Cortlandt Alley #chinatown #nyc
#tribeca loading bays #nyc
Loft peepin’ on Duane #tribeca #nyc #nytvoyage
Bobby Fischer’s chess club, still active on West 10th #greenwichvillage #nyc
A little #soho in #poughkeepsie #nytvoyage
Palazzo Chupi #nyc #nytvoyage
a year in review, my thirtieth.
timehop reminded me.
i knew it was a moment that was pulling nearer, but i’ve never been good at remembering dates. it was a year ago that i announced i was leaving foursquare, and what a year it has been indeed. my buddy rick took a look back at his year away from his company, barbarian, and i thought it was a nice way to summarize so many days. that got me thinking about all the big things and all the little things that had happened in the year since. so here goes, a collection of some of the most memorable days gone by – my thirtieth year:
- i got healthy. i was a mess when i left: easily fifteen pounds over my usual average. the vents on my suit jackets were always open, and i definitely don’t remember getting them cut that way. when april 1st showed up, i set huge rules for myself both in terms of workouts as well as my diet. in the month of april alone, i cut back ten of those pounds, illegal squatters that they were. i kept a food log and a workout log. i hit the gym early in the morning and then jumped on my bike in the afternoons to meetings around town. i wore my Fuelband and my UP and my Polar heart rate monitor and stepped on my Withings scale over and over until the batteries went flat.
- i spent more time with my family, especially after my sister got into med school in the summer.
- i traveled. and i traveled again. and then once more just for good measure. i went to los angeles, woodstock, austin, marfa, niagara falls and tulum. a few friends told me that the best thing to do would be to leave the country – to give myself entirely to the idea of “going away” instead of small weekend trips. some even threatened to drop me off at JFK some afternoon so i would do it without making excuses to turn back. i finally left on a longer, one-way journey: switzerland; france; monaco; spain; morocco; gibraltar; portugal; germany; greece; turkey; lebanon; jordan; israel; india. and when i came back from that, it still didn’t seem quite enough so mars and i went to santiago, buenos aires, colonia and to the end of the world.
- i went to disneyland. it was the first time i’d ever been in my life and i think we must have ridden space mountain three times in the first hour.
- i went to the olympics. i saw mo farah win and usain and yohan electrify the stadium in the 100 final.
- i went to the beach. and i got a sunburn for the first time in my life. ouch. so that’s what that’s like.
- i learned to drive stick shift. i learned to skateboard. i learned to sail. i learned to snowboard. i picked up even more conversational spanish. some of this came from being in spain and south america but i’ve recently taken to using duolingo as well.
- i helped a handful of startups and made a few good investments in a couple of them. three of them are just about to launch in the spring.
- i read a lot of books - once four in a week! i finally got a kindle and i found i no longer add recommendations to my wishlist – i simply buy them and have them on my kindle instead. when i traveled, i tried to read books that were pertinent to the place i was in (or near). england got the art of travel. paris, a moveable feast. tulum got on the road. cote d’azur got the count of monte cristo. india, the great railway bazaar.
- i kept a proper journal for the first time in my life.
- i became a part-time photographer (but i’d “probably have to keep my normal job”). i learned that photography is as much about art and experience as it is about the numbers. it became a great stress reliever and a way to journal life and my travels. i think this will be a hobby i keep with me as i go on to work on future projects.
- i made a list of my “rules for living” which i try to review everyday and abide by. it’s still a work in progress and i hope to share them one day in a future post.
i always kept saying “year 30” wouldn’t be such a big deal and that it’s just like any other. it turned out to be so much more and i’m grateful for that. my year 10 was a marker in that it was my first full year living in the U.S. my year 20 was a marker in that it was a close to college and found me moving to new york city. and now, year 30 has become a bookend unto itself.
now, back to work.
Yellow Empire State Building #nytvoyage #nyc
Steve and Neile McQueen, Big Sur, California, 1963, (Photo by John Dominis)
Washington Street - Tribeca/West Village, 1913