Month of February 2026

The month of February started out with some fun sledding with friends in the nature preserve at the end of our street after the first big snow.

I got out and took some photos of the ice:

Hudson Ice Floes

We read some of The Hobbit together on the couch. Amanda is a much better verbal reader than I am.

We went to swim class. Making lots of progress this month in terms of confidence in the pool and it is cool to see. Going to be a fun summer!

Amanda and Charlie did some nice Valentine’s Day art and Charlie was very involved in picking out flowers for Amanda.

We had some friends over for dinner. I made red beans and rice.

Red Beans and Rice

Charlie helped me fix a chipped windshield.

Charlie is also getting more independent and doing things like making his own cinnamon toast.

We learned that Charlie likes antique stores, so we visited many of them throughout the month. We picked up some cool old local maps, a vintage umbrella holder for our entryway, some Cuban maracas.

This year, the daffodils popped out of the ground on February 19.

2026: Feb 19

2025: Feb 24

2024: Feb 8

2023: Feb 14

2022: Feb 18

February was a tough month. Between snow days, weather delays, winter break, and sick days, we didn’t have a full week of school the entire month. For the shortest month, February felt pretty long. Looking forward to spring.

But I did have a fun coworker. Currently he works in our in-house art department.

During the week off school, a dad friend and I took the kids to the Norwalk Aquarium. It is a pretty good aquarium in an otherwise unremarkable city.

They breed jellyfish there and give them to other aquariums.

They had awesome touch tanks. Every aquarium has a ray touch tank, but this one also had a jellyfish touch tank and a sturgeon touch tank.

Charlie did not want to touch the jellyfish or the rays, but surprised me by jumping right up to touch the sturgeon. When I asked him why he didn’t want to touch the others but he did want to touch this one, he said: “Stingrays and jellyfish sting you, but sturgeons don’t!”

The local TU chapter (Mianus) sponsored a trout tank with brown and brook trout, and had some great info on the Mianus river watershed there. Pretty cool.

We went to the Catskills one weekend. I took lots of photos there, too!

Weekend in the Catskills

We rented a cabin in the Phoenicia area. (Yes, we went to the diner and yes, it was great!) We made some s’mores in the fireplace. We explored at the Catskills Visitor Center.

I did a bit of fishing, though the water was 33F and I saw zero fish, even in the deepest pools I could find. Oh, well. It was nice to get out and scout some locations for the spring.

I also went back to the Jerry Bartlett collection at the Phoenicia Library. I added a lot of books to my “I need to track down a copy of this” list.

We spent an afternoon at West Kill Brewing. Incredible place. Highly recommended.

On the way home we stopped at Bread Alone Bakery and Woodstock.

We also went to Woodstock for my birthday weekend in 2023. Here is Charlie in downtown Woodstock then vs now:

Charlie and I had some fun with a Makey Makey Go that a coworker sent to me in the holiday gift exchange. First we turned an apple into a drum, then a piano, then a robot that repeated a recording of Charlie saying “Poop!”, which is pretty much the best thing for a 4yo.

Then I blew his mind and made the computer answer his questions by typing “say ….” on the command line. I made it say nice things about him and he got the biggest smile and said “Thank You” to the computer. It was sweet.

Cute Charlie quote:

“Jonas, Soren, and I were foolin’ around on the playground.”

Curious dad: “What does foolin’ around mean?”

“It is like… doing cheeky businesses!”

February ended with a nice day walking around Beacon with Charlie and Amanda.

AI has taken over my work life. If you don’t work in tech, it is hard to explain just how much work has changed in the last couple months. We are all trying to surf this wave as best we can and building lots of tooling.

There is lots of good and bad, but I’m generally optimistic about it. Things are changing rapidly and there is lots of experimentation happening day-by-day. Don’t take things you see on social media too seriously. Dive in and get your digital hands dirty and build some things for yourself.

One of my friends is out on parental leave and coming back in two weeks. I told him he is coming back to a different company.

Not a developer but want to learn how to go beyond just AI chat? This is a good place to get started:

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