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Last week, we took our first family vacation in over a year. We joined my parents and my brother Solomon at a vacation rental in Auburn (near Worcester), MA. I reread Cryptonomicon and tried to struggle my way towards Mythic again in Magic Arena. We cooked bluefish and salmon and London broil, had a fancy tapas meal takeout for Fathers Day and a brunch out on the patio at a nice restaurant. Eris got in a lot of trips to various playgrounds and the nature center. Was a very nice break, and very nice to get some in-person quality time with family. Today, I'm trying to get settled in again before work resumes.
Vac[cin]ation
Jun. 12th, 2021 12:45 pmLast weekend, I went back to Cleveland for the wedding of my friends Markos and Michelle. Was a very happy occasion, they're clearly a great match.
This was also my first time seeing my parents and brother in person in well over a year. Plus was my first experience with pandemic travel, and traveling alone is always a bit surreal these days. (Very grateful to Julie for holding down the fort.) Felt pretty out of place at the wedding for playing things very safe COVID-wise in circumstances where that probably didn't matter (both in terms of the overall risk probably being low given my vaccination and reduced overall prevalence, and the fact that wearing a mask some of the time at an indoor event with food and whatnot is probably not much of a mitigation when everyone else is clearly done with that). The numbers, the are getting good in Cleveland, and even better in the Boston area. Anyways, it was my first weekend that was really relaxing in over a year, which is kind of alarming.
In another week, my parents and brother will be visiting our area for a low-key family vacation. So that should be good.
I've been feeling more burned out at work and putting more effort into steering my career. My overall ability to learn and focus, while okay, is not currently great. It's hard to say how much of this is gradually increasing burnout continuing to gradually increase and how much is the pandemic grind. It's a stressful year. But I have been on my current team/project a long time. I get the same feeling about parenting. The new normal will be very different, but some of that will just be a five-year-old is very different from a four-year-old, and it will be hard to tell which is which.
This was also my first time seeing my parents and brother in person in well over a year. Plus was my first experience with pandemic travel, and traveling alone is always a bit surreal these days. (Very grateful to Julie for holding down the fort.) Felt pretty out of place at the wedding for playing things very safe COVID-wise in circumstances where that probably didn't matter (both in terms of the overall risk probably being low given my vaccination and reduced overall prevalence, and the fact that wearing a mask some of the time at an indoor event with food and whatnot is probably not much of a mitigation when everyone else is clearly done with that). The numbers, the are getting good in Cleveland, and even better in the Boston area. Anyways, it was my first weekend that was really relaxing in over a year, which is kind of alarming.
In another week, my parents and brother will be visiting our area for a low-key family vacation. So that should be good.
I've been feeling more burned out at work and putting more effort into steering my career. My overall ability to learn and focus, while okay, is not currently great. It's hard to say how much of this is gradually increasing burnout continuing to gradually increase and how much is the pandemic grind. It's a stressful year. But I have been on my current team/project a long time. I get the same feeling about parenting. The new normal will be very different, but some of that will just be a five-year-old is very different from a four-year-old, and it will be hard to tell which is which.
Roasted Whole Bird
Dec. 2nd, 2019 11:41 amTook a rather long Thanksgiving break home in Cleveland this past week. It was very relaxing. We met up with Dan and Anne and Isaac. Had a nice Thanksgiving meal at home. I took my mom for a birthday dinner, which I'm home for this year, due to the unusually late Thanksgiving.
I spent a lot of time curled up with Breath of the Wild, which is a long game, but just so full of fun and wonder and masterful design.
Eris had a wonderful time with her aunt and uncles and grandparents. We went out to see Frozen 2 (the plot is a bit borrowed, but it's a fun enough time). Imaginative playtime has gotten a bit more narratively structured, Eris wants to go "beat the bad guy". More creative settings, too: One adventure featured "a hotel where everyone sleeps while walking" because (she explained) the bad guy had stolen all of the beds.
Eristic improvements: Solving block-sliding logic puzzles, structured narrative in imaginative play.
I spent a lot of time curled up with Breath of the Wild, which is a long game, but just so full of fun and wonder and masterful design.
Eris had a wonderful time with her aunt and uncles and grandparents. We went out to see Frozen 2 (the plot is a bit borrowed, but it's a fun enough time). Imaginative playtime has gotten a bit more narratively structured, Eris wants to go "beat the bad guy". More creative settings, too: One adventure featured "a hotel where everyone sleeps while walking" because (she explained) the bad guy had stolen all of the beds.
Eristic improvements: Solving block-sliding logic puzzles, structured narrative in imaginative play.
Code Health Conference
Nov. 21st, 2019 07:27 pmLast week, I was away all week for an internal conference in the Munich office. First time traveling business class, which sure was a luxury! (Though still wasn't much for sleeping, the fundamental constraint of luxury air travel is you're still stuck on a plane.)
It was my first solo travel in a while, my first solo international travel since Eris was born. Was definitely odd to be away for so long. Didn't have much time to dwell on it, though. This one was an all-work trip: I went straight from the airport to the office, and my time was basically all spent at the office or hotel. The only exceptions were two meals out, a phenomenal dinner for the conference speakers at Trattoria Bellini and a pub dinner with colleagues at Augustiner Am Platzl.
The conference itself was fantastic. It was my first time giving a real conference talk, and I think it went reasonably well. The lineup of speakers was great. Plus I got to meet some 20%-project colleagues from the Munich and Zurich offices that I'd previously only collaborated with from six timezones away. Great experience, definitely gave me some useful information and inspiration.
The Munich office was pretty cool, too. And I wouldn't mind visiting the city again on a not-entirely-work trip.
I'm making the most of the end of the year at work. Q4 is always short, and this one's no exception. Quite a bit of travel planned before the end of the year.
It was my first solo travel in a while, my first solo international travel since Eris was born. Was definitely odd to be away for so long. Didn't have much time to dwell on it, though. This one was an all-work trip: I went straight from the airport to the office, and my time was basically all spent at the office or hotel. The only exceptions were two meals out, a phenomenal dinner for the conference speakers at Trattoria Bellini and a pub dinner with colleagues at Augustiner Am Platzl.
The conference itself was fantastic. It was my first time giving a real conference talk, and I think it went reasonably well. The lineup of speakers was great. Plus I got to meet some 20%-project colleagues from the Munich and Zurich offices that I'd previously only collaborated with from six timezones away. Great experience, definitely gave me some useful information and inspiration.
The Munich office was pretty cool, too. And I wouldn't mind visiting the city again on a not-entirely-work trip.
I'm making the most of the end of the year at work. Q4 is always short, and this one's no exception. Quite a bit of travel planned before the end of the year.
Prime Brooklyngress
Oct. 19th, 2019 02:12 pmWe've been under the weather for the past two weeks, and Julie will be away on business travel for the next few days, starting tomorrow. I've been pretty exhausted.
We managed to get in a brief trip to NYC for an Ingress Anomaly last weekend, and that was very fun. The first Ingress event we took Erica to was also in Brooklyn. This game there were four mechanics: The standard territory control mechanic (cluster battle), a game of having team members cover the most ground during the event on average (unique portal hacks), a game of making longest non-overlapping paths with a maximum number of segments (longest path), and a Mystery-Hunt-like code-breaking puzzle game (decoding).
