Who do I know that's been to Baja?

Yesterday, in my RE investing group, the location for our next meeting was announced.

Cabo San Lucas, baby!

For as long as I've been "overlanding" (that's the fancy word for traveling and sleeping in the back of my truck), I have wanted to do the Baja Peninsula.

I mean, sure, I could just fly there…

Y'all, I can't get away from the flat Earth people.

Is it just the easiest way to make sense of the world?

Maybe.

Let me explain…

I get this question all the time.

Last week, I met with the GC on one of our projects.

"I wish I could take ten days off every month," he said.

"Me too!" I said.

He looked confused.

"What do you mean? Don't you?"

Umm, no…

Let's start with Fat Julia.

Last week, when I chose the adjective "fat" to modify the proper noun "Julia," I was admonished.

Not by Julia, mind you.

By others…

A few weeks back, a buddy of mine called and said he wanted to get the hell out of what he was doing and get into something else.

Here's what the conversation looked like, starting with me:

"Get into real estate investing, it's great."

"I don't know anything about it."

"You can learn, and you can make good money. I made $X my first year; you can do the same and then quit your current job."

"Yeah, but you've been in real estate for years, so you knew about it already."

"So what, you can learn. Go take this class."…

When we left off yesterday, Fat Julia was in the back of a pickup truck in Big Bend National Park.

How'd she get there?

How did my thin, athletic, flexible fiancé become an overweight couch potato who struggled with stairs?

One bite [of ultra-processed food] at a time, that's how…

Jason Isbell has a pretty great song about his recovery from alcohol addiction.

Amid dreams of drinking and wishing that cops would pull him over now that he's sober, the chorus admits that not drinking "gets easier, but it never gets easy."

A couple of my friends are getting off processed food now; they're finding that it's not so easy, either.

Processed and ultra-processed food, about 75% of what's for sale in a typical American grocery store, has a dirty little secret.

It's addictive…

I have a litmus test for anyone who wants to partner with me.

Are they Be-Right or Seek-Right?

Like most, my younger kids tend towards Be-Rights.

"Yeah, I know" is a typical response when I tell someone how to do something they've never done before.

Most kids grow out of it.

Some never do…

I don't know how this happened.

And, to be honest, I wish it hadn't.

Because it's taken an excessive amount of my time, and I've been obsessed with it since the week before we went to Jackson Hole. I even watched a documentary about it, which is rare because I hardly ever watch TV.

But I'm fascinated by the people who think. . .

The Earth is flat…

When I wrote about earning my NC General Contractor's License last week, some folks reached out to see what I was up to.

Thanks, y'all!

Here's the deal. Last year, I laid out the components of my Ten-Ten-Ten plan, which, with a shitpile of work and a whole lot of luck, will:

--> Give me the option of retiring in Ten years

--> With a passive income of $10,000 per week

--> While I travel ten days per month between now and then.

It's a big, audacious, and [maybe] preposterous goal…

In a discussion about a good friend's son last week, I was struck by the similarities of our upbringings.

The son - now in his late-twenties - struggles to find his place in the world.

He's drifting.

No direction.

No purpose.

No ambition.

Unsure of what, if anything, he hopes to achieve and painfully unaware of how quickly our days on this earth pass…

Facebook Memories is the best feature.

It keeps me honest.

Like a good friend or mentor, it calls me on my bullshit and helps keep me from repeating mistakes.

One example - every spring for about a week, the leading photo in my memories is one of several where I'm half naked and flexing. From the strained-not-strained smile, I'm trying to look as if I'm just casually standing there…

I know a lot of happy people.

But I also know a lot of miserable people.

You probably do, too. As I mentioned last week, in a recent survey, 67% of those asked reported being generally dissatisfied with their lives.

I've been thinking a lot about what the dissatisfied people I know have in common…

In Maui last week, I'd just gotten back from a run.

One of the guys commented that "he didn't like to run."

And he was surprised, I think, when I said, "Me neither!"

Like, here I am, the guy who's trying like hell to get to a place where I can do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, and I'm out doing something I don't want to do.

Of course, "me neither" doesn't fully encompass how I feel about running…

Today is my last full day in Maui, and I aim to make the most of it. Here shortly, I'll hook up with Wave Daddy again for a "Surf Safari."

We're heading to the island's north side, where the waves are bigger and, hopefully, there are still no tiger sharks.

For now, though, I'm thinking about all there is to do when I get home…

In my typical fashion, I rolled into the surf shop all hot and cocky, laying it on thick about how I expected to be pro by the end of the day.

I told the girl who took my waiver to consider keeping it; my autograph would be valuable here shortly.

"Where's my film crew?" I asked the person storing my stuff.

And when my instructor, "Wave Daddy," took me to get a board, I told him straight that I was ready for Burkhart's board.

But, while I was talking all this smack, I was secretly preparing to eat sand all morning since that had been my experience the only other time I'd tried to surf back in North Carolina.

And I was a little worried about Tiger Sharks…

For as long as I can remember, I've ushered in the Christmas Season by watching - and usually falling asleep during - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

It started with VHS.

Then DVD.

And now I have a digital copy, thanks to Apple TV.

I know most of the lines by heart and quote them often…

I will always remember Gary and Enid.

Not just because they are pretty great folks, but because when I helped them buy a house years ago, it took for-freaking-ever.

I don't remember how many we looked at, but I'm sure it was more than any other client I've ever worked with.

Fifty maybe?

Possibly more…

When I pulled into the hunt camp the night before opening day, Mike was already relaxing beside his new camper.

Where I'd opted for the Super Pacific X1, a truck-mounted wedge camper, Mike went with a ROG Adventure Trailer that he could pull behind his truck.

He'd not seen my rig, nor had I seen his, so we spent a lot of time between hunts checking out each other's setup…