Last week I decided to delete my Instagram and Facebook accounts. I realized I was spending too much time endlessly scrolling, so I thought it was better to take a break. I am not sure how long this will last, but my goal is to not install either app for a long period of time.
I might have to re-install Facebook. I am going to Burning Man for the first time this year and it seems like a lot of advice can be found on Facebook groups.
I am re engaging on this blog to have it as an update on my life for those of you who used to follow-me on either social network. As I don’t expect to be posting much content there, you might find life updates here.
So…here we go! Last week I was in the Bay Area for a couple of days. I attended a conference on Fully Homomorphic encryption and it was truly exciting. FHE conferences are super exciting. Everyone is teeming with energy, idealism, and exciting ideas. My favorite presentation was delivered by 0XPARC (pronounced: Xerox Parc), a crypto lab that aims to test crypto ideas and see how implementable they are in the real world with existing infrastructure. They do this by creating video games that run using these crypto primitives. I found it was an extremely interesting idea and incredibly well executed.
On a non-work note: last week we attended the Short film festival at Palm Springs. This is perhaps my favorite festival in Palm Springs. What I enjoy about it is that you get to see so many different filmographic visions from so many directors in such a short amount of time. If you happen to stumble upon a short film that you don’t like, you won’t have to watch it for a dreadful hour.
The other thing I like is the access to this type of content that is otherwise really hard to access. It is unfortunate because the content is very good, and I highly recommend it. At the end of each screening some of the film crew had a Q&A, and it was always interesting to hear the different visions that the directors were trying to convey.
Yesterday, we visited a piano teacher in the Coachella Valley. She just turned 97 a few weeks ago and has been having some health issues. She hosts regulars piano salons at her home, which was acoustically designed for these functions. She told some interesting stories. She grew up in Idaho, on a family of Swedish immigrants. She moved to the Bay Area, and got a job at Stanfords Research Institute (the creators of Siri), where she held a super high security clearance. She then moved to Pasadena to pursue music education. One thing that I find fascinating about her is that she didn’t hear what music was, or didn’t know what music was until she was ~12 when the first radio came to her community. It was a revelatory moment for her. Can you imagine living 12 years of your life without ever hearing or knowing what music is?
We also tried the CV Link on Friday. It is getting there! My favorite section is close to North Palm Springs, by the tram road. The road is so out there, in the middle of the dessert with just vastness in front of you. I unfortunately fell off under a bridge pass when my wheel got entangled on a small crack. I did go to Eisenhower ER services to get them cleaned. Nothing major but annoying as I won’t be able to swim for at least a week.
Yesterday, a friend suggested we go to Redlands, where it is 10 degrees cooler to ride. The ride is beautiful. I don’t know many other places in California where you can see so many different mountain ranges. The corrugation on these mountains is something very special, and I couldn’t stop looking and appreciating them. It was a fun ride also because one of our friend’s bike was out of battery, and hence couldn’t shift her gears, so we were mostly riding on the same gear. It led to some tough climbs and hectic pedaling downhill.
Today, I am writing this as I fly to SF, where I’ll go to Shakira’s concert. I got a free ticket. She was supposed to start her world tour in Palm Springs but cancelled due to too much success on her ticket sales. I think I last saw her live at Mexico City’s Zocalo plaza in 2006. I am a little bit skeptical because I am not a fan of her English songs, and I am not sure how much of that she’ll play. We’ll see!
Well..this turned out to be longer than expected. This week we’re flying to Provincetown, spending 4th of July there, then to Miami, Mexico, and back. I’ll also try to upload some pictures and videos from my bike rides and life in general (e.g., the gorgeous sunrise light bathing the San Jacinto mountains)
