The little tidbits in my life.
Last Sunday played ball with the kids as usual.
It was that days lunchtime onwards that a freezing lower back pain began to hurt me.
By the next few days especially over the midweek I was standing a lot and my back aches worsened.
Spent the weekend lying in bed, doing lower back exercises etc which seems to have largely worked.
Lower back pain is really quite the bitch.
Now I have to worry about it becoming chronic.
Sigh, the woes of aging.
We’ve locked in UEFA Champions League next season!
Currently in third place, we’ve likely gotten that locked in.
Well done to Michael Carrick!
It pains me to think that if we had gotten rid of Ruben Amorim earlier, we might even have challenged for the league title this season!
In any case, back to where we belong, and much to look forward to next season!
Oh and Bruno Fernandez just won Football Writers Footballer Of The Year!
GGMU!!!
There’re several wars going on.
The Strait of Hormuz is still closed.
There is an energy and oil crisis around the world.
Inflation is running high globally.
Yet.
S&P is near ATH, touching 7,500.
NASDAQ is near ATH, touching 29,600.
Dow is near ATH, touching 50,000.
What gives?
Haven’t played my first game of golf in 2026. In fact I didn’t play a single game in 2025 even!
Haven’t cycled in a really really long time as well.
Haven’t travelled at all other than a couple of day trips to JB, in all of 2026. Sad.
Haven’t played basketball with kids in almost a month. Sad.
Haven’t had a proper run in a week, due to the rains.
Wifey bought new paddles for paddle ball, so that’s something new.
Doing more gym, static, home workouts for muscle strengthening.
Work is consuming me the last few months.
Not in a terrible way.
I have a lot of things going on, a lot of things to oversee, and the business is growing with many positive changes, so make no mistake, I’m not complaining about anything negatively draining at work.
Home is going well too, but with the teens busy with school, friends and their own initiatives, we are sort of confined to set timings to be together - some weekday dinners, meals and family gatherings on weekends, morning ferry drives. That’s really it. It feels normal but it’s also a new normal for us as parents.
A lot more electronic device usage by everyone. Sometimes necessary sometimes could have of. It’s not easy to find a balance.
Health is the bigger issue. I’ve recently been quite obsessed with latest technology and AI and my belief is that we will, without accident, live longer as healthcare and biotech improves. So there’s a lot to think about there. So it’s better diet and more regular exercise that I need to work towards.
Here’s my very own magnificent seven AutoInvest portfolios!
I’m hoping with great discipline, these portfolios will help me FIRE earlier than planned!
1. Boglehead
2. China Power
3. Dividends
4. Greatest Risk
5. JIBVISC
6. Max Aggressive
7. Purely CSPX
Really win liao lor.
This heat is ridiculous.
This year’s April must be one of the hottest + humidest in a very long time.
It’s soooo hot especially at night.
And it’s sooooo humid!
It’s already April.
How quickly this year is moving along really.
The Iran War is still ongoing and it looks likelier to escalate further and drag on, than end.
There is an energy crisis where many governments are already sounding the alarm, but the masses are not panicking yet.
It is harder to plan family holidays, as worries of an escalating oil crisis might mean that any overseas tickets I buy now, may not be a viable destination. Quite worrying.
Work is also weird. There is too much volatility in the markets that the markets have become so unpredictable that traders have all gone to the sidelines.
So we went from thinking we’d do really well this year, to bracing for this being a year we might miss our targets. In a short matter on two months.
And April is projected to be hotter than March :(
Today was a walk down memory lane.
I went with my dad to the location of his old home. We called it Old House.
It was off Beatty Road. One of the first of its kind government housing before HDB even came to form.
I have faint memories there as my parents brought me there on a weekly basis when my grandmother was still alive and my paternal side of the family would gather there to drink beers, gamble, play mahjong and make merry.
Today we walked Beatty Road, then Sturdee Road, drove through Jalan Besar.
