Marcus’ Interesting Things #4

Beginning of quarantine edition!
So after less than a week of quarantine in my apartment with my family, we decided pretty quick that it made sense to go from our home in Vancouver to the Sunshine Coast where my parents live, so that they can help out with childcare while my wife and I still have to work from home.  So we need to first quarantine by getting out of the city before moving in with my parents (my dad is 70), so we ended up getting an amazing AirBnB on the beach front.  Definitely been enjoying it.

So asides from scrolling twitter all day and overwhelming myself with anxiety with COVID-19 articles …

  1. Marc Maron: End Times Fun – This is my first time really getting into Marc Maron, and I’m an instant convert.  Great comedy for any millennial or older, to relate to some of his jokes (for instance, cassette tape jokes).  I’ve been having to distract myself and decompress at the end of the day with stand-up comedy, and I loved this one.
  2. Where I Am – Doug Boneparth writes an honest blog after the 1st week or so of COVID-19 being a serious issue in North America.  It really resonates with me all the feelings that I feel as far as trying to be a father, trying to protect, feeling scared and anxious, and all the emotions being felt right now. 
  3. My First Million – with Tyler Herro of the Miami Heat.  Gosh I wish they had like 20 of these for NBA players for me to binge.  Tyler goes through the 1st million dollars he spent after getting into the NBA. Went down a rabbit hole of watching his high school highlights too.
  4. Just a super sobering thought … think about your favourite restaurants in your own city … now consider that you may have already eaten there for the last time ever, as COVID-19 is decimating independent restaurants :'(.
  5. The Freakishly Strong Base by Morgan Housel, is a short essay on how a strong base and the power of compounding leads to unthinkable growth as you give it time.  
  6. Money is the Megaphone of Identity – If you follow along, you know I read and refer to a lot of personal finance content.  On one hand, I do have a natural bend towards it, on the other hand it’s cause I get high anxiety about money.  It’s some deep rooted emotions that I have, and this article helped me sort out what money means to me and what part of my identity it affects.  I imagine this would be reflective for anyone.
  7. Learn Python 3 The Hard Way — Part of the reason that I didn’t post a newsletter for awhile, is because I spent all my extra time for about a month learning Python.  It halted pretty hard once COVID-19 started though.  However I can’t recommend this book/course enough.  The way that he teaches is right up my alley, and cuts through a lot of BS.  He starts by saying that it’s important to do the hard work, write things down, google things yourself, and basically says if you don’t get it, to keep going at it until you get it.  That is part of writing code, getting frustrated and having to debug it yourself.  I look forward to continuing to learn, as unfortunately it’s been several weeks and I’ve probably forgotten some of it. 
  8. Bill Simmons has been posting some old school basketball games available on YouTube that are iconic games.  I started watching the ’97 Bulls vs Bullets game, and it’s amazing watching Strickland attack MJ so hard, it’s super impressive.  Also check out a dominant young Webber. 
  9. Zoom Happy Hours — Once we started working from home, I barely interact with some of my colleagues that I sat next to everyday.  We started a happy hour every Friday where we get together and drink at the end of the work week.  It’s been seriously nice to catch up, and I realize how much I miss office life.  If you haven’t already, get a group together on a Google Hangouts or Zoom or whatever, have some drinks, snacks or what not, and continue staying in contact with your circles.