Time off July 2022 - FISM and Canada.

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It’s FISM (olympics of magic), and I’m going to Quebec city to reenergize my love of magic, since I’m already in Canada I’ll also spend time with My Mom, Sister, and college room mate.

This is a combination of time off, and all the stuff for happiness, which I guess gets tangled up with half of my evergreen notes.

My top priorities

Maintain Healthy habits

  • Keep my weight at 200 lbs (though dropping 5 extra would be amazing
  • Maintaining my mobilily, and cardio routine (can skip strength)
  • Maintaining my emotional health habits
  • Minimize Procrastination
  • Disconnect from work as soon as I’m done work.

Other

  • Get my Mom setup with fresh electronics
  • Enjoy the magic
  • Feel got the most out of vacation

Executive Summary

Moments

Remember the peak end rule

  • My last day in Quebec City
    • Skipped ceremonies and going out night before and got to bed on time
    • Back up at 5:30
    • Writing from 7-10
    • Citadel Tour from 10-11 (pretty cool)
    • Spontanious ran into person I split cab with to the hotel, veyr nice.
    • Walked around all over for fun
    • Stopped listening to music and did some balloons for kids
    • Had a nice dinner
    • Radishes and Cherries for Lunch
    • Perfect weather, wandering randomly
    • Super tasty salad for dinner
    • Dipped ice cream - love the coating, thew away the ice cream
    • gave out tonnes of balloons
    • Gave a balloon flower to an older lady who was looking at me
    • People asking about why my mismatched shoes - the answer makes people smile
    • Some one came up to me asked where to get balloons - I said oh for you. She tried to pay me, which always makes me happy and I always decline
    • Hanging out with a busker, walking randomly through blocked off streets, giving out balloons to everyone I want. Making people really, really happy.
    • Pre-packed my bags
    • Full wrist stretches
    • Wrote up the amazing culmination of the journey
    • To bed by 9:30

Last morning

  • Up at 4:30

Success Stories

Top Learnings

Friends (5/5)

Family (Y/5)

  • ☐ Call kids every day and hear what they did.

Magic (Y/5)

Performing

Practice

General Magic

Tech Guru (Y/5)

Enabling Environment

  • ☐ Don’t touch it.

Blogging

  • Not at the expensive of family time.
  • Doing it early in the morning before folks get up is reasonable.

Programming

  • ☐ Finish and summarize book on recommender systems. (Part of the work side of time off and on the flights). Harder then I expected

Identity Health (Y/5)

Biking

  • Don’t think so, will be in canada.

Ballooning

  • ☐ Bring lots of balloons and manual pump
  • ☐ Make some balloons for kids at the airport
  • Made balloons for kids at Sam’s work (they loved it)
  • Made balloons for Baltasar’s kids, they loved it too.
  • ☐ Sit at a coffee shop and make balloons for kids walking past!

Joy Activities

  • ☑ Just finding joy where I am
  • Making the gym a joyful experiance.

Emotional Habits (Y/5)

  • Turn off phone and use table instead
  • ☐ Daily gratefulness journal
  • ☐ Daily 8 minute (or 15 minute) meditation

Physical Habits (Y/5)

  • ☐ Foam roll every morning
  • ☐ Wrist stretches every morning
  • ☐ Assisteted weights every few days
  • ☐ Cardio every other day
  • ☐ Assisted pullups

Statistics

Weight: Gym Days:

Verbose

Diet

  • Bring warm clothes so “cold” isn’t a problem.
  • Bring microwavable popcorn popper
  • Bring travel scale
  • ☐ Weight myself daily
  • ☐ Be ready to get back on weight track for end of August weight in.

Sleep

  • ☐ To bed by 10 (if not 8) every night
  • ☐ Only read before bend.

Mental quicksand

Guilt of missing summer time with family

  • Very crap weather in seattle, little time to enjoy sumemr with family
  • Kept trip a bit shorter
  • Work from trip to get other time off with family.

Forgetting something with lots bring

  • Bought max size carry on
  • Made several lists of stuff to bring (magic, balloon, health, )
  • Packing lots of health stuff.

Stock market being down impacting my ability to spend

Even with a down market, I’ve still got lots of savings, and a fantastic job, and certainly deserve to enjoy myself.

