Update Oct 27

I am doing well. Life is good. I'm focused on healing and growing as a person. I am learning how to be present in the moment and that has unlocked a capacity for joy that I didn't know I had. 

I am determined to live life without fear, and without anger. I will live with the courage to love. Despite everything, or maybe because of everything I have nothing but love for life, love for humanity, love for nature, love for beauty, love for truth, love for wisdom, love for peace, love for love. 

I seek to accept what I don't control with serenity, and seek the wisdom to make good choices. 

My heart is full of gratitude for all the wonderful people in my life that have showed up for me. Thank you so much, all you, you mean a lot, you mean the whole world. 

All in all, I couldn't ask for more, I have all I need. 

Thanks for reading. 

-JV

Nature Boy by Nat King Cole

Nature Boy sang by Nat King Cole

 

There was a boy,

A very strange enchanted boy,

They say he wondered very far,

Over land and sea,

Then one day,

He came my way,

And this he said to me,

The greatest thing you'll ever learn,

Is just to love,

And be loved in return

100% agree

-JV

AI Slop: I asked Gemini to interpret a dream I had last night

Dream Analysis & Career Reflection

The Dream

I had a dream that I had a twin brother in New Jersey. I drove all the way from Seattle to New Jersey, and my brother was wearing my clothes. Throughout the dream, a narrator’s voice was explaining that I let him borrow my clothes.

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1. Core Symbolism & Context

• The Twin Brother in NJ: Represents your "alternate professional self"—the version of you that lives in the NJ/NYC area and works directly with your sister team. Because a twin is an exact mirror, the dream shows that this potential move isn't just a distant thought; your mind sees a fully realized version of your life existing in NJ right now.
• The Cross-Country Drive (Seattle to NJ): Highlighting the effort, transition, and distance involved in bridging these two paths. You are actively weighing the mental and logistical journey from your current reality in Seattle to this potential future across the country.
• Wearing Your Clothes: Clothes represent your persona, professional role, and responsibilities. The sister team in NJ/NYC is performing work that matches your exact skill set and identity—you may feel they are carrying out a role or daily routine that belongs to you or that you could seamlessly step into.
• The Narrator ("You let him borrow them"): Provides objective emotional clarity: you willingly allowed this for now. Because you haven't made concrete plans to move yet, you are permitting that team and location to hold onto that part of your identity while you remain in Seattle. You are in control of this choice.

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2. Key Subconscious Insights

1. Scouting the Future: Your mind is actively running simulations of what life would look like if you transferred to the NYC/NJ office, driving there to inspect how well your "alternate self" fits into that environment.
2. Role Ambiguity & Sharing: Collaborating across time zones with a sister team can create a sense of shared ownership, where parts of your work or identity feel like they are currently being "borrowed" or handled by the team over there.
3. Evaluating a Transition: The dream brings this choice to light, prompting you to decide whether maintaining this distance and "lending" your talents to NJ/NYC from afar remains the right fit, or if you want to officially take back that role in person.

Wow, okay, This is crazy, When I first moved out of the house where my soon-to-be-ex-wife STBEW lives I thought I wanted to go move to NYC, but now I'm not so sure anymore, I don't want to leave my oldest daugher that still lives here and I do like it here in Lynnwood, I am making new friends up here and I am not sure I want to uproot and start over, but is my subsconcious saying I should go? it was just a dream, but my mind is saying something. I think it's just work related, as I have been interacting with that team in NJ a lot lately. I am not going anywhere anytime soon. This is just brain hallucination, not too different from the LLM stochastic parrot words produced, but interesting food for thought though. -JV I do like NYC, but just to visit, for now.

Random updates/musings with pictures

 Bruh!

Today I learned that chickpeas and garbanzo beans are the same thing!

Yes, I know, this betrays how sheltered I've been my whole life, I've never had to shop for my own food, and I admit it was daunting at first, and since it's not a sink or swim situation, I've been taking my time learning how to shop for myself, I love the freedom and the lack of pressure, I can make a mistake cooking and nobody is going to be mad or disappointed. 

I was so happy to find a latin market store walking distance from my apartment, but now I found the harina pan in my local Fred Meyers, I officially do not have to go anywhere else for all my shopping needs. Fred Meyer ad executives, you should make me your brand ambassador. "Fred Meyer, the official sponsor of Divorced Dads" 

I made arepas the other day when my oldest daughter came to visit. She asked me to keep the Saturday arepa tradition alive. 

I cannot explain why I get excited for cleaning products for the apartment, I bought a vacuum cleaner off of amazon and I was like Yess!! and today I got this fancy af mob bucket from amazon on THE SAME DAY!! 

It may sound crazy of phony, but it's good to take pleasure and notice the little things that give joy, being able to go to a big market full of food and items and you can just pick whatever you want is a HUGE privilege not available to most people during most history. The internet can be used to learn new things every day (like cheap and diabetes-friendly recipes)  

Anyway, I still have a ton of things to take care of, but I thought I'd do an update for whoever is reading this and myself. 

