Bruised And Broken Masterpieces
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  • “I am human; and nothing human is alien to me” - Terence

    → 1:33 PM, Feb 11

  • Really enjoyed The Narnian by @ayjay — left contemplating what I find delight in. 📚

    → 7:58 PM, Jan 24

  • Reread The Hobbit for the first time in a few years. It’s a charming tale – and a good reminder that the movies were a complete misinterpretation of the tale – this is a much more innocent story than LOTR.

    → 10:02 PM, Jan 3

  • Books Read in 2022

    I read 38 total books in from the end of 2021 through 20221. Overall I’d say it was a mixed bag this year – looking back I wish I’d spent some more time with some of the books that had a bit more substance and could have skipped some of the lighter fare / so many work books. In 2023 I expect to go a bit deeper (take notes on important work / faith books, aim for more older books that have stood the test of time).

    I’ve put stars next to the books that I enjoyed the most. Overall my favorites were probably

    • The Life We’re Looking For — I love everything Andy Crouch writes, so this wasn’t a surprised. This book tapped into a lot of my feelings of wanting more from life / trying to wrestle with how my faith should change my every day life
    • The Messy Middle - a great book about how to handle the craziness of startup-style work (relevant to me these days, this includes startup style work in larger companies)
    • The Staff Engineer’s Path — a thoroughly practical book about what the career track for software engineers looks like after “Senior Engineer”
    • Project Hail Mary - Great science fiction; I enjoyed this even more than the Martian
    • Dominion — a history of western society through the lens of how it has been shaped / impacted by the Christian church. It’s long and a bit scattered (not many books cover the Library of Alexandria, the Crusades, the Beatles and Black Lives Matter protests), but I was fascinated.

    Faith / Family

    1. ⭐The Life We’re Looking For by Andy Crouch
    2. ⭐ Habits of The Household by Justin Whitmel Earley
    3. Live No Lies by John Mark Comer
    4. The Family Firm by Emily Oster
    5. Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin
    6. Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas
    7. ⭐ The Pursuit of Holiness By Jerry Bridges
    8. A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers by Ethan J. Brue, Derek C. Schuurman, and Steven H. VanderLeest

    “Work Books”: Leadership / Tech

    1. Building For Everyone by Annie Jean-Baptiste
    2. ⭐ How To Decide by Annie Duke
    3. Rituals For Virtual Meetings by Kursat Ozenc and Glenn Fajardo
    4. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
    5. ⭐ The Messy Middle by Scott Belsky
    6. ⭐ The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey
    7. Product Led Growth by Wes Bush
    8. ⭐ Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
    9. ⭐ Escaping the Build Trap By Melissa Perri
    10. ⭐ The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
    11. ⭐ The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly
    12. ⭐ Kill It With Fire by Marianne Bellotti
    13. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

    *I did a deeper dive into these books on my professional blog

    Big Ideas

    1. Drive by Daniel Pink
    2. ⭐Of Boys and Men by Richard V Reeves

    Fiction

    1. The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy
    2. Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy
    3. Executive Orders by Tom Clancy
    4. ⭐Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

    History / Biography / Memoir

    1. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
    2. ⭐ Dominion by Tom Holland (no not that Tom Holland)
    3. An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
    4. ⭐ Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War by Robert Coram

    Hobbies

    1. ⭐ How To Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman
    2. Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg
    3. ⭐ How To Write Short by Roy Peter Clark
    4. 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler
    5. Beyond 5/3/1 By Jim Wendler
    6. ⭐ Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

    Literature

    1. ⭐ Haiku In English: The first 100 years

    1. I had been keeping track of October-October reading, but I forgot to post anything in October and then lost my list of books, so this is ~correctish – I might have forgotten a few books and I may have finished some of these in late 2021 ↩︎

    → 3:37 PM, Jan 2
  • Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
    The flying cloud, the frosty light:
    The year is dying in the night;
    Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

    Ring out the old, ring in the new,
    Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
    The year is going, let him go;
    Ring out the false, ring in the true.

    Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
    For those that here we see no more;
    Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
    Ring in redress to all mankind.

    Ring out a slowly dying cause,
    And ancient forms of party strife;
    Ring in the nobler modes of life,
    With sweeter manners, purer laws.

    Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
    The faithless coldness of the times;
    Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
    But ring the fuller minstrel in.

    Ring out false pride in place and blood,
    The civic slander and the spite;
    Ring in the love of truth and right,
    Ring in the common love of good.

    Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
    Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
    Ring out the thousand wars of old,
    Ring in the thousand years of peace.

    Ring in the valiant man and free,
    The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
    Ring out the darkness of the land,
    Ring in the Christ that is to be.

