Just got back from a hike in Canon Blanco in Utuado, Puerto Rico. If you get a chance to visit Puerto Rico and want to do a day trip from San Juan into the island I would highly recommend this place. You get to hike, swim, relax, see mountains, small waterfalls, and enjoy some fresh air. It’s a little more crisp, overcast, and less humid than San Juan which is great. It’s my second time going, and it’s going to be on my weekend rotation of getaways.
This week wasn’t crazy, but it was another one of those weeks where my life took a tiny step forward (not counting me eating a pile of gluten and fried food after the hike today ). During the week I hit my tiny daily goals (a little Spanish, writing, studying writing, meditation, being healthy), and worked a fair amount on my major trading r&d projects that I’m hoping to finish by the end of next month. Similar to last week.
I’ve been coding some challenging research that takes a toll mentally. The first draft of my code inevitably has errors, and the first iteration of whatever idea I’m researching on usually does too. It’s often hard when I look at the results of running my research on previous data to tell whether there is a typo/mistake in my code, or my idea. A new idea sometimes can seem like it should be testable over a coffee, but after 5 days I’m still figuring it out. Fortunately this week and past month in particular have unearthed some of my best research in a long time, and I’m excited to get it going in production in the near future.
On the travel front I’m very excited for my first visit to Montreal next week seeing my great buddy Jeff. Montreal is one of those places I’ve heard good things about, but never had a reason to go. I’d go visit Jeff anywhere, but he happens to have recently relocated to Montreal for work. How well will my two years of high school French serve me? Can I still count to five or introduce myself in French? I’m about to find out.
Literature wise I’ve been reading equally across seven books even more than normal. I’m 20-50% into a bunch, and will hopefully have some good recommendations for you soon. All of them are good in their own ways, but a classic move for me is to fall in love with a book 20% in, and find it boring and abandoned at the 40% mark. I don’t want to recommend any more of those.
Some films I saw were “The Lego Movie 2” (entertaining, not as good as the first one, but still funny), and rewatched “Pan’s Labyrinth” which was as excellent as I remembered from a decade ago. I might blog more about this thought in the future, but I rarely regret reading/watching something that I really liked from the past. My tolerance to decent but not great entertainment is decreasing, while my appreciation for something really well done has grown. There’s certain moods and emotions that great film/tv/books/art give me, and I wonder at what point I’d rather flip the ratio of discovery vs. rewatching around? I guess I still prioritize the chase of finding new films/books because when I hit onto something new it feels like I have a new piece of the world that I would never have otherwise.
I also loved this list of “important truths” that I was shared. Pretty impressive to have 88 and the hit rate be so high!
With that I’m going to get ready for a week where I’m looking forward to the work and my trip. Leaving you with a pic from Utuado today.
Andrew Manser 