I wanted to real quick make an announcement. Tomorrow is the first day of a workshop on BLP taught by Jeff Gortmaker! Ariel Pakes will also speak, like last time, too. I just want to stress how important this opportunity is for anyone in IO or industry, or government, or wanting to go into either of those. Here’s a bunch of screenshots of information.
I’m just a big believer in general of learning all the frontier empirical work, so I just highly encourage everyone to attend this. I have found that “picking up” structural empirical IO is much harder, and much more related to where you and who’s your professors, and yet BLP is actually an important area, and growing, so I just highly encourage everyone to attend.
On a different note, Friday I spent the day in providence Rhode Island at Brown. My friend Peter Hull invited me up, and I hid in an office all day grading my exams. I got to meet Jon Roth in person, who I would’ve bet good money was 5’7” but who in reality I’m pretty is 6’3” or 6’4”. He and I went on a walk, and he told me about his new work on IV and mechanisms, and I am going to try and learn that work and write about it on here.
The city was so pretty. I mean the city plus the weather just make it all so beautiful. People keep telling me, well wait until it’s winter. Then tell us it’s pretty.
But I say to them I hope that this is the worst winter in Bostons history. I hope I have to climb mountains of ice to get to the train station. I hope my breath freezes and falls to the ground like icicles. I want to experience all of this part of the world, not just the so-called good parts. I want to see and love New England’s shadow self too.
I’m going to see the Eagles play the Bears in Philly over thanksgiving. A friend invited me to their parents for thanksgiving and I’m excited about that. But man I am also excited about the Patriots playing the Bills on Dec 14 bc that is going to be a legit amazing game and I got me and my buddy Tim end zone tickets. I can’t wait and he can’t either. He has Josh Allen in his fantasy football league, and I love Josh Allen, but man I am going to be a lunatic for Pats #10 that day. Only thing I won’t be excited about is waiting for the train to take us back to Boston as last time that took a while and I felt like I was standing in the woods or something.
Yesterday, a friend took me to the Boston public library. I didn’t take pictures of it though — surprised I didn’t do that actually as it was gorgeous. But I didn’t. But wow — it was almost like a cathedral. Just majestic, massive, magnificent — all the Ms.
Today is Head of the Charles, and my student is in it. She put me on the list to watch it from the boat house. So I’ll be there. I got a new sweater yesterday so will be wearing that. It’ll warm up, and so I’ll like every day be cold then hot, but that’s fine.
But I need to grade first.
I’m doing intermittent fasting and doing decent at losing the weight. I’m down to around 193 from 220. There’s all this science stuff about IF, but I just use it to run calorie deficits, practice mindfulness around hunger pangs, and get used to eating less. And for the most part, it works.
But my cholesterol is up, and so I have to figure out how to switch to a Mediterranean diet. I have decided to do hello fresh again. Ask me in a week how it’s going.
I’m watching Superman, Gen V, Task, the chosen, some other stuff but not consistently. Can’t quite focus tbh. We got my son a new Xbox for his birthday, and I was thinking then of getting a console, too, so we could play but tbh, I doubt I’d play. I notice I never play.
I met someone whose friend loves comic books who is my age, so this weekend, we are going to brunch, and then after go to a comic book store and read comic books. I just could tell that this person wanted someone their same age go to a comic book store with them, get a stack, sit somewhere and read together and occasionally talk. And I was right so we are.
But that’s about it. And come sign up! Check out what else we got going on too!
