Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 9

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION

Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks where WATER IS THE ENEMY. Weeks where my supraspinatus was healed and where a broken snow thrower and ambitious lat raises conspired to hurt it again. Weeks of not working and going to LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN to turn the key. Weeks of consuming many top song lists and listening through a lot of music. Making progress, baby!

• Enjoying (while not trying to think about my 401k) this article on AI. NVIDIA = Enron? Oh god. This mirrors a lot of my experience as someone FORCED to use AI on a daily basis.
• As a person really sucked into techno utopian feelings when I first hit the internet in 1992, this one speaks to me profoundly and put into words something I could feel. When Tech Stopped Being For Us. Honestly, every week or two I look at getting a dumb phone and digital walkman (which is a thing, really).
• Related, this is one of the best things I saw in the NYT this year and I think a lot of hmmm…low knowledge voters that think USA #1 and don’t see just how far ahead of the game China is, don't realize (but they are probably not reading the NYT anyways). I’ve read a lot about this in the past three or four years, but seeing all the video was eye opening. Flying Taxis? China Has Them. And Drone Lunch Deliveries, Too.. Yep, wind and solar is the problem you regressive fucks.
• I'm normally VERY STRONGLY OPPOSED to vertical videos, but this one is a real mic drop. It made sense to me. The key to understanding the world today is in this comic
• WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Also, ADORABLE! Raccoons Are Showing Early Signs of Domestication
• I love it when my worlds collide and I never thought I would see the day when the $23,500 contribution limit on a 401k in 2025 would be in a wrestling promo, but here we are. PROMO OF THE YEAR. "You gotta save kids, save your money now. Early and often!"

ITEM THE FIRST:

OF HOMEOWNERSHIP AND EASY AVAILABILITY OF ICE (THE GOOD KIND). As parasocial friend of the LIFESTYLE Ramit Sethi discusses, home ownership is not always the best thing. Running the numbers, we pay our mortgage 3x every month. First is the payment, second is the tax and insurance and third is building up that rainy day fund. After owning our house for 12 years now, I can say on average we have put about $12,000 per year into it.

So, picture this, Eagan 2025. It's 11:30p on a Sunday, I'm getting ready to go to go to bed but I luckily decide to use the bathroom downstairs. I'm tired and am past my bedtime already. I notice a dripping sound that is more that just some water in the pipes. I look over to the shower and see this:

This was after I toweled off the actively dripping water. What I didn’t photograph was the base of the shower with brown water in the base. IT WAS NOT POOP. It was the stain from our kitchen floor soaking through.

As you can guess, the water line to our refrigerator had split after I installed the new water filter earlier in the day. I was EXTREMELY lucky that this damage was isolated to about 12 hours.

I ran at light speed to cut off the water line and clean up what I could.

I started calling and getting estimates for the repair, which ranged from $1,300 to $14,000. Our insurance deductible is about $5,600, so that was fun and not at all terrifying.

After hearing the story of FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Eli, I knew our next fridge would not have an ice maker or water, but I should have not been a dumb ass and cut our water line before trouble happened. You guys do you, but take heed from our tales of woe.

Thankfully because it was a slow leak and I caught it early then immediately started cutting and drying it out we were able to prevent mold growth. Took a few weeks to figure everything out, but now we have some new ceiling in that area.

Let’s see what 2026 brings us 🤮

ITEM THE SECOND:

SUN COUNTRY THE WORST COUNTRY.

As LIFESTYLE readers know, we take the occasional trip to Jamaica for the all-inclusive paradise where calories don’t count. We were planning on going in March 2020, but you know, global pandemic. We cancelled our vacation just two days before Jamaica shut down.

We were booked on Sun Country and they were the only airline that would not refund people due to COVID, you know, YOU AGREED TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS. We got a flight credit, but a very restrictive one. They would only allow the named people to use it and it all needed to be used in one go. Since Sun Country doesn’t go much outside of North America, you can imagine how hard it is to spend $1600 of credit on a flight to Phoenix or wherever and it expired in like six months. So I kept pushing it forward on fake trips and cancelling them 60 days out until we were booked to go to Jamaica in 2022. A month before departure, they cancelled the flight. FUCK YOU. Got my credit back and kept doing it.

