Lev Lazinskiy

2025

Looking back through the last year of photos and thinking of all the great memories has become my favorite way to spend January 1st, I highly recommend it. Here is how my life went in 2025.

Friends and Family

No one died this year and lots of my friends had babies.

I got to spend some real quality time with my brother and his family. I made it back to Ohio as much as possible and they even all came out to San Francisco for the first time. It was really fun to show them around and give them a chance to experience how we live. I cherish every moment I have with them and the kids, but the highlights of the year were introducing my nephews to hot pot and taking them all to the playground near the airport with Aosheng.

I spent lots of time with my parents, aunt, and cousin. Keeping and throwing a surprise birthday visit for my Uncle was really fun.

We went to Jamie and Ryan’s wedding in Mendocino, it was really beautiful and I will always remember cooking up a storm the day after for some of the locals.

Since moving into Emeryville we have a lot more space and we started inviting more folks over for dinner and to stay for a few days and it’s been really fun to play host. I love cooking for other people and throwing little dinner parties was a huge highlight of the year for me. Eric came to visit and taught me how to change a bike tire. I am still riding the bicycle Tad gave me in 2017 and the finally got my first flat:

https://levlaz.org/bicycle/

I felt lucky to be able to spend time with Aosheng’s family on two different occasions.

I finally made it out to see CJ in his element and had a blast in Germany.

Nathan and I continue our tradition of hanging out every week, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary of the day I walked into the CircleCI office and started throwing around “that motivates me”. We started getting coffee at work and kind of never stopped. I am grateful for the friendship.

We spent some high quality time along the Washington coast with Kevin and Le before Matthew was born. Waking up staring at the ocean in a cabin was the best way to turn 37. Moving logs around with Kevin and skipping rocks is a memory I’ll hold for a long time.

I finally got a chance to meet up with Omar in person after many years. My QBRs with Scott continue. Got a chance to connect with Manuel in between his world travels. Karthik and I continue to motivate each other and dream of the future. I got to spend a ton of quality time with Jeremy, the highlight being roller skating together for a second year in a row and this time on my Birthday with Aosheng and Rebecca.

I am sorry if I missed anyone! Overall I feel so lucky to be surrounded by so many wonderful people. I hope to get to spend even more time with everyone in 2026.

Fun

I wasted more hours with Cities Skylines, Chess, and Subway builder. The latter was especially fun, I got to fulfill my unhinged fantasy of building a subway line from my childhood home to my high school a mile away to downtown Cincinnati and beyond.

Not a ton of concerts this year, but we did get to see Kylie Minogue in San Francisco and she slayed.

We discovered Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland which I am in love with. Saw a bunch of great movies this year. Highlight was watching Wicked: For Good with my parents on Christmas Day and One Battle After Another on 70mm in Vancouver.

We saw Cabaret at the Oakland Theatre Project and it was one of my favorite theatre experiences ever. I remember when I was in High School I went to see Tick Tick Boom in a little church basement in Cincinnati. It was so intimate, this is how theatre is meant to be experienced, especially for that show. In this case they put on Cabaret in a converted loading dock of an art store in West Oakland. We fit 100 people into a tiny room and the cast gave it their all. It was spectacular. I look forward to seeing more shows there and other local theatres in the coming years.

So much amazing food this year, it just keeps getting better and better. Highlights:

• Four Kings in SF. This is my favorite restaurant in the world. We got to go three times!
• Spicy Crayfish, Stinky Tofu, and Pepper Beef in Changsha.
• Ken Sushi, went there for our 5th anniversary and had sea snails.
• Buchon, the place to go when you can’t get into French Laundry. Tight squeeze but delicious meal.
• Aosheng took me to Commis in Oakland to celebrate my new job and the tasting menu was magical and full of surprises. The signature egg dish was probably the best bite of the year for me.
• Le Pigeon in Portland, we went there on my birthday and I am giving it a Michelin star.
• Dacha in San Francisco, reminds me of my grandmas cooking.
• Bäcker Schlüter bakery in Germany, Franzbrötchen are my new guilty pleasure.
• No idea of the name, but the Doner place that CJ took me to at a random train station in Hamburg. Life changing.
• Saul’s Deli in Berkeley
• Bagelito in Mission
• 7 Devils Brewing in Coos Bay Oregon. Smoked Fish platter hit the spot.
• Long Men Bay Hot Pot in Fremont. You know its good because we live on top of a Hot Pot Restaurant and we still drive out to Fremont sometimes.
• Hit up all my favorites in NYC. Only got a chance to go once this year. Xi’An Famous Foods, Sichuan Mountain House, and Tai Er.
• Tai Er gets an honorable mention because I ate there in four different countries this year! Chengdu, NYC, Vancouver, Singapore.
• I really wish I wrote the name down of all the amazing places in Tokyo that I got to go to. Just walk into any random place and you will likely have the best meal of your life. Too many great ones to name but I dug up these two as highlights.
  • Ramen Soburo in Tokyo - this place looked scary from the outside and we almost did not go inside but it was the most delicious broth I have ever had in my life.
  • Ryukyu Chinese TAMA - Eugene took me here. Its a Chinese/Okinawan place that has some really special bites.
• Hainan Chicken and rice and Michelin star $7 noodle hawker stall in Singapore.

