Wedding in the Family

 

Last week I was in Austin, TX, for an academic conference and the weekend before that I was at my mom's wedding. Only one more wedding to go this year in Arizona and then maybe a wedding break for a bit. Over the course of life, it seems that the rate of weddings, births, and passings is non-random in one's own attendance. People spend a lot of time with those who are in a similar age of life and this plays a part. I suppose that's why some people jokingly refer to the late twenties or early thirties as the era of weddings and babies relative to teenage years or one's fourties. But as far as I know, there is no perfect, externally set time time to have a kid, get engaged, or die. It's a rate of occurrence that is circumstantial and related to the pace of human life itself. Our actions and reactions to these events is tied to the age and time at which they occur. That is my takeaway from doing something, anything, at a certain time and age. 

As for my own academic journey and career, time is of the essence. There is always another project to consider and opportunity cost to evaluate. If you are not weighing one project against many others, maybe you need to seek out more ideas to compare against.

The castle that the wedding took place at.

Brett and I at the Solid Freeform Fabrication poster session last week

Wedding in the Immediate Friend Group

 

Kat and Conrad are working together now. It was a great weekend and so many little moments packed into such a short time. A lot of life got put into a finer perspective this weekend. We are all growing older into another chapter of life, through our twenties and growing ever more mature. I'm so glad my speech was well received and I was able to be a good Best Man for Conrad and Kat.

So many things were perfect and reminded me of their shared interests. The ceremony was sweet and personal in the best way and now those two are off to Europe for a honeymoon. 

Here is an important part of my speech about Conrad

"""

He is a fundamentally kind person and I have always sought to surround myself with more people like him. Because he builds up the people around him, and that is something I deeply respect and do not forget about him.

–

I met Conrad after we both arrived at MIT. He and I lived down the hall from each other and one of my earliest memories of us being friends happened around 3 AM one night, over a month after we arrived on campus. — That night, we found ourselves with some of our new pals at an IHOP on the North Shore of Mass eating as many pancakes as we could, after skinny dipping in the cold Atlantic ocean. If we could jump together into that near freezing water, joke around, and then fight to see who could eat 12 large pancakes, we could get along, be friends, and we could push through MIT together. He made me feel, for the first at MIT, like I was part of a group. And that is an amazing skill.

"""

It was icing on the cake that Coyote could be there too and she is doing so well in a new job.

The venue hall and ceremony courtyard

Another Swiss Trip plus Italy

 

I went to Switzerland again last month to pick up Coyote and come back to the US with her. She finished her thesis with flying colors and afterwards, we took the train into Italy. It was a wonderful trip with some great travelling partners. We stopped by Lucerne on the way and I got a great view of the city.

Italy was a blast. We got to travel with one of C's friends and her Italian boyfriend. Obviously, it is great to travel with someone who knows the country and language. The cathedrals, night time walks, food, and everything else was a dream. I will be returning at some point. I liked that we were able to stop by some of the lesser crowded points of the Tuscan countryside. Agriturismos are the way to visit that part of the country. I learned all 20 regions of Italia and now I need a reason to eventually see them all.

After the trip, Coyote sent me on a fun quiz to visit the statues of Geneva. Here is Gandhi's.

Progress Post Quals and Summer 2025 Excitement

It's June again, which means I turn another year older. June is one of my favorite months. Usually it means a shift from routine work to more experimental work. From educative and directly productive efforts, to more adventurous tasks.

A month ago, I heard that my qualifying exam at Northeastern was accepted without conditions. This was very great news to hear. I was very happy at the moment. I can switch now from that educative preparation to exploring the use cases of two core technologies from my lab at Northeastern, the Transformative Robotics Lab. In this effort, I attended the New England Manipulation Symposium at MIT CSAIL last week. Brett and I went over some of our work.

A lot of folks there used a sensor called a GelSight, to measure surface deformation. Here is an image of my Claddagh ring under that sensor. 

And here is an image of my 3D printed insoles after being worn down. Not all technology works without fatigue forever. I am improving the methods of producing 3D printed foam goods this summer for potential commercialization.

But, in the weekends I still find time to go on little adventures. Mountain Osceola has nothing on me and my hiking buddies. 

Switching from educative to adventurous a bit this June. I am looking forward to this summer, despite the greater concerns, I will be with my good folks along the way.

Getting Out, Agency, and Change of Pace

 

I completed my time with Physical Sciences Inc this past week. I am no longer an employee there as I transition to working more at Northeastern on robotic surfaces and 3D printed foams. A colleague of mine and I at Northeastern were awarded the NU Spark Fund to develop durable 3D printed foams for use in orthotics and related consumer products. I believe that the future of digital manufacturing is the customization of more things. To achieve this, we need flexible tooling that can mold, cast, or print weird and variable shapes. I am getting out of one part in my career and getting into another.

