Rolled over a 401k into a cash IRA the week before Lehman died

ETA: the timing was pure luck. I had no clue what was about to go down.

Bought a derelict lot of land in echo park, 5 dilapidated buildings, pigeons in everything, the kind of place you hung out as a kid to break bottles and smoke cigarettes. It has been vacant and falling in for 30 years. Everyone thought we were crazy (1999).

tl;dr pulled up 10,000 sq ft of asphalt by hand, turned one building into a house legally, later outfitted s garage into a sprawling oddball house we rentcto friends.

Now it's all grown in, our biggest problem rn is a tree fell over from soaking up winter rain.

I can't complain but sometimes I still do.