1.  Watching the market move sometimes reminds me of music.

2. The Birthday Paradox is fascinating.

3. Sometimes, the money is just too much. Write me a check, guys.

4. I have never been able to read more than 50 pages of Norman Mailer. I am not sure why.

5. “Vacations are the act of grabbing minutes and hours and days with both hands, stealing against the inevitability of time. There will be a day when our family as we know it will no longer exist, and I want to know in that moment that I wasn’t at the office or doing the dishes when I could have been walking on the dock with my dad, when I could have been drinking tea and eating ginger cookies on the porch with my mom. I don’t want to be building my bank account or my abs or my dream house when I could be dancing with Aaron at the beach bar on New Year’s Eve, when I could be making crackers and cheese for dinner because we were on the boat till way after the shops closed, sunburnt and sandy and windblown, and happier there and together than anywhere else with anyone else.”

-Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines (Amazon)

1. In trading, prices go up. And prices go down. They go down faster than they go up though, it seems.

2. Here is a great example of bad customer service.

3. Days like today in West Texas make me want to move to San Diego. Or, Key West, maybe.

4. On being creative.

5. “Always question why this particular event has happened, what the motives of the various actors are, who really is in control, who benefits by this action. Often, it will revolve around money and power—that is what people are usually fighting over, despite the surface gloss they give to it.”

-Robert Greene, The 50th Law (Amazon)