Humble milkweed.

A plant so named, because if you break its stem, it will produce a milky syrup. Incidentally, that "milk" is poisonous to humans.

I really think it's a cool plant.

In my last photo of the week post, I did my best to outline some of the struggles of wildlife photography, particularly when the subject is skittish or fast-moving.

This particular subject was neither.

It all started out so innocently.

Out of the blue, someone messaged me to ask I was planning to attend next week's workshop in Berlin.

I had no such plans. I never had any such plans.

On the occasions when I had asked, management did not think there was enough value in sending me to Berlin to meet with my team's counterparts there. However, shortly after receiving that innocent message, I also recieved a new manager.

I sat in a "hand-off" meeting between my new manager and my previous manager. My old manager probably said something like, "we should make sure we give Steve any resources and opportunities that would be useful to his career growth."

I saw my opening and said, "I heard there's this workshop in Berlin next week, to go over [redacted]..."

Believe me, when I got approval, I did not hesitate to book my flight and accomodation.

It was only later that the headaches started...

This is part of a new series of posts describing photos I've taken. They should be less long-winded than some of the other content.

Often times, when I photograph animals I end up following some real great processes, like:

1. Oh shit! Is it in the frame.
2. Oh, maybe I should zoom in.
3. Hang on... is this in focus?
4. Oh hey, I can probably take a nice picture.

Most of the time the time I can't even get to step one before the animal has scurried away. And, I mean I don't blame the animals for being afraid of humans. I'm afraid of humans.

But, sometimes it feels like I can't catch a break.

This post is the second in a series recounting how and why I moved to New York City.

The first post is here.

So, I moved to NYC. Not out of passion, but out of the desire to continue working in the field of natural language processing, but with a change of pace. A new team, a new location, and more readily availible pelmeni. What more could one ask for?

For various reasons that I might explain in another post, I spent November and December of 2018 mainly in Berlin, and returned to the U.S. to spend a jetlagged week in Pittsburgh before starting my new role in NYC. It was an internal transfer, and I didn't plan things so I had much time to situate myself.

I landed there, determined to make a life for myself and to secure housing.

But NYC is a place that rewards some advance planning...