Now

My running spree

Natalia had been (rightfully) nagging me to start exercising for about a year now. Having kids keeps us active (I lost 15Kg since they were born!), but its no replacement for a workout. If I wanna keep up with them now and in 30 years, I better shape up.

After several false starts, my friend Nico Varón suggested something crazy: “Run the Half-Marathon with me”. “3 months to train are plenty” he said.

I have no idea why I trusted him, but I got a training plan out of Hal Higdon’s website and next Sunday I was out running (and panting all the way). At the time I’m writing this I have run 19/45 training runs, have massively improved my fitness in ~8 weeks (with another 8 to go). I went from not being able to run 5K without walking to running it in 26 minutes. I also signed Natalia up for the Half Marathon (without asking her), so we are in this together!

I’m completely amazed both at the rate of progress and at what my body is capable of. I’m hooked!

PD: Shoutout to Byron @ The Runner’s High. We got our running shoes there, he was amazing.

Happiness Meter 🤩

8/10. Running and family have given me a ton of joy over the last couple of months, but the pressure to start producing income is becoming an important factor in my life. We expect to launch sales for my new venture in June 14th, so fingers crossed 🤞

Family 💛

Running with Nata has been the first time we share a hobby (besides assembling furniture together), so it has been great to push each other to keep up with the training plan.

Franco and Luca are becoming independent little people. They now suddenly decide they want to do a sleepover at their grandma’s (without letting us know), choose what they wear daily and have begun insisting on wanting a dog 🐶

They also recently asked for a baby sister. What a thought.

We got to travel to see my dad in Miami. We hadn’t seen him since October, but we really made up for the lost time. We got to run the Miami Boardwalk and then cool off in the sea!

Miami Beach Family Time

Franco ditched the nightly airplane. He now is back to being obsessed with soccer. Luca is now constantly singing, both known songs and his original compositions.

Entrepreneurship📚

My venture is now about to launch. It aims to create a new model for Higher Education. We will start with a short program (~12 weeks) aimed at professionals, and will be launching publicly on June 14th. Soon!

New Year’s Adventures

2025 came in rolling. We spent the end of the year in Neiva since my grandmother on my mom’s side is from there, and she just got a new apartment in town. I had never been to Neiva (amazingly, since 1/4 of my family is from there!). Her place is inside this club-like condominium, with pools, gyms, biking paths, geese, and until very recently, a geese-eating crocodile too 🐊.

We were there with my grandma, my mom, and my sister, who managed to come from Mexico. We also met so many amazing people, but in particular Lina Maria and Julián’s family (friends of my grandma), who showed us around town.

New Year’s Eve with the whole party

We LOVED ❤️ Neiva. I had heard it was just this town-ish hot-as-hell place, but the weather was rather mild the 10 days we were there. We found it has an incredible culinary scene and great day trip destinations (we particularly enjoyed the hot springs in Rivera).

Adventures were plentiful: We traveled to the Desierto de la Tatacoa, had one hospital visit (my mom had a surprise kidney stone 🫠), got lost in Camilo’s beautiful Finca where we got to see how wine and chocolate are made (while enjoying getting drenched with rainfall during the tour 🌧️), and ate in so many delicious restaurants 😋.

Happiness Meter 🤩

8.5/10. I am now working full-time in my new education venture (more on that below), which comes with a mix of excitement and anxiety. Excitement about what’s to come, anxiety because it might take a few months before I can draw a salary, and I REALLY don’t want to have to use our long-term savings.

Family 💛

Natalia had many stressful work problems during January, but suddenly last week everything “got resolved,” and she’s back to her happy self. She is now a true runner, running 5Ks often. She is also now reading voraciously in English, which was a huge personal goal for her. I’m proud 💛.

The kids are in a new daycare: Mundo Montessori. We found it fits our family much better (in particular, it’s great at giving the children more freedom to choose what to learn and giving Natalia and me a community to find other like-minded parents).

The nighttime ‘research time’ has really been a hit. Many days now it replaces their typical nighttime story. We have researched all manners of vehicles, animals, professions, celestial bodies, and whatever else they happened to take an interest in during the day.

They also learned how to ride a bike!

