• Magic and the Holidays

    Can you believe it has been decades since the Harry Potter movies and books were released? I have so many happy memories related to that IP it’s crazy, but this Christmas I was able to add one more. A few things you should know about my family and the holidays, first we don’t really do…

  • Ditch the Trainings, Team Build Through Board Games

    Even though I grew up with three siblings it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to play board games with me as a kid. Thankfully, that’s changed now that we’re older and the selection of games to choose from is nearly endless. Card games, cooperative games, free-form story games, we’ve really come a ways…

  • Happy Halloween!

    Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. It’s filled with imagination, creativity, and it’s truly as much or as little of a day as you make it out to be. As a kid I gravitated toward some classic costumes (bats, cats, mermaids, etc) but what made them special was the amount of craftsmanship…

  • The Contagion Piggybacking on the Pandemic

    While everyone has adjusted to life in the era of Covid-19, there’s another contagion piggybacking on the pandemic…burnout. You’ve probably noticed it in your workplace and you’re not alone. The added stress of kids going back to school (or not?), working from home (possibly with a spouse), and trying to remember to wear your mask…

  • Vacation Destination: Alabama

    When you think of a vacation dream destination, Alabama is probably doesn’t make the list. However, about 3 years ago my sisters and I planned a trip to Alabama with some excitement. The idea was that our sister stationed at the Navy base in Pensacola, FL could join us easily and we could all cross…

  • A Quick Train Trip to Chicago

    There are few cities with such varied culture, deep history, and international renowned as Chicago. From where I live you can take an overnight train trip and be in the famous Union Station by morning. (And yes, you should totally reenact the scene from The Untouchables here…or at least I did haha) I’m a huge…

  • A Taste of New York Chips from Western New York

    It’s been some time since I posted and while I’ve thought of a number of different things I wanted to write about I haven’t found a lot of time to do so. I recently bought a house, moved back from California, started working on a startup, and in my spare time I’ve learned to code. Needless…

  • Developer Week 2017 in San Francisco

    This was my first time attending the Developer Week Conference and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I attended a handful of talks and walked around the show floor and was overall pleasantly surprised. I should start off saying that I’ve always found virtual reality (VR) to be a bit too…

  • TCM Falls Short with Streaming Video Service FilmStruck

    I need to confess, before I signed up for FilmStruck I already had it in my head the kind of glowing review I was going to write. I was going to talk about how FilmStruck was going to run away with a bunch of Netflix customers, but then I created an account. I used my…

  • 42 USA: The Free Coding College

    The past month I’ve been learning to code in Silicon Valley as part of the application process for the no-strings-attached free-tuition school called 42. If you’ve been following my twitter, you might have noticed one or two posts about the application tests and process. The owner of the French telecom network free founded the college…

  • Toss Your Soylent Snack Bars

    So remember when I reviewed Soylent 2.0  and talked about the companies energy bars? As it turns out you might not want to eat those after all. The company has vaulted production of the bars and has told anyone who still has some to throw them out. Customers around the country have been complaining of gastrointestinal…

  • The Ringing Rocks of Pennsylvania

    It’s important to try and get your outdoor activities in before winter when you live someplace like New York. Naturally, this means camping in the beginning of fall! My youngest sister had pointed out that just outside Philadelphia there was a cool phenomenon known as The Ringing Rocks. In typical Kohl-sister fashion, we decided that…