If you're looking for a new TV Show to binge - I highly recommend Lessons in Chemistry and Shrinking on Apple TV.
Thank me later.
☀️
Livin' La Vida Luna y Luca
Going Viral + Best Blackjack Run EVER
I put out a thread on X earlier this week.
It went hella viral:
- 275K views
- 55 Retweets
- 100+ comments
- 1K Likes
- 1K Bookmarks - *metric I'm most proud of.
It was a simple breakdown of my largest expenses from building Project Washington.
Very similar to the "How Much Does it Cost to Build a House" article I wrote a few weeks ago.
I tried my best to reply to all the comments (it took hours).
Here are a handful of (repeat) comments I'd like to highlight.
- Agency Fees - multiple people ragged on me for how much I paid in agency commissions. 🤷♂️ Sorry, not sorry.
- All-in Costs / Net Profit - The 13 largest line items weren't enough. People want the full picture. The nitty gritty. I just avoided the net profit questions.
- Self-Manage or GC? - People were interested in whether I did the project myself or hired a GC.
- Price For What You Get - People were astonished that a house on such a small lot with a 1-car garage could get $2.01M.
- How Long Did It Take? - Lots of people were concerned with the timeline: Acquisition to Disposition / Demo to Completion.
Apologies if this is not interesting.
The reason I'm highlighting the recurring comments is that I'm trying to get a better sense of 1) questions people have when it comes to new construction projects and 2) how I can potentially engineer more engaging content in the future.
Just want to have a record of it somewhere.
Now let's move on to something way more fun:
Best Blackjack Run Ever
Every year for Thanksgiving, my high school lunch table gets together for our favorite pastime: Gambling.
This year, four of us hit the Wind Creek Casino (FKA Sands) in Bethlehem, PA.
Our game of choice is Blackjack. More specifically, Free Bet Blackjack.
Everyone knows how blackjack works - you try to get as close to 21 without going over and also need to beat whatever the dealer has.
Free Bet BJ has this awesome twist: If you want to double down or split your cards, the casino will put the additional bet for you. The catch is if the dealer draws to 22, it's a push.
Anyway, we sat down at a $25 min. bet table. I cashed in $300 and proceeded to get my face ripped off. I lost 7 hands in a row to start the shoe.
I had $125 left in my stack and I was feeling helpless.
I put another $25 bet out and handed my final $100 in chips to my partner and said, "If I lose this hand, let's cash in some more and it's your turn."
I won that hand.
Then I won the next ~10 hands. It was...wild. They weren't easy wins either. I had to pull rabbits, ribbons, and flowers out of my hat to win half of them.
From $125, I built myself up to $1,155. 10x what I started with. Probably my biggest run ever. And it was about to get wayyy better.
This is the hand that made my night. 👇🏽
I bet $280 and was dealt 3,3 against a 10. Normally that's a TERRIBLE position, but this is Free Bet, so I split the 3's and drew a 7 and an 8.
Now I'm sitting on 10 and 11 against the dealer's 10 and my total bet is $560 (half funded by the casino).
I doubled down on both hands and got to 18 and 21 against a 10. Now my total bet is $1,120 (3/4 funded by the casino).
The dealer flipped over a 5 to show 15 and then drew a 10 to bust!!! 🎉🎉🎉
I bet $280 to win $1,960 LOL. Madness. 🤯
We played 3 more shoes (~90 minutes) and left. Everyone was up on the night.
We hit Applebees on the way home for some boneless buffalo wings (half-off after 10pm) just like the old days.
Core memory added to the vault.
