September 2025 Recap

September drove north first. Labor Day weekend in Guerneville—the Russian River town that fills up with LGBTQ+ travelers through summer—hit the mid-90s, which put the pool in a different category than a courtesy amenity. From there it was Healdsburg for wine tastings, then Highway 1 back south, then the city for most of the month before a trip down to San Diego at the end. Between those bookends: the vinyl collection crossed 60 LPs, three AeroGardens were running indoors, and work demanded most of the attention everything else didn't.

🚗 Road Trip to Sonoma County

I drove north to Sonoma County for Labor Day weekend, spending time in Guerneville—a small town along the Russian River that draws LGBTQ+ travelers during summer months. Temperatures reached the mid-90s, which made the pool particularly inviting.

I also ventured to nearby Healdsburg for wine tastings at Rodney Strong and La Crema wineries.

The drive home took me down Highway 1, where I paused at several coastal spots to photograph the landscape and browse for keepsakes.

🎵 Vinyl Collection

My vinyl collection grew to 63 LPs this month. Early in September, I discovered The Plastic Pancake on Valencia Street in the Mission—a vinyl shop across from Clooney's with a well-curated selection of used records at reasonable prices. Most of the classic albums I added this month came from there.

Here are the albums I added to my collection this month:

🌱 Indoor Gardening

I've become quite absorbed in indoor gardening this month. Three countertop Aerogardens now run indoors, plus a larger floor model where I'm cultivating cucumbers, jalapeños, and cherry tomatoes. The cucumber plant grows with remarkable speed, its vines reaching toward light sources in ways that feel almost intentional—watching it adapt and stretch toward illumination has been unexpectedly compelling.

🦁 San Diego

At month's end, Nick traveled to San Diego for his great aunt's celebration of life. Two firsts on that trip: La Jolla Cove, where the seals treat the beach as their living room and the tourists as a mild inconvenience.

I also visited the San Diego Zoo, observing bears, elephants, and meerkats. We stayed at The Lafayette in Hillcrest, a recently renovated hotel with a substantial pool and contemporary atmosphere.

👥 Time with Friends

September had its share of good tables and better company—new restaurants, a few events, and the kind of unhurried time with friends that makes a busy month feel worth it.

💼 Work

My work this month has been focused on business switching navigation experiences, micro-frontends for agentic experiences specific to businesses, and visualizations and reports for a novel type of perpetual MAB experiment type being added to our experimentation platform, Hivemind.

I'm also contributing to a core team developing a new perpetual Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) experiment type for our experimentation platform. This work involves UI updates, report generation, and visualization creation for experiment review—offering a balance between technical implementation and user experience considerations.

📚 What I'm Reading

I finished Finding My Humanity by Ryan Ubuntu Olson this month. His coming-of-age memoir explores themes of identity, community, and belonging with remarkable depth. The book resonated on multiple levels, prompting reflection on my own journey and the people who have shaped my understanding of self.

A particular passage from the book has stayed with me, and I'll close with it here. Sometimes a single sentence captures profound truths about human experience.

"But by the accident of birth, we found ourselves fated to our current realities. Yet we were all human. I am because they are."