Who are you, and how should we talk to and about you?

Hello! My name is Adam Vinueza. Here is a bit of background about me.

I grew up in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, in what was then called Alphabet City; thoroughly working class, it was a vibrant mishmash of ethnicities and religions. My father was born in Puerto Rico; his mother moved with him and his sister to New York City shortly after the end of the Second World War. (I don’t know the precise year.) My mother grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, the daughter of Ashkenazi Jewish emigrants from what is probably present-day Romania. Thus, I am what is known now as a “third culture kid”.

For Spanish speakers, my last name is pronounced bean-WAY-sah; most people just say vin-WAY-sah, and that’s fine. My pronouns are from the “he” family, though as a rule I don’t get wound up about how people refer to me.

Your basic deets: where you live, what you do, your background.

I live in Louisville, Colorado (pronounced “Lewis-ville”), a medium-sized town just outside Boulder, with my wife and our dog. Virtually, you can find me on Bluesky. My wife and I raised two boys who are adults, living their lives on opposite coasts of the US.

For my daily bread, I write software for Strive Health, a health-care company specializing in patients with kidney disorders.

When I’m not doing engineering things, I do a lot of reading, thinking, and cooking. You may also find me on running trails in and around Boulder.

My first career was as a philosophy professor; a position at the University of Colorado, Boulder is what brought me from New York City to Colorado. After not getting tenure, I studied some computer science and started working as a software engineer. For about ten years I worked on geocoders, which was super fun; these days I work on making sure Strive’s engineering teams are happily building useful things as well as they can.

What do you write about here?

I write about whatever I’m reading or thinking about. These days, I’m reading a lot about cultural identity and the politics surrounding it. For more about what I’m doing, visit my now page.