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How to Store Sperm in 4 Steps - Just in Case

Save the swimmies! (Photo: futurowoman)

I never thought I’d visit a sperm bank.

Perhaps it was flipping a motorcycle at 90 mph on Infineon Raceway.
Perhaps it was tearing my Achilles tendon in jiu-jitsu practice, then getting thrown on my head.
Maybe having my scuba mask fill with blood at 120 feet underwater in Belize?

That could have done it.

Or perhaps is was just crossing the 30-year age threshold and having friends who didn’t make it. 9/11, suicide, accidents — bad things happen to good people.

I’ve came to realize in 2007: it’s really not that hard to die. And that’s when I started thinking about storing my genetic material.

Yes, my little swimmies.

In this post I’ll talk about the process, how I did it, and why it’s cheap insurance in an unpredictable world. I’ll also throw in some curious details (sexy time!) just for entertainment…

The Reasons to Store Sperm

Doing the research, the pros far outweighed the cons:

1) Men are becoming progressively infertile. Go munch on some soy for a mouthful of phytoestrogens, or just stick with preservatives. It’s hard to avoid testicle-unfriendly food and toxins. Talk to endocrinologists who do clinical meta-analysis and get your sperm count measured. It is probably less than your dad’s. Real-world Children of Men (for men) in full effect.

2) There are many medical conditions and procedures — cancer treatment, for example — that can render men infertile.

3) People who “know” they don’t want kids change their minds. A lot. Just look at the number of vasectomy reversal procedures. And no, these procedures do not work well. Failure rates are high.

4) Above all: Why not do it? If you can afford it, it just seems like a no-brainer for bloodline and peace of mind. The potential downside of doing it (cost) is recoverable; the potential downside of not doing it is irreversible.

I’m not a king looking to spread my seed across an empire, but part of me does want to leave a legacy in the form of a child. Call me old-fashioned. I want momma Ferriss to be grandmamma Ferriss at some point, even if I get hit by a cement truck or nailed by blue ice from an airplane.

Think it’s easy to get someone pregnant? Sometimes. Most of the time, after looking at the numbers, it seems surprisingly hit-or-miss.

Does this mean I wouldn’t adopt? Not at all. Several aunts and uncles have adopted, and it’s a beautiful thing. I just also want to have children who share my DNA. I see no reason not to ensure both can happen.

Is this ego-driven? On some level, of course. But so is owning a home or having a decent car, wearing clothing besides what will keep you warm and eating food besides what will keep you alive. Humans are ego-driven with anything past the base necessities for survival.

Sperm Storage - The Steps in Brief

1) Find a sperm storage facility. Google “sperm storage”, “sperm bank”, or “sperm donor” along with your state or city.

2) Make an initial appointment and get tested for infectious diseases.

Most reputable locations will require testing for common STDs prior to storage. I was tested for:

HIV 1 & 2
HTLV-I & II
RPR (for Syphilis, Al Capone’s farewell song)
HCV (for Hepatitis A)
HBsAG and HBcAB (for Hepatitis B)

It’s a romantic first date. And, yes, I cleared like a Mormon taking a drug test.

Cost of initial consult: $100-150
Cost of STD lab panel: $150-200

3) Warm up your wrists and get busy. Six sessions per kid.

Think it’s “one shot, one kill”, macho man? Think again. You’re no Peter North, and even if you were, 50%+ of your sperm count is annihilated from the freezing process.

You should make six sperm deposits for each child you’d like to have. It can take inseminations over eight months for a woman to get pregnant, although in vitro fertilization (IVF) ups the chances somewhat at much higher cost, generally $9,000-12,000 per attempt.

Oh, and forget about abstaining for long periods of time, oddly enough.

For best results in storage/fertilization/impregnation, abstain from ejaculation for at least 48 hours but no more than four days before each session. More than four days and dead sperm cells begin to accumulate and cause trouble, as you need a certain ratio of live sperm to dead sperm per 1 cc (cubic centimeter) of volume. I scheduled one deposit every fourth morning a la: Monday 10am, Friday 10am, Tuesday 10am.