Unique portal hacks was scored winner take all, and since it's about average performance, it's not affected by the number of participants on site. Decoding also allowed a lot of remote participation. So our opponents apparently had a plan, presumably going all in on those and trying to keep the rest close enough to squeeze out a victory. Was enough to make me worry about a repeat of the upset in Chicago.
But it turned out our operators had the right of it and the ones stuck on what worked in the past were our opponents. They lost on every mechanic. Even my subteam, in the "on foot but slower" category, managed to cover quite a bit more ground than our average opponent.
This was the first event run entirely on Ingress Prime, the new version of the Ingress app ported to the same engine as Pokemon Go. Unifying the game engine isn't a bad idea for Niantic, and the Prime app even has some real UI improvements. But it has a few major pervasive problems: It's slower, crashier, and very visually noisy. The game display tries to give a much more live display of what's changing in the game state nearby, which is good in some ways, but contributes to all those problems, especially when a bunch of people are all playing in the same area at once. So we experienced some crashes / freezes / lock-outs during the event. Definitely less smooth than previous events, and even on the old app you generally got a fair amount of lag during the Anomalies, with the general impression that somewhere the servers were on fire.
The Sunday Ingress Mission Day event was pretty fun and relaxing, too. The weather was perfect all weekend, which was really nice. We all enjoyed some good food, and Erica did get some time at various playgrounds. Domino Park was pretty cool, and we took a nice ride on the ferry to get to our hotel when we arrived Friday night.
We managed to get in a brief trip to NYC for an Ingress Anomaly last weekend, and that was very fun. The first Ingress event we took Erica to was also in Brooklyn. This game there were four mechanics: The standard territory control mechanic (cluster battle), a game of having team members cover the most ground during the event on average (unique portal hacks), a game of making longest non-overlapping paths with a maximum number of segments (longest path), and a Mystery-Hunt-like code-breaking puzzle game (decoding).
Unique portal hacks was scored winner take all, and since it's about average performance, it's not affected by the number of participants on site. Decoding also allowed a lot of remote participation. So our opponents apparently had a plan, presumably going all in on those and trying to keep the rest close enough to squeeze out a victory. Was enough to make me worry about a repeat of the upset in Chicago.
But it turned out our operators had the right of it and the ones stuck on what worked in the past were our opponents. They lost on every mechanic. Even my subteam, in the "on foot but slower" category, managed to cover quite a bit more ground than our average opponent.
This was the first event run entirely on Ingress Prime, the new version of the Ingress app ported to the same engine as Pokemon Go. Unifying the game engine isn't a bad idea for Niantic, and the Prime app even has some real UI improvements. But it has a few major pervasive problems: It's slower, crashier, and very visually noisy. The game display tries to give a much more live display of what's changing in the game state nearby, which is good in some ways, but contributes to all those problems, especially when a bunch of people are all playing in the same area at once. So we experienced some crashes / freezes / lock-outs during the event. Definitely less smooth than previous events, and even on the old app you generally got a fair amount of lag during the Anomalies, with the general impression that somewhere the servers were on fire.
The Sunday Ingress Mission Day event was pretty fun and relaxing, too. The weather was perfect all weekend, which was really nice. We all enjoyed some good food, and Erica did get some time at various playgrounds. Domino Park was pretty cool, and we took a nice ride on the ferry to get to our hotel when we arrived Friday night.
Island of Shells
Aug. 18th, 2019 08:20 amA few weeks back, daycare was off for a week and we took the opportunity to visit my brother Solomon on Sanibel Island. Was a very lovely vacation, with beautiful scenery and good food (some home-cooked). We visited a local nature preserve, saw some dolphins in the wild on a wildlife cruise, and swam in the Gulf. Was nice to see my brother and meet some of his acquaintances, including the parrots. I rented a car for the trip, so it was also good to get in some driving practice not in Boston. Erica had a wonderful time visiting her uncle.
Last weekend, on Saturday, we met friends for tea in the park, and we attended the Ignite street festival in Union Square. Last Sunday, I went out for a nice anniversary dinner with Juile. After dinner, we took a walk along the Charles and had ice cream at the new Toscanini's.
Yesterday, Jill and Baruch invited us to go with them to the Corn and Tomato Festival at Verrill Farm, and then we all went to visit Steve and Lisa at their new house for Alexis's third birthday.
And that's most of it. Erica's been even more wanting to stay up all night than usual and extremely high-energy. Work's been very busy, I've been doing a lot of design doc writing for 2020 planning for my main project and also a lot of long-term planning on my side project. Lot's to do. My usual tabletop gaming group has been off for a few weeks with various people on vacation, but hopefully that will reconvene this week.
Last weekend, on Saturday, we met friends for tea in the park, and we attended the Ignite street festival in Union Square. Last Sunday, I went out for a nice anniversary dinner with Juile. After dinner, we took a walk along the Charles and had ice cream at the new Toscanini's.
Yesterday, Jill and Baruch invited us to go with them to the Corn and Tomato Festival at Verrill Farm, and then we all went to visit Steve and Lisa at their new house for Alexis's third birthday.
And that's most of it. Erica's been even more wanting to stay up all night than usual and extremely high-energy. Work's been very busy, I've been doing a lot of design doc writing for 2020 planning for my main project and also a lot of long-term planning on my side project. Lot's to do. My usual tabletop gaming group has been off for a few weeks with various people on vacation, but hopefully that will reconvene this week.
Two Trips with Little Pause Between
Jul. 6th, 2019 08:48 pmJust got back from the second of two trips that were close enough together that I didn't get any time to write in between.
Two weekends ago, we went to visit Julie's parents to attend a memorial service for Julie's grandmother, who passed away last year. While of course I'd wish for a happier occasion, it was very nice to see family. Julie's sister's family was there, too, and Erica was very excited to see her cousin. (Who definitely seems to be a good influence on her, in terms of little Eris seeing the benefits of the big kid life.)
Last week, we went to Sandy Island Camp with my family. It was a particularly uneventful week for me at Sandy. Didn't get in the water at all. Didn't even go down to the beach to read. But I did get plenty of time with Erica on the playground, and I did manage to get in some reading when she was in the kids' morning program (she's old enough for the youngest group now) or having some time with grandparents. Enjoyed the side-trips to the lakeside towns (especially having a relaxing afternoon at Beveridge taproom in Wolfeboro) and got in some reading. I read:
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - A monomaniacal alchemist attempts to incarnate the ultimate power and then the premise gets fifteen levels more convoluted. I enjoyed this novel, but it sure is hard to sum up in a sentence.
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg - This is a really strange and interesting book. The first half explains basic neuropsychology in terms of basic control theory, using thought exercises about imaginary vehicles with motors and sensors in different configurations. The second half briefly summarizes how the first half relates to the current state of neurobiology knowledge. (Since the book was written in the 1980s, I'm now really curious to see if there's something that gives an updated summary of the same material.)
Fall by Neal Stephenson - My yearly thousand-page Neal Stephenson book. Enjoyed it well enough, certainly would say that people who read all the Neal Stephenson books shouldn't avoid it. But it mostly made me want to reread Cryptonomicon.
After we got back to town, we had a really nice brunch with my parents at Peregrine, the new restaurant by the owners of Juliet.
Played some cribbage, too.
The only bad part of the trip was realizing I'd left the diaper bag on the boat on the way home. Was the usual packing mishap of getting distracted watching the kid and then both people thinking the other had it. But apparently that's been collected and will be reunited with us... eventually. Possibly couriered by someone departing for Boston tomorrow.
