Russian Damage to Power System Requiring More Repairs.

Camel riding with my sister at the beach in Tangier, Morocco, near where the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean meet.

Courtesy of Sergio Najera

• Sergio Najera quit a six-figure engineering job because the company didn’t allow international travel.
• He now works full-time at a gaming startup while traveling through South America and Europe. 
• He says the trade-off was worth it, as told by Insider reporter Hannah Towey. 

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Sergio Najera, a software developer at “Pericle: Gathering Darkness,” an app-driven tabletop fantasy game. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. My dad is from Mexico and met my mom there. When I was three years old, we moved to a small suburb outside Minneapolis. That’s where I’ve lived most of my life. 

During the pandemic, I was working as a software engineer at a major corporation based in Minneapolis. I had been dreaming of traveling abroad for a long time. So when we went remote, I asked if I could work temporarily from Puerto Rico. 

I was very transparent with my manager. Over the next couple of months, I tried figuring out if there was a reasonable way I could do this, and the answer was no. 

So I decided to be a little sneaky. I talked with a bunch of friends and landed on this VPN setup where I could hide my IP address and work from Puerto Rico.  It was like a trial run to see if I even liked working remotely. Overall, it was a success and reaffirmed that this was something I wanted to do. 

This is all under the premise that nobody knew where I was. But I got a little lax — I don’t know with 100% certainty how I got caught, but allegedly the security team could trace my IP address and see that I was not in the United States and in some Caribbean time zone.

So I got a message from my director on the second to last day before I was going back to Minnesota. He was questioning where I was and, while I wasn’t technically lying that I was in the United States (or at least part of the United States), he knew and I knew, so I just fessed up.

He wasn’t super thrilled and asked me to stop working until I was back in the US, so I obliged. After I got back to Minnesota, I talked to my director and he said don’t do that again, but it was just kind of a slap on the wrist.

I left the company because of its strict employee travel policy

My most recent adventure, celebrating Argentina winning the world cup in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires.

Courtesy of Sergio Najera

Fast forward a couple of months and I’m planning a bigger trip: a month and a half in Peru.

My company was very strict. If I wanted to work outside of Minnesota, I would need special permission. So yeah, working from 7,000 kilometers away wasn’t really an option.

At the end of the day, I tried very hard to stay. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a tech specialist or an accountant. I’m just a guy who wants to travel. But there are these dinosaur rules that don’t make it easy for remote workers to work in different states, let alone different countries. 

I had my flight and Airbnb booked, and a trek through Machu Picchu scheduled, so it was really do-or-die. I either needed to figure out some way to stay with my company and work from Peru or find some alternative.

Around the same time, a game I’d been building with my friends called “Pericle: Gathering Darkness” that started to really take off.

We had a successful Kickstarter, where we raised $182,000 to hire some full-time people. So I had a couple of choices: (1) just quit my job and figure it out, (2) I could cut my salary in half but have a cool job that I originally started as a fun project to do on the side, or (3) try to find some contractor job. 

I decided to take the startup job because it would give me the flexibility to work from wherever I wanted to and I really prioritized that. I started in April and I’m still with them — the game is being released this Spring. 

My base salary at my old job was around $115,000 with 401(k) benefits and matching, bringing total compensation closer to around $140,000. Now, my cash salary is only $60,000. 

I’m not saving as much money as I used to, but my ‘joy per dollar’ is higher

My sister and I in Mallorca de Palma off the coast of Spain.

Courtesy of Sergio Najera

I’ve traveled to Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Argentina. Next, I’m planning trips to Brazil and Chile. 

If you do want to live in Europe, but live a little cheaper, you can go to places like Croatia or Bosnia which are a little less expensive than somewhere like Italy. Even Spain was cheaper than Germany and Switzerland or the Netherlands. 

I love Europe and maybe I’m just looking at it with rose-tinted glasses, but I genuinely do feel like it fits my lifestyle better. Nutrition-wise, it’s so easy to find healthy food. The culture is also not so grind-oriented — people don’t work 70 hours a week.

If you want to go very cheap, you can go to places like Argentina, where I am now. 

