Life Imitating Art

While it’s not all been fun and games, my career has still given me a number of cool opportunities: spending a summer flying around in the back of a C-130, cobbling together election equipment from off-the-shelf printers and scanners, and traveling over most of the US and a handful of other countries (Australia and Mexico).

But one of the most unique experiences was getting to twice attend the Emmys, first in 2015 and again in 2018 (roughly around this time of year, as my phone has recently reminded me). It was at the latter event that I was able to capture a particularly funny moment.

Just a month before, I’d been shopping for new furniture and, in a moment of levity, snapped a photo of myself between cardboard cutouts of the Property Brothers:

Now, I’m not really a fan of the Property Brothers (or HGTV type shows in general); I couldn’t tell you their names even now. But when they were hanging out just a few tables down at the 2018 after-party, I couldn’t resist asking them to help me recreate the above IRL:

Not exactly the kind of thing you tell a budding computer scientist to expect from their career, but fun nonetheless. I wonder what craziness the future has in store…