Second Quarter Results

Volume was not what I hoped, but not bad considering all the traveling I did.

Quality was hit or miss. Getting better, but still not satisfied. Really disappointed with still not playing higher.

I should be able to get in a ton of volume in the next few months. But still going to hold to quality > quantity and learning > earning.

Very burnt out at the moment. A few days off, then back at it.

Oooo, I ran really good !

Strong Opinions (2)

.......So, now I hold no strong opinions.

I feel I don't deserve to hold them. Why is this? How do I get out of this trap?

It's simple,
but not easy[1].

Do the work required to hold an opinion[2]. Don't believe something simply because it sounds good, it's easy, or because you believed it so in the past for reasons you don't recall. If you can't explain it in lay-mans terms, you don't really know it[3].

-Ted

[1] - Stole this saying from a book I read last month: The Obstacle is the Way
[2] - http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/04/the-work-required-to-have-an-opinion/
[3] - "You don't really understand something until you can explain it to your grandma"-  Albert Einstein

Strong Opinions

Feeling dumb is the worst.

Countless times, and many recently, I have walked away after a conversation or debate on a topic that I held strong opinions about feeling dumb. My opinion just got destroyed, or more likely, just sank because it had too many holes in it.

Cool I just learned something, but man that feeling of dumb sucks. An opinion that I held so strongly and lived my life according to, just poof, gone like a freight train. 

This has happened so many times that I have pretty much stopped holding strong opinions about pretty much everything. Little things. Big things. It doesn't matter. "To each his own" and "Many ways to skin a cat" now just roll off the tongue.

And this sucks too. Holding no strong opinions, you are bound to drift and be steered by what's out there, not what's in here, in you. 

Strong opinions, held weakly, is how progress is made.......

-Ted

  

Day in the Life: Father's Day Tribute, Photo Blog (2)

....





Got my soup later!


Made some chicky salad.....yours is better.





Dessert

Love you pops

Day in the Life: Father's Day Tribute, Photo Blog (1)

The essence of my father can be seen in the kitchen.....he loves cooking for me and others. That's good....but the great part, and what has made him a great father, is that he loves it because of the joy it brings others. Hopefully this brings him a little joy.

Went for soup, but it was too early. Guess I was making my own breakfast.

















Got all supplies from the market up the road











.......

June14 update

Hello. Can't sleep. I can't remember a time I felt so "good". I think it is because I have always spent way too much time and energy thinking about the future and the past, but am now spending more time in the present. It's less stressful, more productive, and quite a bit more enjoyable. Why......Maybe it's because I have stopped traveling, my new suroundings, the books I've been reading, the good stretch at the tables, my new iphones, or a combination of the above.....whatever the case, it feels good.

Have 5 months to be able to do this




...... I got good odds. Don't worry.

All the best

Location:Muban Thanawan Soi 4,Nong Chom,Thailand

What Up? Damn it's June already

Here in Chiang Mai, Thailand home of the $0.15 Oreo 6 pack. Life is grand.

Living with a few other random poker players for the next for few months. Looking at it one way, it's sad that there is more than just one person (me) wasting the majority of their life playing a game on the internet. But looking at it through another frame, it's great in so many ways (so let's not think about the sad part).

Poker: Playing lots and running better than I deserve.

What else is there.......oh multivitamins, I think they are giving me more energy? or maybe I am just sleeping better?........tomorrow is my off day, going to rent a motor scooter, climb a mountain, take some pictures, read a book, and eat six Oreo.......then wait for it......walk back down the mountain.

Hope everyone is well,
Ted

Bonus: Guy talking about some interesting stuff for 50mins- http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/05/rory-sutherland-this-thing-for-which-we-have-no-name/  

 

Photos May '14

In Berlin for another week before I am off to Thailand for a few months.
Here are some pics from the trip so far......

Photo of some great family photos. On Grandpa's wall.

Got to Budapest Easter Sunday night. Took hours to find my place.

My transportation.

From The Citadel in Budapest

Sun setting as I am still 30km from Vienna and am trying to figure out how to cross the river.

Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Jet and a lot of peddling.

Some town between Budapest and Bratislava

Tons of graffiti in Berlin 

Coolest park I have seen. Old airfield turned into huge park.