Eating out here every day is sometimes cheaper than buying groceries and cooking at home. For example, I went to this little empanada place with a friend and we ordered eight good-size empanadas and a bottle of wine for four-and-a-half US dollars. 

When people say they can’t afford to travel, I always ask how much their rent is. Whatever they pay is always more than what I pay for housing. I aim for around $30 to $32 per night, so around $1,000 a month. The most expensive thing is flights. But once you get to your destination, you can live very frugally. 

You can easily find hostels or even cheaper Airbnbs if you’re smart and plan far in advance. You can easily find places for $25 a night in a lot of places in the world. 

If you choose London or Berlin, it’s going to be really expensive. Even Valencia and Malaga in Spain weren’t too bad. Or go to South America and you can choose whatever capital city you want and it’s going to be cheaper than paying rent in the US. 

I’m still contributing the maximum to my Roth IRA and putting aside money to pay off student loans. Compared to Minneapolis, I’m not saving more money because I’m spending more on activities and weekend trips. 

But I would say that I’m spending my money more meaningfully, in that the amount of joy I get per dollar is much higher. I’m budgeting very intentionally while saving for retirement and still able to do most of the things that I really want to do. 

From making friends to making sure you can work productively, traveling full-time comes with challenges

Everything I need to work remotely. I have a magic keyboard, a magic trackpad, a laptop stand, noise canceling headphones, and a microphone.

Courtesy of Sergio Najera

Even though I’m more extroverted, I still get lonely. You can be in a city of 5 million people but you can feel totally by yourself at times. I’ve gone a couple of weeks where I’d only talk to my wife, just working away in my little room. 

It’s one thing to grab lunch with a group of people and another to hang out with your friend who you’ve known for 15 years, who cares about you and loves you. One thing that’s helped me is calling people that I haven’t connected with for a while and seeing what’s going on with their life. 

There are other little challenges, like having a good work-from-home setup. You can’t actually work from the beach — I mean, where are you getting your Wifi? How do you see your screen?

You need a good internet connection, especially if you’re in meetings. Office chairs are another big thing. I bought this cushion that I travel with so I can put it on whatever chair is in the Airbnb.

Ideally, I have a workspace that is separated from the bedroom. That’s the bare minimum for what I personally look for. I can’t work in cafes like some people. I try to stay in quiet neighborhoods, which also helps with sleep. 

Traveling has helped me realize that different lifestyles exist outside the US’ grind culture

Sergio with his wife and friends at Machu Picchu.

Courtesy of Sergio Najera

I’m very extroverted. Every day, I’ll talk to strangers on the street. I actually got this from a dating book, that if you want to find people that you connect with emotionally, you should do the things you like to do. For example, I’ve met some really cool people while rock climbing. My friend loves surfing so he hangs out in surf towns and meets like-minded people. I’ve also met friends in cooking classes. 

My best advice for landing in a new city is to always do a walking tour. It’s a good way to meet other travelers. My other secret tip is shared Airbnbs. Right now, I’m in an Airbnb where there are two other rooms that are rented out and people are coming and going. I’ve met some absolutely kind souls doing this — it kind of feels like college again. 

My wife’s job is a little less flexible, so she’s still based in Minneapolis and flies out to visit every now and then. She was in Spain with me for a month, and my sister came for a couple of weeks. I’ve been solo for around two months now. 

The different time zones can get tricky. We learned the hard way that not talking frequently — which for us means every day or every other day — can be really taxing on both of us. 

That doesn’t mean we’re constantly texting each other throughout the whole day. Sometimes we check in on each other a couple times and that’s it, but getting face time on video chat is really critical. At a high level, that’s how I think we’ve been able to do this well. 

If I died today, what I would miss most is obviously my family and my friends. It wouldn’t be like, ‘oh, shoot, I really miss writing code.’ But a regret I would have is not seeing enough of the world. 

Very specifically, what really draws me to leaving everybody behind for a little while — including my wife and my family — is there’s so much to learn about how to live life. 

The first time I ever went to Europe, it blew my mind. The streets are so narrow, people are more active, then there’s the healthcare system. It makes you realize there are different ways to live life. I think we get really stuck in patterns in the US, or wherever you were born and grew up. Talking to different people around the world really opens you up to the possibility of living a better life. 

