It’s Sunday evening here in San Juan, and with an exhilarating week ahead of assembling Ikea furniture, buying dishes, mopping the floors, and finalizing production code, I needed to get this done tonight.
Truthfully though I am looking forward to unpacking my suitcase, something I haven’t done in over a quarter of a year. My new apartment finally has working electricity (and hopefully internet at some point), and the only thing stopping me from moving in is putting in the man-hours to do it. I’ve rented furnished places for the majority of the past decade, and it’s easy to forget how many tables/lamps/chairs/kitchen supplies you need in addition to the major items. I was ready to dig into this when I got back from Bali, but after the two-week delay I shifted into a working zombie, and it’s hard to change contexts now. Anyways good problems to have, it’s nice to be moving into a better apartment.
This past week I indulged far too often in espresso shots, something I need to cut back on badly. It sounds innocent, and yes it’s better than my nightly parties and boozing when I was in Stockholm this summer, but I swear I’m waking up with hangovers from it. The sparkling water and espresso machines are right next to each other at the office, and the more I drink, the more pee breaks I need, which then makes me pass them and refill yet again. It is a tasty combo, but perhaps not something you want to be looping through all day…
I got through the majority of the particularly boring, lengthy, and challenging part of coding the new algorithm (to work on exchanges) I’ve been working on. I confided to my brother today that I had a panicked urge several times Wednesday and Thursday to fly him from San Francisco here so he could help me get through it (or more accurately write the code for me). It’s funny because I code daily at work, and I don’t stress about working through machine learning code which is genuinely hard and time-consuming, but for some reason I get sweaty when it comes to interacting with the API of trading exchanges. I had to alternate between patting myself on the back when my code showed signs of working, and calling myself out for being a lame-ass over feeling sorry for myself for doing grunt work. Apologies to you as well for me detailing my pitiful work week.
This weekend and last I’ve been doing some fun creative writing things, and plan on doing a fun challenge with my sister next month. I’ll release more details as we finalize the plans, but I’m gung-ho about it. If only the excitement about the fantasy of writing actually translated into writing happening… Assuming all goes well on the trading front, I’ve been wanting to decompress and take a relaxed month in November, so when my sister mentioned the writing challenge it was perfect timing.
I’ve been reading “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane, and re-reading the graphic novel “Kill or be Killed” by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Both have intimidatingly good dialogue, plot, and style. I haven’t read anything by Lehane after “Mystic River”, which is probably the best crime novel that I’ve read, and starting “Shutter Island” made me question why. I don’t like to recommend novels in progress, but I’m 50% through, and it’s already impressive enough that I can recommend.
“Kill or Be Killed” after this current re-read has to be on my all-time list of best graphic novel series. It’s unassuming and doesn’t have the grandiose stature of “Watchmen”, “Sandman”, etc., but every issue is intense, entertaining, and reveals some dark truths.
I’ll let you know about the writing challenge next week. It should make for more uplifting and compelling entertainment than my usual dreck about algorithms, machine learning, and the other lame stuff that finances my beef and espresso shots lifestyle.
Leaving you with a pic from the rooftop of our new place, and at the concert hall in San Juan where I watched “City Lights” scored by an orchestra which was very cool.
Andrew Manser 