What I Was Up To Then
Since my last update...
- Arthur and I went to Durango, CO for his parents’ “reunion”. It was snowy and beautiful. The Durango and Silverton railway provided a wonderful unique wedding spot. I love my in-laws so much.
- I attended InVision’s annual onsite event. InVision is a fully remote company with over 800 employees. Once a year, everyone gathers in meatspace. The week started with Apple keynote quality presentations about the state of the business, the product roadmap, and other initiatives. I have never seen such effort put into internal communication. I appreciated the opportunity to spend a week entirely connecting with my colleagues and thinking about the future.
- We joined our San Francisco friends Tristan & Ali in Amsterdam, Nederland for a few days. Arthur & I rode a tandem bike through the tulip fields. I highly recommend the biking through the tulip fields. I do not recommend a tandem bicycle.
- We started working with a designer architect to create a beautiful kitchen—living room space. Arthur wants a bigger stovetop and I want a bigger sink. Unfortunately, this means the entire kitchen has to be redone.
- I went with my friend Vivien to see Michelle Obama on her book tour. Afterwards, in a massive crowd, I somehow ran into another friend Linda and we continued the conversation Michelle started.
- We don’t have many people scheduled to visit us this year, but so far I am happy to have met up with two friends (Jennifer & Joel) passing through Stockholm for conferences.
- I released my third project of 2019, a Fitbit watchface called Pride Ripple. I completed it in under 2 weeks.
- I worked on another Firefox extension in March and April, but haven’t released it publicly yet. It functions as designed, but has not helped me accomplish the problem I tried to solve. I am going to keep iterating on it, but I did not want it to stop me from starting on other projects.
- Arthur had to travel to NYC for work. I work at a remote-only company, so I joined him and worked from the hotel room. It was nice to catch up with so many friends (Nicky, Mitch, Jake, Omar, Joel). My trip got unexpectedly extended when SAS pilots went on strike, so I went to see “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”. I loved it.
2019 goals
- Lift 4–5× a week: Going well! I passed 160 classes at Barry’s Bootcamp.
- Learn Swedish: I am consistently practicing 15–30 minutes a day. I recently switched from Duolingo to Mondly and Drops.
- Complete 12 side projects in 12 months:
- Read 12 books (and read less news):
- “Becoming” by Michelle Obama
- “Our Revolution” by Bernie Sanders
- “Zucked” by Roger McNamee
- “Utopia for Realists” by Rutger Bregman
- “A Fighting Chance” by Elizabeth Warren
Long term goals
- Ride a ferris wheel in every EU country: Barcelona, Vienna, London, but no progress so far in 2019 😞
- Make a loan to all Kiva countries: 50 of 77 (Join me!)
Up next
- Fort Worth, TX for July 4th
- Portland, OR in late September
- Morocco in November for Kathe’s birthday
- Currently reading “An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management” by Will Larson
- I have two more Fitbit watchface ideas and a huge list of side projects I would like to do. Not sure yet what will be next.