Stuff that happened

August was another hot & sweaty month, but it finally started to cool down near the end. That cool autumn goodness is around the corner… I can feel it! 

Near the end of August, I celebrated my 30th birthday with my girlfriend Kylea and my buddy Gary in New York City. It was my first time going to The Big Apple so I was really stoked.

We stayed in Manhattan near Times Square, right in the heart of New York City.  It was cool to be there in person, although it was a bit overwhelming with the sheer number of people and bright lights.

The second day was the day of my actual birthday. We walked across the bridge to Brooklyn, where we met up with our friends Gary and Mike to have some beers at a really nice brewery called Other Half. The beers there were insanely tasty.

We then picked up some cans “to go” and had a nice little picnic at Prospect Park. It’d been a really long time since I’d drank beer so my alcohol tolerance was at all time lows. I managed to pace myself and had a solid buzz throughout the entire day.

We wrapped up the day in Williamsburg, where we had an excellent dinner at Rider. Overall a very solid birthday: 10/10 would turn 30 again!!

Our weekend in New York was awesome even though we didn’t get a chance to see and do everything we had planned. I need to go back there at least ten more times to fully experience it. It was surreal to be in the city where so many songs, shows and movies reference or take place. Call me a a lame tourist, but it was awesome to finally Take the A Train (even when I could have easily taken other ones) and visit a bunch of places mentioned in Fat Tony’s song, BKNY.

What I worked on

This month I started working on a side project with my old classmates, Anthony and Grant. I can’t go into detail about what the project is just yet, but I was recruited to help with front end development-related tasks.

Working with Anthony and Grant really brought me back to our days in university when we’d do all-nighters in the depressing, windowless computer labs. It was really cool to see how specialized we’d become in our respective fields. Brings a tear to my eye, I tell ya what!

On a side note, I still have not been able to start mentoring on Exercism.io, something that I mentioned that I would do in my July post. I really need to get on this next month…

What I read

This month I read the book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts by Jaron Lanier. I learned about this book when my friend Alex sent me this article on The Guardian. Social media addiction is something that I think about often so I was really excited to read this book.

Some of the reasons for deleting social media outlined in the book include:

• Social media is making us less empathetic towards those with different views
• Social media allows companies and sketchy people to manipulate your thoughts and feelings
• Social media encourages asshole behaviour (ex: trolls on Twitter and Youtube comments)
• … and more.

The part that really stuck with me was about how social media increases anxiety for it users and pits them in an unnecessary and unwanted competition for attention, “likes”, followers, etc. This quote in particular really struck a chord with me:

What if deeply reaching a small number of people matters more than reaching everybody with nothing?

This is precisely what I’m trying to do with my own blog but I could never find the right words to describe it. Social media can be exhausting because most folks overshare. I’m not really interested in the coffee someone bought or the perfectly crafted avocado toast, but I’d definitely read a digest of what someone is working on or what they have accomplished. I’m going to continue doing just that on my own blog, and if a single person finds it interesting or inspiring I’m a happy man 😙.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts was a good read and I recommend it if you are interested in the subject.

What I played

This month I picked up the game Overcooked for PS4. I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but was it ever good! 

Kylea and I were instantly hooked and beat every level (with three stars, obviously) in a week. What I liked most about Overcooked was how it was easy to pick up even for someone who does not play many games (like my girlfriend) but also offered a decent amount of challenges.

Overcooked was one of the best couch coop games I’ve played. I just picked up Overcooked 2, and I can’t wait to play it.

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That’s all for August! Here’s hoping for cooler weather 🍷