2022 Annual Letter

2022 was a good year! I lived in Bozeman, MT for the first few months, moved back to NYC, and found an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I signed the first 12-month lease of my life and am happy to be more settled! Still working at Capital One and am going into the office around twice a week. I made a few trips to see family and friends. Swam real intently for a bit more than a month and realized that I don't want my whole life to be swimming. Though, I did still have a few memorable swims! My cup feels very full having witnessed many special moments and transitions in the lives of my friends. 🥳🥳

Me and the twins kidding around in our sweat suits before an evening at the mall arcade.

I began 2022 in Bozeman. I spent the winter in Bozeman after moving there from Queens in October. It was really fun to spend more time with my sister Denise and her family. The picture above shows my nieces and I before we headed to an evening at the mall. As we strolled into the mall in our sweat suits, my nieces commented that they recognized the group of people across the hallway as friends from school. My sister who was out to dinner (I was babysitting) soon received a call and a text from the worried mom we had seen in the hallway that her kids were with a "strange man"... Denise got a huge kick out of it! I mean... we looked pretty great... 😏  And had an epic trip to the arcade!

Rock climbing became my daily exercise, and I enjoyed getting to delve deeper into that sport and seeing my technique and strength improve with practice.

I made several visits to see my friends Chet and Meghan in Sacramento. Chet and I had lots of fun cutting down and burning trees on his ranch. 

 

 Turns out a leaf blower makes a pretty great bellows!

My friend Wesley rented an Airbnb in Salt Lake City to ski for a month, so I popped down there for a week. 

We had a blast hiking along ridges to find chutes full of fresh snow!

After visiting Salt Lake City, I continued south to St. George to see my parents. Papa was hard at work creating some cement sculpture art, this time in the form of a water fountain.

I dyed my hair blue! I have wanted to dye it again, but since I'm in the pool fairly often, the dye will fade oh-so quickly.

Before moving back to NYC, I made a trip out to Seattle to see my friend Adrian. We had a nice time hanging out in Seattle and taking a little sailing trip in Lake Washington.

And after Seattle, I went to Lincoln to see my brother Davis and his girlfriend Sophie. We had a great time at the arcade! (I liked arcades... lol) They are tearing it up on dance dance revolution.

Upon arriving back in NYC, I sublet my friend Curtis's apartment in Washington Heights for a few months as I got my feet under me. And, I couldn't resist getting my feet into the Hudson River while there!

Curtis's apartment was about 1.5 miles south of the George Washington Bridge (pictured in the background above) and so my goal was to try to swim up to the bridge against the current. My first attempt didn't work so well as I found I was swimming about 1/3 as fast as normal. For my second (and last) attempt, I thought I'd try hugging the shore as closely as possible, swimming only about 3-5 feet from the bank. The current was much less strong and this allowed me to easily (except for a few scrapes from rocks and trees) swim right up to the bridge! This was one of my most exciting swims as on the way back down river I went far into the channel. As I casually breaststroked my way down river, the city gleamed before me with the bank wizzing by. It took me about an hour or so to swim up to the bridge and only ten minutes to get back. 😎 

I took my first master course in Machine Learning: CS221 from April to June. It was definitely a lot of work and a real joy! I started going into the office in Union Square about twice a week. After spending April and May in Washington Heights, I found an apartment in Park Slope near Prospect Park, the central park of Brooklyn.

My close friends Jon and his sister Rebecca (pictured) along with Jon's wife Kat and Becca's husband Ollie (not pictured) welcomed two baby girls into the family! It has been such a delight to get to see Josephine (left) and Iris (right) grow and discover the world! And I'm delighted to play the uncle. 😊 

And these girls have given me plenty of experience as an Uncle!

I headed back out West to see the family for the 4th of July. Within an hour of my arrival, my nieces and their friend Madie asked me to take them to get frozen yogurt. I made a resolution a few years ago to take more pictures of people, and I'm really grateful to have snapped this selfie! It's hard to believe that Megan, the oldest, can legally drive!

And since I was out west, I figured I'd see a few friends! My friend Garrett has developed an organic farm at this parent's place in Washoe Valley, about 30 miles south of Reno. If there is one thing that boy can do, it's grow things. I'm very proud of all his hard work!

In mid-September, my mom and dad, brother Dylan, and I went to Lincoln, NE to visit Davis and Sophie.

 

We biked about a 100-mile section of the Cowboy Trail in northern Nebraska.

Max, a friend from college, and I have started doing joint birthdays. Our first official joint birthday took place near Buffalo, NY at Claire's, Max's now fiance's, parent house on Lake Erie. Max proposed to Claire that weekend at a lighthouse when the three of us were on a run. I was the photographer and was very grateful to be able to share that moment with the two of them! This picture shows the crew celebrating their engagement after we got back from the run!

I had a fun swim in Lake Erie! It was strange to swim in such a large body of freshwater. Since the house was on the north side of the lake, the north-blowing winds would bring fairly large waves upon the short. A few of us had a blast hopping between the hot tub and the cold lake.

In early November, I headed down to Baltimore for my friends Wes and Malavika's wedding!

Wes and Malavika had a bachelorette/bachelor party in New Orleans between the bike trip to Nebraska and Max and my birthday weekend. Then in November, we all converged on a beautiful wedding venue in Baltimore for their wedding! It was one of the most beautiful weddings I have attended, and I had a wonderful time meeting new people, getting dressed up, and helping out! 

For a few weeks around Thankskgiving, my friend Jon and his wife Kate invited me to stay with him at a community-owned house in Big Sur. I ran multiple loops around the trail in the state park next door and got a chance to go swimming once! It was fun to be in the Pacific again. I did a few laps between ends of a cove a Pfeiffer beach and on my last lap, I saw a pod of 4 dolphins swimming about 20 feet away from me! Definitely, the coolest animal encounter I have had while swimming. 🐬 🐬 🐬 🐬 

Then, for Christmas, I headed to Bozeman, MT.  Unfortunately, there was no family Christmas photo this year because I ended up bringing covid home for the holidays and infecting my parents. No one else got it because they stayed away and got stranded in Bozeman for a few days amidst flight disruptions. Turns out covid can still screw up Christmas!