Here Come The 20s!

Usually around this time of year, I go back and revisit the predictions I made at the start of the year to see how well I did, but it turns out that I actually made no predictions at all for 2019, and thus there is no accounting of success to be had. Bummer. Hell, I didn't even have an Ozora recap or any commentary on the $PINS IPO. I suppose the short version is that I went to Ozora with A and some other Colorado peeps and we had a good time; I certainly never thought I'd play water-bottle roulette with what could have been 40 hits of LSD (it wasn't anywhere close to that amount).  Pinterest IPO'd in April, and the stock went up to 36 bucks a share, but I couldn't sell any shares at the time due to the post-IPO lockup. Once the lockup period expired, we announced Q3 earnings, and Wall St. wasn't too happy with the results, even though they were entirely fine by objective standards, and the stock took a significant hit. As of today, it's trading just below the IPO price of $19/share, which really sucks. I'm still sitting on a 7-figure payout, but obviously there's a rather significant difference between $36/share and $18.50. It's my hope that when our next earnings report comes out that it's much more to the market's liking and the share price will get back into the low to mid 20s. The funny thing is that the powers that be at the pin factory are so concerned with insider trading, but even though I know how much revenue we made last quarter, I wouldn't have the first clue as to what to actually do with that information, and I have no idea how much money we spent, so I have zero clue what our EPS is going to be. Guess we'll find out in a month or so. Let's go big money, no whammies!

I'm still dating the person that I mentioned in the previous entry. I like her a lot, and we have fun together, but I don't have high expectations for the longevity of this relationship. I was talking to M & J over NYE, and I made the comment that one of the biggest challenges is that with G, regardless of what happens or how long we stay together, I will never be the most important person in her world. She has the potential to be the most important person in mine, even if she isn't right now - but I'm always going to be 3rd banana at best, and I don't know if that will eventually start to bother me. It feels like this is a "good for now" relationship, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if I start to look out to the far future, a few years from now or longer, I don't see how she and I would ever be able to build anything together. I'm not speaking of marriage, which Jebus knows I have no intention of ever doing again, but I could envision a day where I might enjoy living with someone again, and that's not something on her radar. Not to mention the fact that I have no interest in sharing my living space with three wiener dogs. About all I can really do is enjoy it for what it is for as long as it can be enjoyable. That might turn out to be a lot longer than I think. Go all in until you're all out. You never know what might happen.

Here are 20 predictions for 2020.

