Re: “What would be your version of GQ Sports’ ‘My First Million’?”

April 1, 2020, 11:34 PM PDT by Parkzer • Finance, Highlights, Q&A

This post is over 6 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.

GQ Sports has been doing a YouTube series called “My First Million” where they invite professional athletes to share how they spent their first million dollars that they earned in their respective sports leagues—the most recent episode was released earlier today and featured Will Hernandez from the New York Giants.

Now obviously, even with financial advisors, sports stars aren’t exactly known for being wise spenders. On the other hand, it’s almost become a meme at this point as to how neurotically I personally manage my own money. As a result, I’ve had a few people reach out to me and ask me to do my own version of “My First Million” as if I was also a superstar who had just made my first million dollars.

Those who truly know me know that my answer is actually astonishingly simple—I would save and invest all of it. But that would make for a very boring “My First Million” breakdown, so I’m adding in a few stipulations:

I have to use all the money. Saving is acceptable if it is savings with a specific purpose, but I cannot just throw it in a general savings account or investment portfolio and leave it alone.
I have to spend all of it on myself. This rule is actually mostly to protect myself from people who may see this hypothetical blog post and ask why I would spend money on this person but not on them.

With that being said, I can come to a few initial conclusions:

There is no indication as to whether this is my first and only million, or my first million of many, so I will take the safer route and assume this is the only money I’m getting. This is generally a better approach for superstars to take anyway, because you never know when their careers may end.
Because this is a high-profile sports contract, I believe I can safely assume that this income can be classified as employee salary, not independent contractor miscellaneous earnings. Thus, I am only responsible for my own half of FICA tax (i.e., no self-employment tax), and I am unable to take any operating expense deductions from my income tax.
I already own a lot of stuff that I want, so a majority of these purchases will upgrades of what I already have, or luxuries that I don’t actually need but would be nice to have.

So, here is how I would spend my US$1,000,000.00:

