Notes & essays
Thoughts on software, strategy, and personal finance.
The Scooter That Owned Me
A $60 part fixed the boys' broken scooter, but the real cost was 20 hours of my summer. What our purchases quietly take from us.
July 19, 2026I Built a Gravity-Fed Waterer for Our Chickens (and Learned a Few Things the Hard Way)
A cheap, kid-friendly, gravity-fed chicken waterer built from a 5-gallon bucket, plus two lessons learned the hard way.
July 12, 2026I Built My First App, and It Finds Any Screenshot I've Ever Taken
I built my first app in a day: a private tool that OCRs every screenshot so you can search them by any text. The real story is how AI turned a wall into a doorway.
July 5, 2026Why I finally built a personal website
A short note on owning a corner of the web under my own name.
June 28, 2026The Spreadsheet That Updates Itself
For years I updated my investment tracker by hand. So I built a pipeline that pulls the data, keeps it in one source of truth, and rebuilds the spreadsheets itself.
June 21, 2026The Camera Button Won Me Over (Sorry, Apple Intelligence)
I upgraded for Apple Intelligence and stayed for a physical camera button. The flashy feature grabbed me; the quiet one won.
June 14, 2026Six Apple Watches Later, I Finally Bought the Right One
Six Apple Watches in eight years, then the Ultra. A lesson in buying the right tool once instead of the long way around.