Cost per sample frozen: $150-200 (x 6 = $900 - $1,200 per potential kid)

4) Store all the suspended swimmies somewhere safe.

This will usually be handled by the facility that did the initial freezing. This is also where the credit card comes out.

Cost per year: $300 - 600 (often for all samples)

The E-mail You Need to Read (and Perhaps Replicate)

After my first storage session, I sent the following e-mail to my brother and a number of my closest friends. All names have been changed, but it covers some very possible challenges and necessary sleight-of-hand:

Subject: Critical and Serious E-mail from Tim Ferriss - Please Save

Hello Bill, Bob, Dave, Lisa, and Sarah,

So, after reading “The Last Lecture” and realizing that I have a fairly high-risk lifestyle with motorcycle accidents, jiu-jitsu and all else, I’ve decided to store sperm for potential future use, should something terrible happen to me.

Here’s the situation:

-Beginning today and over several months, I will make approx. 6 deposits at www.[donationfacility].com.  I am not donating, just storing for worst-case scenarios.
-For a bunch of legal reasons, I had to designate a “partner,” who is the only person with access to the stored samples if something bad happens [Single males are generally unable to store for later use or "just in case"].  I chose Lisa, since she is A) female, and B) easier to reach than Sarah [who's overseas] via phone.

I’m emailing the five of you because, if something happens to me, I kindly ask all of you to consider female candidates for receiving the samples.  I’d be thrilled if this were Lisa or Sarah, but I certainly wouldn’t expect this.  I’d just want you all to decide together if someone is someone I would approve of or not as the shepherd and missus for my sole progeny.  Bill [my brother] has veto and executive power in the case consensus isn’t reached.  6 deposits gets you 2 impregnation attempts monthly for three months, which is good for one woman only, so please choose wisely if it comes to it.  I would ideally want the resulting child to know my family and spend regular time with them, assuming my family feels the same way.

Again for a host of nonsense FDA and legal reasons, Lisa as “partner” is the only one who can get the samples.  [Storage facility] could help her do procedures on herself with the samples, but if it were for someone else, she’d need to get the samples and you’d all need to figure the rest out.  Sperm only survives for a few hours without freezing, so it would be quite the adventure.

I don’t expect anything to happen to me, of course, but I view this as the ultimate life-insurance policy.  Momma Ferriss wants grandkids, so it’s a relatively cheap way to ensure that happens, no matter what :)

Please ask any questions you might have, and please save this e-mail somewhere safe.  Good idea to print it as well.

Mahalo and see you all soon!

Tim

I would be hoping for quite the opposite, whether I play that role or a surrogate mother’s husband does. This entire process is damage control for a worst-case scenario: something catastrophic happening to me.

Sexy Time Details

So, cover the baby’s ears. I’m going to tell you something stunning and disgusting. Something you probably don’t want to hear. Ready? Most guys like pornography. And Santa Clause doesn’t exist. I’m sorry.

Here’s how the storage facility website sells the “donation” process:

“He [the donor/storer] is then shown to a private room where he can collect his specimen in a provided sterile cup.”

About as sexy as lethal injection, right?

Well, upon arrival, there were surprises in store. I was led to a cornucopia of porn DVDs around a secret corner. Right in front of a bunch of female lab technicians looking awkward. There was something for everyone in this motley selection. Norwegian juggler fetish? It would’ve been there. No expense was spared in covering all bases.

I grabbed a few titles (I’ll spare you the names) and headed to a small white room with a sliding door. I followed the lead of a quiet male Asian assistant in a white lab coat. He looked at his feet and departed with “please wash your hands when you finish.” I didn’t expect a call the next day.

The den of clinical sin was about the size of a hotel bathroom, with a paper-sheet-covered cot on the floor (yeah, baby!), a metal chair, a 13″ TV/DVD combo on a small stool, and a stack of magazines suspiciously adhered to one another.

So, I sat down, still quite content and ready to do my duty. A minute of “I can’t believe people want me to do this” and on goes the DVD. Then… my brain got sodomized.

