2 Valuable Lessons that have helped me: 1️⃣ Redefine What You Do — Perspective Is Everything.
Early in my career, I used to hate my job. I’d tell myself, “I’m just babysitting grown adults.” Yes, my job was in management. It drained me daily. Everything changed when I reframed what I told myself: “I love my job because I get to help people build better careers.” That simple mindset shift turned resentment into purpose. I’ve never felt like a babysitter since. 2️⃣ Small Wins Move Mountains
Recently, I read some posts from Bitcoiners who moved to El Salvador. They were frustrated that El Salvador wasn’t becoming “Bitcoin Country” fast enough. Some packed up and left. I also fell into that mindset trap — I was furious that I couldn’t buy a car with Bitcoin and hated the invasive fiat wire process. I ranted, moaned and groaned and felt stuck - all very unproductive energy spent. It took 6 months, but I found the right company and dealer willing to make it happen. In the end, I bought a new Suzuki in San Salvador — paid entirely in Bitcoin. Now one dealership, Suzuki, accepts Bitcoin for new cars. It’s not earth-shattering, but maybe it helps someone else in the future. Baby steps matter. 👉 Moral of the story: Focus on what you can do, big or small. Don’t waste energy on what you can’t control. I’ve made a mountain of mistakes, but I keep learning. Keep going. Keep building. Keep adjusting your perspective when negativity creeps in. It works.

We're the frogs. The pot is boiling. Keep money in a bank? It’s not really yours. The bank is an uninvited cosigner that: – Sets your withdrawal limits – Questions your transactions – can block who you pay – can shut down your account How did we get here? One degree at a time. Bitcoin fixes this!

I’ve been to the last 3 Bitcoin Conferences (2 in Miami, 1 in Nashville). At each of them, I’ve gotten cornered by some smug XRP person. I sat this current one in Vegas out. I don’t miss the shitcoiners and I definitely don’t miss all the self absorbed Youtubers running around like the narcisists they are. Maybe it’s just me, but so much of what goes on there seems insincere and agenda driven. Meh, it probably is just me.

A Few Innovations Have Truly Changed My Life. Here’s One More. I’ve lived through some world-altering innovations: • The first expensive handheld calculators • The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A 16-bit home computer • The arrival of the internet, the mobile phone, and eventually, the smartphone Each changed the course of human history. Then came Bitcoin—an innovation still misunderstood, yet already shaking financial foundations. Now, it’s AI. I use it every day—not blindly, but deliberately. It’s my creative co-pilot, my technical assistant, my productivity enhancer. I shape it, test it, and challenge it. In return, it helps me do things I once thought were out of reach. For over a year, I dreamed of building my own IT home lab—a sovereign space to experiment, learn, and build without relying on Big Tech. The idea seemed ambitious. I’m not a network engineer. I just had curiosity, some budget, and relentless questions. So I turned to AI. I described my vision—home network segmentation, PFSense firewall, VLANs, Proxmox virtualization, self-hosted services. The guidance I received was clear, logical, and step-by-step. Within 3 days, I had: • A fully functioning segmented home network • pfSense running on a ProtectLI Vault • A managed 16-port switch with 5 VLANs • Proxmox up on a Beelink SER7 • Detailed diagrams and documentation for every device and connection Every error I hit, I fed back to the AI—and it walked me through solutions. The process wasn’t flawless, but it was transformative. I didn’t just build the network—I understood it. This is what the future looks like. Not just automation. Not just intelligence. But empowerment. Don’t ignore these technologies. They’re not just tools. They’re force multipliers. Yes, some jobs will vanish. But many more will be born. We are living in the most exciting era in human history—and if you lean into it, you’ll be amazed what’s possible.

Yahoo lost 3B accounts (2013–2014) National Public Data leaked 2.9B records (2023–2024) Cognyte exposed 5B+ credentials (2021). At this point, the criminals already know who we are. How is it that the U.S. government still doesn’t? KYC is wrong!

I hope that one day we get to a world where fighting for principle is the standard. Too many are willing to make a trade-off because of the benefits they receive today. Bitcoin privacy is a principle worth fighting for all the time.

