What I’m doing now?

Welcome to the What I’m doing now page.

Welcome to the What I’m doing now page.

Done with Braces…

I am off my braces now. The treatment took 14 months and costed me $9k (NZ). It was totally worth it. I am loving how easy it so clean and maintain my teeth (now that they are aligned well and not crowded). Check out my new look below:

FREE Data Analyst Course:

Since the start of 2024, I have been feeling a bit lost with the strategy of my content creation. Finally around April 2024, I got the clarity I needed. I shifted my focus from making small, fluff videos to more in-depth and practical content. As part of this, at the end of July, I started a series on “Free data analyst course”. The purpose is to go deeper and offer a full-length course for free on YouTube and my site.

Check out the course page here and learn if you are looking for that kind of info.

What I am playing…

Did I tell you I love video games? Some of my fondest childhood memories are playing games on computers. May be because I sucked playing real-world games or computers have fascinated for a long-time, but I always enjoy playing a good game. 

These days, I spend (way too much) time playing Mario Wonder, Mario Odyssey, Zelda – Tears of the Kingdom and a Fortnite. 

I think on a per dollar basis, video games offer best value for money. A game like Mario Odyssey costs US$50 but you can play it for 300 hours and still have fun. If you have a friend or family member to enjoy it with, then the total hours easily doubles up (needless to say, all the memories and bonding it will build). So yeah, I love video games.

Braces (update)

It is now 8 months since I got braces. I am really happy I did this. My teeth are now in a great shape and on to the last stretch of movement. I will share a picture later.

500,000 subs on Youtube:

In the second week of August 2023, my Youtube channel reached the milestone of 500,000 subs. Of course, subscribers is just a vanity number, but it also signifies the effort and deliberate actions I have been taking for the last 3 years. We celebrated the occasion with a beautiful cake (which Jo surprised me with) and having dinner / drinks with our close friends.

Podcast, again…

I’ve been itching to re-start my podcast for the last 12 months and I finally yielded. On 13th of June I released my first episode of the season 2. So far I’ve recorded 5 episodes already and plan to release one episode per month. There are a lot of things to talk…

Check out the podcast here.

Braces (update)

I am surprised how quickly my teeth are moving. It has been just over 4 months and already my bottom teeth have all moved into their places. One of my teeth  used to be firmly behind all others but now it is where it should be. Exciting times.

I am also able to eat and sleep better as there is no ongoing pain.

Do check the braces vlog.

Road trip to Taupo:

Here in NZ, it is the school term break. So we all (kids, jo and even the dog!) went on a road trip to Lake Taupo for a week. I spent the week doing pretty much nothing.

Everyday, we would wake up. After breakfast, Jo & I would stroll to the nearby Two mile bay sailing club for coffee.

We would then leisurely stroll by the lake or come back to the Airbnb for another dose of big-ol’-nothing.

The evolving identities:

All my life, I tried to fit myself in identities like programmer, entrepreneur,  blogger, writer, teacher, cyclist etc. Every time, I picked up a new thing, I just added it to my pile of identity descriptors.

But off late, I am not piling up. Instead I think about this as replacing identities.

For example, now a days I consider myself more of a youtuber than a blogger.

Some of these new identities I evolved to in the last couple of years are:

• cyclist to exerciser
• blogger to youtuber
• frugal to not being so hard myself
• video game player

Work vs. Body of Work

One of my motivators is Prof. Donald Knuth. He famously said on his website, “Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. “

I turned 40 in 2021. One of the beautiful advantages of growing up in India is that you get used to immense competition and build a hardworking ethic. So for a long time, I viewed work as something that we should grind. 

But now a days, I think more about body of work rather than work. What I mean is, I view each piece of work I do and ask myself, is this going to create a lasting impact for me, someone else or the world. If so, I work (or grind) at it. If not, I would let it pass.

Big personal change…

I got BRACES!!! That is right. I got braces in April 2023. The procedure will take 12-18 months to complete. Here is a short vlog with my new braces look.