• First day! Now begins the usual tapering off public->private as my blogs move from here to confluence.
• Made my personal tradebot repo private, just to avoid any compliance hassle.
• Updated linkedin.
• Taxable income in retirement when I extract the 401k is probably gonna be less than my income right now, so contributing pre-tax is probably better than roth. Set everything up with fidelity. All large cap stocks, high risk high return baby. Long term. Contributing a slightly higher percentage than usual since I’m starting in March and still want to max the 19.5k IRS limit for 2020.
• Bay Area in lockdown. Los Angeles as well.

• Watched the original 1973 the wicker man last night from ~2-4 when couldn’t sleep. Saruman plays Lord Summerisle.
• With the higher down payment requirements of most the co-ops (25%), the monthly mortgage will go below 3000. Then average something like $1500 for maintenance fees. Total monthly payment ~4k is a great deal. I had budgeted for 6.
• First haircut in NY, cool place. Comparable price.
• Bloomingdale’s and Indian with Jaclyn.
• 2 jackets, 2 slacks, 2 shirts, $1700.
• Bloomingdale’s loyallist and suitsupply accounts. No credit cards.
• I have a $300 bloomingdale’s gift card and a 15% off coupon.
• Dots don’t matter in gmail. Emails to first.last or firstlast or f.i.rst.la.s.t all go to you.
• My sizes:
  • Pants: 32 waist. Pins for length.
  • Jacket: 40L. Slim. You want the sleeves about 1/2″ above the wrist.
  • Shirt: 16.5 neck. Slim, not extra slim, bc bigger arms but smaller waist. Just bodydart the waist in after. Small point collar is great without a jacket, but a spread collar better with jacket.
• Laundry in unit. So so so convenient after my years with the neighborhood laundromat + homeless cart.
• West world s3 premiere.
• First day tomorrow. Such a strange time to enter a new workplace.

• Some of the onsite garages are over $1000/mo for a spot, which is $1.50 per hour. Insanity.
• Made much better coffee today. Getting used to the grinder (amount/fineness), filtered water, temp, everything. Haha a great summary of online nutrition research: https://medium.com/slackjaw/coffee-is-the-very-best-thing-you-can-consume-for-your-health-and-it-will-also-instantly-kill-you-f58efeb13915.
• Ozark starts again, 2 weeks from yesterday (Friday).
• Watched the pharmacist (4hrs).
• Citadel first day email. Mostly coronavirus information, but the crucial piece was 930am arrival for orientation.
• Did a vlog on the move. Thoughts, expectations, opportunities, feelings. Just like this text blog, it’s 100% for personal organization, reference, and growth. It’s available for public digest, which is an important piece of accountability for me, but it’s not designed for an audience.
• The droplet running this blog is only at 10% disk usage. Other resources are easy as well.
• CURES is a general database for all prescriptions so that different providers can see anyone’s history. Helps prevents abuse. Came out a few years ago.
• “Oh sweet, I was wondering how every corporation I’ve ever given my email to was handling COVID-19.” – amazing tweet
• Went back over all software notes in preparation for Monday start. It’s good to do this regularly. I’m glad I keep good documentation on everything I learn. Consistency, availability, locks, nosql, acid, pubsub, precompute, partitioning.
• Met up with Bruey!
• The Volcker rule. Banks are tollbooths, they can’t take positions themselves. It’s for conflict of interest.
• Flight to quality. Don’t put many eggs in many baskets. put most eggs in the best baskets. Safer during times of risk.
• DUMB MONEY.
• Put initiatives in terms of the business folks, frame your tech in a way that has measurable benefit for PMs/quants/funds etc. Software is a support role at a hedge fund.
• Watched a few westworld recaps.
• Made a comprehensive spreadsheet for all listings so far. Did some visualizations on 24hr cycles in each place. Narrowed it down.
  1. 305 E 24th. Gramercy. Best unit/building, a little far away.
  2. 69 W 9th. Greenwich. Smaller, but central to villages.
  3. 201 W 70th. UWS. At a hub. Would need some renovation.
• 2 more things to do before finalizing. Ask colleagues on Monday, and check out a few more big buildings in chelsea/flatiron.

