Category Archive

Spring Break this year constituted visits to family. The hazard with such visits is always trying to time the duration exactly right, long enough that the memories you make together lay a foundation for positive common experiences, short enough that you don’t regress to your worst childhood self. I used to be a squeeze every ounce together kind of guy, …

Figuring out your Number may lead to insomnia.Back around 2016, I read like crazy. I found and devoured the Mr. Money Mustache blog, and then had the uniquely ridiculous experience of citing the unusually named blog to completely serious friends during highly intellectual conversations. I consumed the Bogleheads book, routinely pored over the Bogleheads wiki, and researched relevant threads from …

Six years ago I cut back drastically on my clinical shifts in the ED. I asked the person in charge of planning our schedule if I could batch my shifts such that it would allow me to travel for 3 weeks in the summer with family. I got the green light, and never looked back. When I reinvented my career …

Recently, I caught up on the writing of a fellow physician finance blogger, Dr. Cory Fawcett at Financial Success MD. Cory is a “repurposed” surgeon who reinvented his career after leaving medicine in his early 50s to become an author, coach and financial blogger. I admire him for forging this encore career. When his youngest son had an unexpected window of …

Bidding my daughter good night recently, I played her an album of Icelandic alternative rock (Sigur Ros) that I haven’t listened to for years. The songs were orchestral, a little abrasive to listen to, but they built on one another through their arrangement. It got me thinking (in the digressive manner I increasingly relish with age) about order. I was …

Because I am a dirtbag by nature, I did not need to spend a lot of money to enjoy the things I valued during and after residency and fellowship. As an attending, I rented an apartment, drove a beater, and continued to travel like the budget backpacker I’ve always been. [I’m still that guy. An older friend recently retired, and …

[This is Part 2 of 2. Please find Part 1 here.] When we last checked in, I was a high school student enjoying the benefits of participation in theater arts and music. The value can best be described as a combination of eventual self-confidence that comes with repeat public performances compounded by the comfort in one’s skin that comes with …

I was a teenage Madrigal. That was the name of the highly competitive coed singing group I belonged to in high school. (I was also a member of another, less selective group, the Royal Knights. The entry requirements for that group were a pulse and a Y chromosome). The competition to join singing groups at our high school was cutthroat …

A couple of mornings ago, as I took a final sip of my daily espresso, I noticed the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. I was thrust into the position of making a small but telling decision. Why does my reaction to a dishwasher full of clean dishes translate into a referendum on my character? For much the same reason …

We have always been a family of collectors. When we were young, and traveled to Mexico frequently to visit family, my dad took great pleasure in bargaining with street vendors for “ironwood” carvings. My parents’ home has approximately twenty such carvings – display shelves full of multiple copies of graceful sea turtles, sleek dolphins, curved seals and numerous other creatures …