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Dontshootrude

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Posts posted by Dontshootrude

  1. 4 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

    I think low season is Middle June to December.  I went in July 4 years ago.  Island was less crowded than it is when we normally go - October and November 

    Thanks for the information. This is extremely helpful.

     

    Airbnb has a ton of great options as well.

  2. 21 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

    There is a good one by the airport called Marche U.   And one in Gustavia right on the way in from the airport roundabout.  And another in Lorient. You can get good stuff.  You just kind of have to stop and buy a little from each.  There is a fish market right when you come into Gustavia near the public parking area and where the ferry stops.  And a great meat market in Marigot.  The good thing is the island is tiny.  You can go from one end to the other in 20 minutes top. So if you are staying somewhere in the middle, most stuff is 5-10 minutes away at most. 

    Awesome.  And thoughts on Winair?

    I've found a number of great options on Airbnb as well that are very affordable.  I think this is where the wife and I will spend our 10 year anniversary.

  3. 2 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

    The latter. They just lock those bedrooms.  You will have it all.  

    There are some nice ones with good values that are just one bedroom. Or two. 

    What is wrong with winair?  I see flights from SanJuan through them for sub $300.  

     

    Also, what are the grocery store options?  I'd probably rent a villa and would be interested in cooking a few dinners to save money.

  4. 8 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

    I would strongly consider St. Barth or Anguilla.  I like St. Barth the best.  You can check out villas on Sibarth.com.

    https://www.sibarthrealestate.com/sibarthrealestate/

    Last November we went for almost 2 weeks and stayed at Villa Bikini.  It was perfect for us since we had our kids.  And was in the perfect location and the price was very fair.

    https://www.sibarth.com/our-villas/bkn

    How many people are going?  Just you two?  If so, you may want to consider a hotel.  We went for two weeks for our honeymoon and stayed at Eden Rock and Le Toiny, two of the nicest hotels on the island.  And while they were awesome, I kind of felt like we did not get our money's worth.  St. Barth is a place you really don't spend a lot of time at the hotel or resort.  It is a small island with 20+ beaches.  So the typical day would be wake up, have breakfast, go to a beach some where there are maybe 10 other people on, either picnic on beach for lunch or got to a restaurant, go back to a different beach in the afternoon, come back and swim, get ready for dinner, go to dinner, come back and screw/sleep.  So besides sleeping, screwing and showering, we really weren't at the hotel much.  You are at the beaches, shopping, renting a boat, exploring the island, etc.

    My point is that when we went back two years later, we stayed at a much cheaper hotel (Le Village in St. Jean) that cost less than half of the others.  It was still plenty nice and truthfully I had just as good of a time.  But if money is not a big concern, Eden Rock and Le Toiny are two I stayed in that are perfect.

    Even if it is just you are your wife, you can rent a 1 bedroom villa.  They all will have a pool and daily maid service (except Sunday).  Now we exclusively rent villas.  I like waking up and running to the bakery for croissants (which will cost you a grand total of about $5 for breakfast for two).  Having my coffee while watching the sun rise.  And the privacy.  Having a pool right there to swim in while the wife gets ready for dinner.

    St. Barth is not a place to go if you need casinos, golf, or shit like zip lining.  It is a small, beautiful island with beautiful people.  There are a handful of beaches that have bars on the sand (actually now I think it is 4 -- St. Jean, Shell, Lorient (Eden Rock put something there recently), and Gran Cul De Sac.  St. Jean has 3 or 4 now.  Nikki Beach is my favorite.  You can go there for lunch and it starts off tame.  The music steadily gets louder as the afternoon progresses and people get drunker.  Or you can go to Saline, Gouverneur, or Colombier where you can find a spot where no one will be near you for 100-200 yards.

    You will need a car.  They aren't expensive.  And driving is fun there.  You will learn the island quickly.

    Also I recommend going in Mid October and to Mid December.  Weather is perfect.  Almost no chance for hurricanes.  And that is the low season price wise.  If you go from Mid December to Mid January, that is silly season.  Prices on accommodations are 5x more and the island is crowded with regular people and all the celebs.

    February to June are also great times to go.  But given the price of low season, I love late October to Mid December the best.

    My favorite restaurants are Santa Fe, Eden Rock, Eddys, Le Tamarin, Le Gaiec (at Le Toiny), Shellona, Le Repaire, Mayas, and La Langouste.  Vietnam is also good and a great value.

    If it is just the two of you, try and book early on one of the cheaper flights on Tradewinds from San Juan to St. Barth.  They fly you in on a Pilatus and it is almost like flying private.  I only do that if it is me and the wife, because it is more expensive than going through St. Marteen.  But much less of a hassle. Only customs you have to wait for is in St. Barth, which is a joke and takes two seconds.  Saint Marteen can be a big delay and the airport is in a tent right now due to hurricane Maria.  I think the building is supposed to open soon.  But flying to San Juan and taking a tradewinds flight is so much quicker and easier.  Otherwise you have to get up early, fly from Houston or Dallas to Charlotte or Miami, then connect to St. Marteen, then take another flight or boat to St. Barth.

