Tag: personal
Spring Website Updates
Some fun updates I've made to my personal website
Building Personal Software in Rust
The good, the bad, and the ugly of using AI to build software
The weight of being a heavy lifter
This week has taken a toll on me. The work I've been doing for the last month or so –and probably the thing that has excited me the most in years– is going to be removed, just because it doesn't match the vibes. I've been in this position for a while now. I've usually moved from my previous positions after one year and a half or two years, at most, to more challenging positions or to another step in my career path. It's been three years since I started in this one. And while it's late by my norm...
“What! You too? I thought that no one but myself...”
I've been thinking a lot about friendship... How it comes, how it stays and how it goes. It's difficult to put into words all that's happened --and I don't really want to go into it all that much-- but I think that sooner or later we all reach this point of re-evaluating shit and thinking through our own stuff. The point is... I once read that all things already exist and are hidden in plain sight for you to only focus and find them... Well, I found a quote from someone that found the words firs...
on wanting hands
i think about touch a lot. not in the way you might expect and definitely not as some philosophical abstraction about embodiment or consciousness. i think about it like this: ana asked for a hug tonig
I failed 2025
I'm just starting here, but I have been running another blog for quite a while. At the beginning of last year, I wrote about only having a couple of purposes I wanted to follow through and accomplish: Well, if 2025 only had 6 months I'd have accomplished my reading quota -- it doesn't, obviously. Nonetheless, 6 books read is better than zero books the year before. So, there's a bright side for this one. And it's trending to at least stay flat this year, which is... something. The second one is t...
Is this thing on?
Hi friend, I just learned about pckt by reading The Verge. There's this article about Bridgy and how long-form is finally coming to the Fediverse that caught my eye. I investigated a little --having never heard about it– and turned out to be this little neat site. I liked it and decided to test it. Easily enough, here I am. Writing my first post in less than 5 minutes. It could've been faster, but I had 50 new emails pending to be moved to my trash and, as a enforcer of Mailbox Zero, I just simp...
'Kill the Impostor In Your Head' - A Reminder For Myself
"Just make dope shit" is the tagline I've been trying to embody with my life for a while. It's simple and pretty open to follow. In a time where it feels like the world around us is becoming more brutal, people seem more negative, and authenticity is being traded for instant gratification, creating seems like one of the few ways to push back and claim some control of this environment we live in (for me, at least). I firmly believe that doing something that allows you to cultivate any amount of h...
Just a check-in
pckt blog passed one thousand users today. I know it doesn't sound like a lot in this day and age, but let me tell you, that's a lot ! I'm so thankful that that many people have even spent any amount of time exploring pckt blog and giving it a chance. Of course, not all one thousand people will be blogging on here, I'm sure of that, but at least some of them will be :) and that makes me so happy ! It's really exciting to be working on something that first of all, I'm very passionate about, and s...
January Update/Links/Screenshots
After averaging 9 posts a month last year, I have gotten off to a slow start this year. Mostly this is because, at least for right now, I have no daily project to write about. One of my takeaways from writing at such a frenetic pace last year was that it would be nice to actually take my time drafting and editing things. I have been doing this, but it's a bit of a monkey's paw: when I don't just immediately hit "publish" after writing something I often end up either deciding it was a bad idea or
2026, the Future of this Website, and the Web Itself
A small reflection and set of plans for making a ripple in a big lake
Collecting The Carts
On bottle deposits, cheap local commercials, projectile-style turkeys, union-busting grocery stores, and the friend of mine who showed me the ropes.
For Mom, One Year Later
It's been a year since my mother passed away. I wrote her eulogy, and I'd like to share it with you so she is remembered.
For Mom, One Year Later
It's been a year since my mother passed away. I wrote her eulogy, and I'd like to share it with you so she is remembered.
For Mom, One Year Later
It's been a year since my mother passed away. I wrote her eulogy, and I'd like to share it with you so she is remembered.
For Mom, One Year Later
It's been a year since my mother passed away. I wrote her eulogy, and I'd like to share it with you so she is remembered.
