Author: Mark

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2023 Reading List

I had a strong year of reading in 2023. I blew past my annual goal of 24 books in September and kept on going. I always had my Kobo by my bed to read at night, while making sure I found time and space on the weekends. Erin also read voraciously this year; being synchronized in that effort was helpful. My highlight was binging The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey. It’s amazing.

This year I decided to put together charts for the genres I read and the number of books I completed each month, in addition to the full table of completed titles. Let’s dive in.

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A New Place for Fiction

I’ve created a new website, markrichard-fiction.org. I’ll reference any stories or other writing I post there on this blog, but they’ll mainly be hosted there. It’s using the Write.as service, which is a sleek and quick spot to make an incredibly simple blog. I wanted to separate what I write here—almost exclusively blog and essay fare—from stranger projects I hope to undertake.

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Return of Winter Break

This year my company is officially taking a break starting the weekend before Christmas through New Year’s Day. I haven’t had a break from work this long1My honeymoon last year was pretty darn close, but there is a big difference when I know I have a huge amount of work piled up to go back to. since graduating college, and I am thrilled by the concept.

Several of my coworkers are nervous about this change—we have customer support teams and we need to ensure our sites don’t suddenly break while everyone is gone—but I plan to revel in it in the intended fashion. I get to enjoy time with family and friends without distraction, without needing to burn additional PTO, and come back refreshed with an eagerness to get work done.

I’m not going to treat this like a miniature sabbatical and plan an ambitious number of projects to fill the time. While I’ll certainly manage to occupy myself with writing, reading, and exploring some ideas I’ve built up over time, the goal is not to prescribe any work in detail. A break should be exactly that, and in the last year I’ve learned to take my time away from daily work more seriously by increasing the divide between the two. I barely check my work email on my phone, and try to keep Slack out of mind once I’m done for the day. Neither of those slight changes has affected my work negatively, but has certainly improved my personal time.

A winter break will increase the dosage of that effect for a week, and I’m ready for it.

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    My honeymoon last year was pretty darn close, but there is a big difference when I know I have a huge amount of work piled up to go back to.
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Theme Retreat

Erin and I spent a weekend north of San Francisco in a small house among the redwood trees. It overlooked a misty valley that offered the perfect balance of seclusion without isolation.1We were only fifteen minutes from the nearby town with a Safeway, but nobody could see us on the deck’s hot tub, and we couldn’t see anyone else. We set up this small retreat to disconnect, focus on ourselves, and also discuss our yearly themes.

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    We were only fifteen minutes from the nearby town with a Safeway, but nobody could see us on the deck’s hot tub, and we couldn’t see anyone else.
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Ohtani to Dodgers

Sarah Wexler, reporting for MLB.com:1I’ve never done a blogging “quote post” like this, but I’m toying with using this blog for a little more than just my Monday updates. We’ll see if it sticks, but I might as well use my own website’s capacity and see how it fits.

After a fervent sweepstakes, reigning American League Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani has agreed to terms with the Dodgers on a record-demolishing 10-year, $700 million deal, according to his agent, Nez Balelo.

This is incredible, ridiculous, and frustrating.

Incredible

No free agent in any sport has ever received a contract worth this much. It’s a huge play by the Dodgers, and a windfall for Ohtani who definitely has nothing to worry about financially. Time will tell whether the deal is good when considering Ohtani as a player long-term, but as a move they can leverage as marketing it’s likely going to pay for itself rapidly. Ohtani is a superstar across the world, particularly in Japan and the United States. Between the merchandise the Dodgers will sell and the butts in seats they’ll get even in the next two seasons, I have to imagine they know it’s worth the investment. If they can make some deep playoff runs, that’ll do even more.

Ridiculous

What the hell, Dodgers? Can you let any other team have a fighting chance? They really are become more like the Yankees than the Yankees in terms of throwing money at problems (while also annoyingly being quite good at developing their own players). The money in this deal is absurd and I can’t imagine being matched by any deal within the next decade.

Frustrating

With the Giants being my second team, it’ll be infuriating how much I’ll want to go to games when the Dodgers are in town so I can see Ohtani play, and it’ll also be infuriating as I sit here along with all the other Giants fans wondering how we can possible compete in the division now. It isn’t actually impossible—baseball is a strange sport, and the Dodgers still haven’t figured out their pitching situation—but boy is it tremendously disheartening at first glance. Why couldn’t he have gone to Toronto?

It’ll also be awful seeing the national networks and MLB fawn over him as a Dodger. It was charming and fun to see Ohtani do his thing in Anaheim because the focus was on the player. He was and is incredible, but it wasn’t part of a juggernaut team that doesn’t seem to have any particularly fun vibe. Now it’ll be in the context of the Dodgers, and MLB will be pushing the Dodgers hard every time they get a chance. I’m going to be sick of it very quickly, even though I’ll still watch every good Ohtani highlight that comes out in the next decade. He’s good, I just wish he could be good on some other team.

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    I’ve never done a blogging “quote post” like this, but I’m toying with using this blog for a little more than just my Monday updates. We’ll see if it sticks, but I might as well use my own website’s capacity and see how it fits.