why i'm starting this

I love spamming my friends paragraphs of thoughts, pictures, and things I find interesting. With Alex especially, a lot of our conversations are just understanding each others thought frameworks. I've always kept a very open line of communication with my closest people and developed a habit of documenting parts of my life I find notable. Pushing some of those reflections out once a month.

guatemala

Recently hiked Volcán Fuego with my roommates. Harder than the reels make it look but standing at 13,000 feet watching a volcano erupt is hard to put into words. Last-minute trip I'm grateful for. Antigua is well-developed and tourist-facing. Everything beyond Guatemala City to Panajachel…is not. Dirt bikes and 4x4s are the preferred form of transportation.

Saujash and I stepped into a local grocery store and were struck by the near-absence of fresh produce. In the U.S., cold-chain logistics move perishables from, ex. Mexico to Texas efficiently. In Guatemala the refrigerated transport and road infrastructure just isn't there. Most locals buy fresh from farmers markets, but even those were geographically restricted. What looks like a food problem is usually a logistics problem since it seems doubtful that they don't have a developed ag business.

Guatemala is also going through a popularity boom so many towns around Atitlan were under heavy construction. In a decade I'm sure there will be a more established tourism pathway but at the moment part of the excitement is the spontaneity.

graduating texas

Finished my B.S. in ECE at UT Austin, and starting my M.S. in ECE this fall. Legacy was a word that stuck with me through the last month of school. One of my core success metrics over the last four years and the next twenty was never really technical. I could throw everything else out and still feel proud if the connections I made are strong enough that, twenty years from now, the friends I met still reach out just to say hey.

I think this boils down to the definition of self-purpose. For some of my peers, the goal has always been the job at the end of the program. I'd be naive to say I didn't care about that too, but I think what mattered more to me was building strong bonds with people who share the same values. Not necessarily the same views, but the same kind of internal compass.

Also really excited for the upcoming football season. Our WR and RB rooms are among the strongest in the country, and the Muschamp hire at DC feels like the right complement to Sark's aggressive offense. The defense needed an identity — I think it gets one.

coinbase and the bay area

Started at Coinbase as a software engineer building financial infrastructure. My coworkers are easy to admire: very high-agency, sharp, with a rare mix of social IQ and technical depth. The Bay is still a monoculture; nearly everyone is in tech and success is a one-definition word. AI trade is accelerating regardless of the Iran war supply chain crisis or domestic policy…post last weeks earnings Dell is up ~40% on AI server demand, Anthropic just surpassed OpenAI to become the most-valued LLM company, and the Pope is advocating for AI disarmament wow.

I prefer the diversity of thought in Austin over SF. But like any industry node, politics in D.C., finance in New York, fashion in Paris, if you want to push the boundary of your field, you spend the early years somewhere aggressive. Texas is still the greatest state out of the fifty. Texans carry a certain swagger, and I've always felt like we come out a little more well-rounded than most.

how I think about balance

Something I keep coming back to is what impact actually means. The tech world has a specific definition of it, and I do want to build things that matter at that scale. I like ambitious systems, hard problems, and the idea that good engineering can reach millions of people quietly.

But I've also noticed that staying grounded requires doing things that do not optimize for anything, which is a theme the Bay Area glazes over. Travel is one version of that for me. I've always liked Jacques Pepin because the point was never just the food or the place. It was the way he paid attention. He treated a meal, a city, or a random conversation as something worth taking seriously without making it feel overly polished.

Cooking and baking do something similar. They end with something I made instead of something I solved. No leaderboard, no performance review, no hidden metric. Just taste, timing, texture, and whether people stay at the table a little longer than they planned to.

A lot of people in my life are strong artists, and being around them has made me respect creativity in a more physical way. There is something cool about making things with your hands, whether that's a new recipe, sketching, painting, or any new skill.

That's why I want to take watercolor painting classes in San Francisco. Painting really is NOT one of my strong qualities but I think it's a skill I'd like to develop a little more. At least to the point where I don't embarrass myself.

After a week of solving other people's problems, making something with my hands feels like the part that is most mine.

traveling california

Only been here a week, but I'm trying to see as much as possible this summer. Alex and I hiked Point Lobos and drove down to Carmel-by-the-Sea, which felt like a mix of Newport and Hawaii. The Pacific is cold enough that a wetsuit is basically non-negotiable if you're surfing or swimming. Sunsets here are amazing, much better than Texas. California has this hazy evening light that settles over the mountains and makes everything look a little cinematic.

Also got invited to a Saint Laurent runway show at Stanford. Way outside my comfort zone but worth experiencing. Unique to be in a room where the environment is completely alien to what I'm used to.

Spent two days walking through SF's neighborhoods. Flatly zoned city, similar to D.C. or Paris; intentionally done to preserve the integration with nature but personally not a fan of the architecture. Might be the most diverse cuisine I've seen in the U.S. I like SF more than NYC but less than summer in Chicago.

Walked through Menlo Park and Palo Alto to get a feel for the tech suburbs. Big fan of Palo Alto…Menlo Park is too tech-bro for my taste.

cool stuff i've watched recently

2022 NatGeo documentary on Japanese illegal whaling. The conservation angle was expected but what surprised me was how well it showed illegal fishing hiding behind bureaucratic systems that look official but mask corruption. China's distant-water fishing fleet has faced repeated IUU accusations; once illegal catch is processed and relabeled, it enters the same market as legal seafood.

Global fisheries and aquaculture were worth ~$452B at first sale in 2022, and illegal fishing costs an estimated $10–23B annually. Boats ignoring quotas undercut fishermen on price. Labels like 'fair catch' make consumers feel better without proving anything. Good case study in how transparency breaks down across long supply chains.

goals for next month

  • 01 Take a painting class — something creative that isn't cooking
  • 02 Get to Santa Cruz and practice surfing
  • 03 Make the trip to Lake Tahoe with Alex and intern friends
  • 04 Reconnect with friends in the Bay and back in Texas