This Week:
- I accidentally drove my van INTO a tornado
- What if you died with ZERO money left?
- A HUGE redesign of my website!
June 2023
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 6/1 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 7/1 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Denver, CO
I Drove My Van Into A Tornado
Let’s get the main event straight away here.
It all started one night when it started raining pretty heavily.
I was just pulling in to park for the night when it started hailing!
I turned my van back on a drove to the other side of the street to get under a tree, protecting me (mostly) from the hail. Through the night the storm kept coming in waves, pelting down hail on to the van. I woke up mostly in a daze the next morning.
By the next morning, it was all cleared up and beautiful.
I worked at Pinwheel Coffee before heading down to get groceries at Trader Joe’s.
And THAT’s where our main adventure begins… I’ll leave no other context.
Writing out this story will pale in comparison to experiencing it via video.
I still can’t believe that happened…
In Other News…
The last big thing on my todo-list before leaving Denver is getting rid of everything (large) from my storage unit.
This week I listed everything for sale on Facebook Marketplace and planned what to do with the rest.
Monday morning about 15 minutes after listing my dresser for sale, I had about 4 bots message me, but between those bots was a real person, that offered real money, and met me that evening to pick it up.
I was honestly shocked at how lucky that played out. The rest? Not so easy…
But! I also ended up selling my standing desk as well, so the final big item left is my sofa!
I think once the sofa is sold, I can effectively move out of the storage unit and may be able to fit everything else in my van. Exciting times!
Is It Worth $50 To Ask?
So speaking of my standing desk, I listed it for $349 (bought it for something like $450?).
After a couple days, a guy reached out asking if I’d do $250 for it.
I was thinking… Honestly, at this point, any money is better than nothing because I just need to get rid of all of it. But, I thought, man $250 feels kinda low for what it’s worth, I wonder if he’d do $300?
Of course, my mind started throwing in all the possibilities – what if I ask for $300 and he just declines and doesn’t want it anymore? (loss aversion)
But I thought to myself, is it worth $50 to just ask?
So I did.
And he accepted! Wow.
Was it worth $50 to just ask? Absolutely.
All I’m gonna say is… I’m still getting used to this whole “sales” and negotiation thing.
Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
I came across this podcast this week.
… and WOW it struck a nerve of my curiosity and interest.
I listened to the entire podcast.
Then sent it to my family.
Then immediately bought his book and started reading.
I thought, THAT, is an example of hitting one of my interests. It was fascinating to look at that process unravel, for me.
I’ve been really resonating with some of his ideas.
In the past 3 years, I’ve taught myself to be frugal to the point where saving money is better than spending it, on anything. But this idea of spending money on positive experiences and providing an “equation” for optimizing your life experience really hit at my interest to 2 questions I’ve noticed emerging in the past 2 years.
- How should I operate my life?
- How do I remember my life?
He essentially provides ideas and answers to these questions in his book, which has been fascinating to read so far.
I’m still trying to formulate my takeaways in a concise manner, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Website Re-Brand
Building off the back of some work to the website in the past couple weeks, I had on my task list to eventually update the design/theme of my website.
Particularly with the increase in traffic it’s been pulling in the past ~6mo, I started feeling like the theme was just too basic.
So this week I decided to tackle it and I’m REALLY happy with how it turned out.
From:
To:
I love the new homepage and minimalistic design, yet it still feels much more professional. I was starting to get sick of the line border design. That’s okay, it served it’s purpose and got me to where I am today!
The only thing is that the featured images crops the photos so I think I’m just gonna end up having half my head show in all these header photos 😅
In addition to this, this week I:
- Updated the content on basically all the pages
- Updated the home page content
- Added a footer
- Updated the tags in photos so now you can click them and directly filter the photography page to see all photos with that tag
Doing all this definitely scratched at my “perfection” itch. I could endlessly tweak things and wording, but at some point ya just gotta send it. I think I’m there now.
How Am I REALLY Feeling?
Hearing from Bill Perkins (from above) talk about maximizing your “positive life experiences” made me think of my own situation lately.
I’ve felt like these past couple weeks/months in Denver have been a transition period.
Part of me is disappointed that I’m not doing new things, exploring new camp spots and national forest, or really maximizing the advantages of living in a van.
But that said, most of what’s “tying me down” to Denver right now are necessary things that will enable the next season of my life in the best way possible.
I’ve fell into some pretty heavy routines lately, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
I don’t think it’s bad because looking forward, I’m expecting almost NO routine in the coming months (more coming soon). So I think it’s nice to have a little stability right now. I might look back fondly at these couple of months for the routine.
Coffee Shops This Week
- Corvus Coffee Roasters
- Sweet Bloom Arvada
- Sweet Bloom Westminster
- Pinwheel
- Queen City
What’s Next?
Somebody buy my sofa pls.