Federal income and FICA taxes With an income of a million dollars, I should expect to spend about $330,000 in federal income tax, as well as an additional $30,000 or so in Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax (which covers Social Security and Medicare). I have no state income tax because I am a resident of Nevada.	$ 360,000.00
IRA & i401(k) In the spirit of “pay yourself first,” and for the sake of my future, the next thing I would spend on is my retirement. I have an individual retirement account (IRA) and an individual 401(k) account; IRAs accept a maximum yearly contribution of $6,000, while i401(k)s accept up to $56,000. As a side note, I know I stated above that this would not be self-employment income, but I already file my taxes as a sole proprietor from running my own business and my i401(k) already exists, and there’s nothing I’m aware of at the moment that would stop me from using employee income to contribute to an i401(k), as that kind of restriction wouldn’t seem logically sound.	$ 62,000.00
2-bedroom unit in a high-rise condominium on the Las Vegas Strip I actually had to think a bit on this one. I know for a fact that I’d like to stay in Las Vegas forever if I’m able to, so I can definitely commit to purchasing a property, but I wasn’t sure what type of property I wanted. I really enjoy the lifestyle of living in a high-rise condo, but I also appreciate the privacy and comfort that a single-family house can bring. I ultimately decided to go with living in a high-rise. There are some very high-value units available in high-security, all-residential buildings like the Allure, Panorama Towers, and the Martin, and with housing prices already visibly falling in Las Vegas as a consequence of COVID-19, I think I can get a great property for a low price. Now of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t have any more housing expenses and I can quit my day job. High-rise condominiums on the Strip have sizable homeowners’ association fees, and along with home insurance and property taxes, my monthly expenses will probably still be somewhat close to what I’m paying in rent right now.	$ 450,000.00
Tempur-Pedic TEMPUR-breeze° king-size mattress I’m sure you’ve all heard of how you spend a third of your life in bed, so you shouldn’t skimp on your mattress. I completely agree with that, so much so that I decided to actually itemize out my mattress and get the best one I could find that wasn’t completely unreasonable in price. I’m no mattress expert, but Tempur-Pedic seems to have a great reputation for great mattresses, so I decided to go with one made by them. I don’t think I had this problem when I was a younger child, but as I grew older, I’ve developed a strange back pain problem. I’ve tried quite literally 5 or so different mattresses of different brands, firmness, and construction, but none of them seem to be the perfect mattress. In fact, I actually sleep pain-free for the first few nights on a new or different mattress, then my back pain returns shortly afterwards. My current mattress is a little over $1,000, and I imagine that just buying increasingly expensive mattresses isn’t going to magically fix my back pain problem, but with the great reviews that Tempur-Pedic has, I figured it was worth a shot. My current mattress isn’t bad, though—I’d just use it in the second bedroom of my new condo.	$ 5,000.00
Furnishings I actually own an incredibly low amount of furniture. Since moving from the Chicagoland suburbs to the Pacific Coast, I’ve always minimized my possessions because I moved a ton within Southern California and Las Vegas. But now that I’ve just bought a property, I imagine I can safely assume I won’t be moving again anytime soon, so I can start buying some furniture. When I get something done, I want it done in the best way possible, so if I’m going to buy furniture, I want it to be furniture that I love. I have a mild obsession over ultra-modern design, so I would actually want everything to be in white leather and glass. Of course, that’s going to be far more expensive than a boring brown fabric couch, so I’m allocating about $40,000 for the cause. Combined with the little furniture that I do already own, that should probably be enough to fully furnish the two bedrooms, living area, and kitchen.	$ 40,000.00
Ram 1500 Rebel Now here’s where the fun begins. You may already know that my “dream car” is actually a pickup truck, and it’s the Ram 1500 Rebel. The only reason I don’t actually have one already is because I’m concerned about Fiat Chrysler’s historically catastrophic reliability—I don’t want my truck to randomly break down in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t have the time and money to constantly have my truck in the shop. But, seeing as I’m outright buying this vehicle (and paired with the fact that I just made a million dollars), I’m sure I can afford to get a Ram and pay the extra maintenance costs when the truck inevitably breaks down. The particular configuration I want MSRPs at just over $60,000, but I’m sure I can get some incentives and dealer discounts to bring that price down. I threw in an extra $10,000 in modifications, like ceramic window tinting, matte black vinyl wrap, metallic gold accents, a conservative lift kit, and meatier tires. I’d just need one vehicle as my daily driver, so I’d trade in my current truck, which knocks about $25,000 off the price.	$ 45,000.00
Glock 43 I am a strong believer that you should only buy things if they serve a purpose in your life, so if I already have something, I usually won’t buy “duplicates” unless I have a really good reason to. I don’t think buying another gun is necessary, but I think having a million dollars to spend is a pretty good reason to buy another gun. Glock 43s are subcompact pistols that are generally used by concealed carriers who want to hide the fact that they have a firearm. The firearm itself goes for around $550, but with modifications, the price can climb pretty quickly. I threw in an extra $450 on the price to account for things like a slide cut, Cerakoting, and custom-colored hardware.	$ 1,000.00
Exotic leather goods I’m a big fan of exotic leather goods, with a particular interest in stingray skin. I have a stingray wallet, stingray rowstone belt, and hornback saltwater crocodile belt, among others. I’m not 100% certain what exactly I would want yet, but I would allocate $2,000 into buying more exotic leather goods. If you find a good private leatherworker instead of going for designer brand names, you can get pieces made at a very affordable price, so this budget should be enough to get me two high-quality pieces. One of them might end up being another stingray belt in a different pattern, possibly dyed a different color, with a sterling silver buckle.	$ 2,000.00
Naming rights to a room in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s new Reality-Based Training Center Yes, this is technically just a charitable donation to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, but seeing as I made a stipulation that I had to spend the money on myself, I found a little loophole. LVMPD is in the process of constructing a new training facility, and donors are able to purchase naming rights to different rooms in the building. Thus, this is my way of “buying myself something”—but also contributing to a good cause in the process. I also know that some of you who know my past history have been wondering this entire time how I’m going to figure out a way to give some of this money to a law enforcement charity… so here it is.	$ 10,000.00
Day-to-day miscellaneous expenses And finally, I’d save $25,000 of the million to cover day-to-day expenses. This covers stuff like food, self-care, health insurance, and pretty much anything else that may come up in my everyday life. I mostly keep my daily expenses slim, and seeing as I just spent $543,000 enhancing my life and another $62,000 to put into savings, I’d imagine that an extra $25,000 would be sufficient to account for everything else.	$ 25,000.00

Two more things I’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic so far

March 22, 2020, 8:32 PM PDT by Parkzer • General

At the beginning of last week, I wrote a blog post about how I discovered that I had been inadvertently selfish my entire life, and how the COVID-19 pandemic opened my eyes to empathy—not quite literally the concept itself, but rather, the fact that just because you’re aware of a concept doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve fully manifested it into your life. Since then, a whole lot more has happened.