See, I live in San Francisco, and — well — there are a lot of “alternative” sexual orientations. It also happens, sad times for Tim Ferriss, that Mr. Clean-Your-Hands was not good at matching DVDs to their cases.

I had already come to the realization that this room, with paper sheets in all their glory, had be used by hundreds of other donors. That alone required me to enter a state of focus reserved for Olympians and Iron Chef competitors. Then, I turn on the DVD and see two hairy boys doing something resembling wrestling. But not wrestling.

Second DVD, same story. Third time was the charm, but I was already supressing so many images and realities that it was like bending a spoon with my mind to get done what every guy has mastered by age 12.

Ah, Mr. Wash-Your-Hands. We will meet again, and I shall give you a judo chop.

Mentally prepare, gentlemen. It won’t be as easy as you think. These are tough, dangerous times. Good times to save your swimmies as cheap insurance.

And don’t forget to wash your hands.

Other posts on physical optimation and body games:
How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise
From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks
The Science of Fat-Loss: Why a Calorie Isn’t Always a Calorie
Real Life Extension: Caloric Restriction or Intermittent Fasting?

Tesla Roadster Test Drive: Adrenaline, Videos, Photos

Taking the Tesla Roadster, the world’s most famous electric sports car, for a spin. (Photo credits: Monica Michelle)

The Tesla Roadster — at 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds — is faster off the blocks than both the Ferrari F430 and the Lamborghini Gallardo. Oh, and it burns no oil.

The 2009 model is close to sold out, and it takes a $60,000 deposit to attempt to get one a year from now.

I have wanted — for a long time — to get in the cockpit of this curious machine and test its limits. Last week, Brian Lam of Gizmodo and I had a chance to do exactly that…

I was eager to compare it to the Audi R8 supercar I took for a aggressive run a few months ago.

The electric experiment did not disappoint.

The chassis weighs just 180 lbs. and looks no bigger than a cowhide rug.

The Tesla Roadster sounds like a fighter jet and accelerates like a drag motorcycle on steroids. Here are the videos and a few select shots (all the pictures, including interior, are here):

The Tesla hugs the curves and is LOW. I could touch my elbow to the asphalt from the driver’s seat.

If you have the cash and are prone to spending it on cars, the Tesla Roadster might just be the fix you’re looking for.

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Odds and Ends: DonorsChoose Winners, Cool Tools, and More…

Need to make a website quickly? I just used Weebly:

I’m often asked what I use to create websites. Last week, I experimented with Weebly for the first time and was very pleased with the new Timothy Ferriss homepage, which was created in about 30 minutes. The natural search-engine optimization (SEO) is also impressive.

DonorsChoose winners (plus important note for all respondents):

Sincerest apologies for taking so long! Two things:

1) The 10 winners of $150 gift certificates for helping DonorsChoose get $500,000 in funding for US public school teachers on this post are:

-Jimflip - post begins “I clicked, I contacted…”
-Ben - post begins “Hey Tim, Ok, so I posted the note and URL…”
-Rachel - post begins “I tweeted (and got friends to tweet)…”
-Cody - post begins “Tim, your blog is quickly becoming…”
-C A Campbell - post begins “Done. Tweeted, on Facebook…”
-Chuck Lasker - post begins “Great post, Tim. Thanks. MySpace…”
-Andrew Kessler - post begins “I have added the link to both my business and personal Twitter…”
-Doc Kane - post begins “Hi Tim, Done, done, and done…”
-Chris Morin - post begins “I Buzzed & Dugg & Pownced…”
-Tim - post begins “Vote is in and counted…”

2) All of you who put up eligible comments before the deadline will get a $25 gift certificate to DonorsChoose, where you can help a local public school teacher. Please give me some time, but you’ll each get an email on this in the next few weeks. Thank you for participating and stepping up to make a difference!