Health

Four years of no smoking, never going back:

https://levlaz.org/4-years/

I ate a bit better, exercised a bit more regularly, and started doing push ups. Need to continue to focus and stay disciplined. Cholesterol and blood pressure are creeping up and I really want to solve this with diet and exercise instead of medicine.

I got my first stitches, three in the thumb trying to remove a water hose.

Personal Growth

I kept studying Chinese regularly. I took two in person classes in San Mateo and started to dabble with Traditional Chinese characters. I kept meeting with Karen 1:1 and made a lot of progress there. I also started using Hello Talk to chat with strangers in Chinese. I still feel like I am behind, but just need to keep making steady progress every single day. I passed HSK2 at the start of the year but did not take the HSK3 test yet and am no where near level 4.

I started studying more robotics as a part of my new job. Its a fascinating and complicated subject. It has been a long time since I have had trouble with net new English words but have learned more these last few months than in the previous decade.

I feel so good about my cooking and baking. I started making bread and have a few signature dishes that I am really proud of. I love making them for other people. If you are reading this come over some time and I’ll make you congee, smacked cucumber salad, kung pao chicken, my grandmas meatball soup, fresh baked bread, and stir fried beef.

We bought our first home and I got my first car in over ten years. We’ve settled into our new life in Emeryville and I am happy to be living here now. We have a beautiful view of San Francisco from our bedroom, enough space to have guests for a few days, and even some room to grow. Emeryville is a special place, things feel possible here. I am getting involved in the community by volunteering for the Bicycle and Pedestrian advisory committee.

Reading

I really slacked off here this year. Did not even make it past 10 books:

https://levlaz.org/about/reading/2025/

Highlight:

• Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds - it’s annoying that he is obsessed with Japanese culture and throws in a reference every chance he gets. But the book and ideas are solid.

Lowlight:

• Simply More by Cynthia Erivo - I really wanted to like this book but it’s confused on if it wants to be a self-help book or a memoir. Frustrating to read.

Travel

I traveled so much this year. It seems like each year keeps getting better. I made lifetime platinum status at Marriott which turns out to really mean nothing.

We started major travels mid January by going to China for a few weeks for Lunar New Year. We flew into Shanghai and then took the high speed rail to Changsha where we spent a few days eating delicious spicy and stinky food. Afterwards we took the train to Chengdu and met up with Aosheng’s family. We had a great time in Nanchong as always. The highlight this time for me was getting a chance to go to a wedding and becoming friends with Chou Chou. We went back to Beijing for a few days before traveling back to SF. In Beijing we stayed at the Muji hotel and went to the Train museum. We splurged for an upgrade to Polaris on the way back and arrived in SF feeling refreshed.

Then in March I went back to Ohio for my nephews birthday before traveling to Pasadena for the SCaLE conference.

At the end of March I popped into Hamburg to hang out with CJ. We had such a great time. I love Germany and I can’t wait to go back there soon with Aosheng. I ate a bunch of pastries, some great home cooked meals at CJ’s place, and took a day trip to Sylt where I got to ride on a car train for the first time. I also took a few day trips to Berlin and Göttingen using their lovely high speed rail. It was so nice to meet up with Oleksii after so many years.

I synced up with Dagger crew in London for KubeCon EU. We had a good week but I got sick somewhere in there and most of it ended up being a blur. I popped back into Ohio for a few days in May.

