What I’ve Been Up To

52th Birthday Edition

The title for this post was shamelessly “borrowed” from Neal Stephenson’s, though my subtitle is at least 14 years younger than his :)

For the first couple of months of 2026, I felt like I had a solid plan for how I wanted to manage my personal time, with a heavy bias toward the gym, toward writing more often—even when it wasn’t one of my THREE in-flight scripts or a Substack post—toward learning Latin, and toward studying and practicing chess. On top of that were the things that still mean a lot to me: reading, a weekly date night with my wife, and time set aside to play games with my daughters. Scrabble is still the family favorite, though we’ve added a few new ones to the rotation.

It was quite the plan, and for a while I was on top of it—never missing a day or an activity, no matter how chaotic things got. Sure, there were plenty of days when it would have been easier to just “take a day off,” skip the gym, or stay home in front of the TV instead of going out with my wife. But somehow I kept things moving.

Gym

Late last year, with two of my daughters and my wife starting a new school year, I finally got off my keister and joined the local gym. The plan was to head out with them bright and early, hit the gym before 7:00 a.m. for some laps and maybe a little cardio, then come home for a quick shower, a second cup of coffee, and a full day’s worth of meetings and technical challenges.

The gym is about a six-minute drive from home, and as long as the weather was mild enough to skip a heavy jacket and it was still light out when I left, things went smoothly. I went pretty much every weekday, resting on weekends, and by the time I got home—showered and fully caffeinated—I felt a rush that carried me through most of the day. It only started to flag in the late afternoon, right around when my wife got back from work and we’d have another cup together, which gave me the push I needed to finish the day and set things up for the next one.

One lesson I started learning the hard way is that however young I feel at heart, my body has other plans, and it’s stubborn about reminding me. Eventually the daily routine took a toll on my knees and feet, enough to leave me uncomfortable walking around during the day. Compensating for that, I threw my lower back out of sorts, which only made my legs worse—and it all led me to cut my gym time to zero through April and May.

I like to think I’m just giving my body time to heal and that I’ll be back, but if I’m honest, the real obstacle isn’t physical, it’s psychological. I know 52 isn’t really that old, and I do still feel young, but I’d be lying if I said these aches—along with a few other things I’ll get to eventually—haven’t sapped my motivation to wake up before everyone else for my daily adrenaline shot. With summer almost here and school about to be out, I think I’ve got a good opening to start again, maybe with a gentler routine that’s easier on my knees and feet but still gives me that lift that lasts all day.

Writing

They say Geminis are natural multitaskers, and when it comes to having ideas for books, stories, and projects, I’m a Gemini through and through. I have at least three scripts I’ve been writing on and off for a while, and earlier this year, something that started as a short story slowly grew into something bigger—big enough that I can now see it fitting into one of those scripts. I did try to write every morning, Substack posts included. The idea was partly to give myself a channel to unload whatever was running through my head, but also to turn writing into a habit—one I could eventually build on toward a fourth book, and maybe more after that.

As work grew more complex and demanded more of my time, presence, and organizational energy, the writing time I’d carved out was one of the first things to slip. For weeks at a stretch, whatever writing I did was work writing—a plan I wanted to implement, context and ideas for future ones, or the quarterly write-ups for my teammates and myself. For the last two weeks, I’ve been leaning on a little tool I built to capture quick thoughts and notes. It fits the way I work: it pops up the moment I need it and then gets out of the way, which is exactly why I made it in the first place.

I still badly want to finish those three scripts and publish a fourth, fifth, and sixth book, but that means being far more protective of my writing time—writing consistently, no matter how little lands on the page, as long as something does each day. The real challenge is keeping work out of the way.

I’m usually good at separating work from personal time, but lately, working in AI, it’s been harder. It isn’t just the pace of the industry; it’s the steady drip of security issues tied to AI products and projects, popping up almost by the minute. Most mornings I spend an extra hour before I even tell anyone I’m online, just prepping for the day and making sure I can handle the near-daily fires. They’ve become routine. I don’t expect them to let up anytime soon, but I do think I can write more—it’ll just take a real commitment on my part to actually do it.

Latin

School never gave me the chance to learn another language, and in college I only took the two required semesters of Italian. Beyond that, I never pursued one. I already speak three, and given that my work constantly demands I learn something new and keep up with the latest technology, picking up a language was never a priority. This year, though, I decided on Latin, with the very ambitious goal of being able to read a classic Latin text in the original by year’s end.