I’m glad that people around me seem to be responding accordingly. I found out yesterday that the homeowners’ association of my condo taped a red “social distancing line” on the floor of the main entrance to protect our concierge and security staff—which was hilarious, but also gave me faith that the HOA was taking this seriously and keeping our workers safe.

So, with these recent developments and stronger responses from the community, there are two more things that I learned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apparently I’ve basically already been self-quarantining my entire life.

It seems like everyone is complaining about having to make drastic lifestyle changes and how they are bored out of their minds… but I feel like I’m just living my normal life. I’m almost sort of jealous that people seem to be finding unity in struggling through self-isolation, while I can’t join in on the fun because this actually isn’t a struggle to me.

I also seem to be exceptionally well-prepared for self-isolation, because I didn’t have to go out and “stock up” or “prepare” for anything. While other people are cluelessly going out to buy egregious amounts of toilet paper and bottled water, I already have a stockpile of toilet paper (I take leftover toilet paper rolls from hotels I stay at, and I travel a lot), and I already have a few extra water filters in my cabinet. The only thing I don’t have is frozen or canned food, but I have enough faith in the government that I won’t actually starve to death, and if I get close and every single grocery store and restaurant is shut down, then there will be alternative methods available to get my hands on food.

Anyway, I keep myself busy and don’t really have free time, and it’s remained that way throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. While people are sitting on their couches mind-numbingly watching hours upon hours of Netflix, I’m just continuing on with what I normally do on a regular day—just with an elimination of the very little human-to-human, in-person contact that I did get before.

On a mildly related note, a lot of people who have a ton of extra free time now have been reaching out to me to reconnect—people who I didn’t realize even remembered that I still existed. They just assume that, because they have a lot more free time, I do too… which isn’t exactly the case. But, of course, I always say that, if you are important enough to someone, they will always make time for you, no matter how busy they are. My own philosophy is being put to the test as more and more old familiar names are popping up in my messages…
Other people now understand why I take a lower paycheck to have a fun job where I can work from home.

I’ve generally always been the type of person who hasn’t really placed “making money” at a very high priority, but when I decided on my full-time career, I decided to take a lower-paying job at a young company within an unstable and new industry just so I could do what I had fun doing. Prior to esports and gaming, I was on track to going to law school and becoming a criminal prosecutor—which, again, is one of the lower-paying legal jobs, but it still would’ve equipped me with a Juris Doctorate and made me a barred lawyer.

Instead, I believe that doing fun work, having control over your life, and being able to work from home are extremely underrated components of a career. I had the great fortune of finding an opportunity that provided me with all three of those—I get to work in the esports and gaming industry, I determine my own schedule, and I get to work out of my home office.

Throughout the last five years, I’ve had people regularly question why I am doing the work that I do right now when I could instead go back to school for a few more years, then double or triple my salary. I’ve always explained to them that both the concrete (personal time and mileage expenses) and abstract (mental health and well-being) value derived from not having to commute to a physical location is worth far more to me, but people generally think I’m wrong.

Now that people are forced to work from home, a few are coming back to me to let me know that they now understand why working from home is so amazing.

I’ve seen people’s commutes range from half an hour to two hours in each direction, and if you account for how much of your life you’re losing to that, it adds up extremely quickly. Some people take public transportation, but others drive, and operating and maintaining a vehicle is usually more expensive than people think.

Most importantly, not having to force yourself to wake up at a specific time or be bound by someone else’s commands can be a freeing and empowering experience. There’s a psychological phenomenon called reactance where you experience displeasure when other people tell you to do something, even if you were going to do that task anyway. If you’re particularly prone to reactance, you may notice situations where you were planning on doing something, but if someone happens to tell you to do that thing before you actually get around to doing it, you no longer want to do that task anymore because it feels like you’re only doing it because that other person told you to do it, rather than out of your own free will.

