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Rise from your grave

Jan. 7, 2024

Some may have thought this blog long dead - and it was. Hopefully, few other people have upgraded from Django 0.97 to Django 5 all at once.

Since this is the first post to the blog in more than 10 years I will give a quick recap of the previous decade in my life. Shortly after my last post, I joined a friend to work on a high-frequency trading startup. It was a ton of work but one of the greatest working experiences of my life. We experienced the full suite of startup-related emotions - joy, accomplishment, disappointment, success beyond anything I'd dreamed, personality conflicts that nearly destroyed the company on multiple occasions, and finally slow decay leading to an acquisition. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

After that I spent a few years working for the company that acquired us. However, last week I decided to make an exit. Driven by a desire to return to my academic roots, I took an opportunity to work with a professor in the Computer Science department at the University of Notre Dame on some exciting projects. I'm also working in the Lucy Family Institute for Data Science supporting the mission there. It is a big change but I'm especially pleased to be able to talk again about the work I do after a decade of secrecy.

As for the family, my kids are so big now! Thomas is a high school senior applying for colleges, Blake (what Julie prefers to be called these days) is a freshman, and the baby Hilda is in 5th grade! They have all been a great joy. Kim received tenure and published another book, graduated a bunch of PhD students who have gone on to successful careers, and is the President of her scholastic organization.

Of course, no decade can pass without tragedy. I lost my dad 3 years ago to prostate cancer. We had a pandemic that killed millions of people. The world continues to see war and conflict year after year.

However, given all that, I can truly say my life has never been better than it is right now. I'm very optimistic about the future and excited to see what comes next. Happy New Year!