Two weekends ago, we went to visit Julie's parents to attend a memorial service for Julie's grandmother, who passed away last year. While of course I'd wish for a happier occasion, it was very nice to see family. Julie's sister's family was there, too, and Erica was very excited to see her cousin. (Who definitely seems to be a good influence on her, in terms of little Eris seeing the benefits of the big kid life.)
Last week, we went to Sandy Island Camp with my family. It was a particularly uneventful week for me at Sandy. Didn't get in the water at all. Didn't even go down to the beach to read. But I did get plenty of time with Erica on the playground, and I did manage to get in some reading when she was in the kids' morning program (she's old enough for the youngest group now) or having some time with grandparents. Enjoyed the side-trips to the lakeside towns (especially having a relaxing afternoon at Beveridge taproom in Wolfeboro) and got in some reading. I read:
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - A monomaniacal alchemist attempts to incarnate the ultimate power and then the premise gets fifteen levels more convoluted. I enjoyed this novel, but it sure is hard to sum up in a sentence.
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg - This is a really strange and interesting book. The first half explains basic neuropsychology in terms of basic control theory, using thought exercises about imaginary vehicles with motors and sensors in different configurations. The second half briefly summarizes how the first half relates to the current state of neurobiology knowledge. (Since the book was written in the 1980s, I'm now really curious to see if there's something that gives an updated summary of the same material.)
Fall by Neal Stephenson - My yearly thousand-page Neal Stephenson book. Enjoyed it well enough, certainly would say that people who read all the Neal Stephenson books shouldn't avoid it. But it mostly made me want to reread Cryptonomicon.
After we got back to town, we had a really nice brunch with my parents at Peregrine, the new restaurant by the owners of Juliet.
Played some cribbage, too.
The only bad part of the trip was realizing I'd left the diaper bag on the boat on the way home. Was the usual packing mishap of getting distracted watching the kid and then both people thinking the other had it. But apparently that's been collected and will be reunited with us... eventually. Possibly couriered by someone departing for Boston tomorrow.
This weekend, we went to Chicago for the current Ingress Anomaly series. Managed to get there on time despite our outbound flight being last-minute cancelled; was able to rebook on a different airline for not much more than the refund of the cancelled flight.
This event was the final and deciding contest in the current series. Our team played well, and we had substantial advantages on the ground, sometimes controlling upwards of 90% of the play-area. But the opposing team had the superior strategy and prioritization this time. They played each of their advantages to the fullest, keeping our lead just narrow enough. And they devoted substantial resources to a winner-take-all mechanic that we didn't prioritize highly enough, allowing them to eke out a narrow victory.
Despite the outcome, I'd gladly trade this one for some of the events where I've been on the winning side. The contest was really dynamic and exciting, there wasn't too much sitting still, and it was great playing together with the wider community, which included teammates from far and wide. It was three hours of action, a far cry from the "45-minute stroll, 15-minute game, repeat times four" of the early Ingress Anomalies. (Conveniently, Eris napped through the first two hours, though she got a bit impatient towards the end of the third.)
Chicago was a lot of fun to walk around, and we managed to get some good weather. Definitely want to go back some time for a longer trip.
We got back yesterday, and have the holiday off today, but I'm down with a bad cold. Hazard of traveling.
This event was the final and deciding contest in the current series. Our team played well, and we had substantial advantages on the ground, sometimes controlling upwards of 90% of the play-area. But the opposing team had the superior strategy and prioritization this time. They played each of their advantages to the fullest, keeping our lead just narrow enough. And they devoted substantial resources to a winner-take-all mechanic that we didn't prioritize highly enough, allowing them to eke out a narrow victory.
Despite the outcome, I'd gladly trade this one for some of the events where I've been on the winning side. The contest was really dynamic and exciting, there wasn't too much sitting still, and it was great playing together with the wider community, which included teammates from far and wide. It was three hours of action, a far cry from the "45-minute stroll, 15-minute game, repeat times four" of the early Ingress Anomalies. (Conveniently, Eris napped through the first two hours, though she got a bit impatient towards the end of the third.)
Chicago was a lot of fun to walk around, and we managed to get some good weather. Definitely want to go back some time for a longer trip.
We got back yesterday, and have the holiday off today, but I'm down with a bad cold. Hazard of traveling.
Prerelease, PyCon, Plaza
May. 10th, 2019 09:17 pmLast weekend, I was in Cleveland for PyCon, so Erica got to spend the weekend with grandparents. The conference was really good this year. I very much enjoyed talking to people at the Google booth in the expo hall. The keynotes were phenomenal. Russel Keith-Magee gave the opening keynote on Python's "black swans", a fascinating look at the future of Python, how strategic research and development might be supported in open-source, and the history of Perth, Australia. And on Saturday (unfortunately not posted, at least not yet) Shadeed Wallace-Stepter shared his life story as a reformed criminal turned Python programmer and entrepreneur, then Python luminary Jessica McKellar gave a talk about the intersection between the tech industry and community and criminal justice reform, describing her work with The Last Mile and urging the audience to "hire people with records".
We had Shabbat dinner with my family that Friday, and Anne and Isaac joined us as well (Dan was unfortunately out of town). Was very nice to catch up. I had a great dinner with my colleagues on Saturday, and went to the conference dinner at the Great Lakes Science Center on Sunday night.
We returned to town Monday. Erica must have had an exciting weekend because she slept on the plane, took another nap at daycare Monday afternoon, then fell asleep on her own at about 8:30. Though after that she was back to her usual schedule of never going to bed.
Not much else going on.
We got in a little Ingress on Wednesday evening in Quincy Center. Been a while since I was down there, the new Quincy Center plaza is gorgeous. We're going to the Ingress Anomaly in Chicago in two weeks, which hopefully will be fun.
And I've been playing a bit of Magic. The prerelease tournament for the new Magic set, War of the Spark, was two weekends ago, and after a slow draw in the first match, I was just barely able to squeak by with a winning record overall. Thinking the office tournament for the set will be fun, too.
We had Shabbat dinner with my family that Friday, and Anne and Isaac joined us as well (Dan was unfortunately out of town). Was very nice to catch up. I had a great dinner with my colleagues on Saturday, and went to the conference dinner at the Great Lakes Science Center on Sunday night.
We returned to town Monday. Erica must have had an exciting weekend because she slept on the plane, took another nap at daycare Monday afternoon, then fell asleep on her own at about 8:30. Though after that she was back to her usual schedule of never going to bed.
Not much else going on.
We got in a little Ingress on Wednesday evening in Quincy Center. Been a while since I was down there, the new Quincy Center plaza is gorgeous. We're going to the Ingress Anomaly in Chicago in two weeks, which hopefully will be fun.
And I've been playing a bit of Magic. The prerelease tournament for the new Magic set, War of the Spark, was two weekends ago, and after a slow draw in the first match, I was just barely able to squeak by with a winning record overall. Thinking the office tournament for the set will be fun, too.
More Chill
Apr. 23rd, 2019 09:01 pmWork continues to be busy, etc., etc.
