Let’s be honest: My blog is pretty cool. It’s not nearly as popular at Boingboing, Tuckermax, or that weird housewife who writes about her kids, but I have a pretty steady readership who all post comments and get something out of the site. Since I started around a year ago, I’ve averaged 1200 unique readers a day (half of that is thanks to huge spikes from digg and such). My blog hasn’t made me rich, but I’ve probably made a few thousand dollars, which is a nice side effect. More importantly it’s made me a much better writer, and has helped me chronicle the past year of my life.

What I’m saying is this : I can’t help you build the next Engadget or WWTDD, but I can help you get started to building a moderately popular blog.

First you need decent hosting and Wordpress. Don’t mess with blogger - no one reads blogger blogs because they all look the same and don’t have cool plugins that you need. I know you can customize it and all, but stop arguing and do it my way.

Go sign up for www.dreamhost.com and use the code “TYSDEAL” I don’t get anything out of it - it just gives you a lot of money off. They include a domain, so pick a good one. You probably won’t ever get to change your domain, so pick a good one. Make it memorable and easy to spell.

The nice thing about dreamhost is that they have a one click install for wordpress, so you can be up and running in a few minutes.

The next thing you need is a good theme. Eventually you’ll need to make your own unique theme, but forget that for now. The best free wordpress themes are at Fahlstad. They are super professional and easy to read. You should edit the title graphic to customize it so that your site has a distinct look. If you don’t know how, just ask a friend who has photoshop to do it. Hey, maybe I’ll even do it if I’m feeling nice.

Next you have to figure out what you’re going to write about. To make a lot of money, you need to have some sort of niche. I forgot to do that, so I don’t make a lot of money. The trade off is that I get to write about my life, which is the only thing I really care about anyway.

It’s vitally important that you are really interested in what you’re writing about. If you’re not, your blog will fail. That’s why I’d recommend writing about some part of your life - a hobby, your job, or even your research.

I don’t think frequency of writing is particularly important as long as it’s regular enough. I read a lot of blogs ranging from multiple posts per day to one post per week. I write about every 3-4 days.

Don’t focus on getting traffic at first - focus on writing authentic material. Your writing style should be easy to read with lots of spacing. See how all my paragraphs are pretty short?

Install StatCounter on your site. It takes two seconds and helps you track who is linking to you, how many pages people read, and how long they stay. As you start off it’s hard to stay motivated, but seeing that some people spend hours reading things you write helps a ton.

Choose interesting headlines… notice how one of my posts is called “I’m pregnant.” instead of “My pregnancy scare”? Which makes you more eager to read the article? Your first paragraph is also crucial - make sure that it entices the reader to continue reading.

Periodically ask your readers what they like and don’t like. When I asked, people said that they wanted to hear more about my every day life, which was surprising to me. It changed the way I wrote my blog, and my readership went up.

Don’t try to get traffic until you have at least 10-20 posts. Some of my most visited posts are the old ones that people read a year later, so just know that you WILL have an audience, even if you don’t while you write the post. No one is going to bookmark a blog with just one post, so don’t try it.

Once you have a bunch of posts, start submitting interesting ones (wait… aren’t they all interesting?) to Blog Carnivals. It’s a little bit of a hassle, but it will definitely get you a few hundred readers easily. If they don’t stick around, then take that as constructive criticism - you need to make your site more compelling. Part of that is just having a lot of posts - you never know which ones people will love, so keep cranking away.

Once you write some really good posts, start submitting them to big sites. I’ve been on the front pages of Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, College Humor, and other popular aggregating sites. Most posts won’t get onto those sites, but those that do get tens of thousands of visitors for a day, plus several days after where people who saw your site on those big sites repost on their own blogs. Each time you get on one of those huge sites, you will gain more loyal readers that will stick around long after your 15 minutes of fame.

Allow comments on your site, and respond to them when people ask you questions. I sometimes forget to respond, but I try to do it and it makes the site more of an experience.

The most important advice I can give is to start NOW and stick to it. Blogging is a lot of fun, it makes you more observant (”ooh… I can write about this”), and it provides hours of entertainment to the world!

P.S. It’s also vitally important that you link to my blog to be successful. Don’t question it - just do it.

During my second year at college, I thought that investing was easy. I read about options, paper traded for a few months, and then solicited my friends for investments. Many of them invested in my hedge fund - “The H Fund”, which I started with a friend. In total we had $26k, which was quite a lot considering how young we were.

