December 31, 2022
2022
2022 Grab Bag:
- Finished my Masters degree (CSE @ UW)!; on top of that, took an Advanced Computer Architecture class & an Electric Grid regulation class from a WA UTC commissioner
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Two ten-year anniversaries - ten years since my 4K bike ride from Baltimore to Portland (Chelsea from my year wrote the best retrospective); and ten years since I started working at Google
- Failed to hold a relationship together
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Tens of thousands of miles of EV road-tripping!
Seattle, WA to Bodega Bay to North Lake Tahoe to Moab to Pullman, WA;
Seattle, WA to Dolores, CO and back;
Seattle, WA to Taos, NM and back;
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A week sampling clover at Bodega Marine Lab, overlooking the Pacific Ocean
- Spent a month in a ~new place and state (Taos, NM)
- Donated a quarter of my income to climate and Effective Altruism organizations 😬 (details)
- Read 26 books; top three:
- Warmth, Daniel Sherrell - Talking about "The Problem" (Climate Change) in letters to a future child.
The author, Daniel Sherrell, is from New Jersey, not far from where and when I grew up; he works on climate advocacy in New York State. I found his perspective very relatable - he understands and draws on the technical, but writes the visceral. His evocation of love as fury is pretty powerful and stood out to me among climate writing.
- On Repentance and Repair, Danya Ruttenberg - Thinking about repentance, repair, and reconcilliation through a framework from Maimonides
The framework offered here is fairly different than the one I grew up with - it starts with objective statements of what happened; change to ensure the harm is not repeated; restitution and consequences; apology (delayed all the way to step 4!); and making different choices. As elaborated, it sounds like it would better address harm I have caused; it also seems like it'd be pretty demanding. I particularly appreciated an examination of something I do (apologize) but had never given great thought to.
- Ducks, Kate Beaton
- Warmth, Daniel Sherrell - Talking about "The Problem" (Climate Change) in letters to a future child.
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First concert since the pandemic started (Gregory Alan Isakov at the Gorge)
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Made jam and Ice Cream for the first time!
Made Fig and Pear, Peach, and Onion jams; Onion was the most successful -
Biked Mt. Constitution, part of the Sea to Sky Highway (BC Hwy 99), and Harvest Century
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Grew tomatoes, a Sequoia, and potatoes (by mistake!)
- News story from the year that's stayed with me - Climate Change from A to Z, Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Nov 2022
It's been an eventful, rich year. There's a lot I wish I'd done, a lot I wish I'd done better; but I tried new and hard things and learned from both the successes and failures.
See you in 2023!
Posted by vsrinivas at December 31, 2022 01:29 PM