A Seven Day Itinerary and Budget for Big Bend National Park, Alpine, and Marfa, Texas

Recently, my wife and I were interviewed on the Amateur Traveler podcast about our experiences in the Big Bend National Park, Alpine, and Marfa, Texas. If you want to hear us recount our adventures with Chris Christensen, check it out!

If you like dark skies, wide open places, and uncrowded parks, then Big Bend National Park should be high on your list of U.S. national parks to visit.

Big Bend National Park is the 20th least visited national park in the United States, with around 450,000 visitors per year (though COVID-19 may skew the numbers higher for 2020 … Read the article

Distract Yourself From Overtrading With a Small, Shiny Object

Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it’s very hard to turn it, even slightly.
–Dan Rather

If you watch financial news at all, then you probably have seen all of the digital ink that has been spilled over the wild swings in Gamestop stock since the beginning of 2021. Let’s be clear, some people who got in early and made the right moves, made TONS of money.

Good for them.

While we’ve taken moonshots in our investments, particularly trying to catch a rebound in the stock market after … Read the article

How Much Do Moonshots Affect Your Chances of Retiring Early?

Opportunities pop up for everybody all of the time. It’s the way that we progress. It’s whether or not you’re in the right frame of mind or in the right stage of your life or if you’re even looking for them [that determines] whether or not you see them.
–Ben Brown

If you’ve been watching the news lately, it’s been hard to miss the stories of the run up in the price of GameStop’s stock, driven primarily by a Reddit user group called WallStreetBets. Some of the users, particularly one who … Read the article

If You Received Your COVID-19 Vaccine, Expect Issues With V-Safe

Two days ago, I received my Moderna COVID-19 first of two vaccine injections.

Fortunately, there were few side effects.

In the documentation I received upon getting my injection, there was a sheet on the V-Safe After Vaccination Health Checker. Being the tech-oriented person I am, I duly registered on the site.

My experience with this tool has been awful – mostly in line with … Read the article

I Got the COVID-19 Vaccine for Free, So I Am Donating the Cost to Buy Vaccines for Lower Income Countries

My wife and I have been very keenly interested in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives. We’ve been following the science, because, after all, we’re much more inclined to believe what scientists such as Dr. Anthony Fauci have to say versus, say, politically motivated spokespeople.

After all, if Dr. Fauci is cited 221,323 times (as of my count on 1/19/2021), then people who are much better trained to understand science than I or a large number of politicians believe him, so should I.

Thus, as soon as … Read the article