Hello, University of Washington in Seattle

October 5, 2022, 10:18 PM PDT by Parkzer • Face, Tourism

Back when Tempo was an esports and gaming content creation company more than the game design and game development company that it is now, we had a content director named Glen Tokola who took over the editorial department after me. After Tempo phased out those departments, the Glen transitioned his career to a different position, and is now the Esports Manager at the University of Washington.

With my stay in the Seattle Metropolitan Area soon coming to an end, Glen wanted to give me a tour of the university campus before I left and continued on my road trip, so I headed over to check out the football stadium and some of the university buildings.

The tour started at Husky Stadium. One of Glen’s co-workers who handles sales for the football team showed us around and was able to take us to some of the more exclusive areas.

We eventually made it to the upper-most floor, where I stepped outside and was able to see unobstructed views of the entire field.

This area of the stands also had amazing views of Union Bay and Lake Washington.

We also got to take a peek into the presidential suite. Apparently this is a coveted place from which only the highly privileged are able to watch the football games. To me, it just looked like a normal room, but I took our tour guide’s word about the prestige of the room, so I snapped a photo.

After a thorough trip around the stadium, we headed to the main campus area. At the end of a long, grassy strip of field was Drumheller Fountain.

From this point, we walked around some more and I wasn’t quite able to keep up with exactly what buildings we were entering, but we saw some interesting libraries and even peeked our heads into some empty classrooms, waiting to be occupied by students in the upcoming and soon-to-start academic year.

Finally, Glen took us to the new esports room, which is basically like a LAN center.

I already played a lot of video games when I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, though I was somewhat limited by the fact that my laptop wasn’t very high-end, so I lagged a lot. I’m glad that my school didn’t have something like this when I was a student about a decade ago, or else I feel like I would’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time in it.

Here is Glen in his office.

The University of Washington campus had a lot of husky statues scattered around. I pet all the ones I came across, but decided to take a picture with one before I left.

For the record, I thought Glen would zoom in and capture just my face with the face of the husky, which is why I am standing in a way that makes it look like I learned how to use my legs yesterday … I did not realize that he was going for a full-body shot.

Overall, our tour was a little over three miles (the GPS tracker shows less distance because I started it late and it also didn’t keep track of movement very accurately inside some of the buildings). It got a little warm towards the end, but it was a pleasant trip, and it brought back some of the nice memories from when I was still an undergraduate student.

Investment allocation breakdown for 2022 Q3

October 1, 2022, 4:04 PM PDT by Parkzer • Finance

Disclaimer: I am not a registered investment advisor, nor do I have the intent or proper qualifications to become one. The information contained in this blog post is strictly anecdotal and should not be construed as financial advice. Everyone’s situation is uniquely different, so if you need guidance with your own financial strategy, consult a certified professional.

Last quarter, I published a comprehensive breakdown and explanation of my investment allocation as of 2022 Q2. If you want the proper context to this blog post, you should review that post first as prerequisite reading.