Missing root from tooth extraction

I just got a tooth extracton and am concerned about root removal, following up with Oral Surgean and endontist before I go, and deciding I’ll trust their answer

No buffer between vacation and work

To preserve time-off with the family. I’m working the first few days of my canada trip. While the flexibility is great, I wonder if I’ll have trouble disconnecting, and would be better off using some of that time to do initial decompression.

I guess if I do, I can take the time off.

To make into a separate post

Baltasar

The Props - Popcorn maker and sunglasses

  • Great lens through which to see the trip

Mom

  • Really nice to get to see her.
  • Got all electronics setup
  • Worked from her place, very nice

Yelena

  • Great to spend time with her
  • Made my morning time from 6-12 , then lots of energy to hang with her, and not have an agenda
  • Very nice to do exercise when idle, great for stretching

Good life

  • Got a gym membership - cheaper then day passes
  • Tried a few. One had no showers,
  • Top metric is probably BP/sqft
  • Last one I went to had a saltwater pool and a cold plunge ,and everythign else. Was awesome. And massage chairs
  • Last day, found out pool was closed, grateful to have gotten to try it for several days.

Rental Car

  • Premium was cheaper then economy.
  • Pretty fun to drive, glad with lots of driving and weather
  • Learning: Take time to learn how to use the features, fuel, fancy lock/unlock
  • Learning: Go buy a phone mount as phones are great

Air Port to Quebec

  • Followed apple map directions to close place in middle of air port
  • Couldn’t ge ta hold of my rental company, tried the others, finally someone told me that one was closed, go to other terminal (rudely - compassion)
  • Went to take laptop out of bag, not in bag :(
  • Called everywhere I was.
  • Decided couldn’t be in my carry on because it was x-ray’d
  • Bag didn’t fit in size dimensions by an inch, luckily had bands, and banded them up so it would fit.
  • After all that couldnt’ get bag on plane, had to check it. Only thing I had was my foam roller
  • But had to check bag, and pick up
  • Best part, met someone cool - ranking professor, which I was working on

Day #1

  • Renting the bike
  • Dinner with the belgians
  • Falling into the hole while loving my eulogy
  • Brought popcorn popper from Canada, but can’t get a microwave for my hotel room
  • Found radishes
  • Very nice coffee shop in old quebec
  • All day cool hearing english and french, if not too fast, really enjoyed it.
  • Amazing opening ceremonies
    • Best shadow puppet
    • Amazing Trampoliners - crazy good.
  • Non stop magic see schedule

Day #2-4

  • 10-11 hours a day of magic: 3 hour stage show; 4 hour close up; 2 hour show; 1-2 hours of lectures
  • Too much, burned out
  • Falling asleep in the middle of the day.
  • Not enough sleep
  • Meeting some strangers .

Day #5 - Recalling the essential

Post-Hoc realized I was being an essentialist:

  • Skipped morning stage shows (don’t love them), and did lectures instead. Awesome!
  • Really enjoyed the lecture so boughht his class (OK, will probably never watch it, but fingres crossed)
  • Snuck out of banquet since folks i didn’t connect with my table mates to talk to family.
  • Took two slots to clear my head and meditate
  • Took a break in the middle of the day to meditate
  • Took time during intermissions to do stretching
  • I do weird stretches so people always ask if I’m OK.
  • Left the envening show 15 minutes in so I could sleep in instead. Should have not showed up.
  • Asked folks who said they do baloons and bands to show me what they do
  • Talking to Zach and Tori!

Dani DaOrtiz - Best Magic Show of My life

  • Truly impossible
  • Super high, positive energy
  • Total audience engagement
  • Impossible
  • Keeps building suspense
  • Pulls the audience in
  • Feels like you’re experiencing chaos

Mario Lecture

  • Cool idea of cards going up
  • Using “broken magic” to be human (see Show don’t tell kids magic)
  • Be yourself
  • Have a reason for your magical jesture. Say if someone buys you dinner you can talk for 30 minutes
  • Use cigaratee to load card to cigarette

Priorities

  • Going to bed early even if miss stuff
    • Totally worth it
  • xyz