We might think life is so hard, but then you go to Argentina where people literally can’t afford to buy a house and might never be able to because of inflation. You start to realize, ‘are our problems really so bad?’

For me, I want to see the world so I can hopefully live a better life with a more open mind to what exists outside of my tiny little box that I grew up in. I just want to be happier — that’s really what it boils down to.

Warren Buffett.

Getty Images

• Warren Buffett’s daughter-in-law showed the investor her company’s finances as a Christmas gift.
• Mary Buffett couldn’t think of anything else to give the billionaire businessman.
• “I put together our music company’s balance sheet to show him that we were making money,” she said.

Warren Buffett’s daughter-in-law couldn’t think of a good Christmas gift for him, so she showed him her company’s finances.

Mary Buffett was married to the famed investor’s son Peter from 1980 to 1993. The pair owned a music business together, which played to her strengths as a former Columbia Records executive who had also managed the music-publishing companies of Playboy’s late founder, Hugh Hefner.

“The first year we were married, I realized, ‘Warren is very rich,'” Mary told ThinkAdvisor in 2019. “‘Therefore, he doesn’t want anything.'”

“I didn’t know what to get him, so I put together our music company’s balance sheet to show him that we were making money,” she said.

Unlike most people who walk Warren Buffett through their assets and liabilities, Mary Buffett wasn’t seeking an investment.

“I just wanted to show him, ‘Look, we’re doing good,'” she told ThinkAdvisor.

She also described more broadly what Christmas with the Buffetts was like: lots of food, famous faces, and debates about intrinsic value.

“When the family got together in Laguna over Christmastime, all the titans of industry would be there,” she said in the interview. “We’d have lunches and dinners, and they’d all talk about companies. Investing was the only thing Warren ever talked about!”

Since divorcing Peter Buffett, Mary Buffett has worked as a consultant and speaker, founded an online school, and taught business and finance to university students. She has also written nine books about Buffett, according to her website.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Shanghai authorities urged residents to stay at home this weekend, seeking a toned-down Christmas in the nation’s most populous city as COVID-19 rages nationwide after tough curbs were lifted.

A branch of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission on Saturday urged young people in particular to avoid crowded gatherings, due to the ease of spreading the coronavirus and low temperatures.

Christmas is not traditionally celebrated in China, but it is common for young couples and some families to spend the holiday together.

The Omicron variant is surging weeks after the authorities abruptly ended their zero-COVID policy, lifting strict testing requirements and travel restrictions as China becomes the last major country to move toward living with the virus.

While many have welcomed the easing, families and the health system were unprepared for the resulting surge of infections. Hospitals are scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs and authorities are racing to build clinics.

Shanghai typically hosts a large Christmas-themed market in a luxury shopping area along Nanjing West Road, and restaurants and retailers offer promotions to drum up business.

But the spread of Omicron is dampening celebrations.

Many Shanghai restaurants have cancelled Christmas parties normally held for regulars, while hotels have capped reservations due to staff shortages, said Jacqueline Mocatta, who works in the hospitality industry.

“There’s only a certain amount of customers we can accept given our manpower, with a majority of team members who are unwell at the moment,” she said.

People lamented on social media that they will be staying inside as most of their friends have tested positive for COVID.

“I originally planned to go to Shanghai for Christmas but now I can only lie in bed,” a person wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social network.

Infections in China are likely more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, in “stark contrast” to official data, British-based health data firm Airfinity said this week.

China’s national health authority on Saturday reported 4,128 daily symptomatic COVID-19 infections, and no deaths for a fourth consecutive day.

Bloomberg News reported on Friday that nearly 37 million people may have been infected with COVID on a single day this past week, citing estimates from the government’s top health authority.

The emergency hotline in Taiyuan in the northern province of Shanxi was receiving over 4,000 calls a day, a local media outlet said on Saturday.

Taiyuan authorities urged residents to call the number only for medical emergencies, saying guidance about COVID “does not fall within the scope of the hotline.”