It's everywhere and some of it is really cool.

My home for the past week and next week.

Take care,
Ted

Eurotrip Notes: May 14'

Hey,
So far been to London -> flew to Budapest -> bought a bicycle -> rode to Vienna -> Train to Berlin
Will upload some photos tomorrow.
Staying in Berlin awhile, so I can get some playing in.
Been having a blast.
Reading a lot (The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Without Their Permission, The 4-Hour Work Week, Flash Boys, now on My Share of the Task)
Been staying in Hostels and using AirBnb for longer stays. Both are fun, easy and good ways to meet people.
Some thoughts:
- I love how the traffic lights turn from red back to yellow before going to green. Why don't we do this?
- Yoga = good
- Doner Kebabs = really good
- You have a super powerful computer that can do anything. Turn it on. What does it do?.....nothing.....it needs priorities. Conclusion: emotion/values/morals are the the drivers of rationality and logic, not the other way around.
- Stop thinking and planning, start doing.
A few cool sites:
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIODdHYl95d1dWNE0/edit
Congrats Ryan (younger brother) on graduating.....now get to work

Take care
Ted

March '14 Update, Bitcoin and First Quarter Results

Hello.
Taking the day off so I thought I would write an update.
Some music:

I bought a few (4@around $460) Bitcoins today. In short my thinking is this:
- Both the ideas of paper money and of the internet were laughed at when they were first conceived, so all the criticisms look less damning when keeping that in mind.
- Credit cards were not invented to be used on the internet. About half of all credit card processing fees go towards fighting fraud. Amazon had a revenue of around 25 billion in the first quarter; get rid of a 2% fee and because their margins are razor thin, they double their profits (and consumer prices drop!).
- Remittance payments (a huge business) usually costs somewhere between 5-10%, where BTC would run around 1%
- Diversification
...I just realized I could go on and on, but there are some concerns as well. Overall I like the investment, but I'm really unsure.

Poker went "ok" this first 1/4 of the year. My game went stale the last few weeks, which I am disappointed for letting happen....again. Compared to last year it was really good, but compared to where I would like it to be it is still pretty disappointing.

Other than that life is good. I am surrounded by good people, do something that I somewhat enjoy, learning new shit, all in a beautiful place. Speaking of places....I only have one more week here in Playa. Headed home for a week!, then off to Europe (IDK where specifically. Flying into London then.....) for a while.

Thanks for reading

Take care,

Ted

A good time for a reread....

....The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail- but Some Don’t by Nate Silver

I just picked up this book again because I wanted something to read over lunch…read the introduction and now am going to continue, reading it for a second time. If you haven’t read it I suggest you at least read the introduction- it alone is well worth the price.

A couple cool things:

1-    An explanation for increased partisanship is simply that there is more information readily available (information doesn’t equal knowledge) and people tend to gather information that supports their biases. Take two partisan groups and the more informed they are, the more they will disagree. Examples include the printing press leading to countless wars and the right and left on the issue of climate change.

2-    Good timing. I am going home in a bit to do some research and predict if an idea I have will work. I am looking forward to try to use some of the stuff I learn from this book to see if I can’t make a good one. 

http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Art-Science-Prediction-ebook/dp/B007V65R54/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391552452&sr=1-1&keywords=the+signal+and+the+noise

Being Really Good at Something Non Physical

I have getting crushed the last few days. When this happens I always think, “am I really any good at this”. That got me thinking what makes someone really good at something (non physical). Here is what I have come up with.

1)   Good self analysis

-If you don’t ever stop to think about what you are doing it is going to be nearly impossible to put yourself on the right path towards being really good.

-Bad habits are easily formed and hard to undue.

-Being honest with yourself is usually pretty hard but seems like it would be very important for good self analysis

2)   Knowledge

-Having a lot of it and having it be correct. This knowledge should include fundamentals of your field and the psychology of others in your field.

-This knowledge should be learned to the level of unconscious competence. This allows you to act automatically and frees up your brain to think about new things or multiple pieces of the puzzle. You learn things to this automatic level through experience and repetition.