I've been reading Elizabeth Warren's memoir A Fighting Chance. Really interesting, it discusses her early life and career up through her Senate campaign. It's remarkable what she's achieved in her career, and how hard she's worked to get where she is today. In some cases, like in her time on the oversight panel for the bank bailout, it's amazing how much she got done with so little hard political power. I'm very excited about the Warren Presidential campaign. She would have been my first choice of candidate in 2016, had she run, and I'm glad that she's willing to brave the proverbial blender again. She really gets it.
Last weekend, went to visit my siblings-in-law and niece in NYC. We had a nice Easter dinner at their house, Eris got to spend time with her cousin, Julie and I got a date night and saw Be More Chill on Broadway. An east-coast rainstorm once again meant long delays for our flight in, but the travel was otherwise not too hard.
I've been playing a bit of Magic at the office, won all my matches in a small Ravnica Allegiance draft which was quite fun. (Made it to the semifinals in the office sealed tournament for that set, too.) Was a really fun set. And I'm looking forward to the next set, which comes out quite soon. I'll be playing in the prerelease for the first time in a while.
I've been reading Elizabeth Warren's memoir A Fighting Chance. Really interesting, it discusses her early life and career up through her Senate campaign. It's remarkable what she's achieved in her career, and how hard she's worked to get where she is today. In some cases, like in her time on the oversight panel for the bank bailout, it's amazing how much she got done with so little hard political power. I'm very excited about the Warren Presidential campaign. She would have been my first choice of candidate in 2016, had she run, and I'm glad that she's willing to brave the proverbial blender again. She really gets it.
Last weekend, went to visit my siblings-in-law and niece in NYC. We had a nice Easter dinner at their house, Eris got to spend time with her cousin, Julie and I got a date night and saw Be More Chill on Broadway. An east-coast rainstorm once again meant long delays for our flight in, but the travel was otherwise not too hard.
I've been playing a bit of Magic at the office, won all my matches in a small Ravnica Allegiance draft which was quite fun. (Made it to the semifinals in the office sealed tournament for that set, too.) Was a really fun set. And I'm looking forward to the next set, which comes out quite soon. I'll be playing in the prerelease for the first time in a while.
Weekend States of Mind
Mar. 31st, 2019 09:05 pmTwo weekends ago, we went to San Diego to visit Julie's brother's family. Had a great time, spent some time with our little nephew, who's definitely a lot bigger than the last time we saw him. It's been too long! Anyways, it was great spending time with them and we got to enjoy some lovely scenery and weather and food. We went out to The Flower Fields in Carlsbad and saw the San Diego Zoo. Worth the long airplane trips for sure. Eris is a pretty good traveler for someone her age, but it's a long time to be cooped up for anyone.
Last weekend, my mom was in town for a visit, which was very nice. Had dinner with extended family and took Eris to the children's museum.
This week has been unusually busy (was organizing a fixit, a sort of team project where people focus on collaborating on work related to some particular theme that week), and I had an unusual amount of work left this weekend (end-of-quarter stuff plus I'm presenting a bit of wrap-up for the fixit at the team meeting Monday). And Eris has been unusually hard to get to bed, even by her usual standards. So I've been very, very tired. So it's been back and forth between living the good life and being in a state of exhaustion where my sanity is just very frayed.
I did manage to take the kid to the aquarium today, which was fun.
I still want to get back to writing more habitually. I want to get back to talking about current events. It's so unlike my past journaling to have so little to say about politics. But anything I want to be thoughtful about gets eternally procrastinated. This crazy era is just difficult to keep up with in general.
Last weekend, my mom was in town for a visit, which was very nice. Had dinner with extended family and took Eris to the children's museum.
This week has been unusually busy (was organizing a fixit, a sort of team project where people focus on collaborating on work related to some particular theme that week), and I had an unusual amount of work left this weekend (end-of-quarter stuff plus I'm presenting a bit of wrap-up for the fixit at the team meeting Monday). And Eris has been unusually hard to get to bed, even by her usual standards. So I've been very, very tired. So it's been back and forth between living the good life and being in a state of exhaustion where my sanity is just very frayed.
I did manage to take the kid to the aquarium today, which was fun.
I still want to get back to writing more habitually. I want to get back to talking about current events. It's so unlike my past journaling to have so little to say about politics. But anything I want to be thoughtful about gets eternally procrastinated. This crazy era is just difficult to keep up with in general.
Toddlerdom's End
Jan. 3rd, 2019 11:34 pmNYC trip went well!
We traveled on Christmas Day (a week before last Tuesday). Our flight was a little delayed, but at least it was a two-hour delay on a 2PM flight instead of a seven-hour delay on a 6:30PM flight. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner at Kristin and Jimmy's house. Julie's parents were visiting as well!
Wednesday, we went to the mall and had an early birthday celebration for Erica with extended family.
Thursday, we went to visit my Aunt Ellen and Uncle Mark. We took Erica to a nearby playground. Then we spent a bit of time wandering near Brookfield Place before taking the ferry back to Jersey City. Then another family event, we all went out for a pasta dinner.
Friday morning, we woke up very early to have breakfast with Julie's parents before their trip home. We took the kids to the Krispy Kreme factory store for doughnuts. We took Erica for a swim in the hotel pool. Then Erica went to have a sleepover with her cousin while Julie and I got a date night. We went to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (which was great!), took the ferry from Hoboken into New York, and went out for a very nice dinner before circling back to the hotel.
Saturday morning, we went out for brunch with Emmett (a friend of mine from high school). Then we took a long walk along the Hudson. Saturday afternoon, we reunited with Erica, spent some time with her in the playroom in Kristin's apartment building, and then we all went out for Indian food at a really good place next door to there.
Sunday, we took Erica ice-skating for the first time, at the Brookfield Place rink. She was really excited about going skating, but when I was getting on the skates I was worried it would be a disaster. She was uncomfortable and it was hard to juggle a crying toddler along with two pairs of skates and shoes while trying to find the right size. The tent for skate rental was super crowded. Fortunately, Julie came to bail me out and get Erica out the door, so we were able to get onto the ice and have a great time. Erica spent most of her time being pushed around on an ice sled, but she did stand up and skate holding onto my hands a bit, and also a bit with a far more talented skater who works at the rink. It had been a really long time since I last went ice skating, and it was fun. Emilia had fun, too, she can skate on her own power now.
Erica was really tired afterwards, especially since the excitement had her successfully fighting off sleep before. We went out to dinner after skating, but Erica had a total meltdown in the food court before falling asleep in my arms. She was cheerful again when she woke up, though. We went for a walk on the boardwalk together at around 10PM, since she was still very awake, then had a good night's rest.
The trip was so very lovely. Kristin and Jimmy were such great hosts, and it was great to spend time with family and friends. Erica especially loved spending time with her cousin Emilia (who she calls "my mee-ya").
Monday, we traveled back to Boston, then celebrated the New Year at the Buttery. Played some games, but punted before midnight. Still got home around 1AM, and then Erica still wanted a bath and eight stories (though she fell asleep close to 2AM in the middle of story three).
Tuesday, we went out for a New Year's Day brunch. Afterwards, Erica was excited about going to the playground, and I'd never seen her fight sleep so hard. We went to the store after brunch because Julie needed to get her computer repaired. Bus timing was good, so we started to walk homewards, with this cycle of her begging to be carried, us suggesting she get in (or trying to put her in) the stroller, her fighting and screaming and insisting she wanted to walk, and then her pressing on at about a mile an hour. And we probably made it about a half-mile in that fashion before she decided stroller was okay after all.
