T.G.I.F. Friday: Volume 66
Welcome to “Thank God I’m FI” Friday, Volume #66!
Here are some things I really like and that you might too.
Financial Independence/Retirement Articles
The Pebble And The Pond (The Retirement Manifesto) – “There are few things in life as rewarding as knowing the work you do makes a positive impact in the lives of others.“
Early Retirement Withdrawal Strategies When It All Goes To Hell (1500 Days To Freedom) – “How would we be withdrawing money if we had no income?“
Video
It’s been a while since I’ve posted nature porn, so here we go. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Iceland three times and can vouch for the immense beauty of the landscapes. Put this one on a big screen and enjoy, it’s magnificent.
Who’s Inspired Me
Martijn Doolaard.
Modern portable camera technology, especially GoPros and drones, have allowed adventurers and anyone to really create amazing films and videos and distribute them free to the world. Enter Martijn Doolard. Doolard spent two years bike touring around the world and just finished releasing the fourth and final video of his amazing journey. In short, it’s phenomenal. It’s not just the adventures and incredible landscapes he cycled through, the guy has a high pain tolerance and you get to see the world through his journey. But it’s his filming and the way he pieces the adventure together. He narrates the 4-part series, called “Two Years On A Bike”, with a calm and meditative tone that pulls you in and hooks you. There are TONS of great films on Youtube and Vimeo like this, and it’s a golden age for adventure filmmaking. I spend a decent amount of time watching this stuff and I have to say Doolaard’s videos might be the best I’ve seen. These videos are very inspirational and make me want to ride around the world.
Here’s part 1 of the series, and Youtube should queue up the other three for you.
What I’m Grateful For
That financial independence has given me the time to continually improve my DIY skills. A recent project involving woodwork repair turned out far better than I could have imagined, thanks to patience and online tutorials.
Lyrically Speaking
You could spend your whole life working for something
Just to have it taken away
People walk around pushing back their debts
Wearing paychecks like necklaces and bracelets
Talking about nothing, not thinking ’bout death
Every little heartbeat, every little breath
From “Ain’t No Reason” by Brett Dennen
Brett Dennen’s career got launched when his song “Blessed” was used in a Hilton Hotel commercial in 2006. His unique falsetto had many thinking it was a woman singing, and this uniqueness has no doubt played to his favor in a music landscape full of autotune and seemingly identical formulaic nonsense. Now seven albums into his career, much of Dennen’s work positions him as the idealist folkie with songs about injustice and salvation through love. Where others fail in this overdone style, Dennen often succeeds solely due to his vulnerable delivery and straightforward style. I caught one of his shows back in 2010 and was impressed with his vocals.
As for the lyrics in his song “Ain’t No Reason”, there’s a lot in those lines. There’s some FIRE wisdom, some stoicism, and some pushback on the keep up with the Joneses types. My kind of song.
Miscellaneous
Amazon, Starbucks and the sparking of a new American union movement – “April 1, 2022, may go down as a pivotal day in the history of American unions.“
Record broken: Hubble spots farthest star ever seen – “NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang — the farthest individual star ever seen to date.“
Ketogenic Diet (Keto Diet) for Epilepsy – “The ketogenic diet is a way of treating patients with poorly controlled epilepsy.“
Iceland is amazing! Did you go climbing there? I saw Gulfoss but did not get as close as the man in the video. Check out some icelandic bands – Sigur Ros, Gus Gus, Bjork.
I did not climb in Iceland since all of my trips there were added on to Europe trips. Iceland Air used to have a policy that you could just not get on your connector flight and stay as long as you wanted in country and then take the next connector flight that you already paid for. So me and my buddies took advantage of that. And I’ve been a Sigur Ros fan for a long time 🙂
Thanks for the shout-out, Dave. Much appreciated! Now, excuse me as I head off to watch the bike adventure video…
Dude, you’re gonna love those vids, they’re really great
Wow! Iceland is even more stunning that I thought.
It’s uniquely beautiful, sometimes it feels like you’re on the moon
Martijn Doolard has us hooked with his current stone cottage restoration and beautiful mountain videos. I agree his videos are very well done. From watching his bike videos, I added visiting Peru to my bucket list!
Also forgot to add, nice Iceland video. Another YouTuber, Tucker Gott, a paramotor pilot, has some nice adventure videos of his trip to Iceland and it looks amazing.
I’ll check his channel out – thanks!
Yes, I watched a few of those videos too! How the guy has time to do all that restoration work, bike riding, filming, and post-editing for Youtube is beyond me. I don’t think he sleeps much. As for Peru, it’s amazing! I hiked the Inca Trail and spent time in Lima and Cuzco. The people are wonderful!
good features this week, man. withdrawing money in a down market ain’t easy but we’re doing it in our house. it’s good to have a strategy thought our ahead of time.
that union piece was interesting too. it’s crazy how in some states labor will vote against their own interests. we have a plant in ohio where the workers make about 20% less than us with just about zero rights. they’ll keep folks on “temporary assignment” for years on end. the workers must watch too much fox news and just go to work and take it.
Yeah I find the labor thing fascinating to watch play out. I follow the outdoor industry and a few REI stores have also recently voted to unionize. That one came as kind of a shock because REI is a co-op and generally regarded as a good faith employer. But business is business, and apparently some folks still aren’t happy.