#xxx (7/26/2023) - Recap of spring and summer 2023

 I had been seeing Ben at least 3 times a week since the end of winter break. Finally after an unfortunate episode in which we almost ended things, brought about, unfortunately by an innocent but thoughtless and hurtful transgression by me (aided by J), we decided to make it official and became exclusive boyfriends on 4/17/2023.  Things rapidly improved after that point, and he said that even if difficult conversations, I always say the perfect thing to make him feel better.  There was a brief stumble around Memorial Day, I think when he went home for a long weekend and started browsing Grindr and became upset about something (again innocent, I swear) in my profile. We talked about it, and I think he admitted that I had done nothing wrong and it was his imagination "self-sabotaging" as he put it.  I know I am his first boyfriend and really he first actual serious relationship, so it is understandable that he can be nervous and touchy.  Overall though, I find him to be a very mature, reasonable, thoughtful, generous, kind, lovely, charming, sexy guy. As soon as school ended in May, he started coming over to my place every day at 11 am and we would have lunch together, then walk the dog, play board games, (Spice Road, Honshu, Tokaido, Photosynthesis, and some others), watch shows (Hell's Kitchen, 8 out of 10 cats does Countdown, Silo, Severance, The Prisoner, Black Mirror, Loki, Wandavision, etc), go to the pool, go shopping and cook some spectaular meals together. He started his job on campus in June and would still come directly here everyday after work, usually around 3pm. He would often stay until midnight. One day, we went to Chicago by train and spent the afternoon in the Art Institute for the Van Gogh: Avant Garde and the Salvadore Dali exhibits.  After the success of that trip we decided to go somewhere together and decided on Vegas since it was so cheap and his parents had recently been there. It is one of the few places in the country he has visited and we decided to spend a week there.  his great suggestion to by an all-in 3 day pass was a great savings which let us go on two excursions to the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.  We also visited Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen and Fish&Chips place. Both were excellent. We did some other fun stuff like the Linq ferris wheel, going up the Paris Eiffel Tower, and lots of walking , eating and shopping.  We never did do any gambling and we missed out on the buffet he wanted to try as well as the Fremont Street experience. 

When we returned to CU, he was asked by his employer to consider extending his appointment through December, which I think he is going to do. It gives him more time to secure a good job, and also more time here with me, although he will have to sublet a place for the fall.  

We have been going to Triptych and Riggs brewery lately since the weather is so nice.  We had a really great time, just chatting, playing games and sampling the beers and food trucks.

Since I have been exclusive with Ben, I have not seen any of my old friends, but I do sometimes have lunch with Yang just to keep in touch.  He is very supportive.

ban and I upped out gym schedule from 3 days a week to 4 by adding a Saturday morning session. I have not missed any except for the one week that the Planet Fitness changed locations and was unavailable and the week in Vegas. Seeing major gains, especially in arms, chest and shoulders. I wish I felt as strong as I look.  Still a lot of weakness in hips, lower back and knees.  But this is certainly the best shape I have been in in a long time.  (Maybe since early 2020 when I was doing regular PT).

A list of all of the movies we have watched would be hard to compile, but three major ones recently; Oppenheimer, Asteroid City and Barbie, that we saw in theater.

See Mike about 1x a week for lunch. They both (Mike and Christina) come to the gym with us about half the time, sometimes skipping but I usually see them both at least 1 or 2x a week. Mike is working on his projects as usual. Apart from dog care and errands, we don't really interact that much any more. 

Reading: Ocean Vuong's On earth we're briefly gorgeous, Violet Kupersmith Frangipani Hotel and Build your house around my body. Anthony Doeer's Cloud Cuckoo Land and All the light we cannot see.  Bought several books that I would like to read, but have not been making the time.  Instead i have been grinding through Snowrunner (bought all the dlc's on sale around Memorial Day, after replaying the first four maps on my pirated copy).

Been redesigning the machine learning course with the help of Frank [jiangda wang]. It will be much more like the JP Morgan practicum in neural net option pricing. 

Have not been utilizing ChatGPT much this summer, but it still is a very useful tool. Ben and I spent a lot of time discussing a potential tool/game/website app called tentatively BioML, that would be a sequence analysis/manipulation activity/game.  We thought about it as a card and cube game similar to Spice Road, but where the sequence or colors/cubes matters, rather than just the number.  We also discussed doing a podcast discussing Ocean Vuong, but we couldn't decide on the particulars. We recorded one trial session that was about 40 minutes without and prep.  We may continue that.