Reactance can be extremely dangerous for productivity, which is why, when I lead others, I try my best to equip them with the tools and resources they need, then have them come to the conclusion as to what they need to do to achieve our goal. I may nudge them towards my task or create a situation where they will inevitably come to the conclusion that they have to do what I want to do, but the important part here is that they decide on that themselves, and they’re doing it because they want to, not because I told them to.

If you work when you want from where you want, that’s one of the most powerful ways to increase your self-perception of self-worth, thus leading to much greater confidence. You feel like you’re in control of your life, your attitude and outlook on your future improve, you are more motivated and dedicated to your own tasks, and your productivity skyrockets. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to put a concrete dollar amount or salary increase in exchange for sacrificing something like this.

Now that other people are getting a taste of what my everyday life is like, I’ve gotten a lot more acknowledgement for my career choice. I’ve never really been someone to care too much about what others’ think, but it’s still nice to hear from people that I was right all along.

Stay at home.

I have a burning urge to travel

March 16, 2020, 12:25 AM PDT by Parkzer • Travel

If anything, for me, this COVID-19 outbreak has been an exercise in empathy.

I don’t really take “days off.” Rain or shine, sick or well, I continue on with my life. The only times I’ve taken sick days from school were when I was literally incapacitated with an inability to balance. I’ve never officially taken a sick day from work ever, in my life. (The latter isn’t quite as impressive as it may seem, because I work from home on a regular basis, so even on days when I’m sick, I can still squeeze a few hours of work in by hobbling over to my computer, or even just by bringing my laptop to bed.)

Over the past few days, I’m learning that that’s not really something to brag about, and it’s not actually really an accomplishment. The purpose of taking sick days isn’t just to take time to yourself to rest, but also to prevent spreading your illness and getting other people sick. Of course, I’ve always known that, but that’s always just been an afterthought to me—something that gets stored away in the back of my mind and not really intentfully considered.

With an academic background in sociology and psychology, at this point I sort of feel a bit silly that I was “immature” enough that I never really fully conceptualized this and applied it to my life until just now, but I guess there’s always that “one thing”—and for me, it happened to be this. I was so caught up on being an unstoppable force moving towards my goals and aspirations that I failed to see the collateral damage I was causing around me.

No, I don’t have COVID-19… or at least I don’t think so. But I’m actually a bit “sick” very often—I usually get sick every time I travel. I’m known among my co-workers as the guy who, upon setting foot in California, gets sick for the first few days. Consistently. Every single time. I also feel unwell shortly after going to large conventions, though I usually recover from that within a day or two. This happens so regularly that, to me, getting “sick” isn’t even a big deal.

And it still isn’t. To me, being sick probably will never be a big deal unless I am literally so sick that I am hospitalized… and even then, it will only be a big deal for the duration which I am hospitalized. Unfortunately, me being sick can be a big deal to everyone else around me.

In the past few days, a few people have accused me of being a killer—and I can’t say they’re completely wrong. I, as an explosively healthy individual, can pick up COVID-19 from somewhere and be a carrier without even realizing, especially because I am so “used to” being sick that I probably won’t even notice. In my path to recovery, I will spew the virus all over the place, potentially infecting those who are nowhere near as healthy as I am, and potentially causing their death.

Earlier today, this concept became even more salient to me as a result of an article on the Washington Post titled “Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to ‘flatten the curve.’” In this piece, Graphics Reporter Harry Stevens created four randomized simulations (they change each time you reload the article) for the spread of coronavirus—one each for free-for-all, attempted quarantine, moderate distancing, and extensive distancing. There are samples at the top of the article that show how the “peak” of the infection curve slowly declines based off how many people are staying put—the more distancing there is among people, the less likely it is for COVID-19 to spread.

I don’t know if this was foreshadowing, or an omen, or something else crazy that is supposed to send a clear message to me, but the random simulation I got ended up showing extensive distancing having nearly no sick people at all. This is very different than the “expected” curve, and of course this end result is very rare, but it basically shows just how well-controlled a COVID-19 outbreak would look like in the best case scenario were everyone to stay put.

