Happy 2023! Man have I fallen off the band wagon of keeping this page updated. Maybe it’ll be my New Year’s resolution to actually keep this page in sync with my daily doings every month. Mabye life will get too busy and I’ll forget or choose to do something else instead. Life’s basically the same it’s always been, stuff happens, people get old, things break. We’ve been looking to buy a house in Santa Cruz (and other big important adult decisions of the like). Seems like timing the stock market and the housing market is a fools game but there’s no alternative (well there are alternatives but none in the “mainstream”). I served as a juror on a criminal case in 2022, that was exicting! Took 4 weeks to convict someone that was clearly guilty, what a fascinating (and slow process). Regardless, I’m learning lots about life. Like how there’s the right answer and plenty of wrong ones too but also more importantly what you should and shouldn’t say. Being right isn’t always the best outcome. Now that’s something that you can only learn through experience. Also I’m starting to realize that no-one has this all figured out, and books are quite possibly the best way to learn from the experts about anything. Reading and writing and the powerful technologies pivotal to unlock the truest potential of your mind. Also, don’t force anything. Don’t do things that don’t feel good. If you eat shitty food, you feel shitty. If you sleep plenty you feel good. Life’s not complicated so don’t make it that way. Family is important. Friends are important. Spending time expressing your gratitudes for those you love is beyond expression. Work is work. Money grows on trees.

Anyways enough rambling. So what am I doing currently? Well I still work at Arista, still working in relatively the same area, although I’ve certainly developed an expertise at doing what I do. It’s not the most interesting work but I doubt any form of software engineering would be much better, at the end of the day it’s all just writing code, solving problems. I do take pride in finding answers though, I do enjoy the puzzle solving aspect of it all. I also like building things and designing things, and improving things. There’s a subtlety to it all, there’s an elegance it in that most don’t appreciate it. I’m not lazy but I have a hard time staying on track. It seems the system is design to distract you, I’m easily distractable, look I’m procrastinating right now. Regardless it’s something I manage and life goes on.

Sierra and I are still dating, still living together in Santa Cruz. It’s a constant debate I have if living so far away from our families is the right thing to do. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on the short amount of time we have left together, and fankly Zoom calls just don’t cut it. At the same time, I love living in Santa Cruz and (short of U-district) it’s one of the places I feel truely connected to. There’s just something magical about living on the coast, I don’t know where it comes from or exactly how to put my finger on it. It could be the large body of water, it could be the sun, but something deeper also exists. Both of our jobs are remote so we could technically move anywhere but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. We have a good group of friends in Santa Cruz and we both like living there. Seattle is great but also terrible. Days on end with no sun in sight is a hard sell.

I have two nieces (Madison’s kids). Noa just turned 2 years old (way to make me feel old) and Marlow is almost 6mths. Raising children seems like a momumentous task but also extremely rewarding to see the next generation grow up and face the same challenges we did. I can only hope my children will have as good of a childhood as I did. That’s all I can really ask for.

Updated January 5th, 2023