boy in tree; somewhere in MAD water tank portrait; Oaxaca, MEX space needle portrait; Seattle, WA, USA disel fried chicken; somewhere in TX, USA car and tree; somewhere in NIC tacos de cabeza; Oaxaca, MEX guitar and strings; Cadiz, ESP bike trip, still life; somewhere in PA, USA self portrait; Tucson, AZ, USA

The rest of my life

In my free time, I love to run and hike, play soccer (very poorly), play with my family, naturalize and birdwatch, read books, listen to music, cook, and generally explore and experience the world.

I’ve been fortunate to live and work in many places throughout my life. Adventure and happenstance have played very important formative roles in my life. The photos here attempt to capture a few of the many meaningful moments.

Language learning

I am also passionate about the mind-opening experience of language learning.

Japanese, in particular, has been a long, slow, revelatory process.

Since I’ve been asked many times, here a curated list of my favorite resources:

  • Kanji Study app: Phenomenal dictionary and study app (for Android). (Bonus: Add tegaki keyboard to your phone so you can directly search new kanji by drawing. Good fun.)
  • Tae Kim's Japanese grammar guide: I read this cover to cover multiple times when I first started learning Japanese. Quick, practical framework for understanding how the language is put together.
  • Michael Emmerich's Japanese short stories in parallel text: I stumbled upon this book while waiting for a bus in Fukuoka. It remains the most fun and useful resource I've found for learning to parse and understand Japanese syntax in context.
  • Suiran: Over the years, I've never found a simple thing I've wanted: a minimalist app that behaves as closely as possible to actual paper flashcards. So I finally made it. (***NOTE***: If you plan to use this then contact me for details... And so I can make sure we don't overload my free Deno proxy that it currently depends on!)