Updated August 16, 2024 from sunny Chicago 🌞
Something in my past. You can see other updates here.
Happiness Meter 🤩
10/10. No needs unmet and together with my family we decided to live a season “out of the box”, so we are in Chicago from July until the end of October. I’m working remotely, but it feels like we are on vacation every weekend.
Family 💛
The kids have loved Chicago. They particularly enjoy their new daycare, DeColores. By pure luck, it is owned and operated by Diana, a Colombian expat, so they have felt right at home. They also really, really like Hawaiian Bread rolls.
My wife has been taking English classes and enjoying not having a full-time occupation for the first time in her life. Her being the way she is, she already occupied all of her time, but just not into anything as structured as a job.
Our lifestyle changed a ton but we are enjoying the changes. All 4 of us sleep sideways in a Queen bed because we don’t fit otherwise 😛. There is another room, but the kids refuse to sleep there so here we are. We have been exploring the city and its many restaurants and activities. Some of my favorites so far:
- Beatrix
- The Children’s Museum was amazing. We spent 1+ hour just building stuff.
- Italian Ice, particularly Annette’s.
- Cliche as it may sound, Chicago-style Pizza. Labriola’s was great.
- We really enjoyed the Air and Water show. We had jets doing tricks like 100 meters from us!
Franco broke his arm on our second week here (Gartland Type-2, like this image) and he needed surgery to get it fixed, but his good attitude is unshakeable. He is now 2 weeks into healing and has decided to use his cast like a hook to climb up stuff. He also refuses to stop playing soccer.
I have never liked soccer much, but my kids seem obsessed. “The one who doesn’t like soup gets served twice” says a Colombian adage. We have the Colombian Copa America song playing at least 5 times per day here, plus an impromptu soccer match (complete with the national anthem at the start) at least once every couple of days.
Gaming 🎮
No gaming lately. Free time in Chicago has been more towards family and chores, plus exploring the city as often as possible.
Learning 📚
I have been learning a lot about education systems and how the wrong incentives can prevent or slow down change.
Lately, I’m particularly fond of the Harvard Edcast.
I have not been reading much while in Chicago
Work 🧰
I’m currently a Tech Director in R5, which means a ton of coding, team management, strategy + culture work together with the rest of the C-Team and collaborating on product ideas together with Ricardo.
My work over the past month or so has been immersed in the web of trade-offs that is Software Architecture. Many, many deep conversations on the topic with Jesus.
Entrepreneurship 🚀
I’m still meeting people in the education space to bounce ideas on how to best impact Colombian society through social entrepreneurship.
I recently had coffee with Yosef, who runs Books4Cause, a local profitable, free bookstore in Chicago. Amazing, don’t you think? I believe I could build something similar in Colombia.
I also spoke with Juan F. Penagos, an old University friend and one of the most recognized experts on the finance side of the education industry. We talked a lot about the obstacles in creating a new University in Colombia.
Health ⚕️
All seems good so far! I’ve taken up running since a couple of months ago. I ran a very irresponsible 11K with way too much elevation change and now I’m more responsibly doing easy 5K and 10K runs.