• Blackout curtains were installed in my bedroom.
• 1.5T stimulus last night. Remember that it’s not the federal reserve handing out free money, it’s them buying things from banks, usually bonds / loans / financial products.
• https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/.
• Remember that Shareworks used to be owned by Solium Capital. Now it’s owned by Morgan Stanley.
• Confirmed that the transfers from rh to boa completed. Sent the note to customer support to finalize the deactivation of the account.
• Asked the SpaceX stock team if it’s a hard requirement that we keep our assets under management by Shareworks, or if we can move to something like Merrill to take advantage of mortgage rates.
  • They confirmed that while they’re private everything must stay under shareworks.
• Went over to Brooklyn for the first time! Williamsburg for coffee with Dan. Great introduction/prep. Start with many meetings. Go over each app/stack with the expert. Spin up. Lead the test effort, roadmap the next few initiatives. Mike no longer, wow. Slacks and buttonups mostly, jeans ok sometimes.
• Saw 1 more listing in UWS with Peter. Might attend some open houses on sunday. Going to see some bigger buildings in tribeca/gramercy as well.

Area	Address	Price	DM, Elev	Facing	Other
Upper West Side	201 W 70th 17A	799	Yes	West, Tall	Very light, windows. Roofdeck, gym, garage, etc. Would open kitchen to living room. Green bathroom.

• Went to freddie and peppers. Better than John’s.
• The E south on 8th is faster than the 1 south on 7th. It’s express, only stops at the mains (50/42/34/23/14). Took the L for the first time today.
• Watched The Hummingbird Project, the movie around the HFT beginnings, same as the book I recently read Flash Boys. The book was better.
• Lightly funded the td account. Tried to buy a single contract for spy put 160 by eric’s birthday. Can’t yet, but marking for posterity.
• Been saying this for a while: walking tagups and walking meetings are wonderful. https://forge.medium.com/walking-meetings-will-change-the-way-you-work-dce8b61f9e04.
• Epidemic -> Pandemic (international).
• Another Trump address. Formal declaration of national emergency.
  • “Google is going to build a website, and it will be done very quickly, unlike websites of the past.”
  • SPY went up around $10/4% after the speech.
• Bill Gates stepped down from the msft board. He owns 1.36%.
• Lightning in a Bottle cancelled. Don’t know if they’ll reimburse or reschedule yet, but likely reimburse due to uncertainty.
• Employment forms and documentation, full prep before first day.
  • W4 (fed), IT-2104 (state w4), direct deposit.
  • Looked up all the new state credits, as well as the changes to federal exemptions.
  • Health, vision, dental, fsa, ccd, life insurance, disability, liability, travel insurance, etc.
  • Benefits start the date of hire, not the 1st of the month after.
  • Retirement. IRS 2020 max is $19,500 for employee contribution.
  • Gym.
  • Commuter account.
  • Compliance, trading, disclosures.

• Tom Hanks has coronavirus. The NBA season is suspended. March madness will be closed-stadium. Disneyland closed.
• Trump address. Immediate income tax relief, travel ban from europe to US, no copays.
• Zeroed out the rh account. Will deactivate after settle, couple days.
• Pastrami/pickle/mustard bagel.
• Rode the bus for the first time! Metrocard works the same there.
• Pepsi bought Rockstar for 3.5b.
• Went up to the aro sky club, since this is the only day it’s open. Pool is empty because it’s out of season. The glasswalled lounge was nice. I hated being outside, that is way too far up for my fear of heights.
• Talked to Roger.
  • 20% down. 5/1 is 2.25%, 30yr is 3.125 now. Changing multiple times per day, could continue to go down until we lock.
  • If you have 250k in Meryll, 0.125% less. 500k -> 0.25% less. Therefore I can get a 5 ARM for 2% if SpaceX lets me manage with Meryll instead of Solium.
  • Everything transferred over without another hard inquiry, thankfully. Still 791 FICO.
  • Got the preapproval letter. Next steps: let him know when close to contract so he can start building approvals.
• 4 hours with Peter around upper west side and lincoln square.