    In Memoriam Section CVI — Alfred Lord Tennyson

    → 12:07 PM, Jan 1

  • Trying to smoke brisket for the first time. We’ll see how this goes

    → 7:33 AM, Dec 31

  • It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and then circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

    Re-reading The Weight of Glory – probably the single most influential piece of writing on how I view the world.

    → 8:25 PM, Dec 29

  • 7 Months of Lifting At Home

    I picked up a new hobby this year 1! For years I viewed weightlifting as a form of benefial drudgery that I occasionally tolerated but one I have mostly avoided post-college. Then last November I joined a cross-fit style gym and was introduced to Olympic/Powerlifting style barbell lifting. The gym didn’t stick for reasons that had more to do with schedule than anything else, but I pulled my favorite part of it out and have been consistently doing barbell lifting at home since May.

    My home gym setup

    This has been an unexpectedly rewarding experience for me. It’s allowed me to develop a consistent exercise routine with 2 kids in the house (something thats eluded me since Elena was born 4 years ago), reminded me that I can still learn new things at 35, and helped me feel physically the best I’ve felt in a decade. My original goal was to help myself have energy for my kids, and I definitely think I’ve achieved that.

    I’ve been running through the Starting Strength program, unmodified for 3 months and then shifting to a 4 day schedule for the last 4 months. In practice this meant primarily focusing on 5 exercises: the Squat, Bench Press, Overhead Press, Deadlift and Power Clean 2. Initially the schedule looked like this, alternating between A & B 3 days a week

    Workout A Workout B
    Squat 3x5 Squat 3x5
    Bench Press 3x5 Press 3x5
    Power Clean 3x5 Deadlift 3x5

    Doing that much squatting became exhausting around the summer, the workouts became long as I needed longer breaks between sets and I decided I wanted a bit more upper body focus (and better legs for when I was playing basketball and going for walks). So I switched to a 4x a week schedule:

    Tuesday Wednesday Saturday Sunday
    Squat 3x5 Bench Press 3x5 Deadlift 3x5 Bench Press 3x5
    Power Clean 3x5 Press 3x5 Light Squat 3x5 Press 3x5

    Those are the core lifts – this doesn’t include warmups (I usually did a Peloton strectch workout and worked my way up to heavy weights) or accessory exercises (I tried to do rows / ab workouts / pushups on days I was feeling good and having time in the 4xweek schedule)

    Because I had effectively never trained for any of these lifts in a serious way before, I got to see a lot of relatively easy progress just from staying consistent in lifting. The chart below shows the change in my 5 rep max #s throughout the year (these are training numbers – I haven’t been trying to set up for specific max attempts).

    Screenshot on 2022 12 28 at 13 25 00

    Other than a lag in August / September when I traveled and then got sick, I’ve been able to make fairly consistent progress on all of the lifts throughout the year, with some exceptions where I was reworking my form/technique (for DL in June and Squat/Powerclean recently). Overall I’m really pleased with my progress.

    Exercise Initial 5RM Best 5RM % increase
    Squat 175 320 82%
    Bench Press 135 240 77%
    Press 95 145 52%
    Deadlift 205 385 87%
    Power Clean (3RM) 65 170 161%
    Pendlay Row 130 190 46%

    I do think I’m reaching the end of my “linear progression”, and going heavy on legs also wears me out for basketball, which is still my favorite form of exercise. So going into the new year I’m going to be switching to 5/3/1 with a goal of slower but steady progress while also keeping my legs a bit more intact for basketball and exploring other goals rather than just moving numbers for the core lifts.

    1. Technically 2, I also started smoking meats – a nice complementary habit to lifting :) ↩︎

    2. The original program also includes back extensions and chinups – I’ve been swapping in rows instead, but I want to get to chinups in the new year ↩︎

    → 1:38 PM, Dec 28

  • Beyond the left-right binary, it’s a profoundly localist film. Bedford Falls is a place where people aren’t just widgets, but names and faces. The bonds of genuine community help to soften the hard edges of life. Most of us want that for ourselves. (It’s also a film about accepting the limitations that community imposes, something we, like George Bailey, tend to find harder). What we see in the film that so many of are looking for is a sense that an ordinary life is worthy of honor, that money and power aren’t everything, that all of us are in it together. In other words, it’s a movie with a profound sense of the importance of solidarity.

    Reflecting on the difficulties and joys of community a lot lately, and enjoyed this twitter thread about why “It’s A Wonderful Life” still resonates.

    → 6:59 PM, Dec 27

  • Exploring a personal blog for the first time in forever – we’ll see how this goes 🤔

    → 6:45 PM, Dec 27
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