LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 7 No. 3
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 7 No. 3
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks of having strangers in my house. Weeks of having a beverage station setup in Melonie's art room. Weeks of dining in the living room. Days of having AMAZING wi-fi and network coverage in the house. It's making me write this so much faster. Weeks of not being at Tower Games due to the above. Weeks of not socializing and doing normal things either.
- We have been rewatching the Golden Girls over the past six weeks or so. We are on season two now and holy shit is it amazing. Definitely has some 80's schlock, but the jokes are on-point. The cast gels after about 10 episodes and seeing it as an adult (and an older adult) I'm understanding the humor so much more. Very progressive for the time too. Well worth the rewatch.
- Hell of a depressing article by Cory Doctorow: When private equity destroys your hospital. I want to be optimistic about the future, but it is hard.
- TIL - How are anti-depressants tested on rats? "researchers put a mouse or rat in a container of water, usually for about 5 minutes, and time how long it exerts itself before giving up and simply floating. Rodents will often swim longer when treated with psychiatric drugs." Pressure grows to ditch controversial forced swim test in rodent studies of depression. I guess that is a way...
- In part 435 of the ongoing MONSTERS of humanity series in the LIFESTYLE, watched this documentary: We Need To Talk About Cosby. I'm disappointed in myself for not thinking about how weird it was that he played an OB/GYN that practiced in his own home. Ladies, have you seen an OB/GYN in their home? 🤔 Anyways, a good documentary about another MONSTER.
- Final bit of terrible things, then we will get back to the fun. I read this quote in the New Yorker and it shook me. This in regards to Adolf Hitler during his rise to power. The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers
Major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him. Each was sure that, after the passing of a brief storm cloud, so obviously overloaded that it had to expend itself, they would emerge in possession of power. The corporate bosses thought that, if you looked past the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you had someone who would protect your money. Communist ideologues thought that, if you peered deeply enough into the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you could spy the pattern of a popular revolution. The decent right thought that he was too obviously deranged to remain in power long, and the decent left, tempered by earlier fights against different enemies, thought that, if they forcibly stuck to the rule of law, then the law would somehow by itself entrap a lawless leader. In a now familiar paradox, the rational forces stuck to magical thinking, while the irrational ones were more logical, parsing the brute equations of power. And so the storm never passed. In a way, it still has not.
- BACK TO FUN. I played Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which is a new line in the Yakuza universe with a new character named Ichiban Kasuga. He is THE BEST. He is just doing his best to help people out and be loyal to the people he cares about. I ended up not finishing the game because the style of game was not my jam. I put about 50 hours into it and watched the last 4 hours of cutscenes that I missed. Amazing story. I would literally just watch all 20-25 hours of cutscenes like a TV show and I will do it for the sequel. Anyways, this article, Ichiban Kasuga And The Power Of Friendship, highlighted all these things in a well-written way. Games about friendship are the best.
- Lastly, I leave you with a video on Mozart, the GREATEST MUSICIAN EVER. Obviously. Brian Wilson, Prince, McCartney/Lennon are probably fighting in that top 5. It is amazing to see what he was doing at AGE 5 when I was fucking around with Transformers and blasting Michael Jackson's Thriller on my boombox, not composing. What the fuck am I doing with my life?
On to the important(?) stuff.
ITEM THE FIRST:
EMPATHY SIMULATOR v4.3: The latest software upgrade to human OS was implemented and it has been fun. Last July, FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE, Doc asked to watch wrestling with me to see it from my eyes. I can't say anyone has submitted a request like that, so I was happy to oblige. Of course, it was during those fun summer months where eternal super bad guy MJF was discovering the joy of friendship and let someone into his life, Adam Cole, to become a better person and discover that friendship is not so terrible. A LESSON FOR US ALL. She got to see their trip to a restaurant together and all the hijinks that ensued. She got to see a dance contest in the middle of a match and it was about as good of an hour of TV that could have happened for a newbie.
I was fun watching with someone who was new this and free of judgment of my stupid thing I love.
Earlier this year, I thought I would run my own experiment with this. My friend David loves loves loves this board game called Ark Nova which is currently ranked as the fourth best board game OF ALL TIME on Board Game Geek. I obviously knew about it, but when I saw people play they looked miserable. And it was LONG. And it was sold as a better version of Terraforming Mars, another game I don't like. But, to try this experiment, I pushed that all aside and tried to look at it with a David lens.
...AND HOLY SHIT IT IS A GREAT GAME. I played it once and immediately bought it, the expansion and the map pack. ALL IN. I was so excited to play it and teach it to Melonie. Our first game was like 3.5 hours and it was a bear (see, because there are bears...in the game about the zoo...ZING!), but she maybe enjoyed it? We've played it a few more times and she even beat me on our second game. I hope she is strapped in for a lifetime of playing this game because that is what she signed up for.