Area	Address	Price	DM, Elev	Facing	Other
Upper West Side	215 W 75th 11B	799	Yes	East, Tall	Very light, windows. Buyer tax. Roofdeck.
Upper West Side	175 W 73rd 11C	795	Yes	West, Street	Great location, right next to many subways. No closet in BR.
Upper West Side	10 W 66th 11C	925	Yes	North, Street, Tall	Gym, balcony, 680/mo garage, storage, laundry.
Upper West Side	130 W 79th 11D	985	Yes	North, Street, Tall	Condo. Gym, sauna, laundry, big windows, right next to natural history.
Upper West Side	101 W 81st 202	995	Yes	North, Back Patio	Shared patio! Step up living room, brick wall in it.

• Starting to narrow it down. Bigger building with all the amenities: gym, sauna, laundry, storage, garage, roofdeck. Placed in a central location near stuff. Food, bars, parks. Close to subway. Co-op. 1m. Can be cookie cutter. Something in like upper west side or greenwich village.
• Dinner with Jaclyn (Lindsay’s friend) at the loyal!

• Confirmed altair and robinhood transfers. Started another rh incremental withdrawal.
• Bought a 7 day unlimited metrocard.
• Received amazon fresh. The building’s cold storage is great. Whole foods is worse than fresh on substitutions, I’ve noticed. They swapped taro for turmeric root and creamy cashew for crunchy peanut butter. Both are terrible replacements.
• Used the new conical burr grinder and fancy drip machine for the first time. Comes with a commercial gold-tone filter, so you don’t have to keep supplying paper filters. Has charcoal built-in (and replaceable) for water filtration. Still use prefiltered water from the fridge, not the tap. Fineness setting 5/18 seemed good. Do 2 full 10-cup grind rounds.
• Did another 5 hours of househunting, this time around chelsea/flatiron/gramercy/nomad.

Area	Address	Price	DM, Elev	Facing	Other
Chelsea	365 W 20th 5B	965	Yes	South, Street	Not very big, but closets and roof
Chelsea	165 W 20th 4L	895	No	North, Back	Great stepdown living room
Gramercy	305 E 24th 19T	925	Yes	West, Street	Great foyer, elevator, unit. Huge. Garage ($368/mo). Washer/dryer addable. 3 aves to closest subway.
Flatiron	21 E 22nd 2A	925	Yes	North, Back	Loft, 12ft. Blank slate, would have to do a lot. Nice street facade. Right next to mad sq park.
NoMad	425 Park S 4A	900	Yes	Street	Laundry, roof, kinda loud.

• Tomorrow we’ll do the whole upper west side.
• Dual agency = when the realtor is doing both the buying and selling. Usually it’s 2 agents, 2 principals (buyer/seller), and 2 attorneys.
• Real estate license progression: salesperson -> associate broker -> broker.
• Went to the high line. Semi-greenbelt, good walking area.
• Window washing is done annually by most buildings.
• NFT = Not For Tourists. A guidebook to NYC.
• Bought a 1wk unlimited metrocard.
• Opened the td ameritrade account.
• Went to Cooper’s in Chelsea with Noah and Ben, Sean’s friends. So nice again to see familiar faces! Tons of good advice about the city, neighborhoods, tech, everything.

