One of the main reasons why nobody in real life knows I have money is because I am well-aware of how people can start to look at you like an ATM machine if I am not careful.  Often times, the people around me don't mean to do that on purpose.  It's just that everybody gets into a financial pinch once in a while, so out of desperation, they start to ask everyone they know for money, especially with those who seem to have some.

That and I don't actually think I'm rich anyway.  To them, they might think so, even though I really am not, but I digress.

Yesterday, the most unexpected of all people asked me for money: A female acquaintance or friend of mine's boyfriend asked me for money.  He must be really desperate to turn to me, because normally, he is a self-reliant man who is proud of being able to take care of everything on his own.  Not only that, but because of my uh friendship with his girlfriend, he kind of sort of doesn't entirely trust me around her.  Over the years, I've hopefully shown him that he has nothing to worry about, because I'm honestly not interested in her.  We just happen to share a little bit of a past and get along well enough, but he keeps me at an arm's length just the same, which I can understand and don't mind anyway.

Which again is why this request was so uncharacteristic of him.  Naturally, I had to ask why he wanted money, but he was very evasive with his reponse.  From what I could piece together, some inventory has gone missing at his work, and his bosses suspect him of being the thief, so they fired him.  So now, he's stressing out from being out of a job.

While I don't actually suspect him of being the thief, I also don't know why he can't just come out and say, "Yeah this is exactly what happened, but I swear I'm innocent.  I did not steal anything."  The very elusive way he tried to word things really made me feel uncomfortable.

Besides, regardless of whether he is innocent or not, it's not like I can pay his bills every month until he finds another job.   Even if I had said yes this one time, and established some kind of money transfer method, I think it'll be that much harder to say no to him in the future.  So, I thought it would be best that I just say no from the get-go.

I felt genuinely terrible telling him no though, but he said that it was really OK, and apologized for asking in the first place.  I just hope he finds another job soon.

As quick recap, I actually moved earlier this year.  However, due to all that moving hub bub, a lot of things were put on the back burner until things finally settle down.  One of those back burner things was me switching to a new phone provider.

My old one (T-Mobile) was rather expensive.  However, it was the most reliable provider for where I was living and working at the time.  Once retired, I was finally ready to switch providers, but other things kept popping up, delaying this transition for far too long.

At the risk of me breaking my own OpSec rule, I basically halfed my phone bill by switching to Mint Mobile.  Mint also uses the T-Mobile network, so I knew there shouldn't be any issues for me to switch to it.  For some reason, Mint is not as fast as T-Mobile itself, but for the price, I am perfectly fine with that.

Remember that friend of mine who wants to go camping?  The thing about him is he would tell me all kinds of things he would really like to do, but we usually don't end up doing anything about it.  In fact, I even drove 500 miles this one time, just to meet up with him and go camping, and we still ended up not doing it.

After all these years, I basically know that when he tells me something the first time, it's usually just him sharing his ideas for adventure.  However, if he tells me again the second time, then I'll know he's actually serious about it.  In fact, were he to call me up and tell me yet again, for the third time, especially when he is telling me he's locking in specific dates, that's when I know that we're actually going through with it.  Maybe.  But that's what happened last night.  He called me up, and now, Operation Don't Get Eaten By a Bear is apparently on!

Luckily for me, I still have a few weeks to find all the camping gear from the last time we said we were going but never did.  So, at least the cost of equipment for this little "jaunt" should be minimal.  This would still mark the first time I would be camping though, and we would be doing it basically in the beginning of summer.  So I am feeling a bit of anxiety about how to approach this.  For example, I wonder how bad are mosquitoes this time of the year?

Location is not nailed down yet.  We am looking through anything from the Appalachian mountains, all the way to the literal beach, and everything else in between.  Oh, and now is probably a good time to dust off some of my gear from my car camping days.  I know we'll literally be roughing it when we get there, but that doesn't mean the car camping stuff won't be useful while traveling back and forth.

I'll admit that I am a bit more apprehensive this time around, because well, my health is now a bit worse off than when we made the previous attempt.  However, it should be OK, and worst case, we agreed we can always retreat back to some hotel somewhere (or me sleeping in my car at least).

I mentioned earlier about a giant dead tree in my backyard that needed to come down.  Well, the day finally came, and for an entire morning, my backyard look like a construction zone:

The tree removal crew was very effective.  In fact, they were a little TOO effective.  There was a flower patch and a couple of bushes I wanted to keep, but they already cut it down before I could come out and tell them that.  In fact, they even accidentally chopped down a neighbor's tree along with it!  Oops!  I hope the neighbor isn't terribly mad at me about it.

Oh, and here is a picture of the dead tree, before it came down, where I thought it looked nice from this certain angle:

When my fridge piles up with too much leftovers, especially perishable items, I would cook them in what I call leftover nights.  Uh, cooking is most definitely not my area of expertise.  In fact, the reason why I am blogging about it tonight is, by some miracle, it actually came out pretty good!  That doesn't always happen....

So what's on menu tonight?  Well, imagine leftover onions and tomatoes, sausages, leftover pasta sauces in jars, and ramen noodles.  Yeah, I know.  It sounds like something even the venerable Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame would dare not touch.

But it turned out better than expected!  I mean, it's still somewhat too salty, as I made the mistake of adding in ramen packets that I just didn't want to waste, but really should have left out... but I'm just happy I didn't burn the food this time.

