Here's a brief summary of what I'm up to:
Living in Virginia (USA) with my partner, Anna.
Still working for the Navy, writing modeling/simulation code. Nobody in my organization has been fired by the new administration (yet), though we've had some tense moments. Our ability to complete our work effectively has been significantly hindered, morale is low, employees have lost personal money when travel was banned with no notice, and every manager at every level probably spends 80% of their time trying to understand and communicate how new executive orders and changes in policy will affect our day-to-day. The top civilians on my base (overseeing ~5000 people) and at NAVSEA (~30,000 people) took early retirement, likely because they were worried about getting fired for not doing enough to push the current administration's agenda (a key performance criterion for top management "SES" employees now).
I hurt my back in 2023 and it's been extra painful recently, so I've been on a break from most athletic activities since Nov '24 to focus on rehab. 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 last week and spent seven hours at the clinic over two days while they evaluated and educated me, finally providing a number of simple exercises to follow ("do these and nothing else for two weeks") to help strengthen and gain awareness and control of my lower abs and a couple other areas. One of the main things they teach is breathing. Interesting stuff and they sound very confident it will work.
All the rehab takes time (2-2.5 hours/day), though I get a little back since I'm unable to play disc golf or ultimate frisbee. With the little extra I'm still learning Spanish, working on this website (we'll see how long that lasts), and planning trips.
Playing music has fallen down my list of priorities. I want to play more, but just haven't made the time. I need some people to play with for motivation.
Read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts recently and it really made me want to see India. (Goodreads is probably most up to date with my current reading.)
Anna and I are planning a long trip to Asia later this year (not India... for now) and we're very excited for it. More details to come.