Ongoing update of what I am up to Now (what is this for?) and my profile on nownownow.com.

April 15th, 2024

Work

  • I am past my first anniversary at WeaveGrid now. It has been a wild ride, jumping between being a full-stack engineer working on dashboards and the driver UI, to improving a complex state machine for charging schedules, data, and reporting. This year, I have focused more on onboarding new vehicle and smart charger OEM partners across time zones, which have fully turned me into a morning person.
  • I am trying to be more intentional about carving out time for things I want to excel at (including writing essays on this blog). This means simplifying my life, so I put a pause on my work as DJ Scrapmetal. Over two years, my two other musician friends, JMARU, I LIKE TIGERS, and I hosted four friends-and-family events, four paid gigs, and played at several house parties and Burning Man fundraisers. It taught me the craft of curating a musical journey for the audience and the intricacies of rallying a crowd and constant marketing efforts. I still don’t get the marketing part; it feels unnatural to me, but regardless, our shows were always a sell-out. I sincerely appreciate everyone who came out to support us and danced the nights away.

Not Work

  • I had a one-month streak of not working out at all in October 2023, which might be the longest stretch since I turned 30. I broke my shoulder bone from a fall, but don’t ask me why; I’ll only tell you in person. But as soon as the doctor told me I could run again, I ran (and walked) the Golden Gate Bridge half-marathon. Lesson learned: Don’t run a half-marathon with no prep. The day after I finished the half, I signed up for the full San Francisco Marathon to make up for this mishap.
  • I hosted an extravagant birthday party in December and invited everyone I made happy memories with and appreciated spending time with in 2023. It was a good excuse to bring people together in the era of remote work and no more holiday parties and wrap up the year and my early 30s on a high note.
  • I brought my family to Spain for the first time over the holidays and New Year’s. I shared everything I love about Spain with them (particularly Caldo Gallego and churros), and holiday festivities there welcomed us with charming Mediterranean sun, pretty street lights, jamon, vermouth, and Hala Madrid.
  • On the same trip, I visited my French Camino friends in Toulouse and Lyon. We enjoyed delicious home-cooked meals, shared our post-Camino adventures, and reminisced over photos and memories from the Camino.
  • Ski season was another great year of heavy snowfall, especially towards the end of the season in March and April. Worst memory: getting stuck on I80 and skiing for only one day, spending less time in Tahoe than driving up. Best memories: pulling off a grueling solo drive to Tahoe after seeing James Hype and surprising Bowen on the slopes for his birthday, late night chatters during après-first/ski-second trips, off-piste day at the Grand Montets, and cold plunge at the Nordic spa in Alyeska.

October 7th, 2023

Work

  • I have been working on the Managed Charge Team at WeaveGrid, responsible for developing products that optimize EV drivers’ charging schedules based on utility rates, real-time signals from wholesale prices, weather for renewable energy, and more. It has been a fun ride learning about issues in the automotive and utility sectors, understanding gaps in today’s grid, EV penetration, and the increase of renewable energy. To learn more about the problem we are solving, listen to this MCJ Podcast by our CEO, Apoorv.
  • Organized another club party at the Foundry (dubbed Portola Preparty) and played an hour set mixing garage, drum and bass, with a little spice of dubstep. Joseph, Ayush and I then went on at the end and played tech house b2b2b. The dance floor was almost empty towards the end but regardless, but that last 20 minutes was the most adrenaline spiking set I have played in a while.

Not Work

  • In May, I traveled to Jeju Island to attend my friend’s wedding. In addition to giving a toast, I DJ’ed at the afterparty for three hours straight and had a great time roaming around Jeju with the friends and guests from the wedding. My favorites were all the delicious Jeju foods, the bike rides around rolling hills in U-Do, and the hot Bulgama experience in solidarity.
한국의 매운 맛 한국의 매운 맛
  • After seven years of absence, I finally returned to the playa, the Home, and the Muddy Man. This year, I applied to be a Black Rock Ranger, burners who volunteer their time during the event in the role of non-confrontational community mediators. I went through in-person training at the Burning Man HQ in SF, and passed the alpha shift—a test to determine if you have the qualities of a ranger, worked three six-hour shifts, and served as Burn perimeter who ensures the safety during the Man Burn. I plan to write about this experience in more detail, but in short, I learned a lot about handling nuanced situations non-confrontationally and being able to confidently and concisely make radio calls (taking notes and writing down what you want to say is the key).
Burn Perimeter Quad 1 Burn Perimeter Quad 1

  • I finally brought my best friends, whom I have been raving to about Burning Man for years, to the Black Rock City. We made many beautiful memories over Swedish meatballs, TJ galbi, speakeasy bars, foamy showers, and more.