Franco has taken an obsession with planes ✈️ and now sleeps with one nightly, like a teddy bear but made of metal and with pointy ends all over. Luca doesn’t really have a particular obsession, but rather just a constant curiosity about everything. Both of them are recently grasping the meaning of death, which has been quite astonishing to see (and to explain).

Learning & Entrepreneurship📚

I barely learned any Rust. 😅. I thought I’d have lots of time, but I ended up using all of it towards my new education venture, and hence learning a ton about education in general, and particularly about the education ecosystem in Colombia, the shortcomings and strengths of traditional universities. I am ecstatic to finally talk about the idea more publicly, so you can read up more on it here 🤩.

A couple of new toys

Christmas gifts + some windfall from a couple of investments gave me spare cash to renew a few of my day-to-day tools. 👨‍💻

I had to give my company laptop back, so the opportunity came to choose a new computer for the first time in years. I grabbed a great sale on a MacBook Air M3 for 900 USD, which really was amazing considering a Dell XPS 13 or a Framework with comparable specs was 1200 USD. I still use my desktop heavily, so I valued portability when out of my house much more than sheer power. This is also my first Mac ever. 🍎.

I also changed my phone, which was a 5-year-old Samsung S20. Its back glass had been shattered for years now, and it was impossible to find cases for it (and 3D-printed ones fell apart too easily). I got a Google Pixel 9 Pro. I’ve been hearing great things about Pixel phones for years now. It has been great so far, with the camera being a particularly large upgrade over the S20.

Finally, I asked for a SuperNote A5X2 Manta for Christmas, and Santa decided I had been a good boy this year and got me one. It arrived just last week. I can now read articles I save on Pocket all day long without having to use my phone, which keeps the interactions with my kids healthier and gives me less reason to be checking notification hell. Also, taking notes in my notebook was getting uncomfortable (I needed to keep it with me at all times for reference). All my notes are now automatically synced with my other devices with SyncThing so I can look them up from anywhere.

Santa 🎅

Big changes

First, we came back from Chicago at the end of October. We missed the snow (which seems for the best, thermal sensation was at -22 Centigrade last week.)

Second, I am no longer working for R5. The last 2 years were a highlight in my professional life, particularly the work we did on our R5 App. It is now the largest vehicle App in the country, with ~250K monthly active users and almost a million total installs. Extremely proud of what we built together with Ricardo, Alejandro, Andrea and the rest of the team.

Third, I am starting a new adventure. I am building a new kind of educational institution in Colombia 🎓. More on that soon!

Happiness Meter 🤩

9/10. Leaving R5 left me teary-eyed when saying goodbye, but overall I’m excited for the road ahead. Also, Christmas is the best time of the year in Colombia. So many buñuelos 😋

Family 💛

Coming back to Colombia didn’t feel sad at all. It somehow felt as if we were just on a long vacation trip, and just came back home. Natalia had major breakthroughs in her road towards improving her English, and I’m so proud of her ❤️

Franco and Luca are now brighter than ever. They are now voracious for learning (and wrestling!). We have a new routine of “researching” a topic or 2 together every night before sleeping, instead of reading the same books over and over. So they ask for one topic each, we read parts of a Wikipedia article on it, and watch a short video on the subject. Franco is now obsessed with Airplanes (he sleeps with one by his side ✈️) and Luca is into learning in general. Recently, he really wants to learn about war machines (trucks, tanks, planes, ships, you name it).

We are also very much into the holiday spirit ⬇️

🎵 burrito sabanero ogg

Learning 📚

Not much happens in Colombia work-wise during the holidays, and given my exit from R5 I decided to take some time to learn Rust 🦀. It was very hard to decide between Rust and Golang, but I think Rust will be more challenging and open up my mind to new paradigms a bit more.

Entrepreneurship 🚀

I’m in the “problem exploration” phase of building of my new adventure. I’ve been speaking with the top minds in education in Colombia to understand more on what needs to be done. I have been amazed at the generosity of everyone in the education sector: they have provided me with invaluable insights and connections.

I will write out a post on the idea soonish.

Happiness Meter 🤩

8.5/10. The time in Chicago is coming to an end: We go back to Colombia at the end of the month. While happy to go back to our version of normal, we will miss the feeling of being on an adventure. And most of all, we will miss the daycare our kids went to, DeColores. Diana and her husband Diego have been amazing, and my kids love the daycare and their teachers Andrea and Johana dearly. Alas, Diana rejected our idea of teleporting them to Colombia daily.