-You should also have the knowledge to separate the signal from the noise- meaningful events from randomness, variance.

3)    Attention to detail

-When you think about an expert or master you might think of him as having a great sense of the grand scheme or big picture. To be great at something though you need to have a good idea of the macro and the micro, being able to dig deeper into the smaller details that others gloss over.

4)   Combining theory and practice

-Having the awareness that we do not live in a perfectly predictable or completely rational world.

5)   Continual learning

     -Without it you won’t get to the top of the hill (if you get there you won’t stay long).

Jan '14

What's up?
Here in Playa del Carmen, Mexico for the last few weeks. Life is good and I have been having a lot fun playing tennis, basketball, lifting, meeting a few new people, reading, learning, and playing some poker.
The last few days I have been consumed with the idea of opening up a food truck back in Harrisonburg. One minute I think that it is the completely obvious thing to do and the next I think I am completely insane (currently I think I am completely insane)
Go-For-It:
- Got enough money to start it up (barely)
- I think it would be crazy fun to start it up and a lot of fun to run it (at least in the beginning)
- Less time in front of a computer screen and more time interacting with people
- Spend exponentially more time with my family
- Could be profitable
- If it goes bust-o, not the end of the world
- No doubt would learn a shit ton
- I will get to figure out if it is/was a good idea or not
You Crazy:
- I sort of like what I am doing now (poker + travel + lots of free time to do what I want)
- Everybody and their brother wants to start a restaurant, very few succeed
- Pretty risky financially (lots of upside and a shitty downside, with not much middle ground)
- I would have no fucking idea what I was doing (although I think I am pretty good at learning on the fly)

(now I think it is pretty obvious I should just go for it)...what do you think?

Poker this month was ok. I didn't put in too much volume, I played like a monkey for a week in the middle of the month, I am still learning a bunch, and I won some good imaginary/theoretical money (but no actual money).

A cool blog/website: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

An awesome program for your computer: http://justgetflux.com/

and two pictures: 

Rooftop view from my place here in Playa

Spent a great week with Grandpa in Detroit. Him and his sister.

Take care,

Ted

December, Year-in-Review, and 2014 Resolutions

December Summary:
I was all over the place and it went by so fast (Bangkok, Hong Kong, Vegas, home, Pennsylvania, and now Detroit).
Bangkok- Protests, sweet hostel, good books
Hong Kong- Really cool place, lots of wandering around, good books
Vegas- Hung out and relaxed, had fun, some interesting live poker
Home, PA, and Detroit- Would not trade my family for any other
No online poker all month and I did not put a lot of work in off the tables either (I am refreshed though).

Year-in-Review (2013):
Poker- The biggest take away from my first year doing this full time is that I think I now see many things more as they really are.
- My "in-game", play, poker theory, or whatever you want to call it is worse (both absolutely and relative to the field) than I believed.
- Just how this whole poker thing works. Both on a macro/poker economy level and the game's e(a?)ffect on me.
I was about to say that my approach and has fundamentally changed, but that really isn't true (insert next post).
Life- I learned that people are so much more important than places. The two are not even on the same level. One is infinitely more important that the other.
I still have not personally met anyone who I can say I think is at there core bad or evil (and trust me I'm looking)....maybe next year.

Resolutions:
I think my resolutions last year were
1-Brush teeth twice a day
2- Stop taking myself so seriously
3- Have fun

A few comments and only a few slight changes for 2014:
1- I did pretty good if say so myself. Lets keep it going.

#1- Brush twice a day + floss a few times a week + go to dentist at least once

2- I am keeping this one like it is (And may I recommend this one to you too).

#2- Stop taking myself so seriously

3- This one is too vague. I like the Jimmy V idea that a day is complete when you laugh, think and cry....so

#3- Laugh, Think, and Cry a lot (in the same day) 

Some Holiday Shots (cool new camera!):

Uncle P in action on Xmas morning

Nice Hat 

Food Truck w Grandpa and Sister

MOM smiles !!!

"It was a scratch"...sure

Nice looking tree

Eyes closed....so much practice

You're fun to watch

"Look at me, look at me"  

I just take pictures of myself when I am bored

Grandpa preaching again

Happy New Year

Ted