The Smell of Home

After a couple weeks in Minnesota, I’m back in my San Francisco apartment. A key indicator of your living situation is taking a big whiff of the air the moment you walk in the door, because that’s what other people smell when they arrive. I’m happy to report the smell was pleasant and flowery, as well as comfortable and familiar. Erin and I have discussed what we refer to as “home” these days, and this apartment certainly has a lot going for it.

May 17, 2021 · 1 min · 83 words · Mark Richard

Starting on Disc Golf

I’ve wanted to try disc golf for a couple of years. I discovered it through the fantastic YouTube channel JomezPro, and have been into the sport since. However, I never took the time to buy and mess around with discs, or check with my friends for people to play with. While in Washington, I discovered that a few friends of mine have started playing. That was enough to encourage me to give it a go while back in Minnesota. It’s already been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to working on it even more once I’m back in California.

May 10, 2021 · 1 min · 101 words · Mark Richard

Some Family Time

Now that my fiancée and I are both vaccinated, we were able to fly back to Minnesota for two weeks. I don’t anticipate having a lot of time to write blog posts, since the little bit of free time I have outside friends and family will likely be spent editing Comical Start. So I’ll leave this short post as a reflection of my excitement and luck that I get to be back home for a little while. I hope others get the same opportunity soon.

May 3, 2021 · 1 min · 85 words · Mark Richard

A Week of Washington

This past week I was lucky to head out to Washington state with some friends. We had all gotten vaccinated (and had mainly been working from home), so it was a nice opportunity to just spend time together and go exploring. We went to various beaches, went on a whale-watching excursion, checked out the Hoh Rain Forest, and got up early to see a meteor shower (my first ever). Most importantly, I discovered my phone could take a timelapse. So, I made this nifty video. ...

April 26, 2021 · 1 min · 86 words · Mark Richard

First Game of 2021

With a vaccine in my veins and a cautious reopening of Oracle Park in San Francisco, I was able to attend my first baseball game of 2021, and my first MLB game in nearly 2 years. It was an absolute privilege and joy to do something that has always meant so much to me over the years. I’m incredibly lucky to live just a short walk from this absolutely fantastic stadium. ...

April 19, 2021 · 2 min · 223 words · Mark Richard

Good Night, San Diego

While last week I wrote in broad strokes about moving in general, this post is being written in a bare bedroom in San Diego on one of my last nights “living” in this city. ...

February 22, 2021 · 2 min · 389 words · Mark Richard

Moving North

Last weekend I helped my fiancee move into our new apartment in San Francisco. This most recent weekend, I drove down to San Diego to get the majority of my things.1 It’s been a hectic time, but it’s exciting to be moving in together, buying furniture and arranging our lives. I spent the last two years in a pretty minimalist state, with all forms of work and pleasure happening at my desk setup. I now have a living room with a couch, and will render my desk for its intended purposes: work.2 ...

February 15, 2021 · 1 min · 205 words · Mark Richard

Wedding Planning Part 1

Last October I asked my then-girlfriend, Erin, to marry me. As the cliche goes, I was lucky enough, and she was crazy enough, that she said “yes”. Soon thereafter the wedding planning began, and it’s been an on-and-off process as other events in our lives ebb and flow. We are aiming to have our wedding in fall of 2022, so we’re giving ourselves a lot of wiggle room. Even then, it was clear we needed to get organized. There are a lot of moving parts, which only increased when we decided to have the wedding at her parent’s farm. Suddenly there were no preferred vendors, and everything was on us. This part 1 is to briefly discuss some of the ways we’ve gotten our act together. I’m sure other posts, focusing on other elements, will follow. ...

February 8, 2021 · 4 min · 720 words · Mark Richard

Yearly Playlist Troubles

On an episode of the podcast No Dumb Questions, Destin and Matt discussed how they compiled a playlist for each year. This allowed them to track changing moods and tastes as the years went by, and also to link songs to specific times in their lives. The benefit of listening to these shows hosted by people with more life experience is that I can actually learn from them sooner than how they learned themselves. I loved the idea of having anchor points in songs on an annual playlist, so I made my own for 2019 and 2020. ...

January 11, 2021 · 2 min · 420 words · Mark Richard

2021: Year of Transition

On the most recent episode of OHAC, Mikhail, Jack, and I talked about our yearly themes. You can head over there to get links to other resources, and listen to our takes on each of our themes. This post is to summarize my own theme, and try to have something clearer in my mind after a lot of talking through it with Jack and Mikhail. My theme for this year is the Year of Transition. Its focus is twofold: acceptance of the changes happening in my life, and leveraging the progress I made in 2020 to capitalize on those changes. ...

January 4, 2021 · 2 min · 288 words · Mark Richard