A nice weekend all around. We did our usual church thrift routine and made our way down into Dumbo stopping at the Fishes Eddy, the BK Flea, and ending at Front. Afterwards we went with friends into Manhattan to get lunch at V-Nam, a Vietnamese restaurant and we all ate some tasty Pho. It was a very nice afternoon, the type I love most. Good company, good food, good vintage shopping. This coming week is going to be a busy one for me; I have some sort of event marked on my calendar almost every day. I'm looking forward to all the holiday get togethers, art shows, enjoying people's company, and making new friends.

Ahh, such a rejuvenating weekend so far. We started the day by getting coffee at Daytime with our friends, stopping at a pop-up holiday market where we bought some vintage Christmas decorations, and then we took a walk through the park. The weather was crisp but we were warm and it was so nice to get out and look at all the beautiful birds. By the boat house we talked to an old man who was birding and he told us about a rare duck that was on the water. 10 minutes later a big bird watching group showed up to look at it. I wish I could have gotten closer to log it on Merlin! We also saw the swan family that lives in the park. We saw the goslings last on the 4th of July and they were still little. Now they're proper adolescents and are massive, spottable only by the light brown on their backs.

Tonight we went to Steph's cousins and had a paper snowflake cutting craft night. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it!

A busy week working on lots of freelance projects. Our friends have been busy or out of town for the holidays, and with the cold weather, it's been hard to get out of the house. I just want to be like Pepper, cuddling up with a toasty radiator. Whenever it's getting dark and we're feeling cooped up, Steph always says "wanna go to Trader Joe's?" So that's what we did tonight! It's always a good excuse to get over to a pretty neighborhood that's not too far and to load up on some good groceries and treats. We opted for walking to the 7th Street station instead of using our closer 15 St–Prospect Park stop so we could get a walk out of it as well.

Spotify Wrapped 2025

Top Artists:

1. Matthew Halsall
2. Oklou
3. Claude Debussy
4. Maurice Ravel
5. Frédéric Chopin

1. blade bird by Oklou
2. Miroirs: III. Une Barque sur l'océan by Maurice Ravel
3. 6 Pezzi, P. 44: No. 3. Notturno by Ottorino Respighi
4. Mermaid by Pearly Drops
5. Ballade slave, L. 70 by Claude Debussy

First of the month, first day of the week after a long weekend. I ran so many errands today. At 12:40pm I took the train to Carroll Gardens to get a haircut. When I got home, we realized we were out of checks, so I hopped on my bike and went to the closest Chase bank on 5th Avenue in Park Slope. On my way back, I stopped in at one of our favorite antique furniture stores Time Galleries, since it was on the way and we had heard from Summer and Jackson that they're closing soon. Sure enough, the building owner has placed a huge "FOR LEASE" sign in the window, but when I asked about it they said there's no new tenant yet and their plans as to what they're going to do next are still unknown. ( I did get to say hello to their sweetie tabby shop cat, Shakira, which is always a treat!) When I got home, it was 3pm, and I set off with our bags of dirty clothes to the laundromat on Prospect Park West. 3 more back-and-forths later to change over to the dryers and pick them up and do the grocery shopping for dinner, it was 4:30pm and my day had escaped me! That's city living for you.

I finished Sunset Park by Paul Auster the other day and as I was looking at my bookshelf to decided on my next read, I wasn't in the mood for any of my books. So today, I walked to the north end of Park Slope to Troubled Sleep. It's my favorite neighborhood in all of NYC and one of my favorite bookstores in the world, it was a nice walk. I got two books, The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (I wasn't planning on reading two of his books in a row, but here we are!) and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I'm excited about the NY Trilogy because I've been in the mood for a mystery novel and this one comes highly recommended! I was also extremely excited about the copy of The Metamorphosis that I found because it's an edition I've been searching for with cover art I like. As an added bonus, I found an old Chinese restaurant menu inside from the 70's. Finding old ephemera in used books is one of my favorite things on earth.

Later this evening Steph and I went to Lowe's to get a Christmas tree. It's pretty early from what we normally do, but it's so cute and cozy. Of course we had to take it home on the train which always feels hilarious, but nobody paid any attention to us. We decorated while watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, one of our all time favorites. The perfect end to a good day!

We had a lazy black Friday day. After such a busy thanksgiving, it felt good to take it slow. We've been saving some much needed house upgrades for black Friday and decided to trek out in the evening to Manhattan in search of a new frying pan. We've been cooking everything with just a ceramic dutch oven pot and a small yellow enamel pot ever since we moved to NYC in 9/24. The city is so alive during the holidays, it was fun to get over there and enjoy the hustle and bustle.

Thanksgiving day! Everything went off without a hitch. Steph and I spent the evening before and the start of the day cooking. We made rolls, apple pie, brussel sprouts, carrots, gravy and a cheese ball. Our friends made the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and a spinach dip. Everything was delicious, we're all passionate about good food and enjoy cooking; it may have been the best thanksgiving meal I've ever had. That evening we went to Steph's cousins to celebrate a birthday and enjoy dessert. Such a delightful day!

I trekked out to Pier 57 again tonight for CCNYC. Turnout was low with the rain, so it was a bit underwhelming. Still, it's always nice to get out of the house and out into the city for the evening. I've been feeling a rift more and more between myself and the software engineering folks I've met here. A lot of people who work in tech in NYC have totally different morals than me. I'm constantly meeting the ones building the software that ruins our society, and they don't seem bothered by it at all. They're so driven by curiosity and profit that they don't stop to think of the consequences behind the tools they're programming. It's a strange phenomenon. I love programming, but I want to make things that connect people and build communities, that inspire and inform, that make lives better.