I don't like being on the computer anymore
I quit social media again. I do this every few years, deactivating or deleting accounts or abandoning platforms entirely after either the platform itself becomes too evil for me to justify my presence on it or I just see a post or a trend so bad that I decide being online is just bad for me. This time I just saw a Bluesky reply argument that was so stupid I decided to deactivate my account immediately. Bluesky has a bit of a problem with constant context collapse: leftists and irony posters are
If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Poorly
It feels appropriate that in sitting down to write this I intended to reference something I read recently and realized I had forgotten to bookmark it. I have been trying to be better about keeping a "second brain" with Pinboard and Obsidian but I still forget to bookmark things, forget to write things down, lose them somewhere in the sea of tabs and browsers and devices that are a part of my daily life. I have always aspired for this site to be something like Simon Willison's blog - a constantly
The Joys of Undercommitting
I terminated the lease on my art studio today. I feel pretty sad about it: I'm very fond of the space and its people, I've made good friends and cool work there, and especially while I was working from home it was great for my mental health in a lot of ways. But once I started working hybrid it became a lot harder to make it in - on my work from home days I wanted to like, do laundry and dishes, not schlep half an hour there and back - and once my mom got sick it became functionally impossible.
Maybe this is enough
Lately I have been feeling what I think might be contentment. This is a bit of a weird thing to be feeling given the general state of affairs outside of my little slice of the world and I find myself second-guessing it pretty often but for the most part the ambient sense of crushing guilt and dissatisfaction that has accompanied me for most of my life appears to be significantly reduced. About a year ago I set out to try and stop being so stressed out all the time. I stopped saying yes to so ma
Touching peace
I've always had a fantasy about becoming a monk. I'm not wedded to a particular kind of monk, I just figure a life of peace and solitude dedicated to pursuing a relationship with God or internalizing the Four Noble Truths might be the thing that fixes me. This is an idle thought that I have not seriously pursued. I love my little treats and abandoning all material attachments sounds hard. I assume I will be stuck in the cycle of samsara for some time yet. All the different schools of thought o
did i pick up a cursed amulet or something
A quick note tonight because there was a fire in my building and I am a bit distracted. Everyone is fine and my apartment is smoky but otherwise intact. I just do not appear to be allowed to catch a break. If I have wronged some supernatural being I apologize but surely there is some way for me to make it up to you. If my karma is bad fair enough but I better get a sweet deal the next time the wheel of samsara turns. Make me a seagull or a frog or something. I know I have it pretty good in compa
do not engage
I got a bitter and nasty email this morning that kind of threw off my whole day. I don't, generally, like it when people are mad at me, especially in a circumstance like this one where I am pretty much entirely confident that I have done nothing wrong. In this case I was furious about the whole deal and had to stop and calm myself down before proceeding. Not responding might be the best option - and usually is if it's a social media stranger - but this was someone I know and I have never much l
Grounding questions
Three simple questions to ask when feeling stuck or off course: what problem am I solving, what constraints exist, and why? Regularly returning to these questions prevents unproductive spirals and helps refocus energy on goals that truly matter.
Between Curiosity and Despair
A friend asked me recently what I'd do if with my time if money and the endless obligations of attempting to maintain a middle-class lifestyle weren't a problem anymore. I had had a few drinks surprised myself by saying that I'd just like to spend time learning things. This is one of those good conversation starters that actually cuts to the core of somebody, and while I think at a surface level of thought I'd say something like "make the world a better place" or "make great art" or whatever, on
Earning Relaxation
A short entry for the 21st day of my hundred days: I'm taking a sick day today, after a sleepless night of intense stomach pain (most likely because I ate too many almonds, which I did not realize was a thing until I was doubled over in pain at 2am last night). I actually tend to enjoy sick days, because it's a time when I feel like I've earned the right to relax. Most of the time I am so caught up in the things I need to do, or feel like I should be doing, that things that should be relaxing ju
Sunday Loop
Day 19 of this hundred days project and the weekend malaise is setting in. When I'm not following my set weekday schedule, I find it a lot harder to make time to write - weekends are full of tasks, social engagements, and things that pull me away from my desk (good) and make me forget to write (bad). It is, overall, probably a good thing that I do things like chores, exercise, and all the other stuff I have to do to keep my mind right, but man, do I really have to keep doing this every day for t