Day S3A: Got a New Wife

July 14, 2024

This would be hands down the best day of the trip so far.

My wife, the real one that is, jokes that I treat my bikes like they are my wife. So that has somewhat become a nickname. It turns out after the last "wife" was stolen that a replacement was needed. Today would finally be the day. Having already sold some call options and Reddit shares to pay for all this, I set aside about a $1500 budget and got the funds ready so I could buy the bike today. It had already been sourced out yesterday.

But first, a fitness class. A slot was booked on the app and I was running late in the morning so it had to be an Uber to get there. Along the way I walked into 7/11 and bought an apple, a large bottle of Gatorade, and some greek yogurt. I then walked along the street, stopped at a bus stop to figure out the logistics of getting an Uber, then just munched the apple while trying to decide what to do next.

As I was doing so, an 80-year old athlete walked over and said, "This is good you're eating an apple. When I eat them, I eat them the whole thing including the core."

I said, "Wow, I couldn't do that but I'm sure it's good for you."

She was in remarkably good shape for her age and wore a running jersey in memory of Pat Tillman. I had no idea who this guy was. She assumed I did and rambled on about him. It was another classic case of my being out of touch with all these cultural references where people have no idea that I'm actually an expat. Later on I looked him up on the internet and was able to connect the dots. He used to be a footbal player and joined the army after 9/11. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was killed by friendly fire.

She went on to say, "You know this guy was amazing, and we run half marathons in honor of his name. I run them still at my age. He served our country well and was killed in Afghanistan."

I told her, "This is quite amazing, and you're really fit for your age. What's your name by the way?"

She told me so then said, "You know I was supposed to go to a Catholic church that day (they do daily services) right across the street from where the attacks happened on 9/11 and decided not to."

I was stunned. She said, "I'm here in San Jose now and walk around everywhere. People want to give me lifts, but I just keep walking. It's really good for the health. And look at you, you are super fit."

I had to brag a bit and say, "Well my name is Steve as I said but most people call me Fit Steve"

She then said, "Good, keep it up. Most people here are so oversized it is insane. Some are morbidly obese, as in one person could now contain three people."

My friend yesterday even told me, "You're so fit and outgoing you could kill it at these singles parties and have girls lined up to date you if you weren't married."

None of this makes any sense, really. The bar is set so low around here with all these loudmouthed and oversized men. Technically I'm fit and rich yet I'm still getting zero female attention. Maybe my friend is right, the demographics are just not in our favor.

Anyways, this older woman went on to say, "But here I am living on the street. It's ok, don't feel bad for me, I like it this way."

I asked her, "Why are you on the street?"

She said, "It's a long story. My husband left me over 30 years ago. I am 80 years old already. He left me for another woman and put all his money, actually our money that was a joint account into a Swiss bank account. I asked him at the time, 'Do you still want to reconcile with me? I can give you a chance, I am willing to forgive you if you want to honor your marriage vows and stay together with me' but he then abanonded her.

I couldn't believe I was hearing this.

She went on to say, "Ever since then I couldn't find work, and somehow I found my way here when the cost of living got too much. I still run half marathons regularly. But it's rough out here you know. Even people try to ask me for sex like I'm a prostitute or something. But for goodness sake I'm 80 years old, what can I offer you? Maybe I should tell them I'm 90 years old"

My brain was having a hard time keeping up with all this. Unfortunately my mind was now drifting to the fact that I was going be late for my fitness class and lose my credits if I didn't start moving. But out of respect I wanted to let her finish first.

She then asked me, "So what did you think about the Trump assassination attempt last night? God must have been protecting our dear President."

I said, "I'm not a Trump supporter, but it's just insane what happened. What were the police or Secret Service even doing last night at the rally when they let all this happen and couldn't provide the security?"

She said, "Exactly. Well I really don't know, and maybe the whole thing was staged or something?"

Last night I had wondered the same thing. Maybe this was a staged event to prop up his Truth Social stock. I made a classic beginner trader mistake and placed an order for $2000 worth of his Trump stock. My thinking at the time was that if you miss this chance, you would miss out on 2x or 3x returns leading up to the election. Then I would short the stock later on while thinking that he would lose the election.

