What’s up everyone, I hope you all had a relaxing Christmas and New Years. We’re starting off the new year with another Signals post, wherein I talk about things that have caught my attention recently.
Right now I have this post scheduled for the second Sunday in January. I’ll probably look to move this to the first weekend of the month from now on. I made an exception with the New Years post on Liminality, as it was a little more prescient at that time.
Ever since the pandemic started, time has been moving differently — it seems that nothing happens for long stretches of time, followed by very short, intense bursts of everything happening all at once. To keep these posts interesting, I’ll be releasing this Signals every other month. These are a lot of fun to write, so I don’t want them to get too stale or boring!
Either way, let me know what you think — you can reach me in the comments here on Substack, or you can just DM me on Instagram. Oh, and please remember to like this post and subscribe. It helps me reach more people and incentivizes me to keep making quality content 🥂
Ivy Merch - I’m sure you’ve noticed at this point that I’ve talked about making merchandise for Ivy. I ordered a bunch of Made-in-the-USA sweatshirt blanks a couple weeks ago and am in the process of getting them embroidered.
My goal here is to have a product that is nice — something that is quality and will also last a long time. Since so many of you guys are interested in some Ivy-branded apparel, I feel like it’s my duty to make something that matches (and hopefully exceeds) my own standards.
Anyway, since you guys are happy to listen to the schizophrenic ramblings that I call the Ivy Newsletter, I feel like you should have first dibs on the sweatshirts. I think I’ll send out an email for early access, or maybe figure out how to code-lock the website I’m making so that you get a chance to get one.
Stock is very limited as all expenses and upfront costs are coming directly out of my pocket. Buying from US-based manufacturers isn’t cheap, but based on the quality I’m seeing, it sure is worth it.
If things go well, I’ll try and use the profits as seed money for another round of apparel — and hey, maybe this ends up being the start of something beautiful.
Walking - I’m really into walking. It’s a really good way to get some passive exercise in, and it’s also a great way to decompress. Having an energetic dog and primarily working from home make it a much easier decision to just take 15 minutes to walk around the block. It keeps Pepper (my dog) happy and allows me to get some fresh air. All-in-all, walking has been a great boon for my mental and physical health.
Recently I’ve been going into the office to run some equipment tests and noticed that my daily steps fell off a cliff. Despite using less energy, I leave the office absolutely exhausted. I graduated into the pandemic and started my first job in the Summer of 2020, so the WFH life is basically all I’ve known, minus some stints on-site every few months. It’s a very jarring realization for me, and it puts it into perspective how easy it is to let your health slip.
I’m planning on revisiting Henry David Thoreau’s short essay called Walking in the near future — I’ll make a post dedicated entirely to the matter as well, I think.
TIL Thoreau was a neckbeard New Years Resolutioners - It is once again that time of the year. If you go to the gym regularly, you may know that the month of January absolutely sucks. It’s hard to be angry at people that are putting forth the effort to try and take hold of their health, but it ends up having the unfortunate side-effect of making the gym really bloated and uncomfortable.
If you’re reading this and plan on making a fitness change to ring in the new year, a little bit of research can go a long way — here is a pretty comprehensive beginner routine so that you don’t end up in a video like the one below.
Holiday minibulk - Having just said all of that, and in a deliberately hypocritical fashion, I’ve heard some clamor about a challenge called 75 hard and think I’m going to try it out. I gained a few pounds of fat over the last couple of months and it’s starting to show, so I think it’ll be beneficial to start the first few months of 2022 on a good note.
I’ve never been a “fitness challenge“ person and honestly have always scoffed at the idea (there is plenty to scoff at), but whatever, I’m getting chubby and need to re-focus my health & fitness efforts.
The rules are shown below — I’ll make an effort to post about my progress semi frequently. It’s probably a good way to stay accountable with the whole thing too. Feel free to follow along and share progress as well — I think it would be pretty fun if we can get a community aspect to the challenge going.
For dietary considerations: I will be eliminating processed sugars and industrial seed/vegetable oils from my diet for the duration of the challenge.
For Exercise: I will be primarily using a rowing machine, broken into 8 steady-state pieces/wk and 2 VO2max pieces/wk (5 x 1km, 4 minutes rest), as well as lifting 3 or 4 times a week.