The fund survived for a few months, even being profitable for a short amount of time. In the end, though, we lost all of the money. Luckily I have awesome friends who understood the risk, and no one was mad. Still - I learned my lessons and stayed out of the stock market for years.

For some reason or another I started reading about Warren Buffet. For those that don’t know, he is the second richest man in the US, with a worth of over 40 billion. What makes him exceptional is that he is the only person on the top 100 richest people list who made his money through investing.

Facing that fact, it’s safe to assume that neither you, nor any of your friends are better investors than Warren Buffet. I like to think that I could do anything, but there is no way I would be willing to put in the time necessary to become better than WB, if that’s even possible. If I’m not going to be the best investor in the world, the next best choice is to have the best manage my money. Luckily that IS possible.

In 1965 Warren Buffet took over a company called Berkshire Hathaway, a textile company. He soon turned it into a holding company and used it to buy stocks and whole companies. It was made into a public company, enabling anyone to invest and mirror his returns. Since 1965, Buffet has averaged a 23%+ annual return. The market indexes have averaged around 11% over that same period, and have been far more volatile. In fact, Berkshire Hathway has only had one losing year since inception, with only a 6% loss.

After doing more research, I realized that there is no better way to manage my money than to put it all in Berkshire Hathaway. I’ve watched interviews with Buffet, read books, and read his annual shareholder addresses. His number one goal is to not lose money, with his secondary goal being to make great returns. With a track record better than any other investor in the world, it’s an easy choice.

Berkshire Hathaway is broken up into two types of shares, class A and class B. Class A have never split, and thus are worth over $110,000. This isn’t practical for all investors, so they created Class B shares which are worth around $3600. Both shares increase or decrease by the same percentage, so it’s fine to just buy B. You don’t get voting rights with them, but your vote doesn’t matter anyway.

Here’s how I do it. I deposited $4000 in my account to start off. I bought two shares of Berkshire Hathaway - one outright and one on margin. Margin costs 10% per year, but Berkshire Hathway averages 23%, so I’m not concerned. Every time I get paid from work or sell something I put 20% of it in my account, which decreases my margin exposure. Once I own that margin share outright, I buy another one on margin.

Disclaimer : Since I own stock in Berkshire Hathaway, I theoretically benefit from you buying shares as well. This has nothing to do with why I recommend it, since that benefit is totally insignificant, and I don’t plan on selling my shares for many many years.

Like most kids I used to delight in waking up at the crack of dawn to unwrap the mountain of presents under the tree. With shreds of paper covering the living room I’d run upstairs to call my friends and compare our hauls.

One Christmas, maybe when I was in high school or so, my parents asked what I wanted for Christmas. For no good reason, I felt different.

“Nothing.”

They pushed and tried to get me to suggest something, but I genuinely didn’t want anything. They got me presents anyway. I appreciated the gesture and was thankful, but for some reason I went upstairs and cried for the first time in many years. It didn’t seem fair that my parents, who’ve done so much for me, would still feel obligated to go out of their way to buy me things. All I really wanted was to spend time with my whole family at Christmas. I got that every year, and was grateful for it.

As years passed I would insist that no one get me presents, but they usually still did. One year I threatened not to open any presents, but I still got a stocking full of stuff.

Finally this year I got nothing. I woke up after everyone else opened their presents, spent the morning (ok… early afternoon) playing with my little cousins and posing for pictures taken with their brand new digital cameras. Then I ate food that Evan made for me, went and visited two of my Boston friends, and spent more time with my family at my Uncle’s new house. I felt great!

I mentioned the idea a few times in the past, and people seemed to like the idea of having forums here. I do too, so here they are.

The forums should make things a lot more interactive around these parts. You can ask for advice, post your own stories and tips, or just chat with all the other cool BTYB readers. With your help, I’m going to make it into the only forum on the internet dedicated to living an awesome life.

I’ll be checking the forum several times a day, and probably posting every day too. Stories that are too short (or that I’m too short on time for) will also go there. So help me get some momentum by registering for an account and posting something interesting!

Check out the NEW FORUMS

Right now I’m sitting on my couch enjoying the aroma of onions and garlic cooking in olive oil. On another burner is a giant pot full of vegetables. Next to it is a skillet with roasting eggplants. To the side of the stove is a cutting board with even more chopped vegetables. What’s going on?

