Mall Rats and Late Chats | Th 1/5

Woke up for stand-up and it seems like everyone was happy to hear that I made progress. Sam emailed me about a reminder he got that I didn't do the cyber security training, which I was sad to remember.

During the day I managed to keep from napping, but I fell down a rabbit hole about money and my personal finances. Gigi recently shared about her changing mindset towards spending money, and that got me to realize that I'm in a great financial position and can probably afford to spend more despite my thriftiness. This turned into a push to make a spreadsheet to budget for myself, but while on Google docs I noticed a basketball shoe spreadsheet from Reddit that I previously opened, which had me fall down another rabbit hole.

I was curious how my current shoes compared in the aggregated reviews of the spreadsheet and was surprised to find the Kyrie Infinity's weren't especially highly rated despite some YouTubers' positive reviews. This spreadsheet, along with Runrepeat, got me to dig into the best rated shoes that were on sale, which was an endeavor.

I decided to return the Kyrie's and possibly purchase the Puma TRC blaze court's, but was very on the fence since the reviews were a bit mixed and always referenced how the shoes compared to the Clyde All-Pro's, which are my current shoes. I guess I couldn't bear the thought of buying another pair of the same shoes, but in the end I figured that I should probably just buy the shoes which I know are great instead of the ones that may be just as good. I was very surprised to see that I bought those old All-Pro's for $48, but I guess I can trust past me to chase value hard.

Near the end of the workday Gigi messaged me that she was also focused on shoes, which was funny. She wanted to go to North Park, which was perfect since I could return the Kyrie's then too. We left after dinner and the mall was surprisingly close despite some traffic, which made me wonder if I would be there often and become a rabid consumer.

My return was quick and we spent a while trying shoes for Gigi at Stuart Weitzman, which was surprisingly fun. She went through various heels and boots trying different sizes, and spent a while considering if she wanted to exchange a current pair for another. She expressed having a great time checking them all out and hearing some of my feedback, and I had fun watching her enjoy herself. She also brought up the idea that expensive shoes are more comfortable than cheap ones, which surprised me.

Afterwards we explored more shoes in Neiman Marcus and ended up in the designer men's section. There I got to try a Canada Goose jacket and see some Balenciaga, which had like bike locks on each item. By then the store closed so we left, but still had a plan to work out together.

The lifting was fun, but we didn't get to talk much like usual. Afterwards we went back to her place to try her boba protein, which wasn't that great but probably only the Thai tea flavor, and ended up chatting for a long time.