Personal

We were lucky to see Lisbon during a “coastal event”, as our weather apps described the inclement system to us. Serpentine cobblestone streets glistened in the aftermath of an afternoon shower, the sun that much more appreciated for the damp and cold that threatened our plans. Wicked gusts whipped through the narrow, curving streets and pinch points like someone testing for leaks in the plumbing, a few catching us head-on as we headed uphill. All of this added to the character of our visit and further reminded us of San Francisco, a familiar city with its own set of hills and odd streets, cable cars and coffee shops and eccentricities. San Francisco also has a cool tower, though Lisbon has a thousand-year-old castle. Parallels abound, except for Lisbon’s lack of parallel streets. I won’t further debase Lisbon by comparing it to a city so far its junior. ...

I’ve added a Food page to the sidebar to document what I make this year, or to admit when a week has slipped by with minimal kitchen time. It’s a mixture of accountability and a desire to track how this Year of the Kitchen goes.

I officially left Art of Problem Solving on January 1. After over 7 years of full-time employment, and over 8 years total when I include contract work and my summer internship, I have my second post-college employer: Inflection Point Learning. The upshot is that AoPS partially own IPL, and nearly every person in our small Institutional Sales department moved with me. My job title is the same, my immediate boss and one direct report haven’t changed, but the new context gives some sparkle and flavor to this second phase in my career that I’m beginning just shy of thirty years old. ...

You can’t outrun a bad diet, but you can sure outspend your budget by frequenting restaurants. After a successful Year of Fitness, the next obvious step towards a healthier lifestyle is to control my eating habits. That means learning to love, or at least accept, cooking at home. 2026 will be the Year of the Kitchen. ...

I never thought to write about this longtime childhood staple of Christmas until my younger sister mentioned how nice it’d be to go back in time to share reviews of items that lasted a surprisingly long time. While the mechanical jaw of my Scooby-Doo stocking broke long ago, pressing its ear still manages to trigger one of three Christmas songs sung in an R-heavy voice (Rappy Rolidays!) ...

Among my thoughts when I announced my Year of Fitness, this segment at the end most clearly stated my intentions: I want my weight and impulses under control, and an exercise routine I can stick with that keeps me healthy and able to participate in all the sports and activities I enjoy for as long as possible. Health and fitness are lifelong projects, so this theme focused on rebuilding a stronger foundation that can support further growth while being resilient to those stressful days and difficult weeks that grind good intentions to dust. I needed a base to return to when I inevitably falter. Both the data and my gut suggest a clear success. ...

Stephen Hackett briefly discussed some changes to 512 Pixels on last week’s episode of Connected. Some of those thoughts temporarily live on his Now page. Here’s the main thrust: … my hope is to have fewer — but more meaningful — things in the RSS feed in 2026. He also mentioned putting this on the Now page rather than in a separate post because he can’t bring himself to blog about his own blogging. Few people read my site, so I have no such reluctance. ...

This month’s expedition took Erin and me to Boston for a conference she was attending. While the highlight of the trip was getting to spend time with our friends from San Francisco, that’s what we call out of scope. I’ll focus on what I loved while roaming around the city. ...

This has been a hectic month, and I need more time to finish some planned posts. So, I’ll fall back on that old crutch of using this blog as a limited journal of a few notable events. Pizza Erin and I participated in New Haven’s record-breaking pizza party. We were two of the proud 4,525 people who ate two (small) slices of pizza and drank eight ounces of water in the generous span of fifteen minutes. We then walked around and enjoyed the festival: I tried Sally’s for the first time, had a cannoli, drank some local beer, and received a promotional 10" pizza box for the effort. ...

We spent a long weekend in Toronto, and much like our trip to New Mexico, I’m not sure that I’m capable of fully sharing that experience in words. Unlike the trip to New Mexico, I’m going to give it a shot. ...