Long story short, I’ve called Sun Country probably 20 times since 2021, each time for about 20-30 mins trying to minimize the loss on this credit. We were booked to go to Jamaica in 2026 and mid-November we got the email that the flight was cancelled.

At this point, I was happy to write off the money. They wore me down after 6 years, 1 DoT case, 1 MN Attorney General case and hours of my life.

Bad news, Lavely’s are not going to Jamaica in 2026.

Good news, one Lavely is going to California with their best friend and we are in a financial place where losing about $300 of that credit was ok. 2019 Nick might have felt differently.

Also, maybe don’t fly Sun Country. They are cheap and Delta is exploiting their monopoly power at MSP, but between these two terrible companies, Delta will get my business.

THE HOPE SPOT: After all the doom and gloom above, we need a pallet cleanser.

At least one country has the courage to stand up to bullshit. I never thought it would be Brazil: Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro begins 27-year prison sentence for coup attempt

Just imagine a world where tax dollars were not used on the military-industrial complex and debt service. Or, visit Iowa to see just a slice of that in action: Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. Traffic Cleared, and So Did the Air.. That socialist paradise is just a few hours away 🤷.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):

Dear LIFESTYLE Newsletter,

I was horrified to read the exact details of item the Third in Vol. 8 No. 8. Though I have been watching on the sidelines for years, you spelling out your week in high fidelity was a gut punch. I won't patronize you with unsolicited advice, but know that people love you and would continue to do so no matter how you shaped your life. I would only ask you to consider different choices because I am selfish and prefer a world with you in.

Yours sincerely,

A Selfish Fan

I appreciate the kind words. Nothing I can realistically do but keep my head down, hyper focus on crossing that finish line and meeting my 2026 goal of not jumping off a building.

The spectrum is my super power.

FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:

Lux by Rosalía is an experience. I'm very conflicted on it. Like it is incredible. It has amazing production, she sings in like 13 languages on it and it is unlike anything you generally see on an "album of the year" list.

There is a genre of music either dismissively or accurately described as "art rock." Sometimes Bowie or Radiohead is in there, but I think more of The Residents and The Velvet Underground when I hear it. I think Lux is "art pop." I've listened to it several times in its entirety and a few times in pieces. It is definitely made to be consumed in one session and I'm not sure what the single or song I would pick out of it is. Partially that is because pop vocal music doesn't lead much to hooks and partially because it just blends together so well.

Either way, this music is art. I'm just not sure it is art I want on shuffle or that I would recommend to everyone. It's amazing and audacious, but probably not for everyone. Guess I'm losing my Pitchfork/NPR/Paste/Sterogum credibility this year. Either way, Rosalía did an incredible performance on Fallon. Well, I was going to link it, but it was pulled down. Love the modern world.

Follow up:

As I'm listening to the 2025 music, I finally listened to Sabrina Carpenter's album Man's Best Friend. It is a banger. Those Disney kids get real good after a few years away from the mouse house (see also, my love of Miley Cyrus starting in 2020).

Anyways, listening to that after last issue's pick of Lily Allen's West End Girl is a real sandwich of romantic relationships. Lily's album is all about a deep relationship breaking down, betrayal, disappointment and heartbreak in your 40's and Sabrina's is about similar topics, but through the lens of a 20-year old. I could see and hear myself in both albums in different eras of life. The experience of heartbreak is distinctly different when you are older. What a ride. How about that "Manchild," right?!

THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER

YOU COULD BUY THAT FORKLIFT.

WHAT PART OF SMART INVESTING DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

WE'RE GOING TO MAKE 200k TURN INTO 2m DOLLARS.

THEN YOU BUY A WHOLE FLEET OF FORKLIFTS.

THAT IS ALL.