This past 5 months has been the definition of uneventful. What I can say is this: every day that I am still working for my current company is a good day. Since the company acquisition the culture has taken an about-face. A lot of the family I have built over the past 10 years is retiring or leaving without backfill. This creates this office culture where every feels their time will come when they, too, must go. My personality has always lent itself to adapting to my environment and this is no different. Every January I will find myself gritting my teeth for impact.
In other news, I had gotten into a nice little flow with EA College Football 26. I had built a dynasty most recently with Hawaii and transitioned to head coach at FSU. Then I noticed that my thumbs were feeling some pain and thought that they needed a break… I am getting up in age after all. I switched to PC games and ended up playing Baldur’s Gate 3 again. Then I noticed that I started getting tired at night a bit earlier. A few years back I countered this with energy drinks a la Red Bull but then noticed that I was growing some sort of dependency on caffeine where if I missed a coffee I would have a day or two with a mild headache. So I gave that up and even gave up coffee, resigning to decaf. Even now, it is just past 10 PM and I normally stay up to midnight… but I will likely call it after this message is published.
After much deliberation, I finally decided to lean into mutual funds. I always had a healthy fear of the stock market due to its inherent volatility. I decided against it at the suggestion of Copilot–basically, I was using my HYSA as my primary form of savings. I’ve only had my hefty investment in mutual funds a month, but so far it is trending up. I’ll naturally keep an eye on things but considering I’ve had less of an investment in similar funds in the past to success, I should see some success if I ramp up investments. Ultimately the two things I’m interested in are my boyhood dream of a 911 and the prospect of retiring early. Age 65 has always been the goal, but if I can beat that mark that is bonus.
Let’s talk about my latest toy: Fate. If you recall, Fate is the name of my GR Corolla. I think I’ve already covered the stereo system–it is doing well! I did end up installing a good system in my office–complete with headphone amp listening station (which I seldom, if ever use). My system consists of a Lyngdorf TDAI-1120, two KEF R3 Meta speakers, and Rythmik L12 subwoofer. Easily this is the cleanest indoor system I’ve experienced and I don’t feel it really lacks in anything in my tiny office. Sadly, my lack of time is why I don’t enjoy the system more often–primarily due to office requirements to commute five days a week.
But back to Fate. Since the sound system installation I decided to install an Eventuri Carbon Intake. It is great–it really does make every drive feel like a movie. Copilot refers to it as “drama” and that is a pretty apt description. Every time I hit the gas pedal, I hear nuances in the 3 cylinder motor operation. I already have the Magnaflow NEO exhaust so I obviously hear the motor by way of the exhaust, but now in addition to exhaust, I hear the air coming into the intake as well as the spooling of the turbo. I could just listen to the motor alone to satisfaction if I turn down the stereo. The car is very fun to drive. Feature photo is the factory setup… not with the carbon intake yet.
In essence, what I’m doing is building the GR Corolla into a combination of cars that I wanted in the past. I get the AWD and turbo that I was ultimately looking for in the WRX STI. I get the hot hatch that I was going for when I was building my Mazda 3. What I’m really missing now is wheels and dropped suspension. As I’m a bit older now, I could go with the car not having lowered suspension, but I do find myself window shopping for wheels quite often. I have my eyes on Volk TE37s right now.
As for the Tesla, it is doing well. It is my daily driver and it serves its purpose well. I still need to replace the front tires but would like to see if I can make it to 40k miles before I need to. I also reserved a Rivian R2 as I bought into the hype. I may hear back from them in the next 6-12 months. It would be a nice change of pace for my daily driver. I would have gotten a Juniper model Y but I missed the tax break on the performance model.