(Updated 3 January 2026)
Here's a brief summary of what I'm up to:
Living in Virginia (USA) with my fiancé, Anna. We got engaged in Nov 2025 and are planning our wedding for October '26 in Virginia.
Still working for the Navy, writing modeling/simulation code. I switched teams within my organization and have had the opportunity recently to design and implement some new tools from scratch, which has been fun and engaging.
The back rehab (see below) takes a lot of my time (2-2.5 hours/day), add in work with the 40-minute commute each way and that accounts for most of my days. Just enjoying time with Anna and missing watching disc golf on Jomez in the off season. And driving all over Virginia on weekends for live music and spending time with friends and family.
Playing music has fallen down my list of priorities. I want to play more, but just haven't had/made the time. I need some people to play with for motivation.
Anna and I went to Vietnam (3 weeks) and Thailand (2 weeks) over the summer. I was fortunate to be able to take some unpaid time off from work and of course Anna is a teacher so she has summers off. It was a ton of fun and I'm working on putting together a little travel log to help us remember and to share a bit more with others. We learned so much. It's still in progress, but here's the start: Asia 2025.
Goodreads is probably most up to date with my current reading, but here are some of my favorite books I've read (somewhat) recently:
I read Dr. Stuart McGill's Back Mechanic (and Ultimate Back Fitness) and followed his recommended daily regimen of walking and core exercise and more walking for about six months, with slow improvement, until I decided to take more action and found Dr. Clayton Skaggs and Dr. Jim George at CIHP in St. Louis. I went to see them in May and spent seven hours at the clinic over two days while they evaluated and educated me. They gave me a number of simple exercises to follow ("do these and nothing else") to help strengthen and gain awareness and control of my lower abs and a couple other areas.
I didn't keep up with my exercises while traveling over the summer, but have been very consistent since August and my pain is significantly reducing. It's a lot of core work, walking, and laying on my back with my feet on a bench while belly breathing. Slowly progressing with more challenging workouts in the gym. I've also been meeting with their PTs and strength/conditioning coaches every two weeks (virtually) for a few months. I think I'll be able to start doing some of the physical activities that I love again relatively soon.