I have a burning urge to travel right now. My brain is all about efficiency, and with airline and hotel prices at an all-time low, coupled with not many other people getting in my way, this is a perfect chance to get more for less. In fact, I think this is one of maybe a thrice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this amount of astronomical value per dollar spent on travel.

But of course, I’ve decided against it. Because me being that one moving sick dot in the simulation passing COVID-19 to ten other people, and by proxy, hundreds more, would not be efficient at all for the rest of humanity.

I literally feel like a child first discovering that the world, in fact, does not revolve around them. I imagine that I should feel humiliated at my selfishness throughout my 20s, but I’m surprisingly not, because I feel like there are a lot of concepts that we as a society know we need to abide by, but have never truly manifested into our lives. I’m glad I’m becoming a better person, and hopefully I’ve inspired you to take a hard, matter-of-fact look at your behavior as well, in case there’s something you can improve on too, just like me.

In the meantime, I’ll be hiding out in my condo.

Hello Boston

March 3, 2020, 10:40 PM PST by Parkzer • Face, Travel

COVID-19 is definitely a thing right now, so my trip to Boston for PAX East wasn’t really that much of a “trip,” but rather, hiding indoors and away from people until I actually had to go to the Convention Center to do my panel, then scurrying to the Convention Center to speak, then running away as quickly as possible. … But it was still a nice experience.

That picture of the Magic: The Gathering area is actually one of the very few photos I have of my PAX East experience. After my co-workers and I completed our panel, we stopped by the MTG area so a few of them could compete, and I sat down in the least-populated area possible while waiting for them to finish before going to dinner.

The panel itself turned out acceptably overall, and actually pretty well considering it was the first in-person live panel that a few of my other co-workers did. We let our Content Director take care of the logistics of the panel, and he decided to call the panel “Esports 101,” which ended up not really being that relevant of a title, but we still went over the general basics of running an esports company and finding success in the esports industry in the coming year.

Our Senior Partnerships Manager actually did an exceptional job at answering questions, which made it a bit tougher for me, so whenever it was relevant for me to speak, I ended up going on tangents and sharing other related advice as supplemental information to the topics discussed and questions asked. I guess I’m happy it ended up that way—me going on tangents is probably the most on-brand thing that I personally could have done.

My favorite moment of the broadcast was when I was captured staring disappointingly into my microscopic water cup as I realized that I was already out of water and there was still about half an hour left to go in the panel.

After we wrapped everything up at the Convention Center, our team dinner was at a restaurant by the water. I let our other staff members take care of pretty much all the travel logistics so I could just go from place-to-place in peace, so I don’t even know what restaurant we went to, but they had amazing lobster rolls. It also had a decent view behind us, though it was a bit too dark to actually see the rich texture and vastness of the ocean.

These are my takeaways from Boston:

It’s way too cold in the winter, and my brain literally stops working if I’m outside for more than like a minute and a half.
The Boston Convention Center has quite literally the worst convention food I have ever tasted out of all the convention centers I’ve ever been in… and I’ve been to a lot of convention centers.
The city feels anciently old, but it’s like a clean and well-maintained old, so it’s actually pretty pleasant. That may be surprising coming out of my mouth, because I’m someone who likes ultra-modern aesthetics. I walked through a random alleyway to go to an Uber pick-up area, and even the alley looked and smelled clean.
Boston is the first big city where I haven’t seen homeless people, which is surprising because every other city of this size seems to be layered with homeless people.

With that trip complete, here is my updated travel map:

Hello Minneapolis, except only for my layover

February 29, 2020, 7:07 AM PST by Parkzer • Travel

I’m in Boston, Massachusetts right now for PAX East because I was invited to be a panel speaker at the convention. On my way here, I took a flight that stopped at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport because a flight with one layover was substantially cheaper than a non-stop from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to Boston Logan International Airport.

This wasn’t my first time in Minneapolis—I was there for X Games Minneapolis 2019 when Tempo Storm’s Apex Legends team competed in the EXP Invitational. To get to the event, I road tripped up with Jordan King from Lincoln, Nebraska, then road tripped back to Lincoln after the event was over. While I was in Minneapolis, I even had an opportunity to explore St. Paul, which was a unique and interesting experience.

One thing I didn’t get to do, though, was see the airport—obviously—seeing as we drove there. So, for the sake of seeing another new airport, I decided that a layover at MSP would be the best choice to keep my travels fresh.

