What's happening?

I’ve been silent for a long time. Pretty much since all the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. I’ve been raising kids and in survival mode.

My learning hasn’t stopped even while surviving. Obviously I’m doing more with AI. It’s kinda hard not to in this industry. In addition to using an AI coding assistant for my day-to-day, I’ve helped build AI integrations in Observable Canvas by building skills and tools to improve the context quality. I’ve also been building more services and tools in Rust. Still rooted in infrastructure, I’ve most recently used my skills to write a client and server to manage VPN connections.

I do a lot of hacking side projects with more hardware: soldering, PCBs, and microcontrollers. A lot of 3D printing. In an age where things don’t seem real, I’m trying to bring the real back into my experience with technology. I’m deepening my understanding of security, as I see it’s going to be more and more important as we are introducing broader abstractions with AI in technology.

On top of everything, I’ve survived a teacher strike where my kids were home the whole month of November in 2024. On the first day back at school, I was greeted with a layoff notification…via Docusign. No meeting, no thank you, just a simple we’re done with you take some cash and get out of here.

After that it’s been a roller coaster of employment all with companies that have promise but have found themselves on shaky ground because the industry is changing in a very fundamental way. I’m not sure if it’s for the better or worse so I’m withholding judgement, but it definitely is changing.

I have been in roles that have ended with companies being bought out and ultimately left me looking for my next thing. My last role was no exception.

Going forward, in addition to looking for my next job, I want to document some of my projects. Get back into the spirit of technology that got me here with sharing and open source. So that’s how I want to revive this site. I’m going to document what I’m up to: new projects, what Linux distro I’m rocking now, etc.

Maybe we can figure out what’s actually happening around here.