Sunday Morning Boston Shots

Posted on by in Boston/Cambridge, Photography

A few weeks ago I got up early on a Sunday morning and took a walking photography course in the North End. I’m trying to get into a better habit of taking my camera out around town, as I usually shoot when travelling then put my camera back in a drawer until next time. So this was the perfect excuse. Here are a few highlights. Fire escapes in an alley: Shadows against a brick building: Mamma Maria: North Square Oyster: Sunlight through leaves: Mr. Revere: Dog Tag Garden Memorial: Bacco and Al Dente: And the cruiseship terminal from my walk home:

Family Dinner

Posted on by in Boston/Cambridge, Food

I’m excited about an awesome new food delivery service called Family Dinner started by my friends Tim and Erin. They source fruits, veggies, cheese, yogurt, meat, fish, pasta, bread, and eggs from local farms around New England, and deliver a share to your home weekly. It sounds like most of the items are organic, and those that aren’t are still coming from local farms with sustainable practices. It’s similar to Boston Organics, which I subscribed to for a number of years. But for me the differentiator is the meat, dairy, and grains. It’s nice to get a mix, and to be able to take the share and cook a full meal. Really pumped for dinner tomorrow. Here’s what I received

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Some Thoughtful Points on the VIX

Posted on by in Economics

Larry Summers via Tyler Cowen: SUMMERS: Second, the VIX — people tend to underappreciate this. The volatility of the market moves very much with the level of the market. The reason is that if a company has $100 of debt and $100 of equity, and then the stock market goes up, it’s 50/50 levered. If the stock market goes up by $100, then it has $100 of debt and $200 of equity and it’s only one-third levered. So when the stock market goes up, its volatility naturally goes down. And the stock market has gone way up over the last 10 months. That’s a factor operating to make its volatility go significantly down. It’s also the case if you look at surprises.

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Nantucket

Posted on by in Greater Boston, Photography

Spent the weekend in Nantucket to celebrate my good friend Casey’s last month as a bachelor. It was my first time there, and I was hoping to get some good photos on my D7200. It turned out to be a bit foggy, so I left my camera at the house for most of the weekend. But it cleared up in patches and I got a few shots on my phone. I’d never used Lightroom Mobile, and Casey recommended I try it out. I was blown away at how easy it is to use, and how well it integrated with my Zenfolio workflow. Here are a few shots from my phone. The harbor: Tom Never Beach: Waterfront houses from the ferry

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Boston: Built on Water

Posted on by in Boston/Cambridge, Data Visualization, Greater Boston

I’ve always enjoyed looking at old maps of Boston that show how the coastline has changed over the past 400 years, as more and more “man made land” was created. I was just talking about this over the weekend with a few friends, and then today National Geographic put out a piece, “How Boston Made Itself Bigger,” with some great maps illustrating the changes. Here’s the simplest view, comparing 1630 to today: A few things: As a South Boston resident for 10 years, I’m getting tired of my mom telling me that when sea levels rise, I’m dangerously close to the water. Look mom, I don’t live in the filled in area! (and yes, I’ve checked the topographic maps as

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When do you go to the hospital after labor begins?

Posted on by in Charts & Data, Data Visualization, General

Two weeks ago Laura gave birth to our first child, Mason West Kornstein. Everyone’s doing really well, and it’s been a blast so far. As soon as Laura went into labor at 2:00 am early Thursday morning, she began tracking her contractions so that we could tell how things were progressing and decide when it was time to go to the hospital. By 8:00 am we were curious to better understand how quickly things would advance. The doctor had told us to wait until contractions were five minutes apart for an hour before coming to the hospital. That was fairly straightforward guidance, but we had no clue whether that time would come in a few hours or a few days. And we didn’t know

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Happy Passover

Posted on by in General

This year we held our 13th consecutive friends seder, now a long running tradition. We started at Chester Street in 2005, had a great run at D Street from 2007-2013, did three years at Athens Street from 2014-2016, and this year Mike and Tina held it down on Gold Street. While the format has evolved quite a bit, one thing that has remained consistent is that we never actually have it on one of the first two nights of Passover, when you’re “supposed” to seder. We originally would to wait until the 3rd or 4th nights, so that we could steal family leftovers. That led to the brisket showdown of 2006. Later we would hold it on the 7th and 8th nights,

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