Welcome to my income report for Apr 2022

In Apr, I earned $565.97 passively in total. Less than in the previous month.

What Happened In April

Finished My First Half Marathon In Record Time!

1:41, this is my personal record I achieved at the Sportissimo Half Marathon race 2022. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the final statistics.

It seemed impossible to get better than 1:55 time when I was training in the past. But the adrenaline, the hype, and the race's competitiveness got the better out of me.

After finishing the finish line I was hooked. I am a half-marathoner for life. From that moment on, I have another purpose on why to travel around the world.

In the past, it was about collecting handstand photos. Now it will be half marathon medals.

I talked about collecting trophies in the past, in my Baltic trip report, where I met a Chinese traveler, a 70-year-old granny, who traveled whole her life. And she told me the secret of why she visits various churches around the world. A place people rarely appreciate.

She told me, that it is her way of comparing various destinations and storing her travel memories. So in her mind, she has a church's hall of fame, that she can recall whenever she wants.

Anyway, I would not be able to find out about my new passion if I didn't challenge myself with my mates two years ago before covid hit. The Pandemic delayed the race two times and I trained two times for 14 weeks for nothing.

But I build a new healthy habit and trained myself to run long distances which only helps me during traveling. And I pushed my physical limits to new levels. Now I have a great way how to clean up my head and relax when I need a quick endorphin rush.

It is also a free and individual way how to burn calories fast. I can listen to the music and cruise the streets or I can focus on some thought and try to run it out. Most of the time I come up with the next best step when I try to do problem-solving by running.

It's like meditative walking, just with faster results.

So what was the race like? Exciting, that is the word.

You are nervous at the beginning because you care about your final time, you care about if you can sustain speed the whole time.

But it is pointless, once you get your racing number, once you stand on starting line with similarly minded people who are as nervous and excited as you, all the fears go away.

You get so excited you wish the race starts asap, and as it starts you slowly move forward with mass building up the speed. You pass other runners left and right, which only gives you a motivational boost.

Ultimately you reach your pace group, which is slightly faster than you and you try to keep the speed with them. They will lead you for the rest of the race.

The route is pretty scenic, starting from Staromestske Namesti all the way down to Smmichov, then going up to Hradčany and Holešovice, and then back to Staromestske Namesti. I like the river part, but I didn't like the Holešovice part. I ran through some long tunnels with cars passing by and the air there was rather nasty.

In reality, you don't have time or energy to watch your surroundings, you focus on the next runner in front of you. From time to time there is a band with some loud music or a refreshment spot every 4 km, that breaks your focus pattern.

Btw, drinking every 4 km is not enough and I had to bring extra water bottles. Also when it comes to diet, I had a morning keto-based lunch, and before the race, I eat whole chocolate. I also bought running gels, but I lost one at 6th km and used gel only twice. At both times I almost threw up as it was super sweet and sugar dense. Definitely don't recommend consuming in greater amounts.

After finishing the race, you get a medal, an aluminum cover, a breakfast pack with a snack bar, a water bottle, a banana, and you can drink unlimited Gatorade cups. This is what I missed during the race, the possibility to drink Gatorade every km.

Ultimately you could engrave the time to your medal for a modest fee.

As for other runners, I was surprised to see people of different heights and fitness levels, who were faster than me. That only motivated me more to overpass them. I saw a few Asians as well, which was nice.

Now If I would run again here are my lessons learned:

One running gel is enough.
Definitely bring extra water. Don't train without water, it causes extra stress and muscle loss.
Running with desolated shoes with holes is fine, but buying proper running shoes without holes makes you faster, because the softer the steps, the less energy and pain you need and get to take another step.
It is recommended to be overdressed than underdressed.
A running fanny pack or backpack would also make you faster, as they are more aerodynamic.
Always start together with your pace group, don't stay behind just because they give you a high position number.
Half marathon training is not necessary to finish the race but is crucial to not injure yourself.
It is ok to slow down to grab a drink. The body will rest for a while and you can always speed up later.
Definitely bring a selfie stick. Holding a phone by hand makes you slower.
The crisis comes at the 7th and 14th and 17th km.
Ultimately, don't think about the time and just enjoy the run!

Live projects

Good House Music

At the time of writing this post, it grew to 410 subscribers. A 2.7% increase over the previous month. I have uploaded 2 DJ mixes and 2 new single tracks. The most viewed track recorded 100 views.

I decided to switch my music library program, yet again. So I won't be able to mix any new exciting mixes anytime soon unless I add enough music to my new library.

Previously, I have been using Rekordbox for the past six months and it worked well. Especially the scrubbing through tracks while cueing the next tracks. Which the new library does not have.

So it will be a pain in the ass to find the next suitable song. Also adding and sorting tracks in the new library app is slow as hell. It's written in java after all. And its music database corrupts very often. Happened to me at least dozen times in the past 20 years.

But something tells me Rekordbox is just not advanced as I would wish. Don't get me wrong, I can totally mix a generic DJ set with it. But if I want to mix more eclectic mixes across house music styles. I need to swallow the bullet and rebuild my collection with the new library app I have been using on and off for the past 20 years.

After losing my database which contained 5+ years of sorted music, I swear to myself to find an alternative, but so far, nothing satisfies my needs. I even played with an idea to refactor that app from Java to modern technologies like Swift, but it would take me 2+ years to finish it.

Personal Youtube Channel #1

In the previous month, I posted 1 new video on my personal Youtube channel.

My vlogs are getting little to no views, but I don't care. I have never had so much fun making videos before as with doing vlogs. So I stopped looking at metrics and just enjoy the process. Finally!

I will keep uploading till I reach 246 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Personal Youtube Channel #2

In the previous month, I posted 1 new video on my personal Youtube channel.

There is a viewer/s, I don't know who they are, but they always dislike each of my new videos. This is discouraging as hell as I always spend 10+ hours on each video making it interesting, and visually pleasing with nice animations, but all I get is a dislike for no apparent reason. Only if they would write constructive criticism in my comments, but no, they just dislike my video.

I will keep uploading till I reach 30 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Financia

I made no progress in April, again.

But I won't give up and I will finish this feature no matter what, so I can devote my time to other dev projects I have in mind.

Income Report Breakdown

P2P Lending

I am still keeping a few dollars on my account with an Autotrader turned on.

Savings Accounts

Right now, I still keep a small portion of money in savings accounts to cover my living expenses.

Situation

Stock Investing

April was brutal. I lost all my historical gains and I am officially in the red. I am worse than when I started. If I bought and hold then I would still be in the green.

There were some nasty traps and crazy volatile reversals, that just spiked my stop losses like a harpoon. After a year of hard work, I lost everything I worked for. But at least I am more experienced now.

I took the loss and moved on. There are no safe heavens right now. In the environment of rising rates, covid supply chain issues, and ending globalization due to war in Ukraine.

Yes, you can hedge your portfolio with commodities. But it is hard to time the peak. Commodities are as volatile as any altcoin and you need an iron-strong framework, that tells you when to rotate off.

I do have a few, but I still didn't have time to set up fractional portfolios. I would have to maintain those portfolios manually including rebalancing and it's such a hassle. Maybe when I develop some scripts or excel sheets that help me with that quant stuff.

I have no choice but to keep holding those heavy meme bags and keep trading my strategy.

Used Stuff Sales

My path to life minimalism went well in the previous month. I sold a photography book. The fewer material things I own, the more freedom I get.

Plans, dreams, and wishes

My goals for May are the following. Keep creating new content.

That would be it. Thank you so much for following me on this journey and see you in the next report.

Income Report Apr 2022 - Ran My First Half Marathon Race