Grigory Lukin.com

There weren’t any groundbreaking announcements, but some things were pretty interesting:

• the weather was ridiculously cold. It was raining, too, which is probably why they opened the doors 30 minutes early at 6:30am;
• not a whole lot of protesters this week – at least none that made it inside the building;
• The “Breaking Bad” skit at the beginning of the meeting was comedy gold: Warren Buffett vs Walter White in a battle over brittle distribution. The greatest part was Munger’s “Brittle, bitch!” at the end.
• BYD, the Chinese electric car company that Charlie Munger praised from the rooftops for years, was never mentioned during the Q&A, nor showcased in the exhibit hall. Oh, the shame!
• After Buffett’s little speech on the need for better gender equality, Munger refused to comment. Given his previous conservative commentary on gender relations, it probably wouldn’t have been very PC – silence was probably the better course of action;
• Doug Kass, who is apparently a famous short-seller, was one of the panelists who got to ask Buffett and Munger questions. The first few were fine, but around 2pm he turned his question into a 3-minute monologue about the benefits of short-selling and a lame challenge to Buffett with a complete list of conditions. He blabbered on for at least 3 minutes, wasted everyone’s time and got succinctly shut down by Munger’s “To answer your question – no.” Here is hoping he won’t get invited again;
  
• The funniest moment of the Q&A session: a 25-year-old guy from Los Angeles who asked how he could convince people to give him money for his brand new partnership, even though he had no track record of any kind. Laughter ensued;
• The bookstore in the exhibit hall featured pretty much every book ever written about Buffett, except for his official, authorized biography – The Snowball by Alice Schroeder. Only the old biography, Roger Lowenstein’s Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, was featured. I guess Buffett is still mad at Schroeder;
• The Buffett worship is turning into creepy idolatry: shareholders could buy boxer shorts with Buffett’s face on them ($5) or a gold coin with Buffett’s face ($850);
• When asked about IBM’s moat and competitive advantage, Buffett launched into tirade about different valuation methods, etc. He never did answer the question, which only reinforces my belief that IBM wasn’t a traditional Buffett investment. Seems like it was just a convenient, fairly conservative large company that simply happened to match some (but not all) of his usual criteria…

I’m typing this as I sit in the Denver airport, waiting for my flight to Omaha to start boarding. It’s my sixth trip – or pilgrimage, even – to see Warren Buffett at his annual shareholder convention held in his hometown.

I know this airport well by now, seeing as I’ve traveled through it for five years. For me, this convention is a mix of Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, a chance to visit that quaint little town as part of the legion of capitalists who dubbed this annual event “The Woodstock for Capitalists.” It’s a chance to try a genuine Omahan steak, to meet like-minded (i.e., intelligent, curious and money-oriented) people from all over the world and, of course, to listen to the 82-year billionaire investor and his 89-year-old business partner Charlie Munger (also a billionaire) share their wisdom, criticize the bovine excrement that passes for wisdom on Wall Street and answer questions from investors and the media.

All recording devices are prohibited at the event, which creates an aura of exclusivity, even if it must be shared with 45,000 other attendees. The atmosphere, the excitement, the significance of financial revelations and occasional investment tips (mostly on what not to invest in) – all of this keeps coming back year after year…

The first time I heard about Buffett was during his visit to my alma mater, University of Nevada, Reno. Since I was a lazy and arrogant college senior, I disregarded the event, thinking that it was just another fat-cat billionaire reveling in his success in front of a bunch of young, impressionable students. After the event was over, I decided to look him up on Wikipedia… The facepalm that followed was pretty damn epic, as we kids say these days.

I read more about the legendary investor, learned about his Omaha convention, got a ticket on eBay, hopped on a Greyhound bus and spent 37 (yes, thirty-seven) hours riding it until I finally made it to Nebraska. I spent a total of 24 hours in Omaha during that first trip because I had to hurry back for my final exams. I spent most of the ride back typing on my laptop, chugging RedBulls and completing my assignments. I barely made it back in time, but it was so very, very worth it. 

And now the boarding call has sounded, and it’s time for me to go… I may post some updates after the event is done – or I could just hog the precious knowledge to myself as I fly back to Vegas, recharged and motivated after my annual get-together with the world’s most famous investor.

To whom it may concern:

I shall not be renewing the lease on unit XXX in the Sunset Terrace Apartments complex. I shall return my key on Sunday, March 31.

My reasons for doing so are many and varied. Here is a brief list of things I find woefully inadequate with this apartment complex:

• Lack of security: in November, somebody broke into my car and stole my stereo. The car was parked beneath bright light. The incident occurred between 6-8pm on a Friday evening. Nobody saw anything, nothing was recovered and there have been no improvements in security since then.
• Pigeon infestation: as far as I can tell, there are no efforts being made to reduce the number of pigeons who live in this apartment complex. A pair of those flying rats started nesting on my balcony.
• Terrible maintenance: I have submitted four requests to have the pigeons removed from my balcony. They are still there.
• Incorrect office hours: your website, your voicemail and the sign on your door claim the apartment office is open until 6pm. I don’t get home from work until 5:45pm and I needed to pick up a package held at the office. Every time I got there, it was closed. After sending emails and leaving voicemail messages for a week without so much as a brief response, I finally went to the office on my day off, only to find out it closes at 5pm, not 6pm as advertised.
• Apathetic staff: is it really that difficult to return a phone call or reply to an email?..
• Strong chemical smell that lasted for months after my apartment’s fumigation.
• Water outages due to unannounced repairs in the middle of the day.