It was a great time reminiscing the past, both for dad and I.
He was narrating all the old stories of his childhood, while walking different streets. Where different things happened in his life as he was growing up.
We saw the beautiful Peranakan terrace houses on Petain Road.
Then we drove to Berseh Food Centre at Jalan Berseh for dinner. We had herbal turtle soup paired with mutton tendon soup, washed down with sugarcane juice.
It was delicious.
Today was a good day.
Here’s an interesting problem I am currently facing.
Say you invested a significant amount X into a stock that you believe in strongly. A very high conviction stock.
Said stock manages to 2X in six months, at which point you could sell off, realize the gains, place it into fixed deposits and earn $1,000/mth in interest at current interest rates, guaranteed.
OR
The stock turnaround has only just begun and the reasons it has already 2X are the same reasons of very high probability it could possibly propel the stock price to an even higher level of 3-5X in the next 1-2 years.
Which would you choose to do?
There appears no end in sight.
Trump definitely doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.
Iran is surviving better than most would’ve expected.
The people in the GCC especially Dubai and Doha, do not seem to be alarmed by the fact that this war is only just beginning and rescue flights can still go in and out of the GCC states. Who knows if this will escalate further and desalinations plants, more oil depots and airports will be completely decapacitated. Only then will true panic set in.
Hopefully this whole situation will deescalate instead but let’s see.
Trump is definitely going to find it very difficult to äøå° now.
Dad’s surgery is off.
I guess I have next week super free now.
It’s feels weird but I suppose this is for the best.
Who knows what other twists there will be.
It’s been a very weird year so far.
The general feeling is negative.
Life isn’t great, health is great, family stuff isn’t great, work stress is rising.
Haven’t travelled at all this year and have ZERO travel plans and it’s already March.
Yet wealth is increasing at the fastest pace ever.
It’s a very weird year that feels very off somehow.
Hopefully the not so good parts will improve.
So my dad has decided to undergo the suggested operation.
It is good in the sense that it was what I’d have liked for him since he is able and deemed healthy to do so.
That said it is a tough thing for him to go through. No matter his choice of next path, all roads are life changing, so the decision is certainly not easy.
Hopefully the surgery goes well as expected.
The US and Israel have begun preemptive strikes on Iran.
This was somewhat expected considering the recent military buildup and warnings.
Gold and silver will certainly spike upwards.
So will oil obviously.
The stock markets will tank come Monday but there is a bit of dependency on whether there is any deescalation tomorrow.
Always notable that Trump always starts market tanking shit on Saturdays so I would not be surprised if they get back to the negotiating table before Monday’s open.
Let’s see what’s going to happen.
Ok so here’s my goal in the medium term since I am getting on with age after all.
I hope to retire by age 55.
I hope to have at least $2.5m in liquid investible assets at 55.
So there, I said it.
Now to work towards this goal.
Been generally feeling down lately.
Because of all this that’s going on.
Yet it feels like this is going to be a huat year for me.
Alas but huat is not equal to health.
Sigh.
I know it is the circle of life.
But why now?
Ok.
We are down to choosing the right ENT Surgeon.
Or at least it’s my father’s choice.
Went for the prognosis with mum and dad.
Dad’s situation isn’t the best.
As in the choices that he has are difficult.
Yet there are silver linings but still.
And things could deteriorate rapidly if he delays or wait.
As his son there are clear choices I’d make for him driven by urgency and wanting him to live as long as healthy life possible.
But having slept on all that we had to soak in yesterday, if I put myself in his shoes, if a much tougher choice of the major procedure, with lots of high risk elements, with not sufficient guarantees that a life changed, will make him happy.
I feel like in the end, the choice is his and he will need to stick by it.
Sigh.
Special mention to the doctors and nurses and administrative staff of CGH.
For a public hospital that operates as a not-for-profit, it is a wonder these noble staff do what they do with so much compassion. They all deserve the good things in life.