In the afternoon, Julie helped Erica bake a birthday cake. I helped with a lot of the dishes, and spreading the icing.
Yesterday was Erica's birthday. We brought cake to daycare, and afterwards went out for birthday ice cream and sandwiches with some friends. That was great!
The birthday really feels like a significant milestone. I guess Eris is baby Eris no more.
Anyways, I'm back to the grind. The kid has continued to be super late-to-bed. I'm really tired. (Yet here I am staying up late to write rather than never getting around to it.)
My sister is visiting town this coming weekend. And Julie is leaving town early Sunday for more business travel.
Eristic improvements: An obsession with riding the escalator (which she pronounces as a homonym with excavator), a three-a-day Band-Aid habit (that one's not new, but I don't think I'd mentioned that here before).
We traveled on Christmas Day (a week before last Tuesday). Our flight was a little delayed, but at least it was a two-hour delay on a 2PM flight instead of a seven-hour delay on a 6:30PM flight. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner at Kristin and Jimmy's house. Julie's parents were visiting as well!
Wednesday, we went to the mall and had an early birthday celebration for Erica with extended family.
Thursday, we went to visit my Aunt Ellen and Uncle Mark. We took Erica to a nearby playground. Then we spent a bit of time wandering near Brookfield Place before taking the ferry back to Jersey City. Then another family event, we all went out for a pasta dinner.
Friday morning, we woke up very early to have breakfast with Julie's parents before their trip home. We took the kids to the Krispy Kreme factory store for doughnuts. We took Erica for a swim in the hotel pool. Then Erica went to have a sleepover with her cousin while Julie and I got a date night. We went to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (which was great!), took the ferry from Hoboken into New York, and went out for a very nice dinner before circling back to the hotel.
Saturday morning, we went out for brunch with Emmett (a friend of mine from high school). Then we took a long walk along the Hudson. Saturday afternoon, we reunited with Erica, spent some time with her in the playroom in Kristin's apartment building, and then we all went out for Indian food at a really good place next door to there.
Sunday, we took Erica ice-skating for the first time, at the Brookfield Place rink. She was really excited about going skating, but when I was getting on the skates I was worried it would be a disaster. She was uncomfortable and it was hard to juggle a crying toddler along with two pairs of skates and shoes while trying to find the right size. The tent for skate rental was super crowded. Fortunately, Julie came to bail me out and get Erica out the door, so we were able to get onto the ice and have a great time. Erica spent most of her time being pushed around on an ice sled, but she did stand up and skate holding onto my hands a bit, and also a bit with a far more talented skater who works at the rink. It had been a really long time since I last went ice skating, and it was fun. Emilia had fun, too, she can skate on her own power now.
Erica was really tired afterwards, especially since the excitement had her successfully fighting off sleep before. We went out to dinner after skating, but Erica had a total meltdown in the food court before falling asleep in my arms. She was cheerful again when she woke up, though. We went for a walk on the boardwalk together at around 10PM, since she was still very awake, then had a good night's rest.
The trip was so very lovely. Kristin and Jimmy were such great hosts, and it was great to spend time with family and friends. Erica especially loved spending time with her cousin Emilia (who she calls "my mee-ya").
Monday, we traveled back to Boston, then celebrated the New Year at the Buttery. Played some games, but punted before midnight. Still got home around 1AM, and then Erica still wanted a bath and eight stories (though she fell asleep close to 2AM in the middle of story three).
Tuesday, we went out for a New Year's Day brunch. Afterwards, Erica was excited about going to the playground, and I'd never seen her fight sleep so hard. We went to the store after brunch because Julie needed to get her computer repaired. Bus timing was good, so we started to walk homewards, with this cycle of her begging to be carried, us suggesting she get in (or trying to put her in) the stroller, her fighting and screaming and insisting she wanted to walk, and then her pressing on at about a mile an hour. And we probably made it about a half-mile in that fashion before she decided stroller was okay after all.
In the afternoon, Julie helped Erica bake a birthday cake. I helped with a lot of the dishes, and spreading the icing.
Yesterday was Erica's birthday. We brought cake to daycare, and afterwards went out for birthday ice cream and sandwiches with some friends. That was great!
The birthday really feels like a significant milestone. I guess Eris is baby Eris no more.
Anyways, I'm back to the grind. The kid has continued to be super late-to-bed. I'm really tired. (Yet here I am staying up late to write rather than never getting around to it.)
My sister is visiting town this coming weekend. And Julie is leaving town early Sunday for more business travel.
Eristic improvements: An obsession with riding the escalator (which she pronounces as a homonym with excavator), a three-a-day Band-Aid habit (that one's not new, but I don't think I'd mentioned that here before).
Week Home, Week Back
Nov. 30th, 2018 09:55 pmThanksgiving break was great. All my siblings made it home for the holiday. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, saw some of my Cleveland friends. Went out the night before Thanksgiving for a great Ethiopian meal at Empress Taytu Restaurant (new favorite, definitely need to go back!). Had lunch at the Shaker Square Yours Truly, though found out that's no longer open for dinner. Had a relaxing weekend back in Boston before getting back to work.
This week work has been rolling along.
On Wednesday, we went to one of the Science by the Pint talks at Aeronaut.
Yesterday, we went to a potluck hosted by Trish and Andy, who we met at Sandy Island. Turns out our social circles overlap quite a bit. Was fun, very nice to get out and see people.
Eris continues to be adorable and hard to get to sleep. She wants eight bedtime stories (and it's hard to keep it at that). She jumps on the bed every night. She pretends to be a puppy and licks my face (I'm surely going to get all the diseases, but it's still pretty cute).
This week work has been rolling along.
On Wednesday, we went to one of the Science by the Pint talks at Aeronaut.
Yesterday, we went to a potluck hosted by Trish and Andy, who we met at Sandy Island. Turns out our social circles overlap quite a bit. Was fun, very nice to get out and see people.
Eris continues to be adorable and hard to get to sleep. She wants eight bedtime stories (and it's hard to keep it at that). She jumps on the bed every night. She pretends to be a puppy and licks my face (I'm surely going to get all the diseases, but it's still pretty cute).
Flying Away
Nov. 16th, 2018 07:19 pmIt's been so many weeks.
Julie's trip went well. Eris was reasonably good in her absence, though there were a few major tantrums.
I did some campaign volunteering in NH-1 (for Chris Pappas, who won the House race in that district).
Election day came and went. It's a wave election all right, Trump is clearly not good news for the Republicans, and the Republicans did poorly especially considering all the ways the map favored them. But it was more a bad midterm for Republicans than a large-scale Republican repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. For example, Tech Solidarity's slate of stretch-goal house races almost all lost (most painfully, JD Scholten failed to unseat outright-Nazi Steve King in IA-4). The one exception was Jared Golden in ME-2, the first candidate to win an instant-runoff under Maine's new ranked-choice-voting process.
The day after, we took a trip to Alternburg, Germany, my paternal grandfather's hometown. My first time in Germany. We flew to Berlin via Reykjavik, then took the train via Leipzig. Met my parents and some of the rest of my extended family there. We were visiting at the invitation of Christian Repkewitz, a historian who's written several books on the history of the Jewish community in Altenburg. We attended a commemoration ceremony memorializing Altenburg residents who were victims of the attacks of November 9, 1938 and the previous mass-deportations of Polish Jews from Germany. We also met some family friends who now live in the building where my grandfather grew up, visited Altenburg Castle (which contains a museum about some of the town's art and history), and took Erica to a zoo on an island in the pond (though the pond itself was more of an empty basin with scattered puddles, there's apparently been a prolonged drought). Spent a very little time in Berlin on the way through. The kid was a great traveler, though she got a little homesick towards the end of the trip.
