Back in 2023, I was training for the Paris-Brest-Paris, a grueling 1,200 km bike ride across France. Unfortunately, I got injured during my final qualifier. But since our flights were already booked, we pivoted and turned the trip into a French vacation instead.

On the first weekend of February, the Merlo family descended upon Norway for a weekend in the woods. The beautiful house had incredible views of the mountains, and lots of great sleding and tubing from all the fresh snow. We also ventured out to a skating rink. Taxidermied water fowl were looked at and discussed, and the hot tub and outdoor fire was enjoyed by all.

This past summer and fall, I got to cheer on my favorite niece and nephew as they played baseball and soccer. Paxton’s the next Chris Sale out there on the mound, and Hadley is so fast, definitely the next Alex Morgan. Watch out Olympics, here they come!

A couple months ago, I was returning from a work trip in Arizona when my co-workers and I were struck by the Crowdstrike debacle. During the entire ordeal, my co-workers and I posted to a teams channel chronicling our journey, worts and all. After over 230 messages spanning 68 hours, I had to somehow immortalize this remarkable trip. Being 2024, I resorted to feeding all the messages to ChatGPT to create a blog post summarizing the best parts. Below is the telling of our journey, according to…

Last November, under the Florida sun that painted the sky in hues of gold and crimson during flight windows, I embarked on a nine-day powered paragliding training adventure with a few of my co-workers. What ensued was an experience that defied gravity and left us all with a newfound respect for the art of flight. From mastering the intricacies of takeoff and landing to navigating the skies with precision and grace, each day brought a fresh exhilaration that deepened our bond with the open skies…

Haley, Sandy, and I decided to get the full eclipse experience and see totality for ourselves. After far too many hours researching, we decided to drive up early Monday morning, take some meetings in parking lots in St. Johnsbury, VT, then spend the day relaxing at the Dirt Church Brewing Company in East Haven, VT. There were probably 100 people who joined us from all over the country. The vibe was awesome, drinking hazy IPAs while playing cards and slowly watching the moon traverse across the…

Welcome to Wilmington! Last Halloween, Haley and I closed on our new house! The photos below are from the listing and a starting point. We have lots of plans for renovating, painting, and updating all the rooms over the next few years. It’s going to be a fun evolution as we slowly bring the house into this century and make it all our own. I’m just thrilled to have a garage and not hit my head anywhere in the house!

Last fall, Haley and I did a long weekend trip to the Twin Cities. Part of my bucket list is to visit every MLB team’s stadium. With the Angels coming to Minnesota, it seemed like a great opportunity to see Target field and Shohei Ohtani (aka the 🐐). Unfortunately, Shohei wound up getting hurt a few weeks before we arrived, but we still had a great time walking around and exploring Minneapolis and St. Paul. There are many nice parks and activities, including kayaking in the Chain of Lakes…

For 4th of July weekend, we rented a house on a small island in Crystal Lake in Gray, Maine with some friends. It was a great place to relax, enjoy a fire, play some board games, and relax on the water. The first couple days were filled with ear-piercing toller screams from Sandy, wanting so desparately to go into the water but didn’t have the courage to do it. Finally, on the last day, she went all in, and once she did, she wouldn’t stop! Unless it was a different side of the dock.…

Last year I started training for attempting Paris-Brest-Paris in 2023. My training started last fall and went really well. I seemed to have made a full recovery from my knee injury last year and was quite pleased with how I paced myself on the 200 km and 300 km races. But ultimately, the never-ending rain on both the 400 km and 600 km eventually did me in, causing me to retire early on day two of the final brevet qualifying ride and dashing any hope of PBP this year. Here’s a quick summary…