kennedy's - Police Truck
THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
4 THINGS THIS WEEK.
ITEM THE FIRST:
DEPLATFORMING (the good kind). The big excitment around here is that I got a new (refurb) M1 Macbook Air last month and it is AMAZING. It is blazing fast (except encoding video) and is a joy to use. I've never had a laptop as my primary computer before and I'm excited for our porch grand opening so I can write these dumb newsletters while a gentle breeze hits my face.
At the same time the Apple train has driven me crazy with Apple Music. See, I LOVE MUSIC. Way too much. I generally listen to music about 30 hours every week and it would be more if I didn't have so many stupid work meetings. My collection is right around 27,000 songs. Also, I am a librarian, so I like my music setup the way I want it with the metadata the way I want.
Back in the mid-2000's when I digitized my 2000 CD collection and put it in iTunes, this was easy because there just wasn't too many options and not a lot of metadata. Over the years Apple changed their platform to really prioritize the streaming and the local music collection is a secondary citizen. I get it, they want to make money. In 2019, I was getting frustrated enough that I moved my collection into Plex, which was a good, not great solution. They then upgraded their music metadata, which was good, but it ruined all of mine and all of sudden albums were not matching and it was choas. Back to Apple Music I went.
This, of course, had issues and over the past few months I've been increasingly frustrated with the number of things I have added to my library and then they are "Not Available." SO FUCK IT.
I have been following this product called Roon for a few years. I've been reluctant to try it because it is $10/month and all it does it organize music and stream it to devices in your house. It is not a streaming music service. BUT HOLY SHIT IT IS MAGIC. It is the music nerd metadata service. The magic is all the connections it makes. Hey, you like this song by The Police, here are all the people that played on it. It was produced by this guy. Do you want to see what else he produced? How about a playlist of everything this session guitarist did? What about these 4 albums that are considered the prime of their career? OH MY GOD IT IS FULL OF STARS.
So, yeah, that is my project for the next few months. Moving the music to a new home. Again.
ITEM THE SECOND:
70k IS A LOT OF STABILITY. I remember reading about Dan Price in 2015 when he announced he was raise his company's minimum wage to $70,000. As a fan of Democratic Socialism and equality, I was excited to see how this experiment would go. He even cut his own pay to the same amount (don't worry, I'm sure he had bonuses and options). THE RESULTS ARE IN!
Since our $70k min wage was announced 6 years ago today:
*Our revenue tripled
*Head count grew 70%
*Customer base doubled
*Babies had by staff grew 10x
*70% of employees paid down debt
*Homes bought by employees grew 10x
*401(k) contributions grew 155%
*Turnover dropped in half
After our $70k min wage:
*76% of employees are engaged at work, 2x the national average
*Customer attrition fell to 25% below nat'l average
*We expanded to a new Boise office & enacted $70k min wage there
*Our highest-paid employee makes 4x our lowest-paid employee, down from 33x
You can read the whole thread here.
They even liked him enough to buy him a [Tesla].(https://www.geekwire.com/2016/employees-buy-tesla-70k-ceo-dan-price-court-resolution/).
That blows my mind. During the past year, their business dropped due to COVID and the employees immediately offered to take paycuts and did, which were then repaid a few months later.
This should not be an extraordinary story, but sadly it is in this perverted version of capitalism that we have in this country.
ITEM THE THIRD:
SOCIAL HOURS: As many of the super sexy LIFESTYLE readers know, we used to do a thing called "Good Friday's" here at the Lavely house. As most ideas go, it fell apart after awhile, but there have been DEMANDS to restart it.
I'M NOT DOING THAT. HOWEVER...we will be hosting a LIFESTYLE reader food and speed socialization event (LRFSSE, for short). What does that mean?
- June 4th at 7p at our place.
- Only vaccinated people are welcome into our house (THAT IS THE 3rd RULE OF OUR HOUSE NOW).
- LIFESTYLE reader exclusive event! (This may threaten some of the anonymity readers enjoy, so feel free to wear a mask. We won't judge).
- Bring food to share.
- Melonie will be opening up the PHOTO STUDIO and we are making fun photo props so we can remember this MEATSPACE fun time.
- Since we haven't seen each other in person in SO VERY LONG and most of us have FORGOT HOW TO SOCIALS, we are going to combine this with speed dating and you will be moving seats at regular intervals.
- This will be a good and safe space to practice social interaction before summer starts.
- I hope you can join us. Please RSVP via email to me so we can make sure we have enough space set up.
ITEM THE FOURTH:
DEPT OF INTERESTING IDEAS: Just read this amazing article in The Atlantic: Return the National Parks to the Tribes.
Hell of an idea and, in my opinion, a way to begin the long overdue process of restoring trust and healing for the damage done to the Native American community. What do you think?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
None.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:
Claud - Super Monster
Lazerbeak got me to give this one a listen. Normally, I don't agree with Beak's suggestions as he loves Babyface and 90's R&B more than any 40 year old white dude should. This (along with Graveyard Club) is a notable exception.
Super solid pop that reminds me of one of my favorite artists of last year, GRAE. It was even recorded at Electric Lady studios. You know how I knew? SEE ITEM THE FIRST!
Listen to it here.
WE ARE GOING TO SEE EACH OTHER SOON.
THAT FILLS ME WITH DREAD, AND MAYBE YOU TOO.
WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER.
THAT IS ALL.