Author: jon

2026 Goals

2026 Goals

TLDR: Here’s the blog condensed to ~100 words:

2026 Goals

I turn 40 this year. Time to answer three big questions: What’s next for work? Where do we live? How do I make a difference?

My misogi: Build a product, start a small business. Not trying would feel worse than failing.

The priorities: Hit 200 lbs before my birthday. Restart meditation. Take the summer off—even if it means quitting. More 1:1 time with my kids. Monthly dates with my wife. Daily piano.

I’m probably overcommitting. But failure isn’t missing some goals—it’s staying stuck in the same place.

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Weigh Under 200 Pounds by Age 40

On March 3, 2020, I weighed 190.6 pounds. I didn’t record my weight again until October 15 that same year—203 pounds. Plus 13 pandemic pounds. And I’ve kept them all for the last five full years.

Time for them to go.

I’m down to 202 now from a recent 208 around Thanksgiving. 2 pounds to go. I turn 40 end of February. This one has a hard deadline.

I actually want to get to 190 or so but sub 200 is the must do. I’ve been making good progress the last 5 week.

The Year’s Big Questions

I’m calling this my extended midlife crisis, and I mean it. Not the cliché kind with a sports car. The real kind where you get laid off, move across the country, get 2 new jobs in 6 months, move back across the country, look at the next decade and realize you don’t want to repeat what you’ve been doing the last 10 years.

Three questions I need to answer this year:

What’s next for work? I’m confident in the near term the answer is entrepreneurship. I want to build something. Make a product, start a small business. Even if it’s small, even if the income is modest. This is a life goal. I also like working with people so I’m not ruling out company employment at some point but at this point I’m mostly at Apple for the money.

Where do we live? Genuinely undecided. Bay Area or somewhere else entirely. This one affects everything. We always wanted to live by the ocean, and now we are. TBD if it’s the long term place though. Living here comes with many major tradeoffs. High costs, marginal housing, California politics, and all the associated day to day frustrations. But

How do I make a difference? I want to get involved, possiably politically. Still figuring out what form this takes—local or national, volunteering or something else.

The Goals

I started with a Top 10 list, but it grew. These are the things that matter. Continue reading “2026 Goals”

2025 a brief retrospective

2025 is over. Looking back…

Another move back to Cali, kids growing up, Max in full day school, Jane in first grade picking up on memes ( 6/7 ! ), a new job for Megan begins and ends, a new job for Jon, first kid’s skiing with Aunt Catie, a super fun remote river trip and ultra lux trip to NYC for a big marriage milestone, family visits, and tons of great evenings at Eben G Fine park at Boulder Creek and Natural Bridges Beach in Cali.

January

  • New job with Rich

February

  • 2/8 Skiing with kids at Eldora
  • 2/22 – 2/24 Winter Park condo and ski with Aunt Catie!

March

  • 3/3 – 3/8 Mexico with Gma and Bop
  • 3/4 Offer on Meadow house
  • 3/16 Bought the Tesla
  • 3/27 Megan starts work at Stanford

April

  • 4/5 Skiing with kids at Eldora
  • 4/21 Closing on Meadow house

May

  • 5/15 – 5/19 Jon visits the house in Santa Cruz
  • 5/27 – 5/30 Jane Music and Sports camp post school

June

  • 6/8 – 6/10 Ruby Horsethief float trip with the Leightons

July

  • 7/18 – 7/23 Wisconsin, GGram bday
  • 7/30 Pack and load begins
  • 7/30 – 8/3 Temp stay Residence in Boulder

August

  • 8/3 Jon arrives in Santa Cruz
  • 8/4 Megan and Kids arrive in Santa Cruz
  • 8/7 Kids start TK and 1st Grade
  • 8/14 – 8/18 Mom and Catie visiting, Golf, Boardwalk, Home restaurant, sunset sailing, Birthdays (Mom and Max)

September

  • Soccer starts for Max, Jane, and Coach Megan

October

  • 10/3 – 10-11 New York City, 10 year anniversary
  • 10/24 – 10/26 Yosemite Curry Village

November

  • 11/17 – 11/28 Colorado visit, Boulder then Aurora, Thanksgiving at Lenore’s and Trabert’s

December

  • 12/1 Jon begins a mission <200lbs by age 40
  • 12/3 Apple Christmas party at Apple Park
  • 12/29 Day in SF with the kids
  • 12/31 New Year’s Eve in SF

Carpe Diem, Spring in CA

Adventures in the Past Few Months

Our calendar has been packed the past few months with short adventures and weekend trips, all flavored with a strong dose of short notice spontaneity and disorganization. With the project shutdown and layoff I felt the need to take advantage of every single day between the announcement of the project shutdown and the end of my notice period when I would be officially unemployed. It was such a whirlwind of last minute plans we even packed for trips that never happened!