It didn't work that way at all.

The classic mistake is that when you are buying or shorting a stock after the news comes out in a direction you want, it is already too late to get in on the trade. That time I was buying and my order filled at the highest point. Basically the worst timing. After that the stock crashed and I basically lost nearly all my investment. Thankfully I bought more on the way down and averaged my position (not always the best move) and the stock later went up so I made some nice profits on Trump overall.

Later on another friend asked me how I pick stocks and he grilled me with all these questions like P/E ratio, earnings, a company's business model, how they are profitable and so forth. It felt like he was giving me a test or something and the attitude was like 'who do you think you are for being successful'

I told him, "You're asking the wrong guy. I really don't study much of that stuff and suggest you don't either. Frankly you're wasting your time with that analysis. The market doesn't follow predictable rules. What I'll do is pick half my stocks in mainstream companies for buy and hold, basically the ones that will go up over the long term. The other half I speculate on and either buy or short based on what I think will happen in advance. But I learned the hard way that once the news comes out, it's too late. You're definitely better off not buying or shorting based on the news."

Anyways, back to this particular conversation. I told this woman, more or less quoting Biden at first, "It's beyond sick what happened last night. This is not right. What's even worse is all these woke leftists having a meltdown about it"

She said, "I'm glad you brought that up. It's because of them that I'm out here on the street. Ironically those are the ones who advocate for more government policies to solve the homeless problem but it never works."

I shook my head and said, "Well I can tell you this, as a successful white male I'm treated like a criminal in this so-called liberal state of California. This woke movement means I have to watch my mouth for everything I say lest someone gets offended or some legal issue comes up, especially if they find out how much money I'm making and tax the hell out of it. This whole thing has gotten out of control. And no I don't support Trump."

We talked back and forth some more and she said, "Here is my word to you: do the right thing. Remember that. I believe in you."

Then she walked off.

At that point I realized I only had 5 minutes until my fitness class and I hadn't even begun to order an Uber. So I did that, and fortunately made all the green lights. I rushed in late and the staff were very nice and said, "Please sign this form quickly, we need you in there in 90 seconds otherwise we have to close the door since the policy is nobody comes in after 5 minutes."

I said, "Thanks very much much. Sorry for the delay, someone was telling me her life story."

They just laughed and said, "Well you're here! Have a great class!"

After that it was a short walk to a church I had researched online earlier, and much to my surprise and delight it was predominantly African American. The people there were all super friendly and outgoing as you would more or less expect and it was a truly wonderful experience.

After the church service there was time to chat with people over coffee and several welcomed me. They said, "Help yourself to a cupcake!"

They could tell by the look in my eyes that I was absolutely starving and starting to drool when they said 'cupcake' so one girl just said, "Help yourself to as many as you want!" I tried to control myself and just went for three very small ones. This is exactly what will happen when you do fitness classes.

Walking down the street a bit, I found some delicious clam chowder

Next on the agenda was finding the bike shop. I took a public bus and for some reason it was free. No complaints there. On arrival the Montague was there and the staff remembered me as the guy calling about it.

First question I asked was, "Can you install a rack on it?"

Much to my surprise he said, "There already is one" He explained that the rack doubles as a kickstand which is perfect since you can attach pannier bags to it.

I said, "Fantastic, can I try this out first?" Expecting to just ride around the store he said "Sure, just take it outside and ride about the block."

I was astonished. He was essentially saying go for a ride and trusting that I would come back. There was 100% chance that I would do exactly that. The thought of stealing the bike really horrified me, it would be both unbelievably wrong and the fact he actually trusted me with the ride meant for sure I would honor that.

So I came back and said, "It's all very good. Are you guys able to tighten the brakes on this, and install raised handlebars?"

He said, "Yes, we can, but we need to order the stem. I'll call you on Monday when we can get the parts."

I then bought a heavy duty lock and a gel seat to add to the package. The whole thing came to just under $1500 which was budgeted. He said, "That's a solid lock you picked, good choice."