It's a bit of a quiet quarter for me at work, and I've maybe been trying to take it a little easy. Work's been stressful for Julie.
Yesterday, Julie and I went to see SpeakEasy's production of Fun Home (based on the Alison Bechdel graphic-novel memoir). It was really good! Brilliant script and score, and it's a very good adaptation of the book. I was a bit surprised to see the small-box-theater format used for a musical, but it worked really well for this one.
Tomorrow, we head off again for Thanksgiving break.
Julie's trip went well. Eris was reasonably good in her absence, though there were a few major tantrums.
I did some campaign volunteering in NH-1 (for Chris Pappas, who won the House race in that district).
Election day came and went. It's a wave election all right, Trump is clearly not good news for the Republicans, and the Republicans did poorly especially considering all the ways the map favored them. But it was more a bad midterm for Republicans than a large-scale Republican repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. For example, Tech Solidarity's slate of stretch-goal house races almost all lost (most painfully, JD Scholten failed to unseat outright-Nazi Steve King in IA-4). The one exception was Jared Golden in ME-2, the first candidate to win an instant-runoff under Maine's new ranked-choice-voting process.
The day after, we took a trip to Alternburg, Germany, my paternal grandfather's hometown. My first time in Germany. We flew to Berlin via Reykjavik, then took the train via Leipzig. Met my parents and some of the rest of my extended family there. We were visiting at the invitation of Christian Repkewitz, a historian who's written several books on the history of the Jewish community in Altenburg. We attended a commemoration ceremony memorializing Altenburg residents who were victims of the attacks of November 9, 1938 and the previous mass-deportations of Polish Jews from Germany. We also met some family friends who now live in the building where my grandfather grew up, visited Altenburg Castle (which contains a museum about some of the town's art and history), and took Erica to a zoo on an island in the pond (though the pond itself was more of an empty basin with scattered puddles, there's apparently been a prolonged drought). Spent a very little time in Berlin on the way through. The kid was a great traveler, though she got a little homesick towards the end of the trip.
It's a bit of a quiet quarter for me at work, and I've maybe been trying to take it a little easy. Work's been stressful for Julie.
Yesterday, Julie and I went to see SpeakEasy's production of Fun Home (based on the Alison Bechdel graphic-novel memoir). It was really good! Brilliant script and score, and it's a very good adaptation of the book. I was a bit surprised to see the small-box-theater format used for a musical, but it worked really well for this one.
Tomorrow, we head off again for Thanksgiving break.
Visits, Reunions, and Pizza!
Oct. 2nd, 2018 08:21 pmI see I've been doing an even worse job at getting around to writing than usual. Recap time.
Two weekends ago: Julie was away for business travel late in the week, then I was at Olin on Saturday for Alumni Weekend (10 years!). Was great to see so many of my classmates.
My dad was in town for a conference that weekend, too. Really enjoyed the visit, we went out for dinner at Casa B and Erica enjoyed some time on the playground with grandpa.
Last weekend: Friday was a daycare holiday, so we took the opportunity for a long weekend and went to NYC to visit Kristin and Jimmy and Emilia. Friday night, we went to Lions, Tigers, and Squares for pizza dinner. That restaurant serves Detroit style pizza, which is fairly deep, with crispy thick crust, sauce over cheese, made in rectangular pans (supposedly the style originally made use of repurposed industrial parts trays). I'd heard about that restaurant from this YouTube video about their mustard pizza, their twist on the mustard pizza from Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton, NJ. I thought it was great, the pizza was a hit with everyone. Afterwards, we went to Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes and banana pudding.
Erica had her first sleepover with Emilia at their place on Friday night, and she had a really great time!
Julie's dad Scott got into town for a visit on Saturday and Kristin and Jimmy took all of us to Coney Island's Luna Park. Kristin and Scott biked there as a warmup for a bike race they were doing Sunday morning, the rest of us took the train. The cousins had a great time going on some of the smaller rides together. Erica demolished a ripe mango from a vendor on the boardwalk and rode on the carousel, we had hot dogs for dinner, I got on the swings ride and enjoy the view from above. I regret not going on some of the roller coasters a bit, but wasn't feeling up for it. Erica somehow managed to avoid taking any naps and was very cranky by the time we got back to the hotel. She didn't want to go to sleep despite that being the latest she'd gone without a nap in her entire life. But a jaunt to the hotel bar for a late-night glass of milk got everything calmed down and we were able to have a peaceful rest.
On Friday morning, we had a diner breakfast with Jimmy and Emilia before heading back to Boston.
Was a wonderful weekend! We're all very much looking forward to going back, especially Erica.
(And we plan to be back between Christmas and New Year's, so I'll try to coordinate plans with more people next time.)
Eristic improvements: Counting into double digits
Two weekends ago: Julie was away for business travel late in the week, then I was at Olin on Saturday for Alumni Weekend (10 years!). Was great to see so many of my classmates.
My dad was in town for a conference that weekend, too. Really enjoyed the visit, we went out for dinner at Casa B and Erica enjoyed some time on the playground with grandpa.
Last weekend: Friday was a daycare holiday, so we took the opportunity for a long weekend and went to NYC to visit Kristin and Jimmy and Emilia. Friday night, we went to Lions, Tigers, and Squares for pizza dinner. That restaurant serves Detroit style pizza, which is fairly deep, with crispy thick crust, sauce over cheese, made in rectangular pans (supposedly the style originally made use of repurposed industrial parts trays). I'd heard about that restaurant from this YouTube video about their mustard pizza, their twist on the mustard pizza from Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton, NJ. I thought it was great, the pizza was a hit with everyone. Afterwards, we went to Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes and banana pudding.
Erica had her first sleepover with Emilia at their place on Friday night, and she had a really great time!
Julie's dad Scott got into town for a visit on Saturday and Kristin and Jimmy took all of us to Coney Island's Luna Park. Kristin and Scott biked there as a warmup for a bike race they were doing Sunday morning, the rest of us took the train. The cousins had a great time going on some of the smaller rides together. Erica demolished a ripe mango from a vendor on the boardwalk and rode on the carousel, we had hot dogs for dinner, I got on the swings ride and enjoy the view from above. I regret not going on some of the roller coasters a bit, but wasn't feeling up for it. Erica somehow managed to avoid taking any naps and was very cranky by the time we got back to the hotel. She didn't want to go to sleep despite that being the latest she'd gone without a nap in her entire life. But a jaunt to the hotel bar for a late-night glass of milk got everything calmed down and we were able to have a peaceful rest.
On Friday morning, we had a diner breakfast with Jimmy and Emilia before heading back to Boston.
Was a wonderful weekend! We're all very much looking forward to going back, especially Erica.
(And we plan to be back between Christmas and New Year's, so I'll try to coordinate plans with more people next time.)