With Duolingo nudging me along, I spent the first 43 days of the year on Latin. And I’ll be honest: 43 days of its limited dialogues and vocabulary weren’t nearly enough to let me pick up a text and understand it—even if, early on, I felt pretty confident I’d hit my goal. I put in at least 30 minutes a day on the lessons, and I was proud not to skip a single one. But as time went on, Latin became another new habit that quietly got crowded out by everything else I wanted to do. The app does a great job of motivating you and reminding you to practice, but those reminders can start to feel like just one more item on the to-do list. More than once this year, by the time I sank into the couch after a long day, the notification landed as an aggravation rather than what it was meant to be—a relaxing hobby that happened to teach me something.

I don’t see myself picking those lessons back up—not because I dislike it or don’t want to get there, but because, if I’m honest, I just don’t have the time. Or, more precisely: it’s not that I don’t have the time, since I do believe I can make time for what truly matters to me. The honest truth is that, out of everything I want to do, learning Latin this year just isn’t near the top of the list.

Chess

My dad taught me chess when I was young, and I remember a stretch in my teens when, for a couple of months, I played almost every day against a friend from school. That kid was good—he kicked my butt every single game. The best I ever managed against him was a long, hard-fought draw, which after so many losses felt more like a win. My problem with chess was patience, or the lack of it. I wasn’t a patient kid, so I’d race through my moves without really thinking. I wanted the game over quickly, and the moment it dragged, I’d rush and make one mistake after another. I never had a strategy either—I’d see one move ahead at most, pushing pieces around the board with no real plan for where I was trying to go.

Duolingo got me playing daily, too—for the same 43 days I spent on Latin, I also practiced and picked up actual strategy. I even bought a book one of my teammates recommended and read a chapter a day, often stopping to study the positions and try them out in my games. Between the two, chess felt less like a chore and more like fun, and even though the app pestered me with the same don’t-skip-your-practice reminders, I didn’t mind them nearly as much. In the end, though, the same crunch that ended my Latin caught up with chess. Too many things were competing for my attention, and as much as I still want to keep learning and playing, I’ve had to set it aside.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got to play my nine-year-old niece—a great reminder of why I want to get better. A couple of months out of practice, I was caught completely off guard when she opened with white, and I found myself right back where I’d been as a teenager against my friend: no strategy, just reacting to whatever she did. She practices, even goes to a chess club, and I could see it in the way she moved. Over a long game, she picked off my pieces one by one, methodical the whole way, until—somehow—I out-maneuvered her, slipped a string of checks, and capitalized on one fatal slip to win. I got lucky. For most of that game, my nine-year-old niece was the one kicking my butt. Chess is definitely something I want to get back to soon, with Duolingo keeping me honest.

Reading/Learning

Here’s the one habit I managed to keep going without any trouble. Reading is second nature for me; I don’t need incentives, tricks, or gimmicks. I read every day, sometimes several books at once, alternating between genres and formats—physical books during the day, the Kindle at night, since it’s easy to prop open and doesn’t need a light that might wake my wife. I average at least 80 finished books a year, plus another dozen or so I set down unfinished. I used to feel guilty about that, forcing my way to the last page of everything I started, convinced that something would eventually click and make it worthwhile. Then I made peace with it: there are far too many books I still want to read to waste time grinding through one that isn’t working.

Learning is much the same. I’ll occasionally start an online course or pick up a book on something I want to understand better, but the reality is that in software, not a day goes by without learning something new—and with AI tools that can digest a topic or answer a specific question on the spot, I’d say I’m learning more than ever. I know some people will raise an eyebrow at the part where I admit I use AI to help me learn, so let me explain how.

It used to be that if you wanted a definition or some detail about a new method or algorithm, you’d open a search engine, hunt around for a few relevant-looking articles, then open them one by one and read, skim, or dig in until you had what you needed. It was slow, full of dead ends, and often a waste of time when the articles weren’t thorough enough. Now I can run those same searches in plain English, asking questions as if I’m talking to someone across the table. It’s so much easier to keep moving when you can simply ask.

My mother likes to say that learning doesn’t take up space in your brain—and this is one of the few things I not only do every single day, but genuinely look forward to.

Date Nights

About three years ago, I realized work was keeping me too busy, and once my wife rejoined the workforce, it felt like the two of us barely had time for a real conversation. Our three daughters keep us busy all day—not because they’re demanding, but because we’re the kind of parents who want to be involved and present in their lives. So my wife and I fell into a pattern: we’d start a conversation one day, then pick it up and drop it again and again over the following days. It wasn’t unusual to stretch a single topic across a whole week—a few minutes here on Monday, a few more on Wednesday, each exchange resuming where the last left off—before we felt we’d actually finished it.