Update October

 After 3 months I am doing much better. I am still going to therapy, meditating, exercising, journaling and reflecting I am starting to feel a bit like my old self. 

I wish I could share all the findings and learnings but I can't for a bunch of reasons, however I can say this: I am more than ever 100% sure that the life is good and it only gets better. Why? because my state of mind does not depend on any external circumstance or person. It's up to me to decide what kind of life I want to lead and my choice is to live well. I choose to face the world with no fear, and full of love. Love for myself, and love for the people who are with me, love and gratitude for life and for being alive. I already have everything I need to be whole. I choose to be in the present moment engaged and fully focused on what matters. 

I'm also focusing on work, keep growing my skills, putting my effort in helping my team be more effective and helping other teams collaborate more smoothly, doing work that I enjoy. 

I have been making my new apartment in Lynnwood look better. Petunia and I are living it up! (Depending on your definition of living it up) We're still alive, and we're up on the top floor of our building, so...we're living it UP. 

Rocket Science for Everyone

Yale University offers a free course Rocket Science for Everyone with Dr. Marla Geha. 

This is a good introduction into the fascinating world of rockets and satellites, I remember when I used to mentor the FIRST robotics team and work with radios how fun it was to build things that you can touch with your hands and interact with the real world. Not that there's anything boring about working in the cloud, but seeing a physical object doing a thing is so freaking satisfying. 

My Review of "Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment" by Marisa G. Franco, PhD

Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment by Marisa G. Franco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading this book, it offers insights into people's inner psyche. What makes us feel worthy or unworthy is not always what you'd think, making more money, getting prestigious job titles do not necessarily make us feel more worthy, neither are achievements or relationships. It comes from our memories, early memories from when our brains were developing shape our sense of worth. People who experienced trauma in their developing years can "repair" these memories via memory reconsolidation exercises. For memories we can't remember there are (relatively) new treatments like EFT and IFS that experiments show actually work. There's even newer, still experimental treatments like using psychedelics that can help. Although me personally wouldn't feel safe trying it.
I like the explanation of our conscious self consisting of many parts, and how we can learn to accept all our parts, even the ones that caused us shame, because they are all trying to help you cope.
At the end, it's all about self-acceptance, paradoxically, we get a sense of worth when we stop trying to do things to get self-worth, if we learn to accept ourselves as we are, acting in alignment to our nature, that we gain acceptance. Denying our feelings, repressing our emotions, needs or wants lead to low self-worth.
I recommend it to anyone trying to understand themselves better.

View all my reviews

Blood in the Machine Podcast

I am about to start listening to this podcast after hearing it mentioned as an excellent source from two different people. The blog itself is really good, 

My Review of "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" by Cory Doctorow

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cory is such a good writer you can't help but to say glued to this book until you finish it. I like the style, the substance and the message is good. What he says is that the problem with AI today is not necessarily tech, it's how tech is used. What is is used for and what it does to whom and for whom. Meaning, it makes no sense to be "anti-statistical inference" or "anit-linear regression" those are tools, but you gotta pay attention and the thing to do is be "anti-bosses" "anti-monopolies"
This is quote gets to the crux of the whole book:

The most important thing about the gadget isn’t what it does, it’s who it does it for and who it does it to. Inevitabilists will tell you a version of this story whose moral is, See, you take the good with the bad. They’re wrong. You don’t have to take the good with the bad. You can get the good without the bad. The difference isn’t to be found in what a technology does; it’s in what your boss uses the technology to inflict upon you. If you want to get the good without the bad, you need to switch from fighting technologies to fighting bosses.

View all my reviews

Masculinity and Moral Seriousness

 I was profoundly impressed with the conversation between Barak Obama and Lauren Groff when they were discussing the book All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. (Featured in the Audible "A Great Book" with Barack Obama) 

The interview with Lauren Groff made me want to read McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses", and it turned me into a Lauren Groff's fan. The last 10 minutes of the interview were powerful, essentially they offer literature as way to teach boys a framework for masculinity that is the antidote to today's performative, toxic masculinity. The quiet strength of the characters, the moral seriousness of the men that are in these novels, these are the models that we can use to teach young boys how to be better men. 

I love the quote from Lauren at the end of the interview

Barack was saying how these voices are important to guide us as we navigate a dark world and she said this help us

"Have the courage to meet the world with LOVE as opposed to Fear and Anger"

That was beautiful and profound, the courage part is key, it's easier to be angry and be afraid in the face of an unjust, dark uncaring universe. It takes a lot of gut to love, to be generous, to live with grace. 

-JV

Rape Culture and the Manosphere

 The latest college rape scandal involving Cornell University students is just another example of how a culture that allows men to get away with these kind of things. There are 3 basic problems I see

1. This is a problem men have that men have to fix, and it takes all men to do it. It means we hold each other accountable. 

2. There's also the issue that our institutions are structured in such a way that allow men to get away with this, it takes a lot for men to get convicted, the burden of proof is on the victims. 

3. People need to stop blaming the victims here, if a person doesn't consent, or can't consent then the answer is no.