Cash Literal days after publishing my previous investment allocation breakdown, I dumped a majority of my cash back into the stock market. In essence, I was doing the precise thing that like to tell everyone not to do, and that is, timing the market. Thus, I am down to a minuscule amount of cash left in my checking and savings accounts.	1.57%
Domestic broad market index funds Building on what I just mentioned about dumping cash back into the stock market… At first, I thought my timing was great—I held cash throughout a majority of 2022 Q2 when the S&P 500 peaked at about $4,582.64 and generally stayed above $4,000 throughout the whole quarter. Right as it dropped to ~$3,800 towards the beginning of July, I bought back in aggressively. The S&P 500 continued to rise to a high of a closing price of $4,305.20 on August 16, and I was satisfied. Then, of course, the market started falling again. I did not pull my money back out into cash and continued holding. As of market close on September 30, the S&P 500 is at $3,585.62, lower than my aggressive buy-back price. For now, I’m still satisfied with the fact that I bought back in at ~$3,800 and not between $4,000-4,500. I have absolutely no substantive idea what’s going to happen to the stock market from now on, so unless I pick up on some obvious clues, I’m going to hold steady and continue dollar-cost averaging until I have a better plan.	43.20%
International total market index funds The international market hasn’t been doing very well, and with China’s current economic crisis, it may be worth it to try and do a bit of optimization by withdrawing from the international market temporarily. This would be a great opportunity for some tax loss harvesting, so I may be doing some calculations and putting in some transactions soon.	4.53%
Target date funds Like usual, there is going to be next to no change in target date funds in Q3 and Q4, as I usually contribute a maximum amount as soon as possible in the beginning of the year in Q1, and then again during tax due date season in Q2 when I know my new SEP-IRA contribution limit. Consequently, the percentage will remain fairly consistent and decline slowly, caused by the rest of my net worth increasing but me being unable to contribute more to retirement funds until the following calendar year.	18.39%
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) With the real estate market stabilizing again after the post-pandemic surge, and with my home city of Las Vegas being one of the top fastest-cooling real estate markets in the United States of America, I’m keeping an eye out on physical real estate to make sure I don’t miss out on some great opportunities. However, until I find one, I will be keeping my real estate investments in REITs.	15.60%
Bonds Usually, bonds are pretty boring, but now that interest rates are rising, bonds are becoming a lot more interesting because of how they tell a story about interest rates and exemplify a core principle of investing. Regardless, I haven’t made any changes with regards to my bond holdings.	6.47%
Cryptocurrency Since the beginning of the previous quarter, Bitcoin has been relatively even in price, but because I’m invested in broader cryptocurrency indexes and not just a single coin, my overall cryptocurrency portfolio has actually gone up in value. Regardless, I’ve lost significantly more than two-thirds of my original investment, so overall, cryptocurrency has not been very kind to me.	2.96%
Individual stocks and private companies As a reminder, the $10,000 investing challenge with Doug Wreden (about which I will give an update at the end of this blog post) is not included in this section, as I didn’t want people to be able to have any clues to potentially reverse engineer my net worth based on these percentages.	4.47%
Precious metals I put a little bit of money into gold and other precious metals during market instability because I thought it would be a good way to diversify into something that has historically been a more reliable store of value during recessions, but apparently, either I was horribly wrong or my timing was horribly bad. I’ve lost over a third of my original investment, but because my commitment is such a small amount, I just plan on holding.	1.00%
Fine art, and other collectibles I sort of suffered the same fate in this category as many other investors. Back when collecting investment-grade Pokémon cards was the hype thing to do, many people obsessively bought packs and cleared store shelves of new releases, depriving actual children from buying them to play with for fun. After a while, that craze settled, and people slowly lost interest. When I first started looking for fine art investments, it consumed hours of my time because I was so intrinsically interested in and intrigued by this concept that was new to me. However, after the dust settled, it ended up just being another form of diversification. I plan on keeping this class of investment in my portfolio for a long time, but as of this past quarter, I haven’t been actively trading or doing additional research.	1.81%

And now, the part that, for some of you, is the only reason why you come to these quarterly investment breakdowns… here is the current state of my $10,000 investing challenge with Doug Wreden. If you’re not sure what this is, you can read the aforelinked blog post for a comprehensive explanation.

As of market close on September 30, 2022, my portfolio is worth $8,404.62 and Doug’s portfolio is worth $7,287.17. I’ve maintained my lead over the S&P 500, while Doug is avoiding last place only thanks to the crashed cryptocurrency market.

One notable change this quarter is that the bond market managed to just barely squeeze past me. I’ve only temporarily been behind the bond market during the harshest stock market dips, so it’s very possible that I’ll be winning again in a few more days, but if the market continues to decline, this can be a decent demonstration of the relative stability of bonds.

Because of this, I decided to add the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund to the chart.

Doug’s portfolio managed to reach a new all-time low, and compared to last quarter’s chart, I actually had to adjust the bottom of the y-axis from $7,800 to $7,200 to fit him in.

We’re 115 days away from the end of the 1-year mark, which means we have a little less than a third of the challenge duration remaining. Regardless, that’s still a long time, and if the current chart is any indication, anything can happen over the next four months.