Tahoe Northstar

Our adventures began with a last-minute trip to Tahoe Northstar. We booked our stay at 10 PM the night before leaving  yet still managed to travel in style. I rented a Tesla Model Y to try out self-driving during the long (for us) trip up to the mountains. The car added some fun for me, though I’m not sure the kids noticed much difference. Continue reading “Carpe Diem, Spring in CA”

Recovering a blog… for dummies

Part 1 – Dissolution

In 2023 I let my domain registration and hosting services lapse. I had owned jonmcosgrove.name since about 2013, and babylonman.com for even longer, perhaps since about 2010. Somewhere in there I also registered joncosgrove.com. All of which at one point or another was the dns pointing to my WordPress blog hosted at Bluehost.

For several years my activity was low but consistent. Then a few years ago posting consistency declined. The trend is clear in the post history. Continue reading “Recovering a blog… for dummies”

Fresh Kill, Twin Peaks Region, CO

Even before moving to Colorado I was invited to join Dan and Cory on their annual elk hunting trip. Around April each year they put in for first season rifle tags in an area Southwest of Carbondale, unit 43. This year they each got an A tag, which is good for any sex elk (cow or bull), along with the 3rd in the group, their friend Josh.

We left on a Friday at sunrise, I on my motorcycle riding from Boulder, and the others in Dan’s truck driving from Arvada. I had wanted to ride to cover the mountains and take the opportunity to ride the approximately 20 miles of dirt roads leading toward the hunting camp. Continue reading “Fresh Kill, Twin Peaks Region, CO”

Laid off!

Apple leadership made the decision to “wind-down” the Titan program. All of us on T172 were told in an all hands meeting on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

Initially I had feelings of relief, some uncertainty, and excitement. Relief that the leadership finally made a decision and we had clear direction regarding the project’s future. Our project had been furiously working on short term deliverables while having no long term clear direction or vision for almost two years. While it wasn’t the decision I had really hoped for, at least it was a decision. Continue reading “Laid off!”

2022: Goals

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In contrast to past years I’m switching to quarterly goals for 2022. Here is a list of my goals for Q1 2022. I plan to update this post at the end of each quarter and reassess at that time for the next. Q1 1/1 – 3/31 Read 5 books (at least 2 fiction) Post 3 blogs and / or project pages Decide go / no go: building an ADU and finalize the project plan with design and permit application if decision is a go < 200 lbs weekly average during week 14 2.7 W/kg @ 20 min performance ( baseline 2.56W/kg@20mi: 92.5kg) Ride 450 miles Make an NFT Q2 Q3 Q4 Summary

3 weeks in CO, Golden-Fort Collins-Breckenridge-Boulder, Colorado

As a higher elevation followup to our 3 weeks at the beach earlier in the year we planned a 3 week trip to Colorado for late fall this year, and we just got back.

My company has instituted a pilot program which officially allows remote work outside of your home state for 2 weeks per calendar year. Actually this was extended to 4 since planning the trip but I digress. When this was announced I jumped on it telling my group I’d be elsewhere for November before we had the trip planned. Most of the details came together pretty quickly and we booked stays in all our past locales. And with the expectation of a full week off for Thanksgiving from my job, we were able to stay for more than three weeks.

Continue reading “3 weeks in CO, Golden-Fort Collins-Breckenridge-Boulder, Colorado”

Max, with help from gpt-2

This post is written with the assistance of GPT-2. Sections written by me are used as model prompts, and the model output is then modified or curated and able to be used again in following prompts.

Beginning of post

August 23, 2021:

[P1] Megan woke me early in the morning around 3am and said it was time to go have a baby, her water had broken an hour earlier. We sprung into action, though with a tiny bit less apprehension than the first time with Jane. After a long day but mostly typical delivery Max Thomas Cosgrove was born. Birth specifications are as follows:

Length: 50.8 cm (1′ 8”)

Weight: 3.15 kg (6 lb 15.1 oz)

Head Circumference: 36 cm (14.17”)

Apgar One: 9.0

Apgar Five: 9.0

Gestation Age: 39 2/7 wks

[S1] Having another baby was the goal, so that we could round out the family and give Jane a sibling. There are a lot of factors that go into any pregnancy. Luckily for us Megan didn’t have any issues getting pregnant. Recently I’ve noticed that it’s really hard for many to get pregnant. This one was a little different than Jane, mostly because we are so busy keeping up with Jane already. The pregnancy passed quickly and even since Max has been here life just keeps rushing on by. Continue reading “Max, with help from gpt-2”