It's Monday, coming off of the weekend. I spent some time trying to figure out my Raspberry Pi camera this weekend, perhaps longer than I should have, only to find out my camera module is cooked. It was given to me for free by a classmate a few years ago, so I can't be too upset. Still, I had an idea to make my own DIY point-and-shoot dither cam so I can take my dithered photography without needing to open my phone. I still might pursue that idea eventually when I get around to replacing the parts I need.

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and we'll be having a small dinner with our friends at our place. I'm looking forward to it, we're planning on playing lots of board games, doing a puzzle, and generally spending a cozy day in together.

A day in today. Steph has been in the office since lunchtime leaving me alone at home to get some work done on some projects. I'm currently working with some cool Utah folks on a top secret shhh project involving point cloud animations and the web right now. We've been super nervous to see how we could get it to work seeing that even the most optimized animation would be loading 15 point cloud models per second (same way a video works with images only with 3D models!) so today I whipped up a three.js sketch to start troubleshooting some solutions. After a few hours of trial and error, learning about new file types, and learning that you can convert point cloud files to binary? for them to run much faster (I guess computers really just love their 1's and 0's!), I have a working prototype that loads point clouds and and plays an INTERACTIVE animation, in browser, in real time, with short load times. It's unbelievable. I'm so happy that it works better than I could have dreamed, and it immediately gives me a whole slew of new ideas for new projects. This is why I love what I do. I'm constantly tasked with figuring out how to do something for the first time, and every time I walk away with experience and ideas.

Since I've been inside most of the day, I thought I'd share some photos from the neighborhood for those who haven't visited Steph and I yet.

Tonight i trekked out to Manhattan to go to Pier 57, near Chelsea Market, like I so often do on Tuesday nights for Creative Coding NYC. I can never guess how the meetups will go. Sometimes there's so many people, we hardly have room for them all. Other times only a handful. Tonight was somewhere in the middle, maybe 20 or so folks came. I'm always impressed by the amount of newcomers, very few are regular attendees, and I guess that makes me one of them. Tonight I met some new folks and when the inevitable "what are you working on?" questions starting to come, I had fresh ears and eyes to share the Restroom Archive with. It's always fun to see their reactions, usually at first they're confused, then they think I'm crazy. By the end (at least I hope!), they see the vision. I stand by it–the restroom is a work of art.

Anyways, Pier 57 is such a cursed place. It's riddled with VC corporate tech people all wearing the same black puffer jackets having boring conversations. Chelsea Market in general is kind of bad vibes. The people there feel like tech transplants who would never live in the city if it weren't for their start-up jobs. Netflix Love Is Blind contestant phenotypes. I would avoid that corner of NYC completely if it wasn't for the CCNYC meetups. Still, Pier 57 is spacious and free to book, so I see why we keep going back there. Gotta make it work.

Here's some pictures from my journey there and back!

I had a lovely evening at Secret Riso Club attending the second Eyebeam "Urgent Inquiries" panel, this time featuring Xin Xin and Bahareh Khoshooee. The conversation was extremely pertinent to me, much of which revolved around how the internet is used as both a tool of oppression by the ruling class and a tool for liberation by the people. My favorite take away was that a lot of our problems come down to distance created by technology–and the response is to close that gap. How that might look is up for interpretation, but I feel an urgent need to make more things that connect people locally, that facilitate collaboration and community. As Bahareh said "to keep making cracks" in the current system.

I left feeling very inspired. Afterwards I was listening to "Another Day In Paradise" by Phil Collins while taking photos around me in Bushwick using my sunset dither cam. I feel so inspired by the images I make with it, it's been helping change how I see everything around me. Here are some of the photos I took while I was out. Bushwick is so different from where I live in Windsor Terrace, it has a grittiness that I think photographs particularly well.

Steph and I had a nice Sunday walking around Brookyln Heights and Dumbo today. Every week we have this super secret church thrift that we like to gatekeep because we have such good luck there. It's only open for 4 hours every Sunday, and either Steph or I have found super cheap, high quality clothes there. It's such a treat to visit every weekend! After the church thrift we walked a couple blocks to the pier to look at the Manhattan skyline, and then we made our way over to Dumbo to stop at the Brooklyn Flea under the bridge and Front General Store. Both were fun, but too expensive. Still, we love going to Front because their selection is such high quality. You might pay a lot, but you're going to find vintage clothes that are in pristine condition and would be hard to find anywhere else.

I've started using this mobile tool that I built to dither my images. Takes an extra step out and makes it more fun and creative!

The weather here in NYC has taken a bitter turn. 39ºF, feels like 29ºF with wind chill, gusts up to 38 mph. It's going to take everything in me to get out of the house, but this evening at 5pm I'm going to brave the cold and venture out to Bushwick to Secret Riso Club for Eyebeam's "Urgent Inquiries" program. I'm extremely interested in the topics they plan to discuss regarding our differing digital realities, technofeudalism and state surrveilance, and the internet as a place for creating digital commons. Right up my alley! I might make another post about it with my thoughts (or even a full write-up on by.jakewel.ch tomorrow?) Stay tuned...

I just got back from the event–it was so good! Throughout the presentations, there was a strong theme of using the tools used to exploit us to explore the systems they exist in. Challenging AI to reveal biases it was trained on, using surveillance tech for activism, etc. I had so many ideas for projects by the end, and had new questions to explore. An invigorating evening!

Today I updated my personal website using Kevin Chen's file-gallery repository. I think it's fun that the entire site is populated from files and in a folder on my Desktop and that the positions are relative to where the file is literally placed inside that folder. It's so whacky and creative, and yet simple and effective. My hope is that this format will encourage me to build and share here more often. Pictured are a screenshot of my site inside the folder (note their positions relative to the homepage), and Pepper who was keeping me company and leeching warmth from my laptop.