Eating a whole salmon in a bunny costume for charity

September 28, 2022, 6:01 PM PDT by Parkzer • Face, Highlights

On August 26, 2022, my friend Doug Wreden ran a charity fundraising event for the Monterey Bay Aquarium in celebration of Rosa the sea otter‘s birthday. The US$90,000.00 stretch goal was for Doug and me to eat a whole salmon while wearing bunny suits. The event ended up raising US$104,327.89.

With my stay in the Seattle Metropolitan Area soon coming to an end, we decided now would be a good time to fulfill our promise. Yesterday, we went to a local seafood store looking to purchase a whole salmon.

We asked the fishmonger what the smallest whole salmon would be, and he said it would be around 12 pounds (5-6 kilograms). He went to the back to grab one and came out with a 17.87 pound (8.11 kilogram) salmon, saying it was the smallest one they had available.

We brought it back to Doug’s house and stored it in the refrigerator. It barely fit.

This morning, we extracted the salmon from the refrigerator to prepare it for cooking. We were considering putting it on a tray, but then realized that would be completely pointless.

Here is a picture of Doug next to the salmon, for scale.

We covered the inside of the oven with tin foil and placed the fish inside. It was too big to comfortably fit in the oven, so we turned it diagonally and curved the head and tail upwards so it would fit.

After about an hour, the salmon was more-or-less done cooking, and it had a nice, golden brown crust.

We went into this knowing that it would be completely unrealistic to actually eat the entire fish, but we had our estimates—I thought I would be able to eat about 2 pounds, and if Doug does the same, we’d finish about a quarter of the fish.

Oh, and also, my inflatable bunny suit was aggressively large.

I ended up underestimating ourselves, because we finished about half of the salmon. If we account for the head and tail that we did not consume, as well as the weight of the bone, I think we might have eaten about 3.5-4 pounds (1.5-1.8 kilograms) of salmon each.

This was the aftermath. We took the leftover salmon and stored it in containers to finish consuming another day.

By the end of it, I had eaten so much protein and fat that my stomach was upset and I felt physically exhausted, but I ate some popsicles high in sugar, and that neutralized some of the weird feeling in my stomach and made me feel much more refreshed.

This is by far my favorite stream that I’ve been a part of. Not only was it just an absolutely absurd, ridiculous, and insane concept, but it was tied to a great charity event, the audience was very happy to watch and was looking forward to it for over a month now, and it went surprisingly smoothly from a logistical perspective.

I’m glad I got to participate, and now Doug’s community just needs to convince him to eat a bunny while wearing a salmon costume…

Hello, Spencer Island near Everett in Snohomish County, Washington

September 25, 2022, 8:17 PM PDT by Parkzer • Hiking

While spending a bit more time in Everett, Washington, I decided to go for a hike on Spencer Island.

I picked Spencer Island because I enjoyed my hike on Jetty Island, but after going a bit deeper into Spencer Island, I realized that it was pretty different. It wasn’t quite as visually appealing as Jetty Island, and it was more like a swampy marsh than a pleasant hike.

I took the north-south path on the western side of the island at first, which was mostly clear. There were some tighter squeezes once in a while with some thorny bushes on either side, but I managed to make it to the end of the path relatively unscathed.

At the edge of the path was a nice view of Union Slough and the water branching in from the stream.

After retracing my steps back near the entrance, I started on the east-west path and made it to the opposite side, again overlooking the water. At the intersecting point of the east-west path and the eastern north-south path, there was a bench.

On the bench, I found a rock painted in candy corn colors with a sticker that read “If found, please post on #HideTucsonRocks – Kindness Rock Project Tucson.” I found it amusing that this rock was in Snohomish County, Washington, over 1,200 miles away from Tucson, Arizona.

The east-west trail had some pretty overgrown areas, but it was worth it to see the views from the bridges.

However, beyond the bench containing the kindness rock and further south towards the southern tip, the path was completely consumed by bushes with sharp thorns, and it was not realistic to continue. Apparently the county didn’t have the resources to continue maintaining the walking trails on the island for a handful of years now, so nature ran its course and swallowed a lot of the trails. The county is still actively looking for volunteers to help prune some of the vegetation, but from the looks of it, they haven’t been having much success finding anyone.

