Daniel Rozenberg

What am I doing now?

Last updated: September 8, 2024

Big Updates

It's taken months to get the approval from the building management company, but I finally got the kitchen renovation done! Well, almost—there are still a few minor things that the contractor needs to finish, but it looks gorgeous, and I can finally cook again. The most exciting feature of it is that the island is on wheels and can be moved, so that whenever I host a dinner party, I can flush it against the wall to allow for more seating space.

Hosting

Because of the unknown timeline for the kitchen renovation, I wasn't too thrilled about hosting people in the apartment in recent months. Nevertheless, both multiple friends from London (Adam Caddy, Adam Lynch, and Arthur, who doesn't technically live in London anymore) stayed over. Now that the renovation is over, I'll start hosting more regularly again.

Travel

In June, I visited Jared in Chicago. That was only a few weeks before we met again, along with his friend Rob, for a backpacking trip in Banff, Canada. We slept for two nights in a tent, hiked around one of the smaller mountain ranges in the park, and took about an hour and a half to ford the one river in our trail that did not have a bridge over it. The water was freezing, but thankfully the sun was shining most of the trip, which helped dry us up fast. We did lose one flip-flop to the river.

In August, I flew to Montréal for pride with Adam Lynch and met with two friends from Vancouver, Darren and Sam, both of whom I haven't seen in a while. Of course, we hung out with Ryan, who lives there.

Later in August, I flew to Lausanne, Switzerland, to finally make good on my decade-long promise to Yev that I would visit him there. We went for a day hike climbing a mountain, though I chose to take the funicular (you can't spell funicular without fun!) on the way down as I was still tired from jetlag. The next day I rented an e-bike, and we rode around Lake Léman (a.k.a. Lake Geneva) to Évian-les-Bains, France (yes, that Evian, from bottled-water fame). During the ride, I took a turn too fast and crashed on my chin, resulting in a hospital visit and two stitches. It healed surprisingly fast, and I regret nothing except for missing out on our planned fancy dinner that evening.

From there, I flew to Zakynthos, Greece, for the now-definitely-traditional annual family vacation. It was an unusual destination for my mom to choose, as that particular Greek island is sparse in museums and archeological sites, so we spent a lot more time in our rented house by the pool and going to the beach, compared to the family trips in the last two years. These trips always remind me that I'm not made for heat. It was 36°C (97°F) almost every day. I kept telling my mom that next year we should go to Norway.

I also hopped over to London for a short “extended” layover before returning to NYC.

Hobbies

I tried several workout tracking apps to see if any of them have a good pacer feature, but none of them worked for me. So I wrote one for Wear OS. It's main differentiating feature is that instead of using audio cues to indicate whether you're on pace or not (which is how the other apps I didn't like do it), it vibrates, so you can keep listening to your music without incessant beeps.

Reading

Theatre

Soon