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Some of my notebooks
February 10, 2025
Well, it’s 2025. I feel like we might as well call it 1925, depending on your outlook in present day events. I skipped January due to feeling extremely...
Advent of the Christmas Letter
December 6, 2024
I never received a mailed, annual Christmas letter. For the unreceived, these are letters you receive from friends or family who send out a letter of how the...
Election Jitters
November 5, 2024
📍 Location: Bay Area, CA An anxious election day to you too. A follow-up from my last newsletter, Morgan and I closed on our home towards the end of this...
The Sisyphean Task of Writing
October 8, 2024
📍 Location: Bay Area, CA (in transit) I find it difficult to get started with writing. It is easier for me to give up on writing if I've lost a streak. The...
An Ode to the Seasonal Playlist
September 5, 2024
📍 Location: San Jose, CA I've been a fan of making seasonal music playlists for more than a decade. I started in iTunes, making new music and fitting them...
Summers Ablaze
August 2, 2024
Blue Skies This summer ramped up slowly, then became scorching. And that comes with a fire watch warning. 90F/32C isn’t what I would call ideal, especially...
June Bugs
July 2, 2024
If May was a happy time in our lives, then June erupted with a rude awakening. My wife and I caught COVID for the first time, which is surprising we didn’t...
A Surprise "May" Be Afoot
June 11, 2024
📍 Location: San Carlos, CA This month's newsletter is purposefully shorter because I got married this month! I decided to take off time from work and other...
April 2024 Updates
May 1, 2024
Switch Flipping 📍 Location: San Jose, CA The weather in the Bay Area during this season is like Mother Nature flipping the switch between cold and hot. She...
🔖 March 2024 Updates
April 1, 2024
Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.— Diane Ackerman Happy Springtime everyone! Yearly Theme For the past few years, I've been trying something new...
🗒️ February 2024 Updates
March 2, 2024
None of us know what will happen. Don’t spend time worrying about it. Make the most beautiful thing you can. Try to do that every day. That’s it.— Laurie...
Bye Bye Tinyletter
February 1, 2024
Hi everyone! It's been 5 years since the last email went out. In that time, I changed jobs, survived through a pandemic, and got engaged. I'm informing you...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: Sixth Degree
July 7, 2018
Introduction If you’ve been keeping up with me for this long, that means I have some loyal readers out there. Hi, it’s been a while. Haven’t spoken about...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: Fifth Degree
November 25, 2017
Dear Readers, It's been a while. I've been on vacation for the past three weeks enjoying the cold, desolate French country-side. It's been a gastronomic...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: Update
November 19, 2017
Dear Reader, I'm on vacation traveling through France and Spain. Sorry for the silence this past month. I didn't update the newsletter in time and did the...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: 4th Degree
October 23, 2017
Announcements A friend of mine reached out asking for donations for the Northern California wildfire relief fund. The fire wiped out his parent's home. I am...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: Third Degree
October 10, 2017
Introduction Welcome to the Jear Bear Letter's third letter of the series "Seven Degrees of Strangers". If you've just started reading this series, I...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: Second Degree
October 6, 2017
Introduction If you missed the newsletter last week, I started a new writing series. In this series, I interview one person a week, one degree of separation...
Seven Degrees of Strangers: First Degree
October 2, 2017
Introduction Welcome to the next installment of the Jear-Bear Letters. After a half year hiatus, we’re back with a new series called “Seven Degrees of...
Summer Update
August 15, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? Good summer to you, dear reader, I'm still here, and I haven't gone quiet. In fact, I want to give a quick update. I'm...
The Problem of Rushing Through
April 17, 2017
Dear Reader, This is the last letter of season 2. You have all been great supporters of my endeavor. The Jear-Bear letters will be going on a brief hiatus...
The Placement Problem
April 4, 2017
Dear Reader, Unlike the past failure essays you’ve read, this problem is different. This failure remains unanswered and I would like to know how you solve...
The Loneliness Problem
March 29, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, Here's your progress report: there are 8 essays in the series and you about to read the 6th...