Eristic improvements: Counting into double digits
Jersey City That Never Sleeps
Aug. 7th, 2018 08:54 pmLast weekend, we went to visit Julie's sister's family (Kristin, Jimmy, and Emilia) at their new place in Jersey City. Julie's mom was visiting, too. Was a very low-key mini-vacation, a NYC trip where we never actually got into NYC. But it was great. We had a hibachi dinner and a homemade brunch, the kids had a swim in the hotel pool. The weather was very hot but the city views were beautiful. Was wonderful to see everyone!
It was a bit odd being on the river so soon after reading New York 2140, that vivid image of "the intertidal".
The only difficult bit was our flight in on Friday. Cascading weather delays and cancellations had it delayed seven hours in small increments, and we weren't confident until the last hour that it would leave at all. We didn't get to the hotel until 4AM, and it took us another hour to get a crib for the hotel room. The kid was a trooper, a really good traveler. She had fun running around the airport until about 10PM, nodded off in the stroller closer to midnight, and slept through the entire flight. She woke up a little on the car ride to the hotel, but just calmly enjoyed the view. She was unsurprisingly quite late-shifted after that. (Weather in the 90s means less playground time, which doesn't help.) The goddess of chaos knows no bedtime, or at least she'd rather not.
(At least, not yesterday. She's maybe on an earlier bedtime track today, through the bedtime routine already. Will see if she actually stays asleep.)
It was a bit odd being on the river so soon after reading New York 2140, that vivid image of "the intertidal".
The only difficult bit was our flight in on Friday. Cascading weather delays and cancellations had it delayed seven hours in small increments, and we weren't confident until the last hour that it would leave at all. We didn't get to the hotel until 4AM, and it took us another hour to get a crib for the hotel room. The kid was a trooper, a really good traveler. She had fun running around the airport until about 10PM, nodded off in the stroller closer to midnight, and slept through the entire flight. She woke up a little on the car ride to the hotel, but just calmly enjoyed the view. She was unsurprisingly quite late-shifted after that. (Weather in the 90s means less playground time, which doesn't help.) The goddess of chaos knows no bedtime, or at least she'd rather not.
(At least, not yesterday. She's maybe on an earlier bedtime track today, through the bedtime routine already. Will see if she actually stays asleep.)
All Over the Place
Jun. 10th, 2018 09:51 pmAfter a few weeks, it's hard for me even to recall what's been on my mind.
Rolling back the clock a bit...
Last weekend, Julie's parents treated us to a quick trip to Providence to attend a family friend's birthday party. Julie's sister's family came up from NYC. Good times with extended family! Erica had a wonderful time!
Google once again had a contingent marching in Boston Pride this weekend. Was great to be in the parade and see the happy crowd.
Yesterday evening, we met up with Xave and a few other people for dinner and a play. Saw Jennifer Hayley's The Nether, a disturbing sci-fi detective story that's effectively written and staged. (It's clearly a spiritual successor to the last play I saw that cuts away to a (fiction-within-the-)fictional world from a story that's set in an interrogation room. Not really. Except maybe?)
The last few weeks my indie-tabletop group has been Andrew running Paranoia, since I got the latest edition of that as a particularly well-chosen Christmas gift from my brother-in-law Sean.
Having finished season two of Man in the High Castle, we've been watching Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams with Tim and Co.
The headphone port on my phone has gone all flaky, and I'm not ready for a new phone quite yet. I've been working around a bit with a USB-C audio adapter for my favorite headphones. So maybe it's time for me to take another dive into the world of Bluetooth audio. I found a pair of bone-conduction headphones on sale, and that might be the next-best thing to the half-moon/half-in-ear design that is for some reason no longer available.
We added central air conditioning to the condo, just in time for summer. If it helps me sleep better in the hot months, will be worth every penny. Seems pretty good so far.
I keep not posting about news/politics. There sure is a lot worthy of comment. The SCOTUS decision in Masterpiece was an incredibly strange punt, steeped in realpolitik. And Trump's efforts at international diplomacy are a complete embarrassment.
Eristic improvements: Balancing without support while climbing and descending stairs, hanging by arms from bar, announcing achievements with "I did it!" or, even more amusingly, "Ta-dah!"
Rolling back the clock a bit...
Last weekend, Julie's parents treated us to a quick trip to Providence to attend a family friend's birthday party. Julie's sister's family came up from NYC. Good times with extended family! Erica had a wonderful time!
Google once again had a contingent marching in Boston Pride this weekend. Was great to be in the parade and see the happy crowd.
Yesterday evening, we met up with Xave and a few other people for dinner and a play. Saw Jennifer Hayley's The Nether, a disturbing sci-fi detective story that's effectively written and staged. (It's clearly a spiritual successor to the last play I saw that cuts away to a (fiction-within-the-)fictional world from a story that's set in an interrogation room. Not really. Except maybe?)
The last few weeks my indie-tabletop group has been Andrew running Paranoia, since I got the latest edition of that as a particularly well-chosen Christmas gift from my brother-in-law Sean.
Having finished season two of Man in the High Castle, we've been watching Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams with Tim and Co.
The headphone port on my phone has gone all flaky, and I'm not ready for a new phone quite yet. I've been working around a bit with a USB-C audio adapter for my favorite headphones. So maybe it's time for me to take another dive into the world of Bluetooth audio. I found a pair of bone-conduction headphones on sale, and that might be the next-best thing to the half-moon/half-in-ear design that is for some reason no longer available.
We added central air conditioning to the condo, just in time for summer. If it helps me sleep better in the hot months, will be worth every penny. Seems pretty good so far.
I keep not posting about news/politics. There sure is a lot worthy of comment. The SCOTUS decision in Masterpiece was an incredibly strange punt, steeped in realpolitik. And Trump's efforts at international diplomacy are a complete embarrassment.
Eristic improvements: Balancing without support while climbing and descending stairs, hanging by arms from bar, announcing achievements with "I did it!" or, even more amusingly, "Ta-dah!"
Core Memories
Jan. 16th, 2018 03:13 pmIt's yet another one of those times when I don't post for weeks at a time because I'm alternating between being busy and wrecked! So, jumping back:
Seattle was lovely! The winter weather was very nice. Only two days of our nine there were notably rainy, and overall it was very mild. We did some touristy things, spent a lot of time hanging out with DJ and Mishy (including a lovely New Year's celebration / early birthday celebration for Erica at their home), briefly met up with David and Kelcy (who were in from Portland, Oregon for New Year's), had dinner with Susan (one of Julie's Church Lab friends), took the kid for a swim in the hotel pool, and spent the entire time drinking good coffee. Good friends, good food, generally a wonderful, relaxing trip.
We did manage to get in a little business while we were there, too: Julie took the opportunity for some face-to-face meetings with Seattle-area biotech contacts, and I got out to Google Kirkland to meet with a team I'd collaborated with on some 20%-project work and to say hello to Mark Chang (one of my Olin profs who's now working at Google).
On the way back, Eris had a seat to herself on the plane for the first time. I was actually looking forward to being required to pay for the extra seat by that point, she's definitely getting quite a bit too big to be an infant in lap. (Having another seat to put carry-on bags under also means a lot in terms of legroom.)
After returning, I came down with a bad cold that had me working from home basically the entirety of last week.
On Thursday, Eris came down with a bad stomach bug. This one was her first real stomach bug as a toddler (the full waterworks, and a long night of not being able to keep down even water). Needless to say no one enjoyed the experience. Had to wipe down the whole house and do all the laundry. Fortunately, the worst of it seemed to be a 24-hour affair.
