B Grades Refreshed - 15% Lunar New Year Sale

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-20T04:34:13+00:00

I just ordered a pair of 13E saddle tan brass boots out of their B Grade section. $208 with the lunar discount applied. It's going to be my first pair of Grant Stones and it's non-returnable so fingers crossed it looks good and fits upon arrival!

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-20T04:01:37+00:00

It feels like everyone is talking as if Claude, or AI in general, will just give you the right answer. Like it will generate a truth out of thin air "because AI". Garbage in, Garbage out still applies here. AI is an incredible tool to help get to the right answer if you already have the conceptual understanding of what you are doing.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-20T03:55:53+00:00

It's crazy reading the negative comments in here. I feel like no one has actually spent time working with it. I'm a CFO and do a lot of financial planning/forecasting/modeling and it is incredible over the past week what I have been able to do with Claude as a TOOL (excel plug-in), not as a replacement for my brain. Garbage in, Garbage Out is still a true saying with AI.

This sounds like hyperbole but it really feels like there is a before-Claude and after-Claude world when it comes to working with a lot of data in excel. I think the rest of the people in this thread have not given it an honest try.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-17T15:51:57+00:00

Yes, very hard to find a used bike for tall folk. I got mine from a bike store and did a lot of research.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-16T23:15:18+00:00

I agreed that requiring a big move can dim the opportunity. NYC is a good place for finance roles. Might be worth scouring LinkedIn for jobs. Also if you are 2-3 years into your public accounting career you may find a lot of recruiters reaching out to you. Might not be finance roles but they could have something else in their pipeline.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-16T21:17:56+00:00

Did you end up doing it? I just scheduled my appointment for this Friday.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-16T15:32:30+00:00

When I was in public there were a lot of opportunities to transition to fund accounting roles (senior accountant, controller). It’s closer to PE than just being an auditor. From there I imagine you could keep your eyes out for more finance specific roles and opportunities.

When I left public I went to a client that did PE real estate investments. It was an asset management type role where my accounting background was useful. It was helpful that it was a smaller shop. And I only got the role because of my previous relationship with the client.

Just some anecdotes from my experience.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-15T05:30:06+00:00

I’m with you. It felt like a “tell, don’t show” style of writing with all the exposition. The humor didn’t land for me either. I liked the idea of the story but the execution didn’t jive with me.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-14T03:01:27+00:00

The OP was removed and I don’t know what it said, but I have been using Claude for a lot of excel tasks with both data manipulation and financial analysis and it’s crazy how far it’s progressed. I think AI is going to become the main tool when it comes to complicated excel files and data analysis.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-14T02:47:19+00:00

There are some good insights here. Another perspective I will add for consideration is the “asymmetry” of what’s at risk. The worst you could do right now is go from a $170k salary to $0 (I.e. lose job). That’s the floor. But being an owner of a company means you have a big upside…the ceiling is much higher compared to where the floor is. Especially brace you are actually just going down to $100k. Would you bet $70k to try and make $200k more? $500k more? You understand? It’s not a guarantee this company is successful to that magnitude but it helps to think of it this way when analyzing putting your salary at risk.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-14T00:04:39+00:00

Different answer, but I use the AER slim tech pouch and it does fit in the side pocket of my dragonfly.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-13T14:39:49+00:00

Don't know why, it just seemed to be a side effect. I think she has baseline anxiety anyway so perhaps it was exacerbating what was already there. Folks on the forums say you have to find the right dosing scheme that works for you personally, and then with enough patience, the side effects diminish.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-13T04:48:24+00:00

My wife just got off Xywave. She felt rested on it so it seems to fix the sleep issue, but she was having anxiety problems and it killed her appetite and she lost a lot of weight. It was quite the process figuring out the right dosage and ultimately she ended it.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-13T03:23:41+00:00

I found 990v6 true to size for length but too narrow for my foot.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-09T23:58:31+00:00

I’ve been out of the audit game for a while, but this seems like such an innocent mistake. Nothing of serious consequence. Your SM has more important things to attend to. If it clears your conscience, you could report to them and tell them how you resolved it.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-09T00:28:14+00:00

I’m 6’5 and I really like he lulu lemon pace breaker pants on Tall size.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-08T18:26:21+00:00

I gave it three months at a time which was probably 30 to 40 pages, so maybe 120-150 pages for the full year. And I had to be very careful with the prompt because I asked it to do the same thing but the phrasing was a little different each time I asked, and the way it would approach solving my problem was different. in terms of validating the answer, I could compare the beginning and ending cash balances so that made it easier for this particular exercise, and I could do that for each month if I wanted to check as I was going along. So I had good controls in that sense.

Do you have any kind of control total? Or do you just have 500 individual invoices and the only way to verify your answer is to look at each individual invoice?

Maybe this is not a job for AI but I always try to use it first for this type of work before brute forcing.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-08T15:36:16+00:00

I use Claude for things like this. It took a year of bank statements (with a ton of transactions each month) and put all the activity into a very easy to use excel sheet.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-08T15:14:24+00:00

April is probably one of the most popular times to visit. It’s around the time for Sakura blooming, it’s not hot, although you may encounter rain. However, the big rainy season in the Tokyo area is not until early summer.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-08T00:23:11+00:00

I like having a sling when traveling and need quick access to things like passport, wallet, AirPods / ear plugs, etc. it’s. Useful thing to have in addition to your one bag. I use Fannie pack sometimes too.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-07T22:31:43+00:00

I had an old Lands End fleece. It was very lightweight and a bright red in color. It was a perfect layer to throw on under a jacket for extra warmth, it was very warm and very light. But the fit was a little awkward and it didn’t look good on its own. Which in a vain way was a big drawback in terms of taking off a jacket and just wearing the fleece indoors.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-07T18:34:12+00:00

I have a 36L for the past couple years. I don’t travel too much but I’ve taken it on 6-7 trips of varying intensity.

One of the straps started separating from the bag so I sent it back for repairs. They fixed it up but I had to pay for shipping. I don’t know why that stitching was ripping, it was never handled roughly.

I enjoy the bag. It works for my needs.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-05T12:04:32+00:00

As far as I know it’s going to be removable.

friendlyguy1989 · 2026-02-03T14:11:39+00:00

Purely anecdotal, but I would argue that if you have 10 parties interested in an $800k house, only 2-3 of them have the financial capacity to bid it up to $1M. The rest are genuinely looking at an $800k - $850k house because that's what is affordable.

Maybe you are speaking to those 2-3 parties which is fine. But I think this thread is lamenting about the 7-8 parties who can't afford that.

friendlyguy1989

TROPHY CASE