Admission Failure - The Anger Problem
March 5, 2017
Dear Readers, I've finished my title text. It's minimal, just the way I like it. Too bad it will only be used for four more letters in this series. More time...
Admission: Failure - The Reactive Problem
March 3, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, Happy Sunday. I wonder how I was able to be so productive during the 2015 writing season....
Admission Failure: The Reliance Problem
February 24, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, I made it. Two letters to compensate for the delay last week. Weekend's upon us. I know...
Admission Failure: The Bystander Problem
February 17, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? Dear Reader, I wanted to release this last Tuesday, but I was burnt out from other activities. Instead, I watched a...
Admission: Failure -- The Negligence Problem
February 7, 2017
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?...
2016 Retrospective
January 2, 2017
Dear Reader, Here's an in-between season for the Jear-Bear Letters. I share my obligatory 2016 retrospective. Happy New Years! Jeremy 2016 Retrospective I...
On Catalogs
December 30, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, We made it through another year. I'll include a bonus "Year in Review" tomorrow. This is it...
On Generations
December 13, 2016
Dear Reader, I wrote this piece long before I knew the election results. I wanted to write an allegory for people to contextualize where we are in the...
On Film
October 17, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? Hello Dear Readers, I talked about film before in a letter titled "On Obsessions". This letter is a continuation of what...
Second Wind
August 4, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, Happy Thursday. It's been a very long while. Months. And I have some sad news. I'm retiring...
On Conversation
July 1, 2016
Hello Dear Readers, I had this letter just waiting for weeks because I wasn't satisfied with it. I spent a few minutes to write a short version of it that...
Ghosts, Part 2
June 3, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear reader, This letter comes to you a bit late. Of course, if I left you hanging, I'm sorry. This is...
Ghosts, Part 1
May 23, 2016
Dear readers, Hello again. I can't remember how long it's been. I'm not going to give you a long reason for my absence. Instead, let's tell ghost stories!...
On Validation
March 13, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, Happy Pi Day. Good to be back in action. Last week’s reboot wasn’t a fluke. This week’s...
On Obsession
March 8, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? On Obsession I repeat the same pattern every few months. I’ll stop being productive on personal...
Teamwork
January 27, 2016
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, This week is coming late and is extremely short. I'm hitting roadblocks with the next, long...
Musical Discontent
January 11, 2016
Dear Reader, This Monday's newsletter is brought to you by a very tired human being ready to go to bed. I got tied up on public transit today, so I took the...
The 2015 Retrospective
January 4, 2016
Dear Reader, To me, retrospective writing is a bit lazy. All you do is list out bullet points of what happened throughout the year. There’s not much thought...
The Blind Artist
December 17, 2015
Dear Reader, It's Thursday, four days away from when I was supposed to release the letter. The first two attempts at writing the letter seemed terrible. I...
On Peak Growth
December 6, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, This week, I’ve busted out the sharpies. During the Black Friday weekend, I bought a set of...
A Year of Jear-Bear Letters
November 29, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, Let’s keep this a bit informal. I’m thankful for a year of newsletters, thankful for all of...
On Self-Doubt
November 15, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, It's good to be back writing. I took a break last week traveling to San Luis Obispo to...
Another Rain Story
November 2, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, I wanted to write something short and sweet because I woke up to the rain. I wrote about...
Short Update About Releases
October 26, 2015
Dear Reader, I want to give a short update about a change in schedule for these emails. I'm changing it to every other week until the end of this year. My...
On Audiobooks
October 19, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? Dear Reader, I wrote this short piece about Audiobooks. I stopped myself from going off a tangent about...
Marathon Acknowledgements
October 11, 2015
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"? This is not a typical newsletter. Being a bit exhausted, I've decided to write some acknowledgements to...
Christmas in October
October 6, 2015
Dear Reader, After a week hiatus, I got around to editing my letter. I wanted to wait to make it sound... more legible. I still have my copy of Infinite Jest...
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