SmartWool - I’ve talked at length at this point about erring toward natural fibers — SmartWool recently had a pretty steep sale so I decided to try out some wool boxers (normally priced at $50). I recognize that this is an insane price to pay for boxers but merino wool is a superior fabric, so it’s money well-spent .
I’ve recently been made acutely aware of the impact that polyester fabrics have on the boys (it can make you infertile). I’ve also been a boxer briefs guy for a long time, but it seems that breathability also plays a big role in the health of your balls (constriction and heat diminishes sperm count), so I’m switching back to boxers. Also, it looks like Big Underwear knows that people don’t like synthetic undergarments and will pay more for natural fibers (i.e., they can charge a premium so that your underwear isn’t made of plastic) — might be something good to keep in mind.
As an aside, I’ve also pretty much completely switched over to wool socks. I usually go with Darn Tough though, due to their lifetime guarantee.
Bean Boots - It’s sad for me to admit this, but I think I need to retire my Bean Boots. It’s always been easy to look past the faults of the original duck boot because it’s just so iconic (and I do appreciate L. L. Bean’s commitment to keeping bean boot production in the US), but the truth of the matter is that they stink.
I mean this in the most literal sense, by the way — my pair smells terrible. Even after as little as an hour wearing them, they need to be left outside to allow the smell to dissipate.
I’ve owned a myriad of other waterproofed shoes and boots over the years, but the Bean Boot remains the only footwear that I have issues with. Luckily enough, this problem doesn’t translate to the pair of gumshoes that I own — in fact, they’re probably one of my favorite pairs of shoes.
As an aside, I’m not saying that this problem is guaranteed to happen to you, but it seems to be common enough to warrant caution if you’re looking into buying a pair of Bean Boots. The price:quality ratio on them is amazing and they’re really nice shoes otherwise.
The Bean mocs maintain that iconic silhouette without having to deal with the nasty smell (your mileage may vary) Blundstone - A potential solution to the Bean Boot Question? I had a pair of 500s which were comically bulky, to the point where my friends were calling them my school shooter boots.
Look don’t get me wrong, it’s generally a good thing to not care what others think regarding style choices (try wearing a turtleneck in public, for example), but you can only get clowned on so hard before you have to give up on a piece entirely.
That being said, a friend recently made me aware of their sleeker offerings - the 1900 & 1901 models. These look like they’re more up my alley, so I might give them a shot. Other boot suggestions include Le Chameau for wellies and Dubarry of Ireland’s Antrim Boots.
Blundstone 1900, via koolstuff.com.au
Credentialism - Something that’s been irking my soul for a while now is the American obsession with credentials. College degrees used to act as heuristics for basic competencies, but now feel more like barriers to entry.
In the past you could get a degree in art history or whatever and have the world at your fingertips. In fact, this is what author Michael Lewis did in finance. I believe it was in his novel Liar’s Poker that he mentions that entire divisions at bulge bracket banks were being run by guys in their mid-20s (and very successfully at that).
This simply isn’t possible anymore — nowadays an investment banker might be a VP (not the VP, a VP. There’s a big difference in banking) by the time they are 28. Running a division is a pipe dream before one’s mid-40s at the earliest — and even then you’d be lucky to be a managing director.
Startups and tech ameliorate this a little bit, but I’m talking about regular blue-chip corporations here. My gut says that this acts as a way for the people who “made it“ in their respective fields to close the door behind them (generally a covert mental process, this isn’t always done intentionally).
This isn’t anything new — the aristocracy of any nation generally makes it as close to impossible for them to be overthrown as they can. The American version of this (really fucking lame) is facilitated through corporations and net worth — nobody can take your position or authority (middle management job lol) if they can’t even get their foot in the door.
I feel this especially hard in my industry (biotechnology) — jobs that could be done by a person with a STEM bachelors require a PhD + postdoc. I had a coworker at one of my internships who had just finished his postdoc and gotten a job in the industry — he was 32 years old. That’s 10 (!!!) years of lost wages for a job that barely paid 6 figures. Insanity.
Don’t even get me started on deference to credentials when it comes to intellectual discussion.
How do we fix this? I genuinely have no idea.
I will not eat the bugs - Has anyone else noticed how hard a lot of news sources are pushing the idea of eating insects recently? Seems a little suspect to me…
Cover photo: L. L. Bean Christmas Catalog, 2007
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