The teach is big and it is a huge game, but SO GOOD. Pretty much everything I avoid in a game, but it works. Perhaps because I put aside my judgment and wanted to experience the joy of another.
This is where you come in. I'm sure everyone is excitedly working on the big 2024 LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY PROJECT for the year (see Vol. 7 No. 2), so consider this a SUB-PROJECT.
I want to experience things you like. Everyone in this exclusive email club has an expertise or specialty in something weird that they love like I love non-WWE wrestling. I would love if you would send me your weird thing and the top 5 things in that category.
ITEM THE SECOND:
WE GOTTA INSTALL MICROWAVE OVENS. After YEARS of putting household funds towards dumb things like roofs, driveways, retaining walls, we finally had enough saved up to get rid of the TERRIBLE TILE KITCHEN COUNTERTOP. Melonie really hated it. After friend of the LIFESTYLE Eli had some experience with kitchen remodeling and shared some pricing, we realized we could do it too. Thus, we got to work allocated funding and time for THE GREAT KITCHEN REMODEL OF 2024.
I did some research, we discussed some options and we were off. Then we got COVID so we had to delay meeting with everyone for several weeks. We had hot debates about "luxury" vinyl flooring vs hardwood and all those decisions that come with big projects.
One of the weirdsies in American culture is how rarely we talk about money with people. I like to break taboos as long time readers know. Quite honestly, had Eli not shared what he did we probably would have saved up twice as much money before going ahead with things. In the spirit of paying it forward and BREAKING TABOOS, here is everything we did and the cost associated with it. Let this be a simple guideline if you are contemplating a remodel of your own. It was eye opening to me, in some ways good, in some ways bad. I'm including the contractor's names as well as I FULLY ENDORSE them and am paying for this message.
- Carl's Wood Flooring. Carl is a trip and SO KNOWLEDGABLE about flooring. He gave us a lot of suggestions and worked with some weird schedules. He did the first bit of work, everyone else did their thing and he came back to do the final coating after to make sure no damage happened to the floor when the other work was going on. We replaced the carpet in our dining room with a hickory hardwood floor and had new subfloor put down because after carpet was removed, we noticed it was sagging and should be replaced. We then had our parquet floor in the kitchen sanded to remove the color and refinished. $6055 for the new floor and refinishing + $390 for replacing the subfloor. The refinish was more than the new floor install...
- Steve Fulin (no website) is a handyman that was recommended by Lonn, our cabinet guy. He came in, removed all our plumbing under the sink, unhooked the gas then installed our faucet, water filtration system and hooked everything back up. He will be doing our tiling in the next month or so. Good dude. $200 (what a deal!)
- Dan Dobervich (no website) is so weirdly passionate about countertops that I feel like he should submit a top 5 list for me to experience countertops. We installed some nice quartz countertops with a transition and a composite sink. $6960.
- THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND, LONN and his company Custom Refacing. Lonn is one of the first people we met with and he is one of the nicest people I have ever met and probably the best, most timely, clean contractor I have ever dealt with. Every day he spent 30 mins cleaning up the kitchen. I said "we aren't using it, you can just leave your stuff out, it's no bother" and he replied "while I'm working here, this is my office, and I like the keep my office clean." YOU GOT IT BUDDY. He recommended Dan and Steve as well as project managed/coordinated their schedules. It was super helpful since I'm largely an idiot about home repair stuff. We went with a maple refacing. All the original wood is covered with 1/4in thick custom cut wood. All doors are replaced, all drawers are replaced. We also had some extra space converted to cabinets, the lazy susan replaced and some two tier drawers. $14,230
- Tony's Appliance. This was a recommendation from long time friend Chris. It was refreshing to not deal with a big box store and all the bullshit and sub-contracting they do. Tony's had pricing comparable to anywhere and were much more personable. Also, they have a bulldog, Bob, that works there as a greeter and is the laziest lump of love that just plopped on our feed within about 15 seconds of being there. COMMISSION EARNED BUDDY. We ended up with a new wall oven and gas cooktop. Yes, I wanted induction, but it would have cost a bunch extra to run a power line, plus we needed a downdraft system since we don't have an overhead vent. $4863.
- After that it was just a few minor things, a microwave (a small yet nice one is hard to find), new towels, faucet, garbage disposal, etc. $1000
Overall it was around $35,000. The most I have ever spent on anything outside of a house. My masters degree was less.
Of course after that, I got to realize my boyhood dream. In 2018, we bought a top of the line Linksys Velop system which was good, but was to the Wifi5 standard and was not serving the needs to passing huge files around the house. I started looking at how much it would cost to install Cat 6e ethernet cable around the house and to get a Unifi system and STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH CONSUMER GEAR.