Even the flight up to Minneapolis itself was an interesting experience. I had never flown at such a northward vector at this time of year before, so it was intriguing seeing such harsh and barren terrain when flying over Utah and Colorado.

I also don’t know what else I was expecting, but I was somehow slightly surprised for some reason at how much snow there was.

It was an unusually bumpy ride considering how clear the skies looked, and I nearly spilled my Diet Coca-Cola on my sandwich. The guy sitting next to me didn’t want his fruit or yogurt for some reason, and I was seriously considering asking to confirm if he wasn’t going to eat it so I could have it instead… but then the flight attendant beat me to it and took it away.

As we approached the airport for landing, I realized just how flat and spread out everything was. I imagine this would be a great place to drive a nice, big, lifted pickup truck.

Then came the true fun part. After I landed and deplaned into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, I realized that it was probably one of the most unique and interesting airports I’ve ever been to. The best way for me to describe it is to call it a “lifestyle” airport, in that it was designed more as a casual get-together place than a place to efficiently move humans.

Now, my brain is all about efficiency and optimization, but I do acknowledge that different things can be “superior” for different reasons, depending on what you want to optimize for. If you want to prioritize a pleasant, comfortable, feel-good travel experience, I think MSP nailed it with their design.

The first thing I saw when I deplaned was a massive bar right in the middle of all the gates. I unfortunately didn’t capture a photo of it because I was just so confused at the fact that I had deplaned into a bar instead of a gate, but I did snap a photo later on of some interesting architectural and decorative design choices on one of the lower floors.

My layover in MSP was short so I didn’t get to see much of it (and I had a flight delay, but they were not very communicative of expected wait time, so I just sat at my next gate instead of exploring). But, if I do ever get a chance to pick where my layover is in the future, MSP is definitely going to be at the top of my list. I feel like I could spend a good hour or so just walking around the airport and taking in the sights.

Hello Disney

February 24, 2020, 8:06 AM PST by Parkzer • Tourism

Apparently this comes as a shock to most people, but even after living in Southern California for over a year and going back to visit on an extremely regular basis, I have never been to Disneyland. Either that, or I might have been there when I was an infant, but I was far too young to remember… or maybe that was Universal Studios? Not sure.

I’m not really that big of a fan of amusement parks because I don’t really understand what the “magic” is behind the environment. If anything, I feel more of a dislike of that kind of environment because it feels too forced and artificial—there is insultingly joyful music, the decor on the street is unnaturally colorful, and there are too many screaming infants in mouse ears. Yes, I do understand the irony of the “forced” and “artificial” statement coming from someone who lives on the Las Vegas Strip, but still.

While I was in Anaheim for DreamHack, I met up with a group of co-workers who wanted to go to the Downtown Disney District. Apparently there is a difference between Disneyland and Downtown Disney, where Disneyland is the amusement park where you have to pay an admission fee to get in, while Downtown Disney was open to the public for free.

Our first stop was at the Ballast Point Brewery, where I got some ahi tuna poke.

We were sitting in the outdoors area of the brewery, when Anaheim decided it would be a fantastic idea to dump a torrential downpour of rain on us. I fled back inside.

After we finished eating, we actually went back to DreamHack Anaheim to meet up with a few more staff members, and to make sure that one of our Fortnite players would make it to his press interview.

Of course, making one round trip obviously isn’t enough, so we went back to Downtown Disney again for dinner. Keep in mind that the walk from the Anaheim Convention Center to the Downtown Disney District is just shy of a mile and a half, so at this point, I’ve already walked over 3 miles back and forth and an additional 2 miles or so inside the Convention Center, and my legs are starting to hurt.

Dinner was either at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar, or Tangaroa Terrace Tropical Bar & Grill. Maybe we had dinner at both? Maybe they’re the same restaurant? I never found out, but I had a Hawaiian burger with pineapples in it. It was interesting.

And of course, my co-worker and I had driven from our hotel to the Convention Center, so after dinner, we had to walk back to the Convention Center parking garage. With those two three-mile round trips, as well as all the additional walking I did in and around the Convention Center, my fitness tracker clocked in at the end of the day at 22,473 steps, equaling 10.31 miles. Apparently I set a personal one-day record for distance walked.