Personal: Zoo on a cold, wet and windy PNW day

Posted on by AstroPilotDad

Yesterday, we visited the woodland park zoo on what you call a typical PNW day. As mentioned in several of my posts, due to covid, we have been holed up in our house without much interaction with the outside world. Since our son is now close to a year, we have become a bit more risk tolerant in meeting with people. We still wear masks and social distance and meet in open spaces as we are not comfortable yet meeting indoors. I hope things will improve and we get back to some sense of normalcy soon.

Two of our friends and us planned a week in advance to go to the zoo on what we anticipated would be a nice spring day as the weather forecast was marginal with a pretty nice day forecast the day prior. One of our friends, unfortunately (or fortunately 🙂 ) was not able to get tickets so it was just us and a friend of ours who has two daughters. One of them is a 18 month old pandemic baby just like our son with very little social interaction to the outside world. The day prior to our planned visit was such a gorgeous one that we were hopeful that the day of our visit will not be as bad as predicted. But alas, it was a cold, wet and windy day in the pacific north west. We decided to brave the weather and not miss on an opportunity to get out of the house and meet up with friends. We would have liked it to be a nicer day so that the babies could have gotten out of the strollers and interacted a bit (socially distanced of course).

Start of a short zoo visit. There was a rain break for a bit.

While our visit lasted only an hour and half long, it still felt good as it brought about some sense of normalcy. If it were not for the pandemic, this visit would not have been such a big deal. It would be a part of normalcy that our kid would have grown up with. Play dates with kids his age, visit to a park or zoo and visits from friends and family. It’s hard to believe that our son will be a year old next month and neither his grandparents nor his uncles have visited him. With the pace of the vaccines ramping up, I am cautiously optimistic that a new normal (totally different from pre-pandemic or peri-pandemic reality) will emerge where we have social interactions like before but a lot of peri-pandemic norms will persist.

Here are a couple of shots I took while we were at the zoo:

Penguins didn’t seem to mind the cold, windy, rainy weather at all

Tapir. Had never seen or heard of this animal before.

Personal : Subtle Nudge?

Posted on by AstroPilotDad

Pacific North West skies have been dark and gray for the past two months ruling out any astro-photography and since I don’t plan to fly with an instructor at least till April, flying is out of question as well. I don’t want to talk about work as that will make this post a rant 🙂 . What remains is personal life which is what this post will focus on.

My child’s nursery some how turned out to be space themed. Not sure what happened or what influenced my decision to do that 🙂 . In addition, my wife got him these books which I religiously read to him every day. Those books are really good. While I think he is too young to understand any of it yet, the books do a good job of elucidating complex physics topics. So I think my son is growing a keen interest in Physics and Astronomy /s.

In all seriousness though, I am not going to dictate what my son pursues as his career and I don’t want to influence him at this young age through subtle and not so subtle nudges. I will, however, also not shy away from sharing my hobbies and passions with him. I think they will inculcate in him the importance of hobbies and passions and hopefully over time help him find and pursue what he likes. I also want my son to exhibit scientific curiosity, think critically and question everything. I think all of that is possible by learning the scientific method and having a basic understanding of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. The physics series of books for babies is a great start but I think there is a whole slew of them by the author Chris Ferrie and there are versions for cell biology, organic chemistry, neural networks and more by other authors. I think it is a good way for younglings to get introduced to STEM fields. Ultimately, all we can do is nurture our kids to be curious and critical thinkers and trust that those qualities will help them navigate the world and find their purpose and passion in life.

Personal: First Snow

Posted on by AstroPilotDad

Today our son experienced his first snow. Well, sort of. It doesn’t snow as much in the pacific northwest but when it does, everything shuts down. For the last couple of winters there has been snow atleast once during the season and adds up to atleast half a foot if not more.

Our son experienced snow in the sense that he witnessed snowfall through the window and then I dressed him up in warm clothes and took him outside. I say sort of, because we did not spend enough time making snowman or playing around in the snow. I think he is too young for that .. Instead we did what Gen X or whatever the younger generation now is called :). We took a bunch of pictures for memory and to check the box for social media posts. Here is a picture of us hanging out in the snow for a bit.

Good thing about Seattle is that it doesn’t snow all winter and the snow doesn’t last throughout the winter. I still remember spending 3 (or was it 4) winters in the Midwest. You always enjoy the first snow and then it becomes a drag when you have to scrape ice off your windshield every morning or bear the -20 wind chill while waiting for your bus to arrive. I don’t miss that part of my life now but I do miss the snow days and the grad school life. Looking forward to when my son is a bit grown up so that we can actually spend time playing in the snow!

Personal: 2020 Reflections

Posted on by AstroPilotDad

Reflections on a year gone by is an exercise that quite a few folks undertake. Especially for a year like 2020, which has been challenging for most of the world due to COVID-19 pandemic. I thought I’d try to do the same this year but rather than just reflect, I wanted to list out the things that I’m thankful for this year. This year has been incredibly hard for almost everyone around the world but it has been much harder for some more than others. People have lost ,their dear ones, their jobs, their homes, their life savings and more. Relative to those people, I have had, what I can only call a wonderful year. This exercise, trust me, is not easy for me. I am not good at reflecting on life experiences or reflecting on things I am thankful for. It’s just that I wanted to put some effort and time going through this exercise which doesn’t come naturally to me. So here goes nothing.

First off, after struggling for more than three years, we were lucky enough to welcome a baby boy into this world and our lives. I’m very very thankful for this!

With the pandemic, the early days of managing the baby were tough, but I am thankful for the wonderful friends that I have who provided us with prepared meals for the first two months of the baby’s life.

I’m also thankful for having a job that allows me to pursue my hobbies of flying and astronomy. Although, I haven’t been able to spend much time this year on the former because of the baby and the pandemic.

I’m thankful for my wonderful wife who keeps up with my tantrums and allows me to pursue my hobbies. Most days she is primarily taking care of the baby and instead of taking a break during weekends, she encourages me to go pursue my hobbies. I think I can do more to support her and help her out more in taking care of our son.

Finally, I’m thankful for my health. I have had struggles with health in my early twenties that continued on for about a decade. For more than a decade now, I have been lucky enough to have my condition under control allowing me to pursue my hobbies, live a normal life and now take care of my son. I’m very thankful for that.

Despite all these good things in my life, 2020 has been a bit of a struggle. Our parents and my brother haven’t had a chance to visit or meet with our son. I absolutely abhor the isolation. I usually enjoy the company of people but we have practically been in quarantine since April 2020. I switched teams in my current job twice. The first time because I did not see a growth path in my old team and the second time because, even though the role was good and had a growth trajectory, my boss was a micromanager. Don’t get me wrong, my boss is a nice man, but I cannot work for someone who 1) upward manages creating churn on the people who work for him making them work late nights and weekends for no good reason except that he cannot push back to his seniors on unnecessary, redundant work 2) micro-manages sitting with team members 2-3 layers below him doing grunt work because he does not trust them. I got out of that team as soon as I could. I am now in another team that I don’t think I like. COVID makes it harder to concentrate at work and get anything done. It’s even hard with managing a 8 month old when both my wife and I work.

Overall, If I reflect on 2020, I think the huge positives out weigh the negatives but the everyday drag that the year had been made it hard to enjoy the positives. Even though the vaccines are now available, I think most of 2021 will be spent in isolation. However, I’m hoping to spend more time in 2021 reflecting and enjoying the positives so that the day to day becomes easier to tolerate. Here’s to life getting back to normal in 2021 again. Happy New Year!