We have lived in El Salvador for almost 9 months now. There was definitely an adjustment period. The road has been at times a little rocky and exciting all at the same time. My wife and I have battled a little bit during this adjustment period but we have grown closer together from our experience together. I understand her more now and I believe she understands me more as well. In the end, both of us now agree that this is the place where we want to live. Maybe the adjustment period we just experienced together was a detoxification that needed to happen. I don’t know. The experience has been profound. When most including myself heard that El Salvador was the first country to declare that Bitcoin was legal tender, no one really had this on their radar. Why El Salvador? Most people knew of El Salvador from negative press, not positive ones. President Bukele embodies everything that Bitcoin represents. He’s relatively young. He is a true leader. He is humble and very smart. His policies represent the people that he has sworn to serve and protect. The Salvadoran people have been through a lot over the years. This is a huge understatement by the way. Through all this, they are hard working, very polite and humble. El Salvador has shown the world what can really be accomplished when leaders put the interests of their law abiding citizens over the interests of those who are not law abiding and choose to do harm. Countries are taking notice. When viewed from this lens, what other country better represents the ethos of Bitcoin than El Salvador? In my opinion, none. In many ways, El Salvador should have been the natural choice to be the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender given the data points above. Yes, there is still lots of work that needs to happen yet. There are still many big problems that need to be solved. It is important to look at the progress that has been made. Look at where El Salvador is today compared to 5 years ago. When one zooms out a little, perspective returns, just like with Bitcoin. We all want the changes to happen immediately but that is not realistic. If it were that simple, some one would have already done it. PoW is a real thing. El Salvador will succeed. It is destined to succeed. If El Salvador succeeds, it is a hugely positive development for the world and all the humans that inhabit Earth. This is why we live in El Salvador. We want to contribute to this success in whatever way we can, no matter how small or how big.

Why didn’t Petro say, “Biden encouraged these criminals to go to the US. The US let them in and gave them money to stay and vote. We don’t want those people back. It’s your problem now.” Instead he claims these are upstanding people that are not shown enough respect, pissing off the Colombian voters and looking like a clown on the world stage. This is why Petro will always be President Trump’s boy toy.

Truly the biggest of all idiots in politics today. There is so much competition for that title that this in itself is a remarkable accomplishment. View quoted note →