I said, "I have to, someone stole my previous Montague."

He said, "That sucks bro, I keep my bike within eyesight the entire time. It even sleeps with me at night."

I said, "Good, I will make sure nobody steals this one. The last time they stole it was right in front of the fucking library."

He said, "Well that's classy. Stealing a bike at the library."

We did the paperwork and I rode the bike out of the store.

They had many other bikes here. ELV Motors

The vibes at ELV motors were really cool, and it dawned on me the reality of what I'm trying to accomplish with this trip. There is really nowhere else in the world to buy bikes with this kind of selection, and Montague in particular is really hard to find. This bike would soon be making its way out of the USA and literally half way across the world to Dubai.

I nearly cried when I saw this. While I would say USA is my second favorite country in the world, Thailand is and always will be number one.

The final order of business was to ditch my T-Mobile phone plan and switch to another carrier. Earlier in the day after eating lunch, two beautiful Swedish female tourists came up to me and asked, "Excuse me, do you know where we can buy a SIM card?" I said, "It's not easy to find one around here, there are so many companies and it is all so complicated. But try to avoid T-Mobile if you can, they aren't reliable and the service is shit."

I could tell they were a bit impatient that I wasn't answering their question and then said, "Let me look it up online on the maps where there are some you can check out. I'm looking for Boost Mobile next so I would recommend that."

A location was found but I couldn't get it exactly as my bus had pulled up, they thanked me anyway.

Since I was switching to Boost and there was one right near my Airbnb, that is exactly where the bike ride was going.

I then locked it up and walked inside and explained to the lady who spoke excellent Spanish what I wanted. She said, "Make sure your bike is locked then let's go to the back and talk about all this."

It turns out that it is entirely possible to keep the same phone number but change to a different carrier. She said, "Just call T Mobile and get the account number and the transfer PIN"

I did so but then T-Mobile went on a long drawn out process and did everything possible not to give me that information and to ask all these questions and verification codes. They said things like "We're really sorry to see you go. Are you sure you want to do this? We can't refund the balance in your account."

They later said, "Can you tell us why you want to leave us? What is it about the service you are not satisfied with?"

I said, "Well for starters, this process, you guys always make it so complicated and time consuming to do things related to my account. Many times I've had phones not work with the number and the people at the desk don't know what's happening. Sometimes the data works, sometimes it doesn't. But the worst was when I wanted to make a key phone call. I missed an appointment because of choppy service and dead zones which I found out are everywhere in the city after talking to my local friend yesterday when he told me all this. The calls keep on breaking up."

They went on and on and on and tried to do everything to keep delaying the process. Finally I got the information and told the woman at Boost Mobile, "My God, this is insane, trying to get out of this plan and change carriers is like trying to break up with a girlfriend or something"

She keeled over laughing and said, "Don't worry about it, it's always like this." After a few minutes and a refreshingly simple process later, my number had successfully changed carriers.

On the way back to the Airbnb I stopped by a different 7/11. The clerk must have been in a good mood because he said, "If you buy these two pieces of pizza, we'll throw in 3 bananas for $1. The whole thing comes to $3.70"

Finally I got back to the Airbnb and there was one more pleasant surprise. The hosts had been doing an open house today (they are trying to sell the place). They needed me out of the room from 11am to 3pm which was perfect because that is exactly when I did all the errands above. Earlier they were also touched by my Chinese conversation I had with them and said, "Thanks so much for all your support. We did your laundry, cleaned the room, and are refunding you a night stay."

Today was really a perfect day. When it all goes so well, I feel like maybe there is indeed going to be a solution to this crisis I'm going through. It obviously won't happen overnight, but days like today make me realize there must be a God who is bigger than my rather significant problems which involve living in a worsening Chinese dictatorship with a real wife who has family ties there, a stepmother hijacking my Dad's estate, and a father who disowned us.

None of those problems are a joke. Even one of them is already a serious blow. But if more days like today can happen, which I believe they will, then it most certainly increases my confidence there is going to be a solution to the existential crisis that I face.

Today's ride: 8 km (5 miles)
Total: 398 km (247 miles)

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