The way I see it, there are about 10 chunks of time in one's working career. Each chunk is about 5 years long. If one starts working as a teenager, mowing lawns or tutoring or in the service economy, and finishes their working career in their sixties, that's 50 years. As of Jan '24, the median employee tenure in the US was 3.9 years. This dropped from 4.1 years in Jan '22. Tenure varies a lot by industry, but 5 years is close to a "chunk" as I define it, a little more than average for a job. The average job tenure in the US used to be much higher for what it's worth. There is a lot to write about this change and others have done so.

I have completed the first two chunks of my working life. The first chunk occurred between high school and college. The second chunk was my time at PSI and start of graduate school.

I have about 80% of the way to go. This is intimidating! But I feel that I am in control and I have agency over what I do. That helps me feel content and happy.

There is a change of pace going on in my life and I welcome it. We all naturally shift our focus in life, this is a period when I shift mine. I think I will get out into the city a bit more as I spend less time around the 'north shore' area of Massachusetts. 

My friend Brett took the photo of Bova's in the North End. I like the range of dark and light and I enjoy the warmth. Plus, I have been to this bakery a few times late at night. I enjoy Bova's and places like it because of the character of the locale. The place is unique and it has a sense of whimsy about it. I have been thinking about how much I like genuine new places and experiences.

Some of my friends and I visited a cabin in February. We made a snow princess, had hot cocoa, and played some party games. It restored the soul.

View of Boston Harbor from Eastie

I went to Stowe, VT, a couple weekends ago to go skiing.

View of Mt Mansfield in VT from the ski lift that day.

Foam testing!

Good Times are Made

 

Since my last post, I travelled to Switzerland for Thanksgiving and I enjoyed Christmas with my family in Michigan. In the case of both holidays, I saw how good times are made. Enjoying good times take work and they involve effort. I have heard people joke about how 'ironic' it is that everyone gets so worked up over the holidays, which are supposed to represent a calmer time in comparison to the rest of the year filled with work obligations. 

My Holiday thesis is that these 'good' times should take some effort. Family holidays are the culmination of thought, care, extra-flair, and some panache. I am not saying we should work so hard that we then enjoy Holiday Heart Syndrome. Maybe people simply enjoy the poking and I am reading into a joke too much. I like to build a tradition and spend some extra time on something during the holidays. Shared actions can be one of my favorite ways to build a familiar relationship.

I've met people who appear to have many things of which to be thankful. I assumed they were satisfied and that they were happy. Often, I eventually find out that there is something tearing away at them, just like everyone else. That is the nature of desire. Let holidays be a reprieve from that duḥkha. Good times are made, leave desire aside for a moment if you can. 

My fourth semester of grad school is here. I am whipping together new things to keep myself busy. I received the good news that my Robosoft 2025 paper was accepted. Brett and I will be going to Lausanne in April. Many things to look forward to beyond.

Empty campus during break

Charles river before the snow

Murals at Baker Library of Dartmouth

My mom's dogs

Halfway done with one half of two fifths of one twentieth

 

I ran a half marathon last weekend. It was the Cambridge Half Marathon and it was certainly Type 2 fun. It hurt in the moment, but I am very glad I did it. The weather was perfect and the crowd was energetic. When I run for a couple miles, I inevitably find myself breaking down the chunks of space and time into fractions - "I'm 1/5 of the way to the halfway point." or "There is one third to go, which means I need to repeat half of the effort that I have put in so far!"

I know this is a bit silly, the total distance can be represented by one scalar value, such as percent completed. I believe some part of my psyche has trouble pushing myself harder physically with this single scalar representation. What's special about being 13.5% done? Or 64.4% done with a chosen distance? For the first example, that is close to 1/8. I can easily imagine 1/8 in a pie graph even if those two quantities are nearly the same. I think part of my mental model wants to simplify the real number that represents this distance into a integer based value. I think this allows me to enjoy little victories throughout the race and mentally gear myself forward to the next little victory. Each mile marker becomes a tiny celebration.

The same thing happens in my formal studies and in the accumulation of capital. I celebrate the end and state of each semester or project. There is something garnered and something to come. In my search for meaning, this is something that yields higher complex pleasure and enjoyment in my life. Having something to look forward towards is crucial and a key part of desire. Maybe someday when I find it much harder to desire and obtain, I will turn towards a mental model that encourages the reduction of desire. Sattva is not so bad right?

The trees are sticks now and the winter is on the way. I worry about maybe different things for the next few years and the years after that. I want to see more powerful structures plan for the longer term. I want greater stability for longer times to come. This reflects my age is some ways. I am young and building experiences in my career and life. These will hopefully yield greater stability in my future. Although I am just one person and I have a small impact in the greater world, even if I were to accumulate some large degree of influence over others. The world will keep turning, the temperature will rise, calories will be burned.

The stink at the Boston Museum of Science is very long.