Paris Day 1 – Planes, Trains, and French Bread

Sarah and I had a great trip to Paris. We went for a week, arriving on June 13 and leaving on the 20th. It was a lovely trip, with many cool sights, amazing food, and a great little “getaway” from normal life. Why Paris? And why now? When we got married back in 2014 we […]

The Next Chapter

It’s been a little over 9 months since I was affected by layoffs. I’m one of many in the tech industry who have been in this sort of situation, including almost 300 of my colleagues. However, this unexpected “sabbatical” turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I feel grateful for the time to rest, […]

My First Rocket Launch

I’ve been interested in rockets and space technology for several years. I recall that when I was first starting to get into it, SpaceX had just landed their first Falcon 9 booster at the landing zone, and were still attempting to land on a droneship. I was watching live when they accomplished that first droneship […]

From Building to Breaking – The Road to Becoming a Hacker

I started writing software when I was in high school about 20 years ago. I didn’t program computers, I actually started on the Texas Instruments TI-83+ Graphing Calculator. Remember those? Since then, through my university and professional career, I’ve written a lot of code. I’ve also gotten some experience managing teams who write code, and […]

Farewell to Automattic

After 7 and a half years, it’s finally time to say goodbye to Automattic. The position that was my absolute “dream job” when I first started back in 2017. The company that sent me around the world, and paired me up with colleagues from many countries, cultures, and walks of life. The “merry band” of […]

My Key Productivity Practices

I’ve played with many “productivity systems” over the years. It seems like I can only stick with one “system” for so long before it becomes too cluttered or too difficult and I have to start fresh with something new and interesting. However, there are a few constants that seem to help me to be the […]

AI Sucks. AI is Awesome.

ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022. In just two months, it gained over 100 million users, becoming the fastest-growing consumer software application in history. And it kicked off our latest “AI craze”. In the years since, we’ve seen AI do some truly amazing things. And in my opinion, we’ve also seen it overblown and […]

Doing and Being

“Doing” is about accomplishing goals. Consistency. Taking one small step everyday. Realizing that life is made of of days, and days made up of moments. Making every one count, and making them add together to create the bigger accomplishments that we’re striving for. “Being”, though, is about who we are. How we show up in […]

My First 100 Youtube Subscribers

Over the last few months, I’ve been having a go at Youtube, sharing my journey in learning and improving as a chess player. I published this reflection on my first few months (and first 100 subscribers!) and wanted to share it here. If you’re interested in Youtube, or chess, or any sort of creative pursuit […]

Spaced Repetition Training

I’ve been working on improving at chess for a few years now, and early on in the process I was introduced to a very interesting technique for learning and memorization called Spaced Repetition. The idea of spaced repetition is that after we learn something, we immediately start to forget it. Let’s say we’re trying to […]