Other fun items on the Internets:

Timothy Ferriss vs. David Allen: Productivity Guru Smackdown
Timothy Ferriss on Using a Viral Idea to Create a Best-seller: Publishing 2.0
What trouble is Tim getting into in real-time? Follow Timothy Ferriss on Twitter.

Quantum of Solace 007 - Free James Bond Tickets from Me and American Apparel!

Who’s ready for the “most dangerous Bond ever filmed”? I’ve been waiting and waiting for this one.

Casino Royale was released on November 17, 2006. Nearly two years ago. For me, that’s when Bond was resurrected.

I’ve seen Casino Royale about 50 times. Yes, a wee bit crazy. I’m so psyched to see the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, that I’ve partnered with my friends at American Apparel to get a theater for all you readers and Bond fans out there…

I know not everyone will be able to make it, but please consider this a small Thanksgiving gesture to you all for being such awesome readers and making the last year one of the best of my life.

Here are the details and steps to take:

1) There are only 250 tickets available, one per person (bring photo ID)
2) The theater is in San Francisco
3) The password is “vesper” and you need to reserve your ticket here.
4) Read the event details carefully to make sure you get your ticket.
5) Rock hard at the Bond premiere this Friday with like-minded friends and go nuts.

Hope to see you there! Man, I’m not going to get much done this week…

P.S. I announced this in a tweet before the post went up. If these sell out and there are any extras (probably will be), I will also announce it on Twitter here.

Test driving the Tesla (more on that soon) and wearing my Happy Cat t-shirt on American Apparel. This Friday will be worthy of more happy cat.

How to Surf Life: Attorney Turned Surf Guru

(Photo: envisionpublicidad)

Many a false step was made by standing still.
-Fortune Cookie

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
-Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Twenty feet and closing.

“Run! Ruuuuuuuuuun!” Hans didn’t speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough—haul ass. His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock, and he drove his chest forward towards 3,000 feet of nothing.

He held his breath on the final step, and the panic drove him to near unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges, closing to a single pin point of light, and then… he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountain top, and thousands of feet above the resplendent green rain forest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana, Hans Keeling had seen the light.

That was Sunday.

On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, Los Angeles’ posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice…

For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years? He had once slept under his desk at the office after a punishing half-done project, only to wake up and continue on it the next morning. That same morning, he had made himself a promise: two more times and I’m out of here. Strike number three came the day before he left for his Brazilian vacation.

We all make these promises to ourselves, and Hans had done it before as well, but things were now somehow different. He was different. He had realized something while arcing in slow circles towards the earth—risks weren’t that scary once you took them. His colleagues told him what he expected to hear: he was throwing it all away. He was an attorney on his way to the top—what the hell did he want?

Hans didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he had tasted it. On the other hand, he did know what bored him to tears, and he was done with it. No more passing days as the living dead, no more dinners where his colleagues compared cars, riding on the sugar high of a new BMW purchase until someone bought a more expensive Mercedes. It was over.

Immediately, a strange shift began—Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby. Strange indeed.

More than a year later, he was still getting unsolicited job offers from law firms but by then had started Nexus Surf, a premier surf-adventure company based in the tropical paradise of Florianopolis, Brazil. He had met his dream girl, a Carioca with caramel-colored skin named Tatiana [bottom right here], and spent most of his time relaxing under palm trees or treating clients to the best times of their lives.

Is this what he had been so afraid of?

These days, he often sees his former self in the under-joyed and overworked professionals he takes out on the waves. Waiting for the swell, the true emotions come out: “God, I wish I could do what you do.” His reply is always the same: “You can.”

The setting sun reflects off the surface of the water, providing a zen-like setting for a message he knows is true: it’s not giving up to put your current path on indefinite pause. He could pick up his law career exactly where he left off if he wanted to, but that is the furthest thing from his mind.

As they paddle back to shore after an awesome session, his clients get a hold of themselves and regain their composure. They set foot on shore, and reality sinks its fangs in: “I would, but I can’t really throw it all away.”

He has to laugh.

