Books
My main criterion for an apartment is that it have enough walls for bookshelves. There are many books I want and many books I have (plus more in boxes that will come out Real Soon Now).
Puzzles
Every year since 1998, I’ve participated in the MIT Mystery Hunt, a weekend-long team puzzle competition. The winners each year write the puzzles for the next year, and I was on the winning team in 1999 (Setec Astronomy), 2001 (Setec Astronomy), 2005 (Physical Plant), 2010 (Metaphysical Plant), and 2016 (Setec Astronomy). I’m the finance lead on Setec’s executive committee for organizing the 2017 Hunt. I was one of four leaders of the Plant teams that wrote the 2011 Video Games Hunt and the 2006 S.P.I.E.S. Hunt, and in 2002 and 2000 I helped answer phones for the organizing team. It’s the best weekend all year.
2006 Hunt puzzles I (co)wrote
- Advanced Foreign Operations (with Lanya da Silva and Roger Ford)
- Bring Us Food, Yo (with Timothy Abbott, Iolanthe Chronis, and Roger Ford)
- Editor (with Matt Cain and Aaron Dinkin)
- Feel Your Way (with Flash help from Allen Rabinovich)
- Handbook Fragment (with Kate Baker and Andrew Thomas)
- Introductory Foreign Operations (with Roger Ford)
- Joint Operations Intelligence Archive (with Roger Ford and Joia Hertz)
- Boston meta (with Aaron Dinkin and Noah Snyder) (solution only, go look at the round itself for the puzzle)
- Moscow ante (with Reid Barton) (solution only, go look at the round itself for the puzzle)
- Kuala Lumpur ante (with Aaron Dinkin) (solution only, go look at the round itself for the puzzle)
- McMurdo Station ante (with Allen Rabinovich and David Speyer) (solution only, go look at the round itself for the puzzle)
- McMurdo Station meta (with Aaron Dinkin and Roger Ford) (solution only, go look at the round itself for the puzzle)
Music and musicals
In college and after, I was very involved in the MIT Musical Theatre Guild, mostly in various tech roles. I stage managed You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Assassins, and Into the Woods; ran light board or moved sets for Children of Eden, West Side Story (PDF review), and Star Wars: Musical Edition (photos), among others; and actually acted in City of Angels. I also played piano for ten years in elementary/high school and sang in MIT’s Concert Choir.
Rock Climbing
I haven’t climbed much since high school, and I miss it. Maybe going to a gym will be a project soon. I wrote my MIT admissions essay about climbing and math – I’ll have to dig it out and post it at some point.