Over the course of my life, I’ve lived in black widow-infested crumbling houses, derelict dormitories and radioactive Siberian towns, but none of them were run as poorly, in such an unapologetically indolent way, as the Sunset Terrace Apartments. I would wish you luck with your failing enterprise, but I doubt anything short of divine intervention would help you at this point.

                                                                                                        Worst regards,

        Grigory Lukin, apartment XXX

My new book, “Madmen’s Manifestos: Chris Donner, Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh and others,” is a bit different from my previous work. It contains manifestos, public testimony and suicide notes of 20 different serial killers, ranging from household names like Adolf Hitler or Timothy McVeigh to people you’ve never heard about.

It all began with Chris Dorner’s online manifesto. When that rogue ex-LAPD cop with elite training went on a rampage, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who thought it was a bit stranger than fiction. When I heard that Dorner posted a manifesto online, I decided to read it because I was curious to learn what pushed him over the edge and how he justified his actions to himself.

Once I read that, I became even more curious. Of course, I knew that occasionally serial killers and other disturbed people release manifestos, but this was the first time I actually read one. I did some googling and learned that, for some bizarre reason, nobody has ever published a collection of manifestos those madmen left behind.

I know a niche when I see one… I spent the next few weeks researching killers, getting acquainted with copyright law (there were a couple of manifestos I couldn’t include in the book for that very reason) and sifting through public records to piece together courtroom testimonies and notes that were written in foreign languages, etc.

I hadn’t anticipated the psychological toll this book would take on me. I had to go through each of those manifestos and format them. While I didn’t read each of them closely, I ended up speed-reading through all of them, and there’s only so much exposure to a madman’s mind an average person can take. I also had the bright idea to include a micro-biography for each killer, which meant researching them in depth, verifying the dates and casualty numbers, getting far more graphic details than I was ready for.

What began as a “what if” project ended up stretching for weeks, to the point where I had to bribe myself with a new video game to finish the last few chapters. (For my future biographers – it was “X-Com: Enemy Unknown” for PS-3 and it was worth every penny!) After proofreading, double-checking all the details and slapping together what I think is a fairly decent-looking cover, I finally published the book on Kindle.

Just like with all my new books, I’m giving away my “Madmen’s Manifestos” for free! The giveaway will end at midnight this Sunday, March 17th. Make sure to get your free download over yonder before you forget about it. (You know how it goes – you’ll keep reminding yourself and then it’ll be Monday and you’ll have to pay $2.99 and the butterfly effect from spending that money will wreak havoc on your personal life and might change the world as we know it! I hate it when that happens.)

The TL;DR version: My new book is out – go here to download it for free until 11:59pm this Sunday: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BM5L2HW/

And one more thing – don’t forget to leave a 5-star review if you like the book! It’ll make my day – there’s nothing we authors like more than praise from our readers.

“The way to live a long time – oh, a thousand years or more – is something between the way a child does it and the way a mature man does it. Give the future enough thought to be ready for it – but don’t worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.”
Robert A. Heinlein, “Time enough for love”

Good advice… Incredibly difficult to follow on a consistent basis, but good advice nonetheless.

I realize that my Google search history has been even stranger than usual lately. In case it triggered some red flags in your byzantine surveillance system, I’d like to assure you that I’m merely doing research for an e-book on serial killers and do not intend to cause any harm to my fellow human beings. (Well, not counting the girl at the local Subway who took 20 minutes to prepare my sandwich the other day and should probably get fired.)

Please don’t send a flying killer robot (or “drone,” as you like to call them) after me.

Best regards,
GL

Perhaps the rising popularity of tattoos and other permanent body modifications can be explained by the simple fact that in our increasingly transient culture, where everything’s made to be broken, where vows, promises and honor are but empty words, the very idea of permanently, irrevocably altering one’s body is considered rebellious, if only on subconscious level.

I eat my pasta with ketchup because unlike pasta sauce, it lasts for months.
I sleep on an air mattress because they’re way better than beds when it’s time to move.
I don’t have cable because I stream all my TV shows online.
I don’t cook any dishes that take more than 3 minutes to prepare.
I’ve calculated which Subway sandwich has the best price/protein ratio.
I’ve devised a system that allows me go at least 6 weeks without doing laundry.
I drive a rusty 25-year-old car that gets 33 miles per gallon.
I own 1 plate, 1 fork and 1 knife. (And 1 machete, but that’s beside the point.) Spoons are for quitters!
I can pack up all of my essential possessions in less than an hour – and they would fit in my car.
I often complain about shoes that fall apart after only 2,000 miles.
I actually enjoy public transportation when I have to use it.
I am an avid user of the most cost-efficient entertainment out there – library books.
I outsource most of my cooking to all-you-can-eat buffets whenever I can. (The math works, trust me on this.)
Despite my “hedonistic Spartan” lifestyle, I still manage to save ~70% of my income.