Yeah it’s exactly the context of the stuff like this that I’m interested in:

The General laughs and points out that they'd fought two wars with the Chinese since then and the Chinese were their biggest trading partner.

One of the hard parts about this is you can’t very well ask a Vietnamese person “hey, what books should I read” because you’ll largely get a blank look back. Because, you know, it’s what they lived!

I’ll have to checkout the bookshops around the Wing Luke Museum and the rest of Little Saigon. Will send you some photos of titles if anything stands out!

I think all three? I’ve recently been reading a bit about Vo Nguyen Giáp, the Sino-Vietnamese war, and have had The Sympathizer and a few other books on my to-read list.

I think what I’m interested in is the cultural and political context of Vietnam during the 20th century, preferably not from just a Vietnamese War context. Been trying to wrap my head around how this people were in war and conflict for so much of that century both with themselves and with others.

This seems like a very complex, very way-too-large-of-a-scope way of coming at this, so apologies if this is not a useful reply. I’m working it out.

spent 90 minutes today with the partners family, listening to their first and second hand stories of how they escaped Vietnam starting about a month prior to the fall of Saigon leading to getting on a boat out of Saigon at 3am the morning of surrender, through escaping to the Philippines, Guam, and eventually, the United States.

Deeply, deeply sobering and humbling shit.

Anyone have any nonfiction book recommendations related to Vietnam?

Yeah I was noticing some of that re: December too. Was wondering if it could be bonus / vesting / etc. related timing around here.

ive been looking very casually at duplexes and triplexes recently and the odds and ends on market and definitely feel like im missing something. in the < $1.5 million range in seattle, on redfin, there’s:

- twenty four homes listed total

of which

- five homes listed less than 30 days

of the remaining nineteen

- eighteen have been listed for more than 90 days

- ten have been listed for more than 180 days

im assuming something is pretty fucked with the houses, zoning, or they’re just way, way overpriced for what they are (i have no idea what im doing)

lol ive been thinking about the pelosi tracker and autopilot thing! im in schwab, fidelity, and some cds with goldman (oops)…so that could be a nice way tie everything together

yeah somehow a friend bought a new build in madrona area where their first floor is zoned for mixed use? so shit i could go make snowboards over there, too? fun fact, they had to sue the builder for not laying the water bill before they closed on the place

queuing this up for the next commute to and from the office! thanks for sharing, never heard of that podcast.

working through 2024 recaps / end of year list but mostly digging that the living members of soundgarden reunited with shaina shephard for a set this past weekend

pretty cool!

In fact, one of the trees that fell sat there so long that the neighbor told the guys I bought the house from that he'd put a lien against it if they didn't do something about it prior to sale.

that's a fuck around and find out move, that is hilarious. not the tree falling part, but...

good to hear! wasn't sure how bad it got further north. eastside got in a pretty bad state, had some friends without power for a week, minus the one who ended up using his tesla to power certain things in his apartment.

holy crap hubski did not want me to reply to you, the comment box kept disappearing.

My least-flip comment is "but it's all policy-driven." 2008 was about the financialization of home ownership; 2022-on is about the financialization of rentier home ownership. Rent controls, first-time homebuyer incentives, urbanization programs, there's several ways to bend the arc, it's just that this incoming administration won't do any of them.

yeah, right? the troubling part is housing is really, really expensive right now as someone who has to front it with a partner and no family help, right? but then rent prices also keep increasing and creeping higher and higher which is like...well, if i bought a house...at least i'd be building equity?

so currently in the "fuck it imma just throw my savings into maxing out retirement funds and putting the rest into index funds" mode which...i guess isn't the worst option?

Think of all the DINKs you'd kill to donk if it meant owning real estate.

Think of all the DINKs you'd kill to donk if it meant owning real estate.

yeah...my partner just finished up a masters so...currently a SINK turning into a DINK???

YIMBY = y'all in my backward (get out)

prospect of buying a house seems hopeless. rates are high. prices are high. i make a plenty good salary, and have enough savings for a down payment and to still have a decent rainy day fun, but don’t have any family help on this one which is how most people my age are buying houses these days. either that or FAANG stock that they’ve sold after selling off years of their life.

math isn’t really mathing for me and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger bummer without a good solution ive been able to find outside of just…waiting for something to break in the market…?

this is unrelated to that massive windstorm we got?? all good with yall on that front, at least?

yikes…you think there will be future trips home, is that more of a “see other family” thing at this point?

what kind of local food are we talking?

really happy seeing this update and some good news from somehow who from my view from afar, deserves it.

Added a few of these to my gotta get to reading list!

Surprised to see you read Simon Sinek.

Have you ever read “Games: Agency as Art”? Because this reads as if it’s a paragraph straight out of that book.

Does the recently leaked conversation between RFK jr and Trump change your view at all?

climbing sznnnnnnn. i might have heard somebody get very injured the other day. definitely heard the impact of a body hitting the ground in a way it’s not supposed to…and saw a bunch of medics and SAR in the area on our hike out…

thinking about throwing together a post with some recent climbing photos, maybe even some photos from stuff from last year too.

“ The show was cool though. Perfect night for it, and there were exactly 201 drones operating the show. This number was chosen, apparently, because the previous NZ record for such a show was 200 drones. So uhh, suck it, those guys.”

that’s actually pretty funny. is this positive masculinity in action???

never been to a drone show!

awesome!! this the trip you messaged me about a couple months back?!

she helps run a TV show for the community

wait what. this retirement community has it's own tv programming??

been to victorville once, and only once, and got blackout drunk and lost my rental car for a night/day. what a shithole. sorry you're going through that.

congrats on the house though, sounds amazing. good seeing you back on here, hope you've been having a good 2024.

Weird that these articles never seem to mention the corporate and individual culpability of research and development and food science as it relates to the obesity epidemic. This is, intentionally and not, largely the consequence of large food/bev corporations.