Also, I stopped exercising again, my one big regret. I really want to build the habit for exercise. Any suggestions?

Family 💛

We have seen more of Chicago, and we had great company to enjoy it with. We went out with Diana and Diego a couple of times, and we had visits from our family. My wife’s mom, my dad + his wife and a cousin + her family all came to visit us over the few months we were here. My mom comes to visit us next week! We have been able to flex our newfound Chicagoland knowledge to look like passably-realistic locals.

There are 2 things I love the most about the city: It’s parks and its museums. The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry looks like some Tolkienesque Dwarven monument, and the inside is just as magical. And Grant Park, together with the Museum Campus, is one of the best urban parks I’ve seen.

A subset of the things we have seen:

• An actual submarine, buried underground. And its huge. They buried it 4 inches at a time. AMAZING!
• So many trains and so many airplanes.
• The fricking SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
• All kinds of dinosaurs.
• A couple of huge elephants right next to a Titanosaurus.
• Many, many, many fish. And cool sharks!
• SO MANY ANGRE GEESE. And they poop a lot 💩.
• Grant Park holding a concert, holding an all-out eating experience, holding a marathon, holding a fireworks show… It’s amazing.
• Gorillas, Lions, Seals, Bears, penguins, turtles, monkeys, you name it 🐒. For free!!
• Pizza of all kinds. I shouldn’t say this before leaving, but I think NY style is better. As an aside, Franco can somehow fit 8 full slices in his tummy. He is a freak.
• The beaches. We liked Montrose the most.
• Many many neighborhoods. We loved Wicker Park.
• The Columbus Day Parade. Weird bit of knowledge, in the USA Columbus seems to be this huge Italian hero. In Colombia, he is a symbol of Spain.
• The food is delicious. So much variety! Here is a small list of the places we liked the most. Cafe Robey is incredible, we went there 3 times.
• A startling amount of Vintage and thrift stores.
• The children’s museum was amazing. We spent 1+ hour just building stuff.

Franco was much more alert than us when it came to the T-Rex

Learning 📚

I have been reading up on Systems Engineering a ton. It is a subject I find enthralling, not just for software engineering. How can you build a system that is robust to failures but that is still adaptable to change? I have gathered most of what I’ve read in /resources

On a related note, I’m obsessed now with building a new kind of educational institution in Colombia. So, I’ve been reading on educational models, particularly on project-based learning.

Work 🧰

I’m currently a Tech Director in R5, which means a ton of coding, team management, strategy + culture work together with the rest of the C-Team and collaborating on product ideas together with Ricardo.

My work over the past month or so has been immersed in implementing a better planned Software Architecture for R5. Many, many deep conversations about both theory and practice on the topic with Jesus and Rafael.

Entrepreneurship 🚀

I have decided to build a new kind of educational institution in Colombia. More soon!

Health ⚕️

All seems good so far! I didn’t keep up with running, which makes me sad since I thought I’d really manage to keep up the habit. I’ll do my best to start again, since my friends are thinking about doing a 15K…

Spidey-fication 🕷️

The metamorphosis is complete. There is no going back.

They are web-slingers now

Happiness Meter 🤩

10/10. No needs unmet and together with my family we decided to live a season “out of the box”, so we are in Chicago from July until the end of October. I’m working remotely, but it feels like we are on vacation every weekend.

Family 💛

The kids have loved Chicago. They particularly enjoy their new daycare, DeColores. By pure luck, it is owned and operated by Diana, a Colombian expat, so they have felt right at home. They also really, really like Hawaiian Bread rolls.

My wife has been taking English classes and enjoying not having a full-time occupation for the first time in her life. Her being the way she is, she already occupied all of her time, but just not into anything as structured as a job.

Our lifestyle changed a ton but we are enjoying the changes. All 4 of us sleep sideways in a Queen bed because we don’t fit otherwise 😛. There is another room, but the kids refuse to sleep there so here we are. We have been exploring the city and its many restaurants and activities. Some of my favorites so far:

• Beatrix
• The Children’s Museum was amazing. We spent 1+ hour just building stuff.
• Italian Ice, particularly Annette’s.
• Cliche as it may sound, Chicago-style Pizza. Labriola’s was great.
• We really enjoyed the Air and Water show. We had jets doing tricks like 100 meters from us!