A health official in Qingdao said the port city was seeing roughly 500,000 daily infections, media reported on Friday.

In Wuhan, the central city where COVID emerged three years ago, media reported on Friday that the local blood repository had just 4,000 units, enough to last two days. The repository called on people to “roll up their sleeves and donate blood.”

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(Corrects in first, second and third paragraphs to show the appeal of only one protestor had been accepted, following statement from Iran’s Supreme Court correcting its initial announcement that two appeals had been accepted. Also updates Amnesty International figure in sixth paragraph to 26 from 21.)

(Reuters) -Iran’s Supreme Court has accepted the death sentence appeal of one protestor but confirmed that of another, the country’s judiciary said on Saturday.

The Court had initially said it had accepted the appeals of both protestors, but in a subsequent statement the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said: “The public relations of the Supreme Court of Iran has corrected its news: ‘The appeal of Mohammad Qabadloo has not been accepted/the ruling has been confirmed.

“Saman Seydi’s appeal has been accepted by the Supreme Court.”

Nationwide unrest erupted in mid-September after the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code laws.

Iran hanged two protesters earlier this month: Mohsen Shekari, 23, was accused of blocking a main road in September and wounding a member of the paramilitary Basij force with a knife. Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23, who was accused of stabbing to death two Basij members, was publicly hanged from a construction crane.

Amnesty International has said Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 26 people in what it called “sham trials designed to intimidate those participating in the popular uprising that has rocked Iran”.

Qobadloo was charged with killing a police agent and injuring five others during the protests.

Yasin, a Kurd who raps about inequality, oppression and unemployment, was accused of attempting to kill security forces and singing revolutionary songs.

Rights group HRANA said that as of Friday 506 protesters had been killed, including 69 minors. It said 66 members of the security forces had also been killed. As many as 18,516 protesters are believed to have been arrested, it said.

A top state security body said early this month that 200 people, including members of security forces, had lost their lives in the unrest.

Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : ‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featu…

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The Trump years demonstrated that the norm of presidential candidates voluntarily releasing their returns is too weak

Donald Trump’s biggest worries right now might not be about Congress having released six years of his tax returns. But it is an issue where Republicans can comfortably have it both ways: please Trump’s base, as they loudly perform indignation about Democrats’ conduct, even as they cease defending a politically weakened Trump against the charges of the January 6 committee.

The Republican party has all but said that they will play tit-for-tat in the new Congress – investigations, impeachments, whatever it takes to troll Democrats and distract the public with political theater, as Republicans are unlikely to make good on campaign promises. Hence it is crucial to understand what made the release of Trump’s tax returns legitimate – and why Trump cannot appeal to privacy as a trump card – and why we must also put rules in place to prevent political witch-hunts.

Jan-Werner Mueller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules

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Representatives of France’s Kurdish community gathered in central Paris on Saturday for a demonstration to demand answers over the killing of three Kurds in the French capital they say has exposed the community’s vulnerability.

A gunman carried out the killings at a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby cafe on Friday in a busy part of Paris’ 10th district.

Police arrested a 69-year-old man who the authorities said had recently been freed from detention while awaiting trial for a sabre attack on a migrant camp in Paris a year ago.

After an angry crowd clashed with police on Friday afternoon, the Kurdish democratic council in France (CDK-F) called on its website and social media channels for a gathering from midday (1100 GMT) on Saturday at Republic square, a traditional venue for demonstrations in the city.

Several hundred people gathered in the square, with many holding flags.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on Friday that possible racist motives would be part of the investigation, but Kurdish representatives said it should be considered as a terror attack.

“We know that we are under threat, Kurds in general, Kurdish activists and militants. France owes us protection,” Berivan Firat, a spokesperson for the CDK-F told BFM TV.

Friday’s murders caused particular dismay in the Kurdish community as it prepared to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the killings of three Kurdish women in Paris.

“The Kurdish community is afraid. It was already traumatised by the triple murder (in 2013). It needs answers, support and consideration,” David Andic, a lawyer representing the CDK-F told reporters on Friday.

Paris’ police chief was due to meet members of the Kurdish community on Saturday morning ahead of the afternoon protest.

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