Some of my major life highlights:
As I look back on 2016, I’m amazed at both how quickly the year went and yet how much happened.
Personal
- Julija and I celebrated our marriage with a reception in beautiful Vilnius, Lithuania.
- Thanksgiving with my parents + Jax/Derek in Monterey, CA.
- Spent Christmas holidays with Julija’s family in Lithuania.
- Spent New Year’s in New York City.
Professional
- Finished my second year at SVDS as a Senior Data Scientist.
- My screencast video course: Jupyter Notebook for Data Science Teams went on sale!
Creative
- Had my art selected and shown in a gallery.
- Showed my art at SF Open Studios.
Recommended Books Read This Year
Fiction
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach
- Hum by Jamaal May
Non-fiction
- Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson
- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
- Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
Places that I spent time this year
- Dallas, TX, USA — (family/friends)
- Mountain View, CA, USA — where I live and work
- San Diego, CA, USA — SVDS client that took me there throughout the year
- Berkeley, CA, USA — AstroHackWeek
- Maui, HI, USA & Kauai, HI, USA — Honeymoon!
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA — First time to visit! Met up with Lauri and Vaiva and their brand new kid WHATSHISNAME.
- Copenhagen, DNK — Day trip on the way to Vilnius.
- Vilnius, LTU — Our wedding reception.
- Riga, LVA — Xmas eve and day.
- NYC, USA for New Year’s Eve, Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, The Present
- Jacksonville, FL, USA — Katie/Alex Mendez wedding.
- Monterey, CA, USA — Thanksgiving w/ my parents, and Jax & Derek.
Looking forward to in the new year
- The above artwork MJFWNKRD (2017) was selected for a juried art show at the Arc Gallery at the end of January.
- Trip to the Netherlands to celebrate my wife winning Best Physics Thesis published in the Netherlands last year.
- A keynote speaker engagement for the PhD Career Conference at USC.
- Teaching a workshop for Stanford Continuing Studies during the Spring quarter.
