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I haven't really felt like writing my personal
newsletter for the last half of summer. I just wasn't
feeling like I needed to document and share my world. Part
of it was I am deep in the Claude Mines working on my
business, but mostly it is just summer and I was taking
things day by day, and a weekly recap didn't really
serve any purpose in my world. But I'd like to get
back in the groove now that we've rolled into
September and begun the slide into winter and the New
Year.
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Steve and Audrey at Frena in Hell's Kitchen
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Audrey and I went to dinner with my partner in crime Steve
Willmott last night at Frena in Hell's Kitchen. I had
met with Steve earlier in the week for a walk in the park
to talk about our collaboration on
APis.io,
API Commons, and
APIs.json. But it has been quite some time since Audrey and Steve
and I have hung out, so we made time for dinner on his way
back through. We are all getting a bit older, and
it's nice to sit out on the street and talk about
APIs, AI, and other non-technical real life things like
books and marathons.
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The meat chandelier at the Calabria Pork Store.
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One of the big milestones from August was Audrey's
55th birthday. She chose for a day trip up to
Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. It is a place outside of this time. I looks like
something out of a mobster movie with every person in each
of the stores and on the streets straight out of central
casting. It was beautiful. It is a world full of the best
things I've ever had. The best sandwich. The best
cannoli. I'm not kidding. It was the best food
I've had. We brought home olive bread, raviolis, and
other goodies to keep us dreaming about coming back.
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The pond in Central Park in the evening.
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In the evenings we talk "fart walks". Otherwise
Poppy (not me) is a little gassy in bed. We walk for an
hour and half up the Hudson River along the Westside
Parkway or we discover entirely new places to go in
Central Park. We were doing it just up the Westside
Parkway, but expanded this summer to include expanding our
"civilization" map of Central Park, exploring
the corners of the park we don't see. Audrey and I
both do the loop almost every day, but there are walking
paths and corners we never venture into and these walks
help us get to know the park better.
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Kid trying to get his scooter out from under a taxi.
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As we were leaving for a fart walk one evening we saw a
young kid get hit on his scooter by a taxi. He was fine,
but seriously shaken up. Both the kid on his scooter and
the taxi stopped at the cross walk, but the taxi decided
he had right of way and gunned it, just as the kid pulled
out. He flew up onto the hood with his scooter getting
lodged under the taxi. The taxi driver was an asshole, and
Audrey called 911, with police, fire, and EMT arriving
quickly. I have no grace for taxi drivers from my time
riding around the city. They are aggressive and hold no
quarter for anyone, so of course I'm supportive of
the kid who we gave our cell phone in case he needs us.
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The farmers market on the Upper West Side.
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The walk up to the farmers market on the Upper West Side
on Sunday continues to be the higlight of our week. The
walk up there. The sitting and waiting for it to open. The
visiting of each stall. And the walk home. Just make for a
bright Sunday morning. The food has transformed our diet.
The pig ears, chicken feet, and bison bones have spoiled
Poppy. It is something to look forward to when it comes to
both ending and starting the week. It just sets the right
tone and balance for our world right now.
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Poppy ride up 6th Avenue from downtown.
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Of course, the rides on the bike with Poppy in the park
and throughout the city continue to be the magic in each
of my days. We've missed a few rides due to extreme
heat or rain, but we are rolling over 2000 miles on our
second bike. Poppy continues to thrill her fans, and I
absolutely love the smiles we get while rolling around the
park and city. The turning of frowns into smiles and the
excited exclamations in a variety of languages just makes
it so much fun. I continue to get so lost out there each
day forgetting about being online, while Poppy is
absolutely lost and obsessed with Squirrel Patrol (TM).
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Pork and street corn is the best!!
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Some Saturdays or Sundays when we are rolling down 7th
Avenue or back up 6th Avenue, coming or going from the
park, and as we make our way to and from downtown
we'll encounter street fairs. Poppy has become
familar with smell of the barbecues cooking meat and
vegetables and will begin nudging me with her nose when we
roll by one of the street grills selling pork skewers and
street corn. They both are her favorite, and as we eat the
pork from skewer and she grinds away on the corn with her
teeth we'll accumulate lines of people taking her
picture. She loves the attention and the stops have become
a regular occurrence in our wanderings.