    If you fly to St. Marteen, try and book early through St. Barth Commuter.  It is much cheaper and much better than the other air option -- Winair.  Or you can take the Voyager Express.  It is cheaper than both but takes 45 minutes instead of 10 and the schedule isn't as good (the airplanes leave every 20 minutes or so).  The flight into St Barth is fun.

    Rent a boat one day.  It is not that much.  We use Jicky Marine and rent a center console inflatable.  Boating around the island with a cold Presidente and the music going is fun and there is a small island 10 minutes away by boat that has a cool beach and you will likely be the only one there.  You can also go to Colombier, which is an awesome beach that you otherwise half to hike 30 minutes to, and just hook up to a mooring ball.

    I have been to a lot of places in the Caribe.  St. Barth is my favorite. The people are great.  And you don't have a lot of the riff raff other islands have with the cruise ship crowds.   And given the island's demographics and wealth, has come back from Maria much faster than anywhere else.  I was there just two months after Maria and they had most of it cleaned up.  The 5 star hotels were not open, but they will all be open by this fall, I believe.

    If you book one room in the Villa you linked do you need to worry about them booking the other rooms or do they just not give you access to them?

  5. 3 hours ago, kevwun said:

    I got it right before Christmas.  I have only gotten to use it 3 or 4 times.  I have the 1/2" firebox.  I would definitely get it or the insulated one.  I am going to be cooking 9 or 10 pork butts in a few weeks for friend who is using them for pulled pork sandwiches for a party.  Can't wait for that.  It will be the first time I've had it full of meat.

    Post pics when that goes down.

  6. On 5/4/2018 at 10:06 AM, kevwun said:

    Got my lonestar grillz 48x24 in December. I am a big fan.

    244fc3fbfe9e463b4c87ef1b37ce6617.jpg

    1fe1667cd9ad6afa34dd47c7574af7f7.jpg

    I am looking at adding an offset smoker to my collection, and these grills really caught my eye.  How long have you had it and how many cooks have you done on it?

     

    The Design and stack placement look ideal to me based on what I have read (Franklin's book) and the fit and finish from the pictures looks top notch.  What firebox do you have? I was thinking of upgrading to 1/2 so I can cook in colder weather.

  7. On 7/2/2018 at 9:35 AM, BabaYaga said:

    My longest run on a single bowl of lump is 27 hours.  Still enough left over that after i closed all the vents, there was enough left to start back up a few days later and grill a few hamburger patties.  

    I have the large KJ.  Before a Vision.  Neighbor has the XL Oval Primo.  That things' a beast.  Were I able to do it all over again, that's the route I'd go.  In terms of quality, Primo & BGE are identical.  But that extra surface area of the Primo oval, especially if you have double racks - that's great to have.  Oval > round.  If you want to have two zones for cooking, you have that option also.  

    These are my thoughts as well. I have zero regrets getting an Oval XL.

  8. On 3/29/2018 at 9:34 PM, Jimbaround said:

    Ribeye tonight.

    Oven to 95 then hit skillet with clarified butter some rosemary and garlic.

     

    8b55c7c81170b0f841be3750df874fac.jpg49f1d02e20591ec2fbb02a887e4af7ba.jpgc7dacf2a18a5ce2cb5deab44a29d00fb.jpg65f0aab075bb0a108dce064cc999c64e.jpg

     

     

     

    I have been doing an increasing number of my steaks in the oven and then finishing in cast iron lately.  Butter basting is legit.

  9. My favorite Warren Buffett parable from his 2005 shareholder letter needs to be on page 1 too.

     

    Quote

    How to Minimize Investment Returns 


    It’s been an easy matter for Berkshire and other owners of American equities to prosper over the years. Between December 31, 1899 and December 31, 1999, to give a really long-term example, the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497. (Guess what annual growth rate is required to produce this result; the surprising answer is at the end of this section.) This huge rise came about for a simple reason: Over the century American businesses did extraordinarily well and investors rode the wave of their prosperity. Businesses continue to do well. But now shareholders, through a series of self-inflicted wounds, are in a major way cutting the returns they will realize from their investments. 


    The explanation of how this is happening begins with a fundamental truth: With unimportant exceptions, such as bankruptcies in which some of a company’s losses are borne by creditors, the most that owners in aggregate can earn between now and Judgment Day is what their businesses in aggregate earn.


    True, by buying and selling that is clever or lucky, investor A may take more than his share of the pie at the expense of investor B. And, yes, all investors feel richer when stocks soar. But an owner can exit only by having someone take his place. If one investor sells high, another must buy high. For owners as a whole, there is simply no magic – no shower of money from outer space – that will enable them to extract wealth from their companies beyond that created by the companies themselves. 


    Indeed, owners must earn less than their businesses earn because of “frictional” costs. And that’s my point: These costs are now being incurred in amounts that will cause shareholders to earn far less than they historically have. 


    To understand how this toll has ballooned, imagine for a moment that all American corporations are, and always will be, owned by a single family. We’ll call them the Gotrocks. After paying taxes on dividends, this family – generation after generation – becomes richer by the aggregate amount earned by its companies. Today that amount is about $700 billion annually. Naturally, the family spends some of these dollars. But the portion it saves steadily compounds for its benefit. In the Gotrocks household everyone grows wealthier at the same pace, and all is harmonious. 