Franco broke his arm on our second week here (Gartland Type-2, like this image) and he needed surgery to get it fixed, but his good attitude is unshakeable. He is now 2 weeks into healing and has decided to use his cast like a hook to climb up stuff. He also refuses to stop playing soccer.

I have never liked soccer much, but my kids seem obsessed. “The one who doesn’t like soup gets served twice” says a Colombian adage. We have the Colombian Copa America song playing at least 5 times per day here, plus an impromptu soccer match (complete with the national anthem at the start) at least once every couple of days.

🎵 el ritmo que nos une mp3

Gaming 🎮

No gaming lately. Free time in Chicago has been more towards family and chores, plus exploring the city as often as possible.

Learning 📚

I have been learning a lot about education systems and how the wrong incentives can prevent or slow down change.

Lately, I’m particularly fond of the Harvard Edcast.

I have not been reading much while in Chicago

Work 🧰

I’m currently a Tech Director in R5, which means a ton of coding, team management, strategy + culture work together with the rest of the C-Team and collaborating on product ideas together with Ricardo.

My work over the past month or so has been immersed in the web of trade-offs that is Software Architecture. Many, many deep conversations on the topic with Jesus.

Entrepreneurship 🚀

I’m still meeting people in the education space to bounce ideas on how to best impact Colombian society through social entrepreneurship.

I recently had coffee with Yosef, who runs Books4Cause, a local profitable, free bookstore in Chicago. Amazing, don’t you think? I believe I could build something similar in Colombia.

I also spoke with Juan F. Penagos, an old University friend and one of the most recognized experts on the finance side of the education industry. We talked a lot about the obstacles in creating a new University in Colombia.

Health ⚕️

All seems good so far! I’ve taken up running since a couple of months ago. I ran a very irresponsible 11K with way too much elevation change and now I’m more responsibly doing easy 5K and 10K runs.

Happiness Meter 🤩

9/10. Want my sense of smell back!

Family 💛

Every day is filled with antics. Just this week Franco sneaked into my office (he can now open circular handles 🙈) and took all my 3D printing filaments (~20 boxes) plus a handful of books to build a tower. When I caught him, the building was finished and twice his height.

Luca has taken to calling me “Papita”, which I love ❤️

We have big family plans: we are going on a 4-month trip to the US in order to change the scenery and gain some insight into how we work as a family without the help of grandmothers, a nanny or a maid. Natalia is excited!

Gaming 🎮

Been getting my money’s worth out of the Steam Deck. I think I’ve player more in the past 3 months than in the previous 2 years combined.

Latest time-sinkers:

• Shogun Showdown
• Hades II

Reading 📚

Just started We The Possibility by Mitchell Weiss. It’s about how governments can truly innovate to solve public issues.

I think education, besides being of obvious public interest, has much in similar with governments in how slow it is to adapt and innovate.

Work 🧰

I’m currently a Tech Director for New Product Development in R5, a Colombian Fintech focused on products for vehicle owners. That means I manage the web, mobile development and data teams for all our new ideas that we want to test out, which is currently ~17 people including myself. I previously created and managed the Data team for the whole company as its Data Director.

My work mainly entails a ton of coding, team management, strategy + culture work together with the rest of the C-Team and collaborating on product ideas together with Ricardo and Fernando, who manage the product and business side of NPD.

Entrepreneurship 🚀

I’ve been meeting with amazing people in the Education space to understand opportunities in the field. What calls to me the most is helping people go from Highschool to some sort of trade school or higher education, hopefully focused in careers of the future.

I met recently with amazing people such as David, who runs a Non-profit doing just that together with his company SIIGO; Felipe, who has been providing income-share loans to underprivileged youth for over 2 years; and Daniel, who runs one of the largest non-profits/investment vehicles for education projects in the region. Many thoughts on what problem should be attacked, but I’m still processing.

Health ⚕️

Sadly, I got COVID about 10 days ago. I’m completely fine now, except for the fact I completely lost the ability to smell stuff. Sad days, I was proud of my nose being extremely sensitive 👃