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New machinery in midtown.
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My systems brain was captivated by some new machinery
going into a new skyscraper the other day. We were rolling
by on the bike path and I pulled over to inspect the
machinery. There were three or four of these units being
unloaded from a truck, inspected, and then quickly lifted
by the crane to the top of the new buildings. I have no
idea what they do, but they look impressive, and will come
in handy as one of my Algorotoscope photos for use in my
storytelling.
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Racoon family.
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There is a family of five raccoons in the park lately.
We've seen them four or five times. Sometimes they
are all together and sometimes they are separated.
They've been crossing the street and up in trees
looking down at us. Poppy is excited by raccoons, but she
has a different response than she does with cats and
squirrels. She is a little more reserved. We think it is
from her time in Oakland scrapping with the raccoons who
were pretty large and intimidating.
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The Spelling Bee (We get there early)
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We went and saw the Spelling Bee in the theater recently.
It was delightful. I love getting lost in theater. The
production had Jon Cryer of Pretty in Pink and Two and a
Half Men fame. The actors were very entertaining as kids,
with one of the leads absolutely nailing her character. In
this online world we live in I am thankful to be in New
York and have access to such world class theater, as it
allows me to be transorted away from anything digital to a
more meaningful space and time that I wish I could get
more of.
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Leaving Naftiko for APIs.io and API Evangelist
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I published a blog post today about leaving Naftiko, which I did June 1st. I told my co-founder I'd
wait until the end of summer to formally anounce. I know
how my audience works, and I got a lot of people who had
missed the signs and I hadn't seen in person
anywhere. I shared simply that it wasn't a fit for my
vision, and outline how my
APIs.io
and API Evangelist work is what mattters right now. More
than Naftiko. More than Bloomberg. More than Postman. More
than any job, paycheck, or investment. I'm pretty
obsessed with getting my Kin Score out there right now,
and the discovery work on
APIs.io
and governance work on API Evangelist is finally able to
make this happen.
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Two non-fiction books I digested in August was
Enshittification by Cory Doctorow
and
More Everything Forever by Adam Becker. Both books reframed my perspective of what is happening
right now with technology, with Enshittification leaving
me with core tenants of my Kin Score work and the
importance of interoperability, competition, and
regulation when it comes to balancing things right now.
More Everything Forever just showed me how absolutely
batshit crazy the people are who lead the whole AI
conversation right now, and how we need to reign things in
before they absolutely fuck over the planet and humanity
for their little boy scifi fantasies from the 1950s.
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The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin.
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I an just about to finish the 3rd book in the science
fiction series by N.K. Jemisin. The first book The Fifth Season, and the second one The
Obelisk Gate were beautifully written. I am eagerly
consuming the last half the third book, The Stone Sky
right now. She is an amazing world builder. I love the
attention to detail she gives her work. I love the
perspective. I've learned a lot about fiction writing
from this series. Bonus is that the world she's build
reminds me of eating LSD back at my best friends house,
where I'd spend all night lost inside of many
different crystals and stones, thinking about the energy
and power that aligns and fragments our world.
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It was an amazing summer. I am super thankful for having
been able to walk away from Naftiko and spend it with my
girls and working on exactly the projects that I feel are
needed when it comes to technology right now. Of course it
went by too fast, but I spent it exactly as I wanted. I
worked on
APIs.io
and API Evangelist, rode my bike with Poppy around the
city, listened to jazz with Audrey, got lost reading in
fiction and non-fiction, and even spent time working on my
own fictional storytelling. I am very thankful to be
living in New York right now, and have my API Evangelist
business. My work life balance right now is perfect. I
just need to find a way to keep it this way.
“And the summer came, the New York summer, which is like
no summer anywhere.” - James Baldwin
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