Folks who know me, or who have been following my posts here or on social media, know that, after a lot of years of hard work, good planning, and truly monumental luck, last year I found myself in a position to take an extended break from my career. As a decision it was probably one of the most significant ones I’ve ever made, and it was far from an easy one, as I knew I’d be walking away from a lucrative career working with some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. But after twenty years at the same company, and a lot of soul searching, I knew that it was time for a change, and rather than immediately jump into a new opportunity, I decided it was better to take some personal time to unwind, reflect, and eventually re-enter the work force with more purpose and intention.

Now, well over a year in, it feels like I made that decision only yesterday. Certainly, fairly early on I noticed just how quickly time can fly, but even then I don’t think I appreciated how short this break would feel fourteen months in. And while, yes, I went in with a lofty list of goals and only achieved a few, I can honestly say there’s little I would do differently.

At the beginning I genuinely assumed I’d eventually get so bored that going back to work would feel like a relief. Certainly, during past extended periods of time off (e.g. over Christmas), that was my experience.

And yet, rather than boredom, I discovered how freeing it is to spend time doing things both meaningful and yet outside any traditional definition of work, and how our western sense of self as being inherently tied to the work we do prevents us from seeing the many other ways that we can build and create and have a positive impact on others outside that narrow perspective.

Obviously I do a Google search for my own name from time to time because, admit it, everyone does it. Yeah, you too. Don’t give me that look. We both know it’s true.

So it was that a while back I was perusing those search results, and I came across something that honestly left me incredibly chagrined: a page about something called “Kosinski” compression. Clicking the link, I realized the page was about a project I worked on way back in the early aughts to reverse engineer the algorithm used to compress level data in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ROM.

And somewhere along the way, apparently that format got named after me.

Now I want to be extremely clear about something: I did not invent this algorithm or the in-ROM data storage layout, and I certainly didn’t name it after myself. All I did was uncover what was already there and write it down in my own weird way. But, once you put something out in the world, it can take on a life of it’s own, and so now this algorithm has my name on it. Oops!

So naturally I shared this little factoid with some friends, and we all had a laugh. And that was that.

But then, in 2022, a gentleman by the name of Damian Grove reached out. Way back in the day, Damian created a site called the Sonic Hacking Community (SHaC), where he collected a whole raft of information about the Sonic 2 ROM layout in a site he called the Sonic 2 Hacking Guide. In reaching out, Damian was hoping I might answer some questions about the reverse engineering work I did, and so I did what I often do: forgot to reply until months later. Meanwhile, Damian himself didn’t see that reply when it was eventually sent, and so we never connected.

Fast forward, finally, to 2024 and Damian finally spots my email and a) responds with a couple of questions, while also b) including a link to a video from the 2023 Retro World Expo of a panel discussion of the history of Sonic 2 hacking. A video in which I come up as a bit of a topic of conversation.

Now, just to get this out of the way: while I was certainly a bit bemused by the conversation in that video, it was nothing but curious and respectful and I had absolutely no issues being talked about. But I gotta admit, it was more than a little weird to see people speculating about me on stage!

In that conversation I noticed a few misapprehensions about my own background and history and the approach I took to reverse engineer the algorithm, so I figured I’d set the record straight and provide my own vague recollections about how it all went down!

I know it’s a cliche, but it’s genuinely hard to believe how fast time flies. Not only am I over a year into this career break–a fact that I continue to have trouble processing–but now the 2024 Tour Alberta for Cancer is done and dusted. To my surprise, despite the trepidation I felt this time last year, in a lot of ways 2024 was the easiest Tour yet.

Why?

Well, I’ve said it so many times already, but the greatest credit goes to the many people who donated to my campaign this year. Its through your incredible generosity that we were able to raise $2,783 this year, well past my $2,500 goal. As for the Tour overall, we were able to blow past the $6M goal, raising an incredible $7,576,204!

Even more heartening for me is the rise in participation. While last year saw over 1,200 riders on the Tour (which is a fantastic number!), this year saw that number grow 17% to over 1,400 participants. While I’m far from an old timer (this was my third in person ride following the COVID shutdown of 2020), I was thrilled to encounter so many first-time folks, and did what little I could to make them feel supported and welcome. Let’s all hope that, like me, they find themselves compelled to join future Tours.

And yes, if you’re reading between the lines a bit, you can guess that I did indeed sign to participate in the 2025 Tour Alberta for Cancer! But I promise to give everyone a break from the fundraising emails… for a little while anyway (it turns out last year there was an early match in the fall of 2023 so you might see some canvassing a little earlier this time around, assuming I stay on top of things).

With all that said, let’s get to the fun stuff, and that begins with an announcement of the third and final sock draw winner!