Ubiquiti has an incredible system on their site where you can map out your house, tell it the materials then place UniFi gear on the screen and it will show you a heat map of where you need to place things for the best coverage.
Melonie and I built a scale replica of the floor plans and uploaded them. I was able to trace a line, tell it how big that line was and it scaled it out. I told it which walls were concrete vs sheetrock and we were off. It is awesome. UniFi Design Center.
I worked with Correct Cabling and talked with the owner OTHER NICK over the phone and via text and he offered some suggestions and helped me narrow down which UniFi equipment I needed.
We had 4 ethernet jacks installed in our office, 2 in the Kristin Trautman Music Conservatory, 4 in the basement living room, 1 in the upstairs ceiling via the attic (for an access point (AP), 1 in the downstairs ceiling (for an AP) and our cable drop moved to where the networking equipment is. I also had a 6U wall mount rack installed for the equipment and patch panel. Overall it was 680 ft of cable and 1 1/2 days of work for $2100. The nice thing about this is that in the future, when Wifi standards change, I just need to replace the APs and/or networking equipment. That $2100 is a one-time cost.
For the UniFi gear for you networking nerds:
- Ultimate Dream Machine Pro (this is the gateway and controller)
- Lite 16 PoE (switch and PoE (Power over Ethernet) injector for the APs)
- U6 In-Wall (gives another 4 ports in the office and dedicated Wi-Fi radio for the office)
All together that was another $1100. HOLY SHIT IS IT WORTH IT. The old Velop system topped out at about 500 Mbps even when hardwired into it. New system I'm getting 950 Mbps. The UniFi gear is prosumer too, so it has so much advanced options so I can do some incredible things with my network. Living my best life over here.
In short, we are done with house projects for a bit. I hope seeing all of this helped you figure out costs for projects or you were able to live vicariously through this text description of things.
ITEM THE THIRD:
COMING TO YOU FROM THE SMOOTHIE KING US BANK NEWSLETTER FACTORY.
After an extended absence, we were finally able to unveil our OFFICIAL PLAQUE for the Kristin Trautman Music Conservatory to the inspiration herself. It was a great moment and we had a super karaoke night in her presence (and room).
In light of that, we decided to pay tribute to another great friend and extend our naming rights and plaque making joy to honor our friend Lance, by renaming the board game room in his honor. We miss him. MORE INFORMATION SOON!
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: (please mark "ok to print"):
None. I miss your correspondence. This thing works so much better when you respond. Otherwise, I'm just shouting out to the void.
WEATHER CORNER: It's getting warmer out. I did my first run outside last week and it was glorious.
THE HOPE SPOT: To counteract some of the terrible news on this topic in America, let's jump to Spain for this great story on not being dickheads to transgender teens.
Why Spain is trusting trans teens on their gender, rather than restricting them
MANDATORY FUN BUCKS MANDATORY UPDATE:
March was a fun month, we had a staycation and redid the kitchen, which is where funbucks were had.
- I splurged on a nice Boos cutting board for the new kitchen. Our old one was from Ikea a lifetime ago and even with my frequent oiling and caretaking was getting rough, so I bought a nice one. You know, to go with my $15 knives from the asian market.
- As my wife will attest, I'm a sucker to try weird drinks. FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE The Nelsons brokered a trade of some of my weird sodas for some Diet Shasta. It was like drinking science, so of course for one of our trips to Menards over the kitchen project, I bought a 12 pack of Diet Shasta in Dr. Pepper flavor. I feel my gut bacteria crying when I drink it and it's...fine.
- During staycation we went out to few restaurants like the INCREDIBLE HOT GRAINZ (recommended by FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Crystal). Stop reading this and go there. She endorses the Spicy Wontons. I recommend everything. I did splurge and get a DESSERT DRINK - Durian Boba Tea. I'm over boba tea, but holy shit this was the best boba I've ever had. I also treated myself to a real durian to eat as well over the week. Melonie was very excited when it was gone. I was not. THE KING OF FRUITS.
- Long time readers may know my dream job is one of three things. 1) Owning a small eBay reseller or working in a small warehouse where I can pick an order from shelves, box it up, generate mailing labels and get it ready to go. 2) Working for a Japanese moving company. 3) Stock shelves at a grocery store. Well, as part of the kitchen remodel I got to live a little for my 3rd dream and bought a 3 row can dispenser for our fridge. It has a spring and everything so as I consume sparkling water and science soda it pushes things forward and when a row is done, TIME TO GET TO WORK and stock it back up. Don't tell my corporate overlords, but I often restock while I'm on their clock. LIVING MY BEST LIFE.
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
TOP 5 WRESTLERS
KAZUCHIKA OKADA (no link because NJPW sucks about sharing match footage)
THAT IS ALL.