Preparation.

On Friday I’m heading up to Massachusetts to be with my family for Christmas. I go every six months and see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. The one problem is that it’s very difficult to eat healthy while traveling, especially during the season of many fine home cooked meals. My family is Italian, and thus most meals are a healthy salad coupled with an unhealthy pasta dish.

Luckily for me, I am BFFFFs with Evan, and it just so happens that she is the right combination of ruthlessly sweet and culinarily gifted. The result is that any night I’m not at Casa de Luz, it’s likely that she’s either cooking for me, or that I’m eating leftovers that she froze for me.

Evan likes to tell people about how one of the first times we hung out she ordered vegan food and I made fun of her for it. The direct quote that she likes to remember is me saying, “Why would you eat vegan? That’s so stupid.” Purposefully or not, she played a part in me turning vegan.

Some of the more delicious things she can cook are a curry that tastes like it must be unhealthy (it’s not), poblano pepper corn chowder, apple pancakes, and tempeh enchiladas. At the moment she’s molding 20 pounds of vegetables, beans, and other healthy vittles into enough vegan food for me to eat for a week in Boston.

We went to Wal Mart where I bought tupperware and a neat collapsible cooler (and a shredder, candles, kitchen towels, etc., since that’s what happens in Wal-Mart), which I intend to pack on the plane. Hopefully it will all stay frozen and delicious for when I get there.

The good news for you, dear reader, is that I will soon be building a Playboy-esque empire here in Austin with the help of Evan and some other friends. If you wrangle your way on to my supple yet exclusive guest list, you will be able to watch classic movies at our monthly movie night or play boardgames at our monthly boardgame night, all the while eating vegan (and probably some non-vegan) snacks!

Chapter 2

I thought I was done with this post, but Evan has wanted a post for a while and is working really hard to make me delicious food, so I will share some juicy facts about her.

• First of all, she believes in ghosts. Seriously. She thinks that the school her sister teaches at is haunted. That’s ridiculous. I already know ONE of you who is totally going to agree with her and write about it in the comments.
• She was one of the first two Tynan’s Angels. She almost didn’t go because she thought it sounded sketchy. She was right.
• Evan is really good at setting people up. She set up one of my friends with one of her friends, and now they are happily married (basically)
• She’s an excellent singer, which you would know if you came to my Karaoke nights every Wednesday.
• The only person I know who isn’t in my family who doesn’t like my hat is Evan. Thus, we can deduce that she has poor taste.
• She likes Jay-Z almost as much as I do, which speaks volumes about her character

Turn to page 125 to slay the dragon,
OR Turn to page 140 to eat your grandmother.

I get back to my building and reach into my back pocket. I dig for the fob that opens the front door, but can’t find it. Each pocket gets patted in anticipation of the familiar key-jingle noise, but I don’t hear it.

I wait for someone else to come into the building and I take the elevator up. There are two sliding glass doors that lead from the living room to the patio, and I sometimes leave one unlocked by accident. Hopeful, I shuffle to the first door and try it. Locked. I look inside and see the glow of my bedroom lights.

It’s November, which wouldn’t mean much in Austin if it weren’t for the cold front we’re dealing with. I move on to the next door, and it’s also locked.

Crap.

Then I remember that I bought an awesome lock pick set that fits into my wallet. After being locked out of our room in Japan and having to pick the little lock with a soda can tab and a bobby pin, I bought the set for just this purpose. I slide one of the heavy patio chairs next to the lock and start picking. The first few minutes don’t bring success. I have no lock picking training, and thus very limited ability. An hour later I still haven’t opened the door and my patience has worn thin. In defeat I call the locksmith.

The roof of the building is cold, so I huddle into a corner of the patio where I read an Ann Raynd book on my phone. Soon it’s too cold for that and I retreat to the lobby of the building. Standing there are a couple guys, one who is obviously drunk.

“Dude! Are you the guy who put the swing on the roof?”

“Yeah”

Somehow everyone in the building knows about that now. Most think it’s pretty cool, but a few people are mortally offended at the idea. He falls into the former category.

“We’re having a model photo shoot! You should check it out.”

Soon there are three models in dresses prancing around the lobby while the photographer shoots them. I read my book in the warmth of the entryway and occasionally glance up in amusement. The locksmith should have been here by now, but one of the concierges returns a message I left earlier and offers to bring me a key. I protest because it’s far too much of an inconvenience, but he insists.

