First impressions of Tokyo: it’s HUGE, it’s super clean (despite no public trash cans anywhere), and everyone dresses so nicely. Going up to the observation deck of the Skytree at 1,480 feet, all you see for days is the massive sprawl of the city. We saw a fraction of the city and each neighborhood was so much fun to walk around in. Always felt incredibly safe. Such a special city.

This past summer, I jumped back into slow-pitch softball for the first time in 6 years. My work made a team and we compeated weeknights on the Boston Common and Teddy Ebersol fields off of Storrow Drive. It was a ton of fun to get back into the swing of things. I was pretty rusty in the field, but by the end of the summer was doing a decent impression of a competent shortstop. The coolest moment was hitting my one and only homerun over the fence on the common. As a team, our workforce…

Somehow, despite growing up and living in New England my entire life, I never visited Acadia National Park. Thankfully that changed last fall when Haley and camped there with Trey and Elonna, and of course, the dogs. We had a wonderful weekend enjoying the beautiful fall foliage. An early hike up Cadillac provided a wonderful view of sunrise. The dogs had a wonderful time going for walks, swims, and taking naps together. I also got to ride the carriage roads for the first time and found them…

Last year, Haley and I flew to Colorado to explore Denver and trek through Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a great time exploring the city and taking in a Rockies game before driving into the mountains. The Bear Lake area was stunningly beautiful while we hiked. There were so many opportunities to run into wildlife, whether on the trail when we stumbled upon a couple of elk around a corner, or while parking the car in downtown Estes Park. Even just driving through the park, up and over the…

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…