Friday through Monday was MIT Mystery Hunt, which I got to experience from the writing side this year, since my team, Death & Mayhem, won last year's hunt. I can't say I contributed as much as many members of my team (my contribution to the writing process was mostly limited to a bit of test-solving), but Julie did pull a lot of extra weight on childcare this weekend (including on her birthday) so I could help out some weekend-of. I helped run a couple of the interactions, but mostly I called phones (made 569 callbacks about puzzle answers over the long weekend).
This year's Hunt was themed after Pixar's Inside Out, putting hunters inside the mind of a student having an emotional crisis as they try to win the 2018 Health & Safety Hunt run by Team Life & Order. Teams solved layers of puzzles to get the five emotions back to HQ, recover four lost core memories, and complete the epic Health & Safety walkaround. 12 teams completed the hunt, led by last year's writing team, Setec Astronomy (whose tongue-and-cheek pledge to never write Hunt again seems to have not stuck for very long at all).
Overall, Hunt went amazingly well, the puzzles were great and it was a ton of fun. I'll post some links to that once they're up in the archive (presumably after the part of the team working on tech has had a few days to recover).
Today, I'm sick. Despite my best hygiene efforts, I'm down with whatever stomach bug Eris had. This seems to be a really bad winter, disease-wise.
Eristic improvements: Jumping in place unassisted, more intricate play with building toys (duplo, magnablocks, traintrack toys, and the like).
Seattle was lovely! The winter weather was very nice. Only two days of our nine there were notably rainy, and overall it was very mild. We did some touristy things, spent a lot of time hanging out with DJ and Mishy (including a lovely New Year's celebration / early birthday celebration for Erica at their home), briefly met up with David and Kelcy (who were in from Portland, Oregon for New Year's), had dinner with Susan (one of Julie's Church Lab friends), took the kid for a swim in the hotel pool, and spent the entire time drinking good coffee. Good friends, good food, generally a wonderful, relaxing trip.
We did manage to get in a little business while we were there, too: Julie took the opportunity for some face-to-face meetings with Seattle-area biotech contacts, and I got out to Google Kirkland to meet with a team I'd collaborated with on some 20%-project work and to say hello to Mark Chang (one of my Olin profs who's now working at Google).
On the way back, Eris had a seat to herself on the plane for the first time. I was actually looking forward to being required to pay for the extra seat by that point, she's definitely getting quite a bit too big to be an infant in lap. (Having another seat to put carry-on bags under also means a lot in terms of legroom.)
After returning, I came down with a bad cold that had me working from home basically the entirety of last week.
On Thursday, Eris came down with a bad stomach bug. This one was her first real stomach bug as a toddler (the full waterworks, and a long night of not being able to keep down even water). Needless to say no one enjoyed the experience. Had to wipe down the whole house and do all the laundry. Fortunately, the worst of it seemed to be a 24-hour affair.
Friday through Monday was MIT Mystery Hunt, which I got to experience from the writing side this year, since my team, Death & Mayhem, won last year's hunt. I can't say I contributed as much as many members of my team (my contribution to the writing process was mostly limited to a bit of test-solving), but Julie did pull a lot of extra weight on childcare this weekend (including on her birthday) so I could help out some weekend-of. I helped run a couple of the interactions, but mostly I called phones (made 569 callbacks about puzzle answers over the long weekend).
This year's Hunt was themed after Pixar's Inside Out, putting hunters inside the mind of a student having an emotional crisis as they try to win the 2018 Health & Safety Hunt run by Team Life & Order. Teams solved layers of puzzles to get the five emotions back to HQ, recover four lost core memories, and complete the epic Health & Safety walkaround. 12 teams completed the hunt, led by last year's writing team, Setec Astronomy (whose tongue-and-cheek pledge to never write Hunt again seems to have not stuck for very long at all).
Overall, Hunt went amazingly well, the puzzles were great and it was a ton of fun. I'll post some links to that once they're up in the archive (presumably after the part of the team working on tech has had a few days to recover).
Today, I'm sick. Despite my best hygiene efforts, I'm down with whatever stomach bug Eris had. This seems to be a really bad winter, disease-wise.
Eristic improvements: Jumping in place unassisted, more intricate play with building toys (duplo, magnablocks, traintrack toys, and the like).
San Franciscmas
Dec. 27th, 2017 04:49 pmThere's a daycare holiday this week and next, which makes it the perfect time to skip town.
Last Saturday, we took AA to SFO via Dallas, then missed our connection by minutes (maybe just seconds). AA screwed up the logistics of deiceing the plane so badly as to cause a 90+ min. delay on the tarmac, then did none of the things they could have done to help passengers make tight connections. Fortunately, we were rebooked on another flight later that day.
We met up with Julie's parents and siblings and all their families in San Francisco. We got to meet our new nephew, Owen (Julie's brother's kid). Erica got to spend quality time with aunts and uncles and cousins on Julie's side of the family (and Julie's mom's dog, Elphie).
Erica enjoyed an afternoon at the Exploratorium and a lot of walking around the city. We got to enjoy some of Julie's family's SF favorites, like dinner at The Stinking Rose and ice cream at Toy Boat and seeing the sea lions at Pier 39.
We also took some time to ourselves and took a cable car across the city while Aunt Kristin looked after Erica. Eris is still a night-owl for sure (when we returned Erica was contentedly watching a movie next to her sound-asleep cousin). She still woke up cheerful every morning at the prospect of time with "doggie!".
Also managed to get in a visit with my Aunt Jessica and Uncle Marty and cousin Stephan, who hadn't yet had the chance to meet Erica in person. We took the ferry across the bay to Larkspur Landing to meet them and went out for ramen.
Today, we're traveling to Seattle, this time on Alaska Airlines. Still waiting for the plane, but so far, really good. Took advantage of Alaska's same-day-change policy to get a later flight so we could have a more relaxing time at the airport after a morning business meeting for Julie.
Last Saturday, we took AA to SFO via Dallas, then missed our connection by minutes (maybe just seconds). AA screwed up the logistics of deiceing the plane so badly as to cause a 90+ min. delay on the tarmac, then did none of the things they could have done to help passengers make tight connections. Fortunately, we were rebooked on another flight later that day.
We met up with Julie's parents and siblings and all their families in San Francisco. We got to meet our new nephew, Owen (Julie's brother's kid). Erica got to spend quality time with aunts and uncles and cousins on Julie's side of the family (and Julie's mom's dog, Elphie).
Erica enjoyed an afternoon at the Exploratorium and a lot of walking around the city. We got to enjoy some of Julie's family's SF favorites, like dinner at The Stinking Rose and ice cream at Toy Boat and seeing the sea lions at Pier 39.
We also took some time to ourselves and took a cable car across the city while Aunt Kristin looked after Erica. Eris is still a night-owl for sure (when we returned Erica was contentedly watching a movie next to her sound-asleep cousin). She still woke up cheerful every morning at the prospect of time with "doggie!".
Also managed to get in a visit with my Aunt Jessica and Uncle Marty and cousin Stephan, who hadn't yet had the chance to meet Erica in person. We took the ferry across the bay to Larkspur Landing to meet them and went out for ramen.
Today, we're traveling to Seattle, this time on Alaska Airlines. Still waiting for the plane, but so far, really good. Took advantage of Alaska's same-day-change policy to get a later flight so we could have a more relaxing time at the airport after a morning business meeting for Julie.
