Sunsetting 2022

Intro

2022 is gone, It went by pretty fast. It was a long year full of changes. Some great, some ok, but overall a great year. I am extremely grateful for being able to continue to go around the earth and enjoy life with my familia.

Familia

Time is a finite resource. I think we are all here for a finite amount of time. So it is key we learn to decide in what we spent every second of our existence.

I got to spend a lot of time with the ones I love the most. I feel thankful and lucky to have an amazing wife and two lovely kids. My wife has been my lovely partner in crime for over half of my life. We been together for over 23 years by now. BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE

Life only got better when we became a family back in 2014. I think being a parent is the most difficult, stressful and rewarding job any person can get. It is not meant for everyone, do not get me wrong. I am not the type of person that says “oh, you should be a parent, etc, etc”. On the contrary, I believe that if you are not sure or you are sure you do not want to form a family you should NOT.

Now, if you want to be a parent and you want to form a family and experience that journey; it is an amazing experience that compares to nothing I have ever done or will do in my life. I do not think I am even great at it, my wife certainly is the best mother any kid could dream of, but I certainly love to do it and in retrospect, I would not change a single minute of it and I love my kids every single day.

Trips

La Provence

After two years of no traveling due to the pandemic, the summer of 2022 was the year we finally said: “enough is enough, we gotta do it”. We spent our summer in La Provence. OMG, what an amazing place. We drove around a lot and visited many towns, walked around them, visited their markets, learned about their history, the people, etc. Our kids enjoyed the never-ending sunny days and we spent plenty of time by the pool. (Note: If you live long enough in Seattle, you get to appreciate the sun)

As if that was not enough, La Provence is in France, so naturally, you will enjoy amazing food, wines and pastries. Let’s just say I am happy we walked a lot every day. Otherwise, those daily asados would have left a mark on us.

Oregon ocean

As if France was not enough, our friends convinced us to spend some time in the coast of Oregon. We rented a lovely home by the water and we spent a few days there. This was a first for me as well, I had never rented a house by the water in Oregon and I fell in love with the place. TIP: If you want to spend some alone with your special someone and do not want to travel far away from Seattle, this is it. Little to no phone signal, amazing views and a great place to clear your mind out and enjoy a glass of wine with your partner.

New York

The last time I was in New York was about 25 years ago. I was a tourist for a few days so let’s just say, I had a bad concept and memory of NYC. Not my favorite city in the world. Gosh, I was wrong. Staying there for over a week and enjoying the city mostly as a local and not a tourist changed my perspective 100%. I love all of the NYC streets and neighborhoods. The city has changed so much and there are so many places to enjoy and live without even realizing you are in such a huge metropolis.

I gotta say my favorite bakery and coffee shop was La Cabra down on 2nd Ave. I am subscribed to their coffee for over a year now, but I had never tasted the coffee made by them. I can attest to the quality of their coffee coming out of Denmark, but I had never had the chance to taste them prepared by a La Cabra barista. Now, their bakery blew my brain. It is incredible, I would say one of the best in NYC.

Reading & Listening

I have not been reading enough. I wanted to get back to reading as much as I could and audiobooks have been my solution. I do not have the cycles to read books as much as I would like and most of the time I have time I am actually doing something else. Walking, driving, cooking, laying down, etc. So paper books are not my solution, not to mention my eyes get tired of reading and working most of the day so again audiobooks are great.

I am proud, happy, and feel accomplished and I have this feeling of learning new things, that I was missing lately. I read over 12 books in 2022; maybe nothing much to many but a lot to me, given I mostly only read work-related stuff.

My favorite book I have to say was A Thousand Brains, by Jeff Hawkins. Jeff goes into detail about his new theory of how the brain works and I was just blown away by how interesting it is. To the point that I kept on reading books on neuro-science and Artificial intelligence because he got me on a roll.

Another book I found very interesting was The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I am not going to try to give you a summary so I linked it to the NYTimes review of it. Jennifer does a much better job than I at describing it.

COVID

… BAD TIMES … November was finally the time when covid came to our house. We have done everything right for such a long time and whatever you all believe in, we did what we believe was the right thing to do and even with masks and everything one of our kids got it and we got it. Thankfully it was a mild case for all of us and this gave us the push we needed to start thinking about traveling again and taking advantage of the few time we get of extra immunity.

Photography

2022 also helped me pick up my camera once again. I had started doing photography as a hobby and due to the pandemic I significantly stopped, but my trips to France and New York, helped me come back and continue to enjoy this beautiful art.

World Cup

I am not a futbol fan, never was, never will be probably. But I do enjoy watching a good game. The world cup no matter what I think of FIFA is the pinnacle of football. Also, my son loves football ( or should I say soccer ) so this year the world cup became a main topic from early November to late December when get got to celebrate after 35 years, yet another world cup championship. I had not had this much stress, fun and excitement in a long time watching a sport. It was a great reminder of how amazing Argentina’s culture is and how much we all can come together on a single passion. Argentina is, as you have all seen on social media, an amazing and passionate society. The people are full of love for football. Maradona and Messi are, basically, the two “gods” of this pseudo-religion.

I cannot claim I understand it, because I do not, but if you ever want to come close to getting it, travel to Buenos Aires and go into a Boca vs. River game, enjoy it and live the stadium because it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and maybe, just maybe, you will understand what I am talking about.