1. Donald Trump is going to get re-elected. I hate to say this, and I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see the impeachment proceedings going anywhere, and after he gets acquitted in the Senate, he's going to be that much more emboldened to do whatever the fuck he wants. It amazes me that the Senate Republicans are so stuck in groupthink that they can't look past party politics. Fuck you, Mitch McConnell. I think the only way Trump gets removed from office before the end of this term or his next one is assassination - but I don't think that's likely to happen, and if you're reading this, Mr. Secret Service agent, I'm not encouraging or advocating for anything, so please leave the black helicopters at home.
2. Joe Biden is going to get the Democratic nomination. This will ensure that prediction #1 happens, and it just reinforces the fact that the Democrats didn't learn anything from 2016 when they nominated Hillary Clinton. Yeah, I know that right now Biden is polling better than Trump and people seem to think that he's got the best chance of beating the orange monkey, but Biden is just another in a long line of boring-ass old white dudes that nobody can actually get excited about. The people who love Trump REALLY love Trump, but I don't think the same thing can be said about Biden. I'd much rather see Buttigieg or Yang, since those are candidates that I could actually vote for - but it's not going to happen. Bernie Sanders could have beaten Trump in 2016, but not this year, and Elizabeth Warren's nanny-state attitude turns people off.
3. At the end of 2020, I will have a 20-year-old cat. Priss made it through the relocation without any issues and seems to like it here, so I think she's going to stick around awhile longer. The oldest cat that ever lived made it to 38, so I think Priss still has plenty of life left in her.
4. I'm going to be single at the end of the year. The one prediction that I did make for 2019, which I didn't write down last year, was that I'd have a girlfriend and that I'd have someone to kiss at midnight - and that actually did come true - but if I'm being realistic, I think the inherent limitations in my current relationship will eventually be more than I or she are willing to abide. I'd be completely OK with getting this one wrong - in fact, maybe I'm making this prediction just to ensure that I get one wrong. :-P
5. I'm going to bench at least 350, squat at least 450, and deadlift 500. The trick to getting any of these done is to stay injury free. I haven't done any lifting in the last two months as a result of the move, and I need to get back to it.
6. The price of gold at year's end will be $1800.
7. Bitcoin will be up about 10% to $8000 or so.
8. The DOW will finish the year at 25,000 - roughly 10% lower than it is right now. Most likely this will happen as a result of Trump doing something stupid.
9. I'll be back down under 230. It seems that since the relocation, the weight has been slowly coming off on its own, so hopefully that trend continues and I don't need to resort to any more iterations of the chicken diet.
10. I put the odds at 50/50 that I'm still working at the Pin Factory. It depends a lot on what happens with the stock price, what happens with my next merit increase, and whether or not we manage to hire another person to replace the dude who changed teams. I don't plan to stay past the end of 2021, though, unless they just throw so much money at me that I can't say no. The retirement calculators I've been messing around with suggest that I really only need to put in another couple years. I don't have an extravagant lifestyle, and I don't have any debts, so I don't think it'd be too hard to live on considerably less than I'm currently making. Just need to take all those RSUs, sell 'em when the trading windows allow, and bank the cash / buy index funds.
11. The Basement Blackbirds will make their third consecutive appearance in the Spicy Tuna playoffs. Sadly, we'll fall short of the final round for the second year in a row.
12. Milwaukee will win the NBA championship. I don't know who will win the World Series, and I don't care. Fuck baseball. Baltimore wins the Super Bowl. Tom Brady will retire before the start of next season.
13. I'll visit at least one country that I've never been to before, and travel internationally at least twice. No idea where these places are going to be, though, since I don't currently expect to go back to Ozora this year.
14. I'll have a different car at the end of the year. It's time.
15. I expect to be living in the same place. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I'm fairly certain that I'll renew my lease on this apartment for another year.
16. I'll manage to stay injury-free and out of the hospital. No skiing or gym injuries!
17. North Korea will test a long-range ICBM. The US will engage in bluster and saber-rattling but ultimately do nothing about it.
18. My friend N will be engaged. He probably won't get married until 2021, though.
19. Fry's Electronics will go out of business in Arizona.
20. The Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. Yeah, I know, this is another bleak prediction from birdland, but with the current makeup of the court being what it is, and with the increasing likelihood that Trump will get to nominate another judge, it's only a matter of time and inevitability.

15 predictions for the next 10 years

1. The US will find itself involved in at least one new regional armed conflict.
2. US troops will still be present in Afghanistan, because we learned nothing from the Soviet occupation during the Cold War.
3. There will be a new Cold War with China, although it won't be one where nuclear annihilation is the overriding threat - it will be more of an economic struggle fought with tariffs, sanctions, and hacking. I don't think it will last the entire decade, though.
4. At least one of MDMA, LSD, or psilocybin will be made legal in one or more states and available through a dispensary in the same way that Marijuana is today.
5. Marijuana will be federally decriminalized.
6. Humanity will find evidence of life on another planet, probably Mars. Not saying that there will be life there today, but there was life there at one point.
7. Pinterest will be acquired. I suspect the buyer will be Amazon or Google.
8. The size of the cryptocurrency market will be a fraction of what it is today.
9. At least one major US city will ban cars from downtown.
10. Global warming will have passed the point of no return, and there will be massive destruction to coastal cities from hurricanes and typhoons. Sorry to be so bleak, but the shit is coming.
11. The United States will still not have had its first female president. I suspect we won't have had another non-white dude, either.
12. A major earthquake ("the big one") will hit Northern California around 2025.
13. I think I'll still be living in Denver 10 years from now. I like it here, and I can't think of anywhere else in the US I'd rather go. Maybe I'll be making plans to go overseas.
14. I'll be the last surviving member of my family. Basically this is saying that I don't think my mom will live another 10 years, since she's the only one left anyway, but she's 72 right now and looked really old the last time I saw her. I think this is the age at which my grandmother (her mom) died; my grandfather lived to be almost 89. Believe it or not, I don't think the next decade is going to be all depressing and miserable, but the passage of time is unavoidable.
15. There will be at least one major breakthrough in life extension technologies. I don't think we will have figured out hibernation / suspended animation though, which is a real pisser, since that's the only way that the humans of today have a chance to see the future. Even if we figured it out within the next 20 years, I'm not sure I'd want to go into cryosleep as a 60-year-old - unless, of course, I can wake up in a younger body.

And, there you have it. A look into the magic 8-ball from yours truly. Guess we'll revisit this stuff in a year.