So I started scheduling a weekly date night—no matter what the week threw at us, no matter how tired we were or what had passed between us, we’d go out and spend some time just the two of us. People tend to assume a date night means a formal dinner or some fancy plan, but we agreed early on that the point was simply being together; where we went and what we did mattered far less.

Three years in, we’ve kept the tradition and only missed a couple, almost always because something unmovable landed on the same evening. Like any couple, we have our ups and downs, but date night is the one constant—and it helps enormously when we need to talk through something real about us or our long-term plans, the kind of thing that shouldn’t have to unfold over a week of scattered five-minute conversations. By now, my parents know not to call on date night; they know I’ll be focused on my wife and on how much it matters that we stay fully present for each other.

Game Nights

Game night is another tradition, this one from last year. My daughters are growing up, and as their friendships and lives at school expand, it sometimes feels like we can all be under the same roof and still struggle to truly be together. So once a week we set aside a night just for us and pick a game—usually Scrabble or some trivia game, though lately they’ve added dominoes and bingo. The previous week’s winner chooses the food we order in, and we make a whole experience of it. Things come up now and then, and we’ve missed a few—like the night we went to see Hamilton—but we’ve mostly kept it going. Getting everyone to agree on a game isn’t always easy, and of everything we’ve taken up as a family these past two years, this is the one we’ve been least consistent about. Still, I want to protect it, because I believe that even a single hour of being fully present with each other, eating good food and laughing, is worth more than just about anything else.

Life in General

You know how they say you never step in the same river twice? This year has been one long stretch of introspection for me. Turning 52 today and looking back at everything that’s happened to me and my family, I can’t help being moved by the fact that my kids are growing up and starting lives of their own—lives that no longer revolve around my wife and me.

My oldest graduated from college last year, and between work and travel, it’s only a matter of time before she’s living on her own. The next just started college, and she’s already a step ahead of where the others were—more self-reliant, with more of a life established outside the house. And our youngest, having grown up trailing two independent sisters, may be furthest along of all. The more I sit with everything they’re moving through, and how fast it’s all going, the harder it is to picture the day they’re all gone and it’s just my wife and me.

I know it sounds melodramatic, but I get nostalgic for the days when they were little and wanted my attention all the time—because now I’m the one angling for theirs. It’s not that they’ve disappeared from our lives; it’s just not the same. Maybe you have to have kids of your own to understand what I mean.

At the same time, I watch my parents navigate the fallout of getting older—real health problems on top of the ordinary wear and tear. They live barely ten minutes away, and yet, between my schedule and how much of myself I pour into work, I hardly see them—maybe once a week. The days feel like they’re slipping past, and I keep noticing how much of my life I’ve spent working for someone else, spending my energy, my health, and probably my best years on something other than the people I care about most.

Call it a midlife crisis if you want. More than ever, I feel the weight of the choices I’ve made, and how much the choices ahead are going to matter. From here on, I want to spend my minutes deliberately—on the things, people, and experiences actually worth my time.

I love being in a position to work with brilliant people, and to turn the relationships I build with them into teams that are not just capable and efficient, but genuinely respectful, creative, and inventive. I joke that my role is to bring people together and then look after them—that I’d happily be the one fetching everyone’s coffee while they gather and do the real work. My job is to make sure they’re comfortable and fulfilled.

Looking back at all of it, I want every hour I spend away from my daughters, my wife, my parents—my family—to go toward work that actually improves the world and other people’s lives, not just toward building shiny things in the name of revenue. I get it: we live in a capitalist world, and I do enjoy my paycheck every two weeks. But I care just as much about the legacy I leave behind. With the clock ticking and my own mortality a little more visible at 52, I just want to be sure that whatever I do from here is worth my while.

What Is This Doing Here? ;)

Which brings me to today. June 8th is my birthday, and this year I’ve decided to take the day off—not for anything in particular, but to actually do the thing I’ve spent this whole post talking about: spend it with the people I care about most, give a little more of myself to them, and, for once, a little more to my own well-being too. Call it the first of those deliberate minutes.

And since it is my birthday: if anyone feels moved to send something my way, my Amazon wish list is conveniently—shamelessly—up to date. No pressure, of course. I’m just saying that the clock is ticking, and so is the free two-day shipping.