How we made the move to El Salvador Why did we make the move? First, let me provide a bit of background on our situation. My wife was born and raised in a small town in Colombia, while I was born and raised in the U.S. I spent my childhood growing up on Air Force bases since my father was a career Air Force officer. He retired in 1972 when I was in the 5th grade, and after that, I spent most of my time in the Pacific Northwest. About 20 years ago, I went through a divorce after 15 years of marriage. Through that process I was incredibly fortunate to meet the woman who would become my wife after a three-year, very non-conventional courtship. When we first met, I only spoke English, and she only spoke Spanish. We came from two different worlds, but early on, I knew she was the perfect person for me. I spent a lot of solo time teaching myself Spanish and researching how to bring her to the U.S. legally. It was a long and expensive process, but she finally came to the U.S. legally in December 2004. Two weeks later, we got married in my parents' home in Gladstone, Oregon. Sadly, none of her family could attend, as they didn’t have U.S. visas. This was especially hard for her, as she’s very close to her family and had never been apart from them in her 35 years of living. The whole story of our courtship, how we met and what that looked like is an interesting and unique story saved best for another day. After five years of marriage, my wife became a naturalized US citizen. Unfortunately, over the years, only one member of her family has been able to obtain a tourist visa. Most have been denied, some of them denied multiple times, no real reason ever given. This means the vast majority of her family will never be able to visit her in the U.S. Her sister applied for a residence visa over 13 years ago and is still waiting. Meanwhile we've watched countless millions of people, including criminals and known bad actors, move to the front of the line ahead of us. With the millions and millions of people entering the US illegally, we do not feel safe anymore. The government has a reason why they are doing this and it is at the expense of its own citizens. When flying in and out of the country, the scrutiny of passports and security is very high. Meanwhile one can cross into the US/Mexico border, go through a minimal amount of processing and then receive money, phones and whatever else the government is handing out. These people are then dumped on other communities across the US and we have no idea who these people are. My wife and I no longer feel safe living in the US. More importantly, the government has not prioritized the safety and security of its citizens. The other factors for our decision to move to El Salvador can be summed up in one word: freedom. A little over three years ago, President Bukele declared Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador. Most importantly, no one was forced to use it; people have the freedom to choose whether they want to use dollars, Bitcoin, or both. The country’s treasury is held in Bitcoin, and El Salvador is undergoing a remarkable transformation before the world’s eyes. Bitcoin requires education and time to understand it. This is happening in El Salvador. Now, let’s compare this to the U.S. US politicians have utterly ruined the country. Somehow, many have managed to accumulate millions of dollars of wealth on a $174,000 annual salary. How does this happen when the tax rate is around 50% before even paying for a mortgage or basic living expenses? At best, this is corruption. It isn’t a partisan issue—both sides are guilty. We’ve witnessed very elderly, incapacitated, drooling politicians wheeled into the Congress and Senate like they are gods in order to cast votes while being told what to do by their handlers. For those that are arguably still barely coherent, they seem to have no problem casting a vote for something they haven’t had time to read or presented for public debate. These are the tell tale signs of a nation in severe decline. It's embarrassing and enraging. The US politicians have successfully divided the population into 2 groups. Each group hates the other. It is doubtful that either side will accept the results of the upcoming election, fraudulent or not. These are my opinions and I truly hope I am wrong. I’ve also grown to despise the sick maturation of AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations. These measures are no longer about preventing fraud or stopping money laundering—they're about government control. The assumption is that everyone is a criminal unless you can prove otherwise, and if you don’t comply, you can be prosecuted as a money launderer, even if you’ve done nothing wrong. These rules have taken on a life of their own, and effectiveness is no longer the goal. US politicians keep expanding them. Banks limit ATM withdrawals, cap daily ACH payments, and impose wire transfer limits. Why? The banks claim it’s for our protection, but I believe it’s a move to slow down any future bank runs. It’s no secret that banks are struggling financially. I have zero trust in banks. El Salvador is the only country where I can have a chance of living on a bitcoin standard if that is what we decide to do. El Salvador represents hope and freedom. It is a beautiful country with beautiful, good hearted people. They have a true leader as president who cares about his own citizens as well as others who live within the borders of El Salvador. We are extremely thankful for the opportunity to live in El Salvador. I wish I had the vocabulary to fully express the intenseness for our gratitude about this. We look forward to many great years in El Salvador and we will see what the future brings. I hope this answers the question of “Why El Salvador”. In the near future, I would like to outline the process we went through to get ready for this move. Moving to another country is not trivial. It is very different than moving to another state or region in the same country. If you are thinking about making this move, you can do it. Do not get overwhelmed. It is taking care of one step at a time. It reminds of the age old question, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." There are many things to think about and decisions to be made. Throughout this process we have learned many things. I plan on sharing these lessons here in future posts. Sharing is caring. Additionally, we have lived here for exactly 2 weeks now. It seems like much longer and I mean this in the most positive way. In addition to accomplishing a lot during this time, I feel like my soul has been cleansed. This is not hyperbole. This is exactly how I feel. There are many other topics that I can think of to cover in the future … more to come.

When people say Bitcoin is unconfiscatable, many think in terms of protecting private keys which is important. The sneaky stinky skunk in the room is governments ability to print unlimited money and steal your purchasing power with inflation. The government CANT print more bitcoin. Don’t underestimate this important fact!

Lets say we start with 1 bitcoiner today. This number doubles every month because each bitcoiner orange pills 1 person each month. Q. How many people own BTC after 30 months? A. 1,073,741,824 people Good news! We aren’t starting at 1.

It’s not enough to buy Bitcoin, you must also take it into self custody. Why? Imagine asking a complete stranger to purchase bitcoin for you because you really believe in it. Imagine countless others doing the the same with this same stranger. Since none of these people, including you, said, send me the Bitcoin, the stranger decides not to make the purchases or does purchase it and then sells it later once he is confident you trust him to keep it. Either way, the stranger does send you a statement each month that says that you have the Bitcoin you think you purchased. If the price of Bitcoin is truly determined by supply and demand, how does the true demand for Bitcoin get reflected in the price of Bitcoin given these 2 scenarios. To make things worse, the stranger decides to use some of the money to manipulate the market downward using the money you thought was purchasing Bitcoin. He also uses the money to buy himself a big mansion. If ALL of those people had immediately taken self custody of their Bitcoin after purchasing it, the true demand for Bitcoin would be reflected in its price and all those people would have their Bitcoin today. Imagine where the price would be today! You hear it said over and over again, “Not your keys, not your coins”, lots of implications in that little jingle!!

