As I sit here working at my desk at 1:35 a.m., December 20th, 2024, I’m listening to a recording session of Levels by the Robert Glasper Trio feeling exhausted, but grateful, for a phenomenal year. Decisions made over the past 18 to 24 months bore extraordinary fruit. I’ve also been thinking about something Charlie Munger said shortly before his passing.
I have a bunch of earnings reports to read and as I work from home, I can’t get Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor, K.64 / L. 58 / P. 33 out of my head. He wrote it sometime around the year 1740 and it was printed in Volume II of a book of keyboard sonatas he published in 1742. Harpsichord, clavichord, piano, guitar … it just sounds so catchy no matter the instrument on which it is performed.
Our real estate purchases in and around New Albany, Ohio continue. In addition to the two houses we already bought, we are under contract to acquire a commercial property. We’ve also started moving the pieces to someday have more kids.
I could hardly sleep Friday night because of excitement. It felt like Christmas as a kid, when all that joy, happiness, and anticipation are bundled together. Only much, much greater. Imagine you had been waiting on Christmas to arrive for more than thirty years.
Many of you watched me put off this purchase for decades as I prioritized investing over consumption, but it is now here: Aaron and I finally settled on our “forever” piano. We purchased a Bösendorfer 230VC model with the Enspire Disklavier Pro add-on and a custom-inlaid Macassar ebony wood around the soundboard. It is being manufactured near Vienna, Austria for us and should arrive in the next year.
The paradox of 2024 for investors is that the stock market keeps getting more expensive but individual blue chip stocks are getting cheaper. I’d argue this has created a wonderful environment for long-term value investors.
When we were originally furnishing our Missouri house, I came across a desk that I wanted to buy. However, I decided to invest the money, instead. Twelve years later, I discovered it, again, and, being older, determined this time around I was going to buy it. I will almost assuredly start, and finish, each day reading at this desk.
We are launching a podcast in the near-future, the landscaping is coming along nicely, and we continue making progress on transitioning to a more traditional design aesthetic as we buy up antique furniture on the secondary market.
The past month has been an adventure in many ways. From celebrating Dorian’s 3rd birthday, to an unexpected trip to the Emergency Room, searching for commercial office space, and making it through usual crunch of tax season, it feels like a lot has happened in a short period.
We continue to make progress on the house in New Albany. The Louis XV piece I mentioned arrived from the antiques dealer and I won two paintings at auction today. Meanwhile, I found two potential investments I really want to own but need to wait on the price.
First quarter 2024 was one of the best of our lives and careers. We are making progress everywhere, companies across multiple sectors in corporate America are doing great, we’re starting to really cook some amazing food, again, I have begun taking advantage of the collapse in furniture prices, and, yes, the second installment of Final Fantasy VII’s remake was released.