T.G.I.F. Friday: Volume 49

Welcome to “Thank God I’m FI” Friday, Volume #49!

Here are some things I really like and that you might too. 

Finance Articles

Using Strengths And Positions Of Strength (Life Outside The Maze) – “You may be the most empathetic person in the world but that may not be the tool to use when someone is trying to manipulate you”

The Best Thing I’ve Ever Bought Is An Ebike (Financial Panther) – “The first step to replacing a car is actually replacing the car.”

Video

Get a first person view of what it’s like to be a Navy Seal parachuting into a packed football stadium.  Put it on the big screen….  holy shit, amazing. 

Who’s Inspired Me

Lael Wilcox.

Lael Wilcox is a professional cyclist, but don’t think she’s like Amber Neben who I highlighted in the last TGIF Friday and who competes in the Olympics and traditional races.  She’s a professional ultra cyclist.  She rides her bike self supported – camping gear and all – insane distances and makes videos and social media posts while doing it.  And she makes a living at it, these are incredible times for amazing people. 

There are plenty of ultra cycling races, and Lael usually wins the women’s competition and sometimes even beats the men.  She’s a complete bad ass.  In the cycling community she’s a celebrity but every time I hear her on a podcast or see her in videos she’s as humble as they come.  And always with a big smile and a bucketful of stoke for riding bikes.

The first 3 minutes of this video tells her story well, and the rest is great too.  She did a project to ride all the roads of Alaska.  All. The. Roads…..  insane.  She’s also one of the biggest influences in getting more girls on bikes, and that’s good for everyone.

What I’m Grateful For

The person who recently bought over a thousand dollars of merchandise with my designs from one of my online shops, netting me a sizable royalty.  Sometimes I still have to pinch myself when I think that people like my creations enough to spend that kind of money on them.

Lyrically Speaking

Well lets pretend this fellas hungry got a dozen mouths to feed
He asked for money for a bus pass and my, heart bleeds
I throw him a dollar that’s exactly what he needs
To get another jug of Thunderbird or Night Train but he ask me for a
Last cigarette

From “Last Cigarette” by Dramarama

Dramarama were one of those bands that formed the basis of what became known as alternative rock.  In the late 1980’s when hair metal dominated the radio waves and record sales, Dramarama released records with straight up rootsy-sounding rockers like “Last Cigarette” that beat Nirvana and Pearl Jam to the punch of burying the Poisons and Warrants of the world.  Unless you were alive and a rock fan in 1989 it’s impossible to convey how much different this song sounded than what was on the radio at the time.  It took balls to go against the dominant sound, and that’s probably why they never achieved mass success. 

I saw Dramarama live at a festival but don’t remember much of it.  I was a massive fan because songs like “Last Cigarette” and “Work For Food” off a later album were about bums and street people, and it just worked for me as a drunk street-fighting kid in Baltimore.  They also reminded me that I should sometimes throw folks a dollar.

Miscellaneous

Walt Whitman, Shortly After His Paralytic Stroke, on What Makes Life Worth Living – “Tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.”

There is no dark matter. Instead, information has mass, physicist says – “Is information the fifth form of matter?”

Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe Illness Among 540,667 Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19, March 2020–March 2021 – “Relative risk of death in the full model was 30% higher with obesity, 28% higher with anxiety and fear-related disorders, 26% higher with diabetes”