The face of governmental opposition to Bitcoin

This is how the fiat system really works

Instead of focusing on orange pilling individuals, what if the emphasis was put on orange pilling merchants? This appears to be a much easier sell. 1. Drastically reduce the 3.5% processing cut 2. Immediate Settlement 3. No risk of ‘forced’ chargebacks 4. Can incentivize BTC payments with discounts. 5. Merchant can receive BTC or USD 6. Potentially more opportunities to demonstrate how this all works to their customers. More meaningful interactions with your customers can translate into better relationships and higher levels of loyalty. I know there are many people like Jack Mallers and Michael Saylor working on this but most the chatter I hear publicly is about orange pilling individuals. In my past life I owned several retail businesses for about 20 years and I was always amazed at what some people would go through for the financial incentive of a ‘discount’. As more and more people see that bitcoin is accepted as payment, more and more people will be willing to open up to the idea.

Why do people initially and reflexively say ‘no’ to #Bitcoin  ? Consider this: Open your email and you see an invoice from Amazon, Paypal, or some other company saying that you were charged for something you didn’t order. It says you must call a number if you don’t recognize the charge. It’s a scam … You receive a text from someone claiming to be the CEO of the company where you work. He says he is tied up in a meeting and asks you to buy some gift cards for him. It’s a scam … You answer your phone and you are told that you owe 10k in back taxes. The caller claims to be an agent from the IRS and threatens to issue a warrant for your arrest if you don’t immediately pay. It’s a scam … Your best friend who you trust tells you about this company Celsius that pays 10% interest on USDC by charging the banks money to get access to your money, the same banks that bounce your check and charge you a $50 overdraft fee (payback at last). You know the real rate of inflation is higher than 10% so you see this as an opportunity to drown slowly rather than drown quickly. The CEO of Celsius seems like a good guy who is on ‘your’ side. It’s a scam … You hear about the CEO of FTX who is doing all these altruistic deeds. He is working with Gary Gensler to come up with common sense regulation for this ‘crypto’ industry that you know nothing about. He seems to be in tight with the politicians because there is the politician that you voted for smiling and shaking hands with SBF. He is all over the news and praised incessantly. It’s a scam … Everywhere you turn, it seems that danger lurks and someone is trying to separate you from your money. The only way to ensure oneself from getting scammed is to say ‘no’ to EVERYTHING. Now imagine someone telling you that there is this new internet money that fixes everything, it’s a store of value, it’s money, it’s a payments network system, and it’s a power projection technology vital to National Security. Get the picture? Be patient! Be compassionate!

What a great system … Be a bank, go broke and get bailed out from the government. Everyone else, succeed and be successful, get demonized and taxed into oblivion by the government. And we wonder why things are so screwed up? Bitcoin is inevitable. Bitcoin fixes this!

Day 1 in El Salvador My wife and I arrived in El Salvador on Friday 3/10. I was surprised at how quickly we made it through customs and Immigration as the lines were very small. Our first impressions of the airport were positive. The airport is clean and organized. We arranged transportation to our hotel beforehand with the hotel which is roughly 1 hour away in El Zonte. I have spent a fair amount of time in Colombia with my wife over the past 20 years and the scenery to the hotel reminded me a lot of some areas around Barranquilla. By the time we arrived at our hotel in El Zonte, we were feeling quite tired from the trip. Our plan for the next day is to explore El Zonte and locate a driver to hire who could show us some different areas in the upcoming days. We had a small dinner at the hotel and went to bed early.

My wife and I arrived in El Salvador on Friday 3/10. The reason for making this trip was to see for ourselves what is happening in El Salvador. Our trip is planned for 8 days. If everything checks out, we would like to relocate there later this year. Like many others who have made this trip before us, we had no real contacts in El Salvador. We did as much research online as we could beforehand. We gathered enough data points to plan a trip with goals to accomplish and an area to start. One advantage we have is that my wife is from Colombia so she is fluent in spanish. I would like to shout out Kyle Cyree, @rorshockbtc on Twitter for providing details about his recent trip to El Salvador. His insights were the filter that we ran our ideas through before implementing them. Once we formulated a ‘loose’ plan, the only thing left to do was to make the trip and see what we discover. It’s an adventure and like all adventures one never really knows how things will turn out. My purpose in making this public is the thought that maybe it may help in some way others who have ideas to make this same journey. My plan is to relay our experiences, perspectives, and any other relevant information over the duration of our trip. The beautiful thing about adventures is that no 2 adventures are ever the same, similar maybe but never the same.