I call the locksmith. Apparently he forgot his lock picks, needs to go pick them up, and will be here in an hour. I cancel the call.

Gabriel, the concierge gets here just as the photoshoot seems to be wrapping up.

“Hey man… can we take a couple shots on your patio or something?”

I agree, because random propositions often lead to interesting stories. Gabriel offers to show them up so that they can set up fast while I get some stuff from my car.

A few minutes later I’m juggling a pillow, a handful of batteries, and a Cranium game as the elevator ascends to the top floor. I open my door to a surprise.

Inside the photographer has materialized a lighting rig and has set it up in my living room. The two models are now wearing lingerie, one tugging on a string of pearls as if it was a leash for the other girl. Fascinating.

I sit down on the couch next to the makeup artist and survey my life. I’m sitting in an amazing condo, watching two models get photographed. Most people are on their couches watching the Simpsons. Life is fair - especially to me.

After a brief detour to ooh and ahh over my strange collection of clothes, the girls leave. At that very moment a mob of my friends come over - they’ve just missed the fun, but catch a glimpse of the proof.

I exchange e-mails with the photographer and two weeks later I’m sitting on my couch again, watching another photoshoot with different models, writing a post for you. Not too bad.

I’ve mentioned before that I have become a vegan. It’s now had such an impact on my life that I’m going to write a whole post explaining why on earth I’d become a vegan, and why I’ll be a vegan for life.

First, I should say that the term “vegan” isn’t great. It’s usually associated with freakshows who are so against killing animals that they won’t wear leather. While I’m not going to frequent cockfights or go hunting, I have no problem with animals being killed. I like leather stuff, and animals dying is part of life with or without humans.

Another problem with the term “vegan” is that many vegans eat an unhealthy diet. They cut out meat, but don’t add vegetables in their place, so they tend to eat a lot of refined grains. Doing that is more unhealthy than just eating meat.

I used to be a huge fan of meat. I would eat at Whole foods every day, and would get either a turkey sandwich or grilled salmon. At home I would drink milk and eat huge quantities of yogurt.

Then one day my friend Hayden loaned me the book The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. I wasn’t particularly interested in the book as I had no desire to cut out meat. I thought that lean meats were perfectly healthy, and that anyone who disagreed was a hippie.

Just to be clear - I was against veganism on principle and was not considering switching to it. Evan always ate vegetarian when we’d have lunch together and I would make fun of her for being a vegetarian. I don’t want people to get the impression that I am some sort of hippie, or someone prone to being influenced easily.

I read The China Study in one night, and it was fascinating. It’s written by one of the scientists who led the most in depth nutrition study ever. He himself was born on a farm and was an avid carnivore. Over 80,000 people were studied, and the researchers discovered that animal products were absolutely responsible for causing cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and basically anything else that people in first world countries die of. I started the book as a skeptic and finished it as a believer. I am now totally confident that eating a diet with little/no meat and lots of vegetables will significantly increase anyone’s overall health and life expectancy.

I thought that switching to being a vegan would be difficult, but I got lucky. I found a restaurant in Austin called Casa de Luz. I can not possibly say enough good things about Casa de Luz. They serve perfectly balanced vegan meals using in season and mostly local produce. 99% of what they cook is organic, and it is so delicious that a lot of my meat eating friends like to go as well. Best of all, you can eat as much as you want. Because it’s a non profit, meals are extremely cheap, only $12 including soup, salad, hot and cold tea, and of course the entree and several side dishes.

I now eat at Casa de Luz at least once every single day, and find it to be the most pleasant eating experience I could possibly imagine.

For two months I ate totally vegan without a single exception. My skin cleared up completely and I lost more weight. I’m not happy about the 10-15 pounds I’ve lost, but it is mostly fat. I dropped the initial weight quickly, but since then have plateaued. After a week or so I never desired, let alone craved, meat. As time passed it seemed less appetizing.

At the end of two months I had a cruise which I planned before going vegan. Because 5% of my diet can be meat, I reserve that time for when I’m traveling since being vegan and traveling is very inconvenient. I decided that for the cruise I would eat whatever I wanted with reckless abandon.

Shortly after getting on the cruise I ate some bread with butter. I won’t lie to you - it was delicious. I ate beef, chicken, and fish.

The dishes were good, but commercial food has a secret.

