After another massive hiatus, I’m returning here to give an update. I haven’t posted since January apparently, so I’ll give a recap of some of the big things from this year.
I went to two weddings, one in Tokyo where I stayed for an additional ten days touring the country, and one outside of San Francisco. I also traveled around Mexico a bit.
I took a job in Chicago in trading with some great guys that I used to work with a long time ago, and after spending a few weeks onboarding in Chicago, I’m working remotely. I moved back to the US and needed to find a place in a tax-free state (was something important for the company if I didn’t want to live in Chicago). My options were pretty much Wyoming, Alaska, New Hampshire, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, Washington, and South Dakota.
I was pretty set on the Seattle suburbs, and I seriously considered Florida and Texas, but surprisingly to me after spending hours thinking about what place has the best mix of outdoors, weather, lifestyle, and people I already know, Las Vegas made the most sense. I’ve spent some time in Utah and loved hiking on the weekends, while having a relaxed suburban lifestyle during the week, and the Vegas suburbs supply that year round as well. It’s also a short drive to top hiking in Southern Utah + Arizona, an airport that flies everywhere, and I know a few people from when I used to play poker more often.
Moving out of Mexico City after accumulating things over the course of several years with my girlfriend and cat was pretty exhausting. We had to sell everything over the course of a month, take Hunter on his first (international) flight (he panicked pretty much from the Uber ride to the airport and for the duration of the trip), and begin to work on the process of resettling here. I haven’t lived in the US properly for around seven years, so I haven’t had a car or even thought about things related to cars outside of Uber/renting for a trip in a long time. We finally got an Audi Q5 which I’ve been liking a lot, but it was a real process to get to that point. On top of all of this I’ve been working full-time starting early in the morning due to east coast trading hours, and I put a lot of energy into my work, so I’m not always ready to do car/house research after a long day.
With all of this though I’m really happy with moving back to the US. I really like the people I work with, the company, and the work I do itself. Coming back to the US I’m able to appreciate the things I took for granted before. Simple things like Whole Foods, 1-2 day Amazon, and my Spanish went from embarrassing to amazing as soon the expectations went to US standards and not someone living in Puerto Rico/Mexico. I’ve been told I seriously need to learn Swedish, Spanish (in several dialects), Thai, Balinese, basic Japanese, and probably a few other languages over the years to fit in, so it’s nice to be lazy and speak native English without any guilt.
Besides the logistics of working/moving, I’ve been living a quiet and good life. I’m putting a lot of focus on my work as I’ve built some things that have the chance to really pay off, so I want to give it my all and follow-through.
With my free time I’ve been hanging out with my cat and girlfriend enjoying several series on Hulu that I’ve been wanting to watch for years (I couldn’t get Hulu to work abroad even with VPNs), and we started playing and enjoying pickleball with friends last month. I also have been doing some amazing hikes in Utah and now Las Vegas on weekends which was the number one thing I was missing in Mexico City. I played poker a few times in Utah for the first time in years which I enjoyed, although it’s pretty hard for me to stay up until 12-2am and get up and have a productive/enjoyable day at work starting at 6 am the next day. Sometimes I need to re-learn those lessons.
As far as entertainment I loved the series “Devs” on Hulu. I’d been wanting to watch it for years, and it was even better than I was hoping. Weird, surprising, high level philosophy and science, combined with beautiful natural landscapes and set design.
I also really liked “Fargo” season 5 on Hulu too. I had high expectations and they were exceeded. I haven’t seen season 4, which was rated a lot lower than the other seasons, but 1-3 are great as well.
With that I’ll sign off, and wish you a great start to your fall! Hope (as usual throughout the years) to provide a bit more frequent updates. Leaving you with a pick from me hiking in Red Rocks which is 15 minutes from my house in Las Vegas, my cat Hunter keeping me company while I work, and the view from my friend Ian’s condo in Chicago where I’ve stayed when in town.
Andrew Manser 