Howdy, !

You might be getting this on a Monday, but over here in San Antonio, Texas, it's still Sunday! It's been an interesting few days over here. But I wanna know what have you been up to? Let me know!

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Week in the life

This is my first time in Texas and I really didn't know what to expect. I've moved to not really looking up what a place has to offer (apart from the basic maps, directions, safety info) so that I can kinda wander and get a feel for the place before looking up the Insta-famous locations. Otherwise, I find it becomes a check mark travel situation where the popular places keep getting a lot of traffic and hidden gems get missed.

Coming from Australia, Texas is synonymous with cowboys, BBQ and...guns. I was expecting to see everyone wearing cowboy hats and sporting a gun while munching on brisket. Not what it's like at all, here in San Antonio. I believe it's legal to carry firearms out in the open here but apart from police, I didn't see a single person with one that was remotely obvious.

While there were a few people in cowboy hats, it wasn't the norm. There were a decent number of BBQ places around but less than I expected.

More on Texas over on the blog...

Creative update

How much you can earn truly passively on Medium

If you've paid attention to any of your spam or ads on the internet, you'll know it's full of these "get rich quick on the internet" schemes. One of the many things they claim to be able to help you with is passive income, ie earning money without lifting a finger. After all, this is why so many people want to be Youtube/Tiktok stars. Given my aversion/discomfort in being in front of the camera, I decided to see how writing does and hence the previous random articles on Medium.

This is a follow up on what happens if you do the opposite of building momentum. Get a little bit, do nothing and see how much you earn.

Gadgets/Tech

NuraTrue Pro

If you didn't know I have too many earphones, here's one I backed on Kickstarter that just arrived before I let so I brought it to Texas with me. Basically it's taken the larger Nuraphone (which has some of the best acoustics/bass ever) and managed to cram as much of that into earphones as possible with excellent noise cancelling. I've been impressed with other headphones in the past but I can't WAIT to see how they do tomorrow on the flight. I had these on with a TV playing an action movie 50cm away and could hear none of it when I had low loudness music playing. Amazing!

Other gadgets/tech

• Airalo eSims - Most phones have eSims now and this is my favourite company so far. Literally takes 3 mins to get data on your phone working almost anywhere in the world without having to take your old sim card out!
• Levitating Light Bulb Lamp - This is my bed side lamp! I gotta say I have a thing for levitating things and it's just awesome to see this thing spin in mid air and light up - there was feedback about showing the products. I'll write up a post soon about these! Not enough space for photos for everything!

Read

Die with Zero

A few people have recommended this one to me recently so I have just gotten started on it. Not far enough in to give you the low down, but the little fable at the start is interesting. It talks about an ant storing food during spring so it can survive the winter whereas the grasshopper goes about the day carefree and enjoying the days, but dies in winter. The ant survives, but the author then asks, when does the ant get to have some fun?

Currently reading also reading...

• The Myth of Normal - Intermittently going through some chapters of this in the mean time. Very much focused on early trauma as a source of many personality quirks. Interesting, but not yet very actionable.

Watch

Dr Glaucomflecken gives a commencement speech

If you haven't seen the funny little videos from this guy, they are hilarious! I was super surprised to see that he was asked to do the Yale commencement speech recently. It's a short one but one that gives a glimpse into just how many hurdles he's had to face and just how far people in medicine push and therefore, become prone to burning out. Well worth the ~15min or so to watch

Quote I'm pondering

"If you play a flute to a buffalo, it just looks at you"

— Indian saying

This one came up during the seminars here in Texas with regard to how hospital administration and clinical staff can speak about similar things but in essentially a foreign language. It's akin to someone playing beautiful music for a species that wont necessarily appreciate it.

It had me thinking on so many elements of life where even trivial little things are assumed to be common knowledge or priorities by everyone that simple aren't true and cause a lot of angst.

A simple example was during our renovations, one of the open book shelves had a metal support in the middle and a bar a the bottom. The wife didn't like it and asked the builder to make one without for the new one. When the builder did that, it bowed and was unsafe so we're having to fix that up in other ways. When I mentioned how hard it would be to build one without that structural support, my wife turned around and said she had no idea that's what the bar was for. She assumed it was simply decorative!

In this case, it would've made very little difference one way or the other but I learnt that my very basic understanding of engineering (I don't have ANY experience!) is not exactly obvious to others. And she can give examples about how I can't visualise colour palettes that would/wouldn't work.

So next time the frustration level is rising in a conversation, maybe check to see that you're not playing the flute...

See you next week!

- Raffy

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