  • I joined the running club in SF founded by my friend Nate and started running in August. I had been avoiding running with all the excuses I made about my bad knees and slow pace, but so far have been enjoying it with no issues. It is still the hardest workout in terms of BPM, but I have been getting the hang of it and ran my first 10k in the San Jose Rock-And-Roll.

April 1st, 2023

Work

  • In January, I embraced a new challenge at WeaveGrid to work on climate and energy. Without any previous experience in this field, every day has been quite a journey. I’ve delved into the intricacies of utilities, automakers, and electric vehicles (EVs), exploring innovative strategies to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation.

Travel

  • The 2022 holidays were spent in Seoul, marking a reunion with family and attending three weddings. This trip was filled with some highlights: reuniting with relatives I hadn’t seen since leaving Korea, experiencing Korean makeup at my brother’s wedding, enjoying PSY’s overnight all-standing concert, and skiing in Yongpyong—where the mountain food was unparalleled.
  • A subsequent trip in late March took me back to Seoul and to Kyoto, where I was captivated by the romantic vistas of cherry blossoms blooming across both Korea and Japan.
  • I skipped getting a ski season pass for the first time in six years to make time to do other stuff. The missing ski leg hit me hard at the WeaveGrid ski trip as everyone on the trip was both fantastic and intense skiers. The level of ski talent at this company is higher than anywhere I have seen.

Creative

  • Although starting a new job has taken up most of my time, I’ve managed to showcase my DJ sets at three different venues: The Foundry, Le Petit Paris, and a Burning Man camp fundraiser. With other crews playing the genre of melodic house and techno, I try to blend in a more funky and soulful sound and even some remix of top 40 songs to add some variety. You can listen to my sets on SoundCloud.
  • The set we played at Sutro Bath was unreal and “This Never Happened”

October 5th, 2022

Work

  • I left Airbnb in February and have been taking a sabbatical from work. But I am not retired (surprise!) and am starting to feel irresitable itch to put my talent in to use for something useful.

Travel

  • March: A road trip to ski in the Rocky Mountains - Jackson Hole, Big Sky, and Aspen.
About to sweat off to hike the Highland bowl. The run of 2022 About to sweat off to hike the Highland bowl. The run of 2022
  • April: Visited the eastern part of Canada, Toronto, and Montreal.
  • May - June: Walked the entire Camino Frances of Camino de Santiago.
  • May - July: Also visited the UK, Morocco, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Portugal as part of the three-month backpacking trip.
  • August - September: South Korea to attend two weddings and visit family and friends.

Side projects

  • I have been working on this website, adding new features, and writing essays.
  • I performed as a DJ at two events and will play another for Halloween.
  • I have been learning more deeply about climate change and read a bunch of books ([1], [2], [3],[4]), and became a listener to My Climate Journey podcast.
  • I participated in a 20-mile swim challenge in August.
  • I moved my wiki to Notion and sold many belongings after returning from the backpacking trip.

January 17th, 2022

Work

  • I work at Airbnb, building a feature store for machine learning, Zipline. I have been primarily working on building the streaming layer of the system and improving the feature serving latency.
  • I rebooted this blog. I haven’t decided on my pace yet, but I aim to get steady writing posts.

Life

  • I now live in Berkeley, California.
  • I traveled quite a bit in 2020 and spent about a month in Seoul and New York. I plan to travel quite a bit in 2022 as I firmly believe the situation with COVID-19 will become more stable this year.

Personal

  • This year, my goal is to build a pathway toward retirement and develop a career narrative for the next twenty years. In addition, I would like to create a long-term plan to be at the peak of my career 20 years later and retire with good health and a financial cushion.
  • I started Pilates in October, which has been my go-to exercise. As a result, I have benefited immensely from my core strength, balance, and posture. This year, I aim to complete my first triathlon and do ten consecutive pull-ups.
  • This is the first year I set up a goal of reading 50 books, and I am at two now.