(Edit: Spoke too soon!  Some of the ramen got stuck to the bottom of the pan.  At least it's not as bad as the last time.)

We tired of winning yet?  This latest Trump-manufactured Epstein Files distraction-of-the-month has taken me down a bit of a rabbit hole about America's oil supply chain.  For example, I learned just how speculative the gas market is, because according to the internet:

* While 20% of the world's oil supply comes out from the Strait of Hormuz, only roughly 7% is actually destined for the US.

* It takes at least a month or more for a typical oil tanker, traveling at the speed of a bicycle, to reach the US shores from the Strait of Hormuz.  In other words, even when the strait was first closed, it would still take a month for the last of the tankers that was let through to reach US shores.

* It takes roughly two to four weeks for the crude oil to be refined into gasoline, perhaps be tested, and then be distributed to gas stations all over the US.

* The US consumes roughly 8.8 million barrels of gasoline per day, up to 9.3 million barrels on busy summer seasons.  However, the US currently produces roughly 9.4 million barrels of oil per day.  So, there should be a surplus, even without the strait of Hormuz being in the equation.

* The US also currently has roughly 414,000 barrels of crude oil in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  That's not a whole lot compared to daily consumption rates, but given current production levels, I guess we don't need a whole lot?

* On March 11 2026, Trump has approved a plan to add an additional 1.4 million barrels per day over the next 4 months to try to keep the gas prices low.   So far, it hasn't been working, if only because the fundamental problem of the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

* Gas prices tend to hit the blue states the hardest, such as California and the west coast, to New England, and least along the midwest, except for Florida.  Because Florida I guess.  Is there a conspiracy here?  Probably not, I think, but it sure seems convenient for the GOP somehow.  Here's a clear chart to look at: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-gas-prices-by-state-march-2026/

Conclusion: Even by this point of writing, IF the gas market was a rational one, then the price of gas should have remained unchanged.  However, it is not, as once refined, it gets horse-traded by the various hubs and distributers until it reaches its final destination at your local gas station, and they are all reacting bearishly.

Ever had a friend who is always longing for adventures, and for some reason, they always want you to come along?  Or perhaps you are that wonderous, adventurous friend?  If so, I just hope you will understand that, well, some of us have budgets we have to adhere to.  Yeah, it really is a shame we never managed to be born as trust fund babies or win the powerball lottery.

Jokes aside, a friend of mine called me up again, asking if I wanted to go camping... again.  He's been talking about this to me for literally years.  Years.  If he has his way, we would ride our motorcycles all over the country, stopping only to camp out under the stars during the night.  I don't scoff at his dreams.  In fact, I think it's beautiful.  It's just... I don't even have a motorcycle!  Or have ever even ridden one for that matter!  I would need to look into learning to ride, getting a permit and everything, not to mention actual purchase of said motorcycle....

Oh, and while camping sounds lovely and all, but many years ago, when I thought he was serious about doing it, I actually drove 500 miles (800 km) to him, only for us to end up not going anywhere and I just crashed at his house instead.

I mean, I don't fault him or anything.  I know he wants to do it, but he has a job, a family with kids, and a rather reluctant wife who is afraid he might get into a motorcycle accident, or get eaten by bears or something.  Still, for those with wanderlust, they don't seem to stop the wonder about the wander.

Well, now that he's retiring soon, his kids are grown, and even his wife is contemplating a motorcycle permit, for some reason... he has asked me yet again to go camping this year.  Uh, OK I guess?

Fortunately for me, I never did throw away the camping gear that I never used from the last time he asked me.  So, if this camping adventure actually goes through this time, at least I won't have to buy anything new.  I can just dust off whatever I have sitting in the closet.

I don't typically do monthly net worth updates, but this month is slightly different so I figure I might as well make an entry about it.

Back when Trump kidnapped Maduro, the president of Venezuela, I thought this might cause a shockwave of economic blowbacks that would result in drops in the stock market, and therefore, my portfolio value.  Fortunately for us all, this magically did not come to pass.  However, I would not have known that at the time, and among other reasons (such as a potential AI bubble, to Trump going after Jerome Powell, and my own declining risk appetite, etc.), I decided to rebalance my portfolio to be 100% defensive.  Well, it's about as defensive as I can make it without actually shorting the stock market, or getting out of it altogether.

What I could not have possibly predicted is that Trump would then go and kill the Ayatollah of Iran, and ignite this "very complete" and "totally not-a-war" war with Iran that, surprise surprise, DID cause some blowback.  So, I guess my decision to rebalance defensively still lucked out somehow.  (You see, as I type at this very point, I don't know exactly how my portfolio has fared, so we are all about to find out, including myself haha.)

So here's something fun.  In commeration of the former AG, Ms. Pam "Dow is $50,000!" Bondi, I'm going to use the Dow Jones as the baseline.  The DJIA drop for the month of March is -5.38%.

Contrast that with my portfolio drop for the same month, which is... -3.6%.  Yes, I definitely still took a loss-- I think it's hard not to for anyone this month-- but at the same time, it still beat the market by say 1.7%, which is not too shabby.

Sadly, that percentage loss still translates to literal tens of thousands of dollars, but at least it's just a paper loss right now.  Trying to look at it on the bright side, none of it has negatively impacted my daily life, well, except I am paying more at the gas pump, but that's not a surprise either.  March wasn't a pretty month, but life goes on....