Hi Friends,

This week was one of those weeks where I just executed on my obligations and had very little -- essentially zero -- time for creative, unplanned work. These weeks don't come often for me, which I guess is fortunate. I really like having a couple hours per day for random musing, reading, or exploratory project work.

The upshot of this is that I have little news to report. Here it is:

Cooking

Friday night, when things were calming down and I could tell the weekend was near and would bring a respite from the whirlwind that was this past week, I made a sort of General Tso's Tofu dish. The recipe is basically this

1. Cut half a block of extra firm tofu into bite-sized cubes.
2. Coat the tofu with a layer of corn starch by mixing in a large bowl.
3. Shallow fry the tofu in some oil in a pan.
4. Mince ginger and garlic.
5. Mix the ginger and garlic with 1/2 cup soy sauce (or tamari), 1/2 cup of water, and 2 tablespoons of corn starch, a tablespoon of maple syrup, and a tablespoon of sesame seeds.
6. When the tofu is cooked on all sides, pour the mixture into the pan and stir around to coat the tofu.
7. Let cook for a couple minutes until the sauce starts to thicken.

I had rice in the fridge, and a couple heads of broccoli. So I steamed the broccoli and served myself the tofu and broccoli in a bowl over rice. It was delicious and filling 🙂

Activities

My team at Stripe is distributed, meaning we all work from different locations. About once per quarter we try to all get together at one of Stripe's offices for a week. This is a good chance to build trust by getting to know each other a little bit better.

This past week my team came to New York City to work out of the Manhattan office. Since these "onsite" get-togethers are only for a week every few months, we organize a couple extra-curricular activities in the spirit of team bonding.

This week's activities included a round of Beat the Bomb team building in Brooklyn, and a 30 minute session at The Rage Cage. I'm naturally sceptical of these sorts of activities, but I ended up having a good time at both. We ended up "beating the bomb" with just 5 seconds to spare, but opted to get blasted with paint anyway. And in The Rage Cage we destroyed an old monitor, many plates, a couple desk phones, and a PS3. The Playstation was surprisingly sturdy!

I'm using this weekend as a reset. I woke up at 7:30am today (Saturday), walked the dog, went to the gym, cleaned the house, did laundry, did my weekly review. Then I took some time to shower and relax and drink coffee. Catching up on chores and getting my task management system up to date does a lot for my peace of mind. After posting this newsletter in a few minutes, the rest of the weekend will largely be open and unplanned.

Stay safe and see you next week ❤️