Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park Sometimes, one has to experience a loss of a loved one to truly appreciate our time here on Earth.  Life is fraught with uncertainty, dangers, and challenges, and it helps to focus our minds when we lose someone close, whether they’re humans or canines/felines. Visiting the Death Valley National Park  was one of those times when I absolutely felt the need to cherish, embrace and appreciate life as much as I possibly can.  The place is unlike any national park in the United States we had visited, as it is the hottest, driest, and the lowest of all national parks.  The place just oozes with that feeling of being desolate, where even plants like cacti don’t exist.  It feels like what Earth might’ve been if it had lost its precious atmosphere.  If you’ve ever watched science fiction movies (like the Martian ) where they depict Mars or some similar planet or exoplanet, then you’ll understand Death Valley .  The place is a study in contrast: one m

  Aria Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV My wife and my wife’s first introduction to the Aria Resort & Casino was back in 2017, when we last visited the city of Las Vegas.  We had selected Vdara Hotel  for our 5 night/6 day stay, which was located right next to Aria.   Back then, we had used Aria for self parking, as Vdara did not (and still does not) have its own self-parking garage.  We had an interesting and harrowing experience looking for the self parking garage, which we incorrectly thought was at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino , next door.  Long story short, we eventually found the Aria self parking garage after about 30 minutes of wandering the area known as the CityCenter Complex , which include Aria, Vdara, Waldorf Astoria , and Shops at Crystals .   After parking our car at the Aria self parking garage, we made what seemed like an endless journey with our large suitcases in tow, traversing through the Aria Hotel, walking through the huge casino, its many restaurants

  Toby being happy (June 2021) Abraham Lincoln:  “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” As I write this post on a beautiful sunny and a warm sunny afternoon in June, I’m pondering why someone is happy or unhappy.  I got thinking of this important question that humans have been asking themselves over the millennia thanks to couple of very disparate things that happened on the same day. On that same day, we went shopping for food at Walmart on a very busy Saturday.  As we were checking out, we got the sense our cashier wasn’t having a good day.   She ignored our greeting for the most part, and she was curt in her reply of our parting greeting of “have a nice day.”  She replied with a “yeah” to our greeting, which I thought was rude and inappropriate.  It was bad manners and bad attitude all the way around… It immediately got me thinking right then and there why she was so unhappy that instance.  Was it the fact that she’s working on a Saturday when her friends