    But let’s now assume that a few fast-talking Helpers approach the family and persuade each of its members to try to outsmart his relatives by buying certain of their holdings and selling them certain others. The Helpers – for a fee, of course – obligingly agree to handle these transactions. The Gotrocks still own all of corporate America; the trades just rearrange who owns what. So the family’s annual gain in wealth diminishes, equaling the earnings of American business minus commissions paid. The more that family
    members trade, the smaller their share of the pie and the larger the slice received by the Helpers. 

    This fact is not lost upon these broker-Helpers: Activity is their friend and, in a wide variety of ways, they urge it on. After a while, most of the family members realize that they are not doing so well at this new “beat-my-brother” game. Enter another set of Helpers. These newcomers explain to each member of the 
    Gotrocks clan that by himself he’ll never outsmart the rest of the family. The suggested cure: “Hire a manager – yes, us – and get the job done professionally.” These manager-Helpers continue to use the broker-Helpers to execute trades; the managers may even increase their activity so as to permit the brokers to prosper still more. Overall, a bigger slice of the pie now goes to the two classes of Helpers. 
    The family’s disappointment grows. Each of its members is now employing professionals. Yet overall, the group’s finances have taken a turn for the worse. 

    The solution? More help, of course. It arrives in the form of financial planners and institutional consultants, who weigh in to advise the Gotrocks on selecting manager-Helpers. The befuddled family welcomes this assistance. By now its
    members know they can pick neither the right stocks nor the right stock-pickers. Why, one might ask, should they expect success in picking the right consultant? But this question does not occur to the Gotrocks, and the consultant-Helpers certainly don’t suggest it to them.

    The Gotrocks, now supporting three classes of expensive Helpers, find that their results get worse, and they sink into despair. But just as hope seems lost, a fourth group – we’ll call them the hyper-Helpers – appears. These friendly folk explain to the Gotrocks that their unsatisfactory results are occurring because the existing Helpers – brokers, managers, consultants – are not sufficiently motivated and are
    simply going through the motions. “What,” the new Helpers ask, “can you expect from such a bunch of zombies?” 


    The new arrivals offer a breathtakingly simple solution: Pay more money. Brimming with self-confidence, the hyper-Helpers assert that huge contingent payments – in addition to stiff fixed fees – are what each family member must fork over in order to really outmaneuver his relatives. The more observant members of the family see that some of the hyper-Helpers are really just manager-Helpers wearing new uniforms, bearing sewn-on sexy names like HEDGE FUND or PRIVATE
    EQUITY. The new Helpers, however, assure the Gotrocks that this change of clothing is all-important, bestowing on its wearers magical powers similar to those acquired by mild-mannered Clark Kent when he changed into his Superman costume. Calmed by this explanation, the family decides to pay up. 
    And that’s where we are today: A record portion of the earnings that would go in their entirety to owners – if they all just stayed in their rocking chairs – is now going to a swelling army of Helpers. 


    Particularly expensive is the recent pandemic of profit arrangements under which Helpers receive large portions of the winnings when they are smart or lucky, and leave family members with all of the losses – and large fixed fees to boot – when the Helpers are dumb or unlucky (or occasionally crooked). 
    A sufficient number of arrangements like this – heads, the Helper takes much of the winnings; tails, the Gotrocks lose and pay dearly for the privilege of doing so – may make it more accurate to call the family the Hadrocks. Today, in fact, the family’s frictional costs of all sorts may well amount to 20% of the earnings of American business. In other words, the burden of paying Helpers may cause American equity investors, overall, to earn only 80% or so of what they would earn if they just sat still and listened to no one. 


    Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac’s talents didn’t extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.” If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases. 
    * * * * * * * * * * * * 
    Here’s the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this section: To get very specific, the Dow increased from 65.73 to 11,497.12 in the 20th century, and that amounts to a gain of 5.3% compounded annually. (Investors would also have received dividends, of course.) To achieve an equal rate of gain in the 21st century, the Dow will have to rise by December 31, 2099 to – brace yourself – precisely 
    2,011,011.23. But I’m willing to settle for 2,000,000; six years into this century, the Dow has gained not at all.

     

    • Fuck You 1
  10. 3 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

    How are you doing this year? What are you doing to hedge/protect the downside?

    I purchased 60-119 day puts on about 40% of my funds on Friday. I meant to do it earlier but didn't pull the trigger soon enough. I'm down about 7-9% from the January highs

    20% is in the TSP G fund that will be used to rebalance if my asset allocation goes beyond +/-5% of Target allocations.

    Not really sure how I am doing this year as I haven't checked.

  11. CSL3N3T.jpg

    Base is sushi rice, followed by fresh spinach, chopped cucumbers, green onions, avocados, sashimi grade salmon and fried salmon skin, toasted coconut flakes and sesame seeds. I then poured poke dressing over it and topped it off with spicy Sriracha mayo.

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