• Emailed robinhood for compensation.
• Contacted citadel about first-day, dress, etc.
• A thought about the expense of NYC: will be favorable as the world turns more and more remote. While cost of living and food and such are astronomically higher here, stuff like amazon prime membership, online shopping, everything over the internet is the same. This will be advantageous for us in the future.
• Placed first amazon fresh order.
• Cleaners came today. They did a great job. Sheets, towels, laundry, all surfaces, organization, everything. Wonderful.
• Google “playbill broadway rush” for the lottery stuff and same-day tickets Tracy was mentioning.
• Tip culture is strange. I 100% agree with incentivization, helping the service industry, balance, rewarding effort, etc. It’s just ridiculous to put that responsibility on the customer instead of the employer. No other vocation does this.
• The first week was a bit overwhelming, but I’m definitely starting to get my groove. More comfortable, establishing routines, knowing my way around, talking to people, everything.
• Texted with Jaclyn a bit. Dinner thursday, made a bar table reservation at the loyal.
• Finished the second season of sex education. Still pleasantly surprised by how good it is.
• Had a vietnamese steak hero (roll sandwich) and lobster mango rolls. Amazing. Paid at a restaurant with venmo (first time).
• New conincal burr grinder, nice drip machine, good quality beans, unbleached filters. Kitchen is coming together.
• The metal handle device you see in the fighters’ corners between rounds in an enswell. It’s just metal kept in an ice bucket. You press it to an injured area and it applies compression + cold to reduce swelling.
• Boston and washington dc are both about 200 miles away (4hrs driving) in opposite directions.
• Scheduled lunch with Bruey Friday.
• Emailed a colleague (dbook) about meeting up before my start date!
• 6 walkthroughs today with Peter:

Area	Address	Price	DM, Elev	Facing	Other
Central Village	35 E 10th 3C	999	No	North, Back	12ft ceiling
Central Village	45 W 10th 7B	995	Yes	North, Back	Way nicer building, unit ok, great roof, great basement
Central Village	49 W 12th 5G	899	Yes	North, Back	Good space, walks right in to stovetop
Greenwich	69 W 9th 7K	950	Yes	South, Street	L shaped, great unit, walk right into living room
West Village	65 and 67 Morton	895	No	North, Back	Smaller unit, character not cookie cutter
SoHo	131 Thompson 2F	995	No	North, Street	2BR! Red kitchen. Washer/dryer combo in kitchen.

• Made a google maps list: https://goo.gl/maps/y9hNs6tpiEb3A5uW6. Shared with Tracy for neighborhood advice.
• Some notes from more exploration and general asking:
  • Even if you don’t spend much time at home normally, it’s a necessary space for those few times you need to get away from everything.
  • It becomes west after 6th or 7th.
  • Buses are great in addition to train/subway.
  • Doormen/elevator are a huge plus. Packages, security. Virtual doormen are ok.
  • Sometimes doctors and other offices are on the first floors of your residential buildings.
  • 3 kids = status symbol. It’s a huge jump in space/price.
  • Facing south means more sun.
  • Treeline streets = more like morton. More residential, less foot/car traffic, more quaint.
  • The exit strategy for co-ops is something to note. With a condo, you can rent it out. With a co-op, there are restrictions. Usually it’s something like: “you can rent for 2 of every 5 years, starting after 2 years.” You can always sell.
  • A lawyer is required. Usually tacked onto closing fees.
  • Tribeca = triangle below canal. Nolita = north of little italy. Nomad = north of madison square park.
  • Don’t want 1st floor. It’s either right on the street, or it’s in the back facing garbage.
  • Maintenance fees encompass hoa, pmi, prop tax, everything necessary. Usually 1500-2000 for my range.
  • Gramercy park requires a key to get in.
  • Some co-ops don’t allow any financing. Some require 50% down. It’s pretty common for most to require 20%. I still think this is weird. It should be an agreement with the lender alone. Doesn’t matter to the co-op. Only in situations like 08 where people default.
• Tomorrow we’ll be seeing places in Gramercy, NoMad, Flatiron, Chelsea.