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Excerpted from The 4-Hour Workweek, Chapter 3: Dodging Bullets - Fear-setting and Escaping Paralysis

Rethinking Investing - Part 2 (Plus: Election Thoughts)

Successful “investing” requires some uncommon questions. (Photo: Me at Burning Man ‘08)

“If the market felt fidgety, if people were scared or desperate, he [senior Salomon Brothers bond trader] herded them like sheep into a corner, then made them pay for their uncertainty.”
-Liar’s Poker, Chapter: A Brotherhood of Hoods

Connecticut, 2003

There were 4-6 screens per person, and chairs were lined up at a single 30-foot desk in hierarchical pecking order. Commands would come down the line and trades were made.

“Who the f*ck are you?” asked one of seniors, swiveling back to his glowing screens before I could answer.

It was my first time inside one of the largest investment banks on the planet, and I was just observing a friend in the hopes of learning something. Before I knew it, lunch had arrived and a 20-minute break was announced in a poetic slew of 4-letter words.

“Name a company.” It was a voice I didn’t recognize, but it was clearly directed at me.
“Uh… sorry. Excuse me?” I asked to the room and no one in particular.
“Name a company.”
“Uh…”
“Any company — doesn’t matter.”
“OK. Ah… Genentech.” It was a shot in the dark with no rhyme nor reason.
“F*ck Genentech!!!” came the chorus.

“OK, we just sold 100,000 shares of Genentech. F*ck those guys. Lost a ton on them last week.”

100,000 shares of Genentech sold because a no-nothing guest had pulled the name out of thin air.

That was my introduction to how truly rigged the stock market is…

Information Advantage

“One trader remembers that Lewie [head of Salomon Brothers' mortgage department] would say he thought the market was going up, and buy a hundred million [dollars' worth of] bonds. The market would start to go down. So Lewie would buy two billion more bonds, and of course, the market would then go up. After he had driven the market up, Lewie would turn to me and say, ‘See, I told you it was going to go up.’”
-Liar’s Poker, Chapter: The Fat Men and Their Marvelous Money Machine

I currently have less than 10% of my net-worth in stocks. Why? I don’t have an “information advantage”. If other words, I’ve seen the sharks in this ocean, and I want no part of it. They’ll eat my Barron’s-reading ass alive. I’d rather put my capital in angel investing and the few industries I understand, two areas where I have insider knowledge and connections that others don’t.

To quote billionaire Mark Cuban (great blog here) in his short interview with Young Money (YM) magazine:

YM: Do you have any general saving and investing advice for young people?

CUBAN: Put it in the bank. The idiots that tell you to put your money in the market because eventually it will go up need to tell you that because they are trying to sell you something. The stock market is probably the worst investment vehicle out there. If you won’t put your money in the bank, NEVER put your money in something where you don’t have an information advantage. Why invest your money in something because a broker told you to? If the broker had a clue, he/she wouldn’t be a broker, they would be on a beach somewhere.

Here’s the deal — to beat the market consistently, you have to: 1) have better information than most people, 2) have superior analysis of the same information, or 3) have better luck than a Leprechaun.

Discarding luck as a strategem, and personally discarding better analysis because I don’t want to spend my life poring over annual reports or evaluating algorithms, there is a simple conclusion: don’t invest in anything that you don’t know inside and out better than most of the world.

From David Swensen, who ended 2007 up 28% as the investment manager of the Yale University endowment:

“You have to diversify against the collective ignorance… I think nobody is in a position to react to these big macro-issues. Where is the dollar going to be or what is G.D.P. growth going to be in China? For every smart person on one side of the question, there is another smart person on the other side.”

Having come out of Princeton and the land of Burton Malkiel, I agree with efficient market theory insomuch as “information advantage” is a prerequisite to consistently getting better returns than average.

If you don’t know something the rest don’t, don’t gamble.

Period.

