MarBelow are some photos that offer a glimpse into my hobbies: hiking, traveling, and photography (including drone photography)--especially of my partner, Rebekah, and my beloved, wild canine children, Sadie and Kona, who were featured on the Philosodogs blog several years ago. The one painting here, by Helen De Cruz, is based on a photo of me posing with pigeons in Milan, which she then creatively used as a template for her painting of Saint Francis of Assisi. Most of the photos were taken in the great Pacific Northwest, our home for four years.

I am an avid consumer of hot sauces (particularly those featured on Heatonist and debuted on First We Feast's Hot Ones show) and science fiction. I'm also a two-time, self-declared #PaquiOneChipChallenge champion. You can see my most recent hot sauce purchases below. As for what I'm reading, I've just finished three superb books: Harvard astronomist Avi Loeb's provocative Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (Mariner Books, 2021), David G. Marwell's horrifying account of Nazi eugenics in Mengele: Unmasking the 'Angel of Death' (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020), and Jacob Stegenga's bold Medical Nihilism (Oxford University Press, 2018). I'm halfway through the first volume of Hugh Howey's Silo Series, Wool (Mariner Books, 2012), which is quite good, and I will turn next to volumes two and three, Shift and Dust.