I’m fairly adventurous and am willing to step fairly far out of my comfort zone to go exploring and experience new things, but it was just unrealistic to keep trying, and I was dealing noticeable damage to my arms and legs, so I turned around and went back.

On my way back on the eastern shore of Spencer Island, I saw a crashed ship carrying a crane truck, which was unexpected and interesting.

Overall, my hike lasted 4.3 miles (6.92 kilometers) with a 21.05-minute mile pace—fairly slow due to the tricky and overgrown areas along some of the path.

Spencer Island wasn’t that amazing, but it’s still a decent place to go for a walk if you’re in the area and want a change of scenery outside the suburban neighborhoods. Even if you want to avoid the rougher areas of the trail, you can get a decent walk in on the western north-south trail and half-way across the east-west trail.

Hello, Tacoma Art Museum in Washington

September 21, 2022, 2:36 PM PDT by Parkzer • Tourism

I’m already back in the central Seattle Metropolitan Area, and I switched up the ordering of publishing blog posts because I wanted to add a bit more variety, but I still have one more post from my four-day stay in Tacoma, Washington—for my third and final tourist activity, I went to the Tacoma Art Museum, in quick and convenient walking distance across the street from my hotel.

The Tacoma Art Museum was probably one of the most traditional and straightforward museums that I’ve been to in a while.

The first gallery was “Animals: Wild and Captured in Bronze.”

Next was “On Native Land: Landscapes from the Haub Family Collection.”

Around the corner was “Native Portraiture: Power and Perception.”

The final area of the exhibits on Natives was called “Places to Call Home: Settlements in the West” and “Winter in the West.”

I’ve already seen a lot of Chihuly’s art because of his residency in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, including Chihuly Garden and Glass, the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, and the Museum of Glass. The Tacoma Art Museum also had its own small section of Chihuly’s art, as well as a little reading corner for books containing photographs and descriptions of Chihuly’s art.

The next gallery was “Painting Deconstructed: Selections from the Northwest Collection.”

Finally was my favorite gallery of the museum, “Metaphor Into Form: Art in the Era of the Pilchuck Glass School.”

“Nerve” was my favorite art piece. The word “nerve” was etched in cursive into the glass, and to the naked eye straight-on, it was nearly invisible. However, with the light shining onto the glass, it created a very visible shadow onto the wall. I liked the messaging that, even though something might not be obvious, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t there.

I also enjoyed this piece of black jewelry mannequins in front of a bright white backdrop. Usually, jewelry mannequins simply serve the purpose of emphasizing the actual jewelry pieces, so it was interesting seeing the otherwise-usually-neglected mannequins being used as the primary art composition.

The rest of this gallery had more modern art pieces, with many of them being unique creations of glass art.

Although the museum wasn’t bad, I don’t think the price-to-value ratio was quite right (even after having a discounted admission price due to a handful of galleries that were closed for renovations). If you don’t have access to too many other art museums, the Tacoma Art Museum could be fine, but otherwise, it is extremely simple and frankly a little bit boring.

I unfortunately did not realize this when I visited, so I ended up paying full price, but as of right now, they offer free admission every Thursday evening. If you manage to visit during that weekly community event, then it could be a decent way to spend an hour or two.

Hello, Mina the domestic shorthair cat

September 17, 2022, 2:30 PM PDT by Parkzer • Cats, Face

Last night, I met up with some friends to get dinner together and walk around Volunteer Park for a bit. After our adventure, I stopped by and visited her condo to meet Mina, her new cat.

Mina is a domestic shorthair that was originally a stray cat with some severe health problems, but she was able to be nursed back to health. Now, Mina is an extremely active, agile, and affectionate cat—probably one of the friendliest I’ve ever met. We suspect Mina is about a year old and has reached cat adulthood, but she still has the size, youth, and energy of a kitten.

It was a bit tricky to get some good pictures of Mina because the lighting wasn’t that great and she was always on the move, but I still got a handful of decent shots, especially after she had calmed down a bit and started grooming herself on the couch.

For the record, I’m not actually as tan as it may seem from this next photograph… Mina’s white hair just radiates light, so when I edit the photo such that her hair no longer blinds you, it ends up making my skin look pretty dark.