My next big trip was in June for my birthday. We flew up to Seattle and had an amazing dinner at Chengdu Taste. Then we took a car ferry (2nd time in the year having a car moved by some other vehicle) across the sound and drove through Port Angeles to Kalaloch. We got this wonderful cabin right on the water. It had moody and foggy mornings and epic sunsets. I loved waking up there on my birthday.

We then drove back to Seattle and grabbed a car at the airport. From there Aosheng and I drove all the way back down to Emeryville over the course of several days. We made a pit stop in Portland where we had an epic meal at Le Pigeon and got to spend some time with my Dagger friends. After Portland we drove down the length of Route 101 and CA-1 making overnight stops in Coos Bay, Eureka, and Santa Rosa. It was wonderful, this was my first real road trip in over a decade and it was better than I could have imagined.

The next month we drove back up the coast to Mendocino for a friends wedding. It was just as beautiful the second time around.

In August we popped into New York for a week and then made it down to Ohio to celebrate the twins and baby girl’s birthday.

By September I had a new job and spend the first week at a team offsite in the desert near Tuscon, AZ. A few weeks later Aosheng got his citizenship and passport and we tested it out by spending a lovely weekend in Vancouver.

In October I started some crazy work travel by going to DC, Blacksburg, and Atlanta before coming back for a day and heading out to Tokyo Japan and Singapore for ROS Con. We stayed a few extra days in Singapore and Aosheng invited his whole family to join us for his birthday.

I did not get a chance to explore much of Japan but the first day I was there I took a train down to Yokosuka and relived my childhood memories of walking around Dobuita in Shenmue on Sega Dreamcast. It’s mind bending how familiar I was with this place that I have never been to and is thousands of miles away from home.

I popped back into Ohio in November and then again for the Christmas break. We had a trip planned to Taiwan to celebrate the new year but I ended up getting sick in Ohio and we decided to skip the trip.

I feel so lucky to get to explore the whole world. Last year I said it would feel better to own a place so I don’t feel guilty about spending too much money on rent when I am not home. Now that we no longer rent, I confirm that I no longer feel guilty. In fact, I look forward to being away from home because then I know that our electricity bill will be lower and we will be one month closer to paying off our mortgage.

Career

Bit of a whirlwind here. I learned a ton and enjoyed all the time I spent at Dagger. I moved on to a new role at Foxglove in September to build out the solutions and forward deployed engineering teams. I have not felt this optimistic about a company since the early days of LaunchDarkly. The product is great, the team is amazing, and our customers love our product. I hired two people this year and am excited to get another chance to build out a function at a fast growing startup. We’ve got some big plans and ambitious goals for 2026.

Last Years Goals

• Reach move goal every day.
  • ❌ could have done much better, even the vivo active watch I got could not help
• Stop eating so much junk & cook more.
  • ✅ feeling good about this one, I cooked so much and have mastered a bunch of recipes.
• Buy a home.
  • ✅ we did it! Could not be happier with our new home in Emeryville.
• Read 52 books, for real this time.
  • ❌ not even close
• Find product market fit at Dagger.
  • ❌ gave it my best, but was not able to make it work there
• Give a conference talk.
  • ❌ sadly did not achieve this
• Write something I am proud of.

  • ✅ Felt really good about the memoir post I wrote about my memory of the first 24 hours of bootcamp:

    https://levlaz.org/great-lakes-illinois/

• Study Chinese every day, make it to HSK level 4.
  • ❌ I feel really good about my Chinese progress but I did not even finish my level 3 test and there were a few times this year that I feel behind a ton.
• Stop wasting time getting sucked into YouTube black holes.
  • ✅ I am going to give myself some credit here. Much better than last year.
• Spread positivity.
  • ✅ This was hard to measure, but I think I did this.

This Years Goals

• Do 100 push ups per day this year.
• Eat well.
• Stop buying shit. I need a break from consumerism.
• Get rid of stuff, be more minimalist.
• Feel really comfortable with Robotics by the end of the year.
• Give a conference talk, bringing this one back and raising the stakes since it will likely mean some robotics topic.
• Read 52 books. I have failed two years in a row but not giving up yet.
• Study Chinese every single day, pass HSK3 and HSK4.
• Finish reading all of the early reader Chinese books.
• Write something I am proud of that is published anywhere but this blog.

I am feeling optimistic about all aspects of my life. Looking forward to all that 2026 has in store.