The Weasel Word: “Investing”

In part 1 of this series, I promise my favorite picks for investing books. Though I’ve read several dozen based on recommendations from self-made millionaires (I try not to take advice from speculators), here are the few I’ve found most useful:

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America (Buffett)
The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read (Solin)
Liar’s Poker (Lewis)
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger (Bevelinl; Parts 2-4)
Less is More: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity (VandenBroeck)

What?! It seems like philosophical books have been mistakenly put on this list, no? Here’s the rub: after all the research and mind-numbing number crunching, I’ve decided that the philosophical decisions take precedent over the tactical ones. For me and those whose lives I most admire, at least.

One qualified commenter on the last investing post said:

“I don’t think you’re going to figure out investing in a matter of weeks or months.”

Well, this brings up an interesting question, doesn’t it. What the hell is “investing”, exactly?

If you have the potential to make 30% per annum in a given stock, but it keeps you up with sweaty palms at night, is that a good “investment”?

Is a stock with a projected 25% annual growth rate over 10 years a good “investment”, even though it will lose value every year except for one undetermined year with a 259% increase?

I sat in on another friend’s job once. He was a day trader, and his boss made more than $50,000 per day in most cases. But, this boss also carried divorce papers in his briefcase 24/7 “just in case he’d had it with the bitch.” Do you want his life? Is he a successful “investor”? Be careful with that term.

In the 100+ comments on the aforementioned post (some of the commenters manage 9-digit funds–hundreds of millions of dollars), definitions of “investing” range from “gambling” to “asset allocation.” In other words — “investing” as a term is so overused as to have become meaningless.

I propose that we define investment as a broad concept and then separate it out. First, the broad definition:

Investing = “Allocating resources to improve quality of life.”

This applies to financial investment as much as it does time management and all other resources. How much would your behavior and results change is you just replaced the concept of “time management” with “time investment” in your head?

Using this definition of investment, I would not chase the moving target of pure ROI (after all, there is always a more speculative vehicle with potential higher gains), but choose the vehicles that offers the greatest ROI with the least insomnia. More cash with constant sweat in the palms is hereby defined as a poor “investment.”

Moving from conceptual to tactical, we can also separate “investment” into three categories of actions, which I’ve found useful:

Investment =

-Asset/wealth creation
-Asset/wealth allocation
-Asset/wealth preservation

[To be continued...]

Did you miss Part 1 of the “rethinking investing” series? Read it here.

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I get really, really pissed when smart people don’t speak out. (Photo: Me at Burning Man ‘08)

Odds and Ends: The Presidential Election

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Regardless of whom you’re voting for, get out and vote tomorrow, Tues. Find your closest location here.

If you care about your future and believe in a democratic process, it is your DUTY to get out and vote. I voted last week in San Jose, and — to be honest — I was not overwhelmed by the brain power I saw around me, all due respect to those who actually made the effort.

The best-informed people, for some reason, seem to sit on the sidelines playing armchair critic while elections happen. That’s bullsh*t.

This country is hanging on by a thread.

Make it a priority and vote on Tuesday. No excuses. Let the boss get a little pissed, let the co-worker whine for a few hours. Screw ‘em — they’ll get over it within 48 hours. The future of this country, and every person you know in it, is at stake. Gird up your loins (metaphorically) and get to your closest voting location.

Who am I voting for? Since the word got out last week, here it is: Barack Obama. I’m not an Obama maniac, and I don’t think he is a panacea. I think all politicians are liars — it’s in their job description to win public office. Either candidate will get more things wrong than right.

I actually agree with McCain on many issues, but this is an A-or-B choice. Despite some misgivings, I am certain Obama is far better than McCain for the long-term prospects of the US, and I know advisors to both candidates.

The minds I most respect, including people like Warren Buffett and Marc Andreessen (his reasons here) and those who will be taxed most under his administration, all support him. If you want to see a video where I explain some of the reasons, here it is. Disagree if you will, but make no mistake: I’ve done a lot of homework.

Here’s the point, though: I don’t care much who you vote for, despite my preference. But I do care that you vote.

Get out and make yourself heard. Find your closest voting location here. No excuses. What could be more important?

DonorsChoose winners:

I haven’t forgotten! Lots of good news coming soon on winners and even more winners…