Food preparers have found there are certain tastes that make us think food tastes good. These are primarily salty, sweet, and fatty. As if it’s a cold war arms race, every food manufacturer adds massive amounts of these flavors to their products so that consumers will continue to buy them. The problem is that we adapt to these new levels, which drown out other more subtle flavors, and we must continue to eat similar foods to appease our tastebuds.

When you eat less processed more natural foods, your taste buds adjust, and foods develop an incredible complexity to them. The food on the cruise was pleasurable to eat, but seemed boring to me - each dish was a blast of fat, salt, or sugar.

I felt seasick on the ship, which was odd. I’ve never felt seasick before, even on a small boat in a very rocky ocean. On day five I was sick of eating the unhealthy food and I tried to eat the most healthy offerings the ship had (not too great). The next day I wasn’t seasick anymore - I never was… my stomach was just revolting at the processed food.

When the ship finally reached the shore again we drove the four hours from Houston to Austin and immediately went to Casa de Luz before we even went home. The food was so delicious that I had three plates of it. When I left I was happy and felt fantastic. I was worried that I would crave the meat and unhealthy food, but it was the exact opposite - I knew for sure that I would never go back.

To wrap this up, there are a couple things about my transition to veganism that I really want to stress :

I don’t expect many people to do it, but I really hope that people consider trying a vegan diet out. If you’re going to do it, you should first read “The China Study” and possibly Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. Each of these books precipitated a lasting instant overnight change in my motivation and diet.

Next, scope out some restaurants. Find one that has a lot of different vegan dishes and doesn’t use any refined sugars or flours. If you’re serious about trying to be vegan, I will even help you find them. In Austin your best bets are Casa de Luz and Mother’s (try the tempeh enchiladas!). If you don’t have some good restaurants to go to, you probably won’t actually switch. If you like to cook, get some vegan cookbooks. I’d recommend doing the restaurant thing first so that it’s as easy as possible.

Commit to trying it for 45 days. I am convinced that anyone who does it for 45 days will never go back. The desire for animals products completely disappears and is replaced with a mild revulsion for them. This is a very short period of your life that could easily have a huge effect and help you live for decades longer. I consider it to be one of the best choices I’ve ever made, along with the earlier choice to cut out processed and unhealthy foods.

The Legend of the Sparkly Hat

Anyone who has seen me in real life, seen pictures, or realized that the awesome cartoon at the top of this page is me, knows that I wear a sparkly hat almost all the time.

One day I a friend called to see if I wanted to check out “First Thursday”. It’s a monthly event here in Austin where the stores on South Congress stay open late and serve beer. Since none of them have a liquor license, they give away the alcohol for free.

We walked door to door, inspecting the wares of each vendor. There were furniture stores, clothing stores, home decor stores, and even a small organic grocer. We stumbled into a store with an ambiguous name. Only after walking in did I realize that it was a women’s clothing store.

A drunk woman stumbled to me. It was her store.

“I loooooooove your pants!”

I loved my pants too. They were batik / tye dye green and blue pants from Custo Barcelona. She pawed at them and exclaimed,

“I have JUST THE THING FOR YOU!”

“Oh… I don’t know. I didn’t realize this was a women’s store.”

She ignored me. “Follow me”

We pressed through the forest of clothing racks and reached a clearing with a single display in the middle of it. The sequins on each hat reflected the halogen lights back with a twinkle. It was a glorious collection of sequined hats, but I was unsure.

“Just try it on,” she urged. She picked up a silver hat with multi colored stars.

I put the hat on my had and turned around to look in the mirror. It was better than I expected. A lot better. I actually liked it. I figured I’d wear it once in a while at clubs, but with nowhere else to put it I wore it for the rest of the night.

Something strange happened, though. Everyone I met complimented the hat, and those that passed by looked at it and smiled. I was convinced and have worn it nearly every day since. Now people recognize me because of it, and I can’t stop wearing it.

Immediately after, my friend Hayden bought two sequinned hats. One is black with silver stars, the other is black with gold stars. Jonah bought a black one with silver stars. A few months later I realized the value of the hat and went back to the store to buy all of them, but they didn’t sell them anymore.

I went to the internet to buy more, but all the internet places sell ill fitting ones. Luckily Tarynn gave me a red one, Adam gave me a blue one with silver and gold moons and stars, and Hayden sold me his two. Next I want to commission someone to cover a hat with swarovski crystals and spell “Tynan” on it.