About Me

I've lived in and around Pittsford long enough to know that this village rewards the people who slow down and look closely. There's more happening here than most people realize — in the bakeries and yoga studios, at the canal, in the conversations that happen between neighbors who've been showing up to the same places for years. This site is my attempt to document it.

I'm Adam Stetzer — PhD, semi-retired technology executive, and someone who has spent a big chunk of his adult life in the Rochester area. Pittsford has always been part of that story. What changes, I've found, is how much attention you're willing to bring to the place you call home. Since slowing down from the pace of a full career, I've had more of it — more time to sit in the Village Bakery and notice who comes through the door, more time to walk the canal path and think about what makes a community actually feel like one, more time to write about what I'm seeing.

That's what Peter Block calls the gifts of a community — the things that are already here, already working, already worth celebrating. Pittsford has them in abundance. The independent businesses that have survived when others haven't. The neighbors who show up for each other. The institutions — some old, some new — that give the village its character. This site is where I write about those gifts.

I'm not a journalist and I'm not the chamber of commerce. I'm a resident with a curiosity about what makes this particular place tick, and a belief that the stories worth telling are usually the ones happening in plain sight — you just have to be paying attention.

If you love Pittsford — if you live here, work here, grew up here, or are thinking about making it home — you belong here.

About the Technology Behind This Site

There was a time when every community like Pittsford had its own newspaper — a place where local voices could be heard, events could be announced, and neighbors could stay connected. Most of those publications are gone now, casualties of a digital economy that redirected local advertising revenue to global platforms.

For a small community site like this one to survive — and to do the kind of local coverage that matters — it has to work smarter than the old model allowed. I use artificial intelligence to help with research, content production, and the illustrated images on these pages. It's what makes it possible for one person to maintain the kind of consistent, quality coverage that used to require a newsroom.

The editorial judgment, though, is entirely human. Every piece you read here reflects my perspective as someone who lives in and cares about this community. AI is a tool in the workshop. I'm the one deciding what gets built and whether it's good enough to share. That human is Adam — and I'm always in the loop.