Captain’s Log, 2025.08

From all the flashes and thunder it would seem the other side of the building is having a touch of weather, but this side is all beautiful August sunset. A reflection of where I’m at right now, with all the trouble left two towns behind, and here in this place peace and calm. It’s nice.

I continued settling into the new place.

Second month in the new apartment, and things are starting to settle into place. Esme acts as if she’s always lived here, perching on the windowsills and leading me from room to room. I think the single life suits her just fine. She’s even starting playing with her toys, something she never did in the Old Place. I’m feeling very relieved at this, and happy and grateful to have her as a roommate.

I rested.

There are layers to this, it turns out. I untangle one anxiety only to discover that it has been masking something deeper and older. This is the process, I suppose, and it is probably a good sign that I am on the right track. So I continue to slow down, listen to my body, and step away from the keyboard when I need it. It seems like it’s helping. Under the circumstances (I moved for a reason, after all) a Big Regrouping is probably not a terrible idea anyway. Old girl needs her rest yet.

• Played with Godot Engine a bit. Went through a few tutorials, played around with a few 2D scenes. I haven’t made a game since I was at Blit Interactive. I kind of miss doing it.

• Dancing and diners!! Perhaps my favorite kind of night out: dancing for hours, finishing up with disco fries and coffee at the diner. Exhausting and energizing at the same time.

• Got a library card! My new town has an amazing public library. They just finished a big renovation, and added a maker space with 3D printers and everything (which I’ll probably end up using to print a Riker pose clock or something silly like that).

• I finished Dredge! This is the first game I’ve maanged to finish since…Horizon Zero Dawn, I think? I chose this one specifically because I knew it was small and I wanted a win. I like the art style, and tooling around on the water at half speed finding little scavenging spots was really enjoyable and relaxing. On to Baldur’s Gate 3!

• Introduced Cassandra to Formula 1. I convinced her to sit down and watch a few races, and now she’s started asking after the schedule. It would be fun to have someone to nap through watch the races with!

• I made biscotti. Friends gifted me a little Bialetti coffee maker as a housewarming gift, and biscotti just feels like it completes the experience. My first time making it!

• I made a utensil drawer organizer. The ones at the store were all either the wrong size or the wrong price or just wrong. So I used what I had to hand.

I doubled down on decorporatizing.

I touched on it last month: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle, all of it just feels gross to me now and researching alternatives is something I can do even if I’m not feeling 100%. Someday (soon?) I’ll be Making again and I want to feel good about it when I do! The scope has grown a little, and I’ve started calling it “decorporatizing” in discussions with other people.

• Diving deep on Rust. I feel like I understand the basics now and have started exploring the ecosystem: WebAssembly, web_sys and the wasm-bindgen, Trunk and Leptos, Tauri, and Ratatui. Knowledge was gained, and I had fun doing it. This language does continues to bend my brain a little but I feel increasingly confident it is the right path.

• Hosted our first Migration Party. Earlier in the year, in response to “World Events”, Cassandra and I started co-hosting twice-a-month potlucks for our community. Now we’ve extended that setting to help other people decorporatize as well: moving from Big Social to the Fediverse, from Corporate Chat to Signal, and from end-of-life Windows 10 to Linux Mint. It’s going really well, and people seem excited to have some control again.

• Switched from Nord to Mullvad VPN. Nord has been great, but they are building out a whole suite and they keeping pushing more stuff into it. It seems like I’m having more connectivity issues, and I dunno it was just starting to feel off. Mullvad has been great so far, totally solid, no complaints. Running on macOS, iOS, and Linux.

I set up a “project cycle”.

This is an experiment in addressing several recurring pain points:

• I have lots of fun ideas and I find it frustrating that I never get time to work on the ones that aren’t an immediate priority. It is super demoralizing to feel inspiration and know you’ll never act on it.
• I care less and less about shipping things and more about enjoying the work itself. Making money for other peoples’ app stores feels less and less desirable.
• I’m prone to vapor lock when faced with equally worthy options, and often end up doing nothing instead.

I put a “last worked” date on all of my projects, and I’m using my creative time to work on them in roughly that order, oldest first. I try to do something for each of them, even if it is just tidying up my thoughts or looking up a phone number. If a project won’t move, I consider why and try to break it down into something simpler before moving on. The key seems to be keeping the next steps really, really simple.

So far I’m happy with the way it is going. I no longer spending time on prioritizing, as I naturally spend more time on things that feel important to me and less on those that don’t. Everything gets looked at eventually so my brain is able to chill out about it. I feel less anxiety about working on the “wrong” thing. When something starts to feel less good I can put it down and pick up something else, so I’m bumping up against the burnout less often. And I am able to progress more overall, as there is always something near the top of the list I’ll enjoy poking at. I’m curious to see how long it takes me to get through the whole cycle.

Sunday is now Track Day!

Excited for this one! I’ve been into cars and motorsports since I was a kid, the Saab 99 Turbo and Datsun 240Z were my early loves, photos torn from magazines and pinned to the wall. I always wanted the opportunity to “get gud” at sim racing but never felt like I had the time to devote to it. But I do now! To make myself feel good about it, and not feel like it’s taking away from “more important” things, I’m timeboxing it to Sunday mornings.

I’ve actually had a decent racing rig for quite a long time, sitting in the basement of the Old Place, which I would occasionally dust off over a holiday or for a special event (I had a lot of fun participating in the Gran Turismo 6 community events). Now my place, my rules, and the racing rig lives in the corner next to the TV and the GGC, where I can swing it around and be at the track in moments. (I’ve decided it’s okay to have a racing rig in your living room as long as you’re good at it!)

• I’m starting with the (admittedly underwhelming but still fun) career mode of Assetto Corsa because I already own it. Trying out all the widgets and practice modes, learning how to adjust the tire pressures, having fun and getting more consistent.
• No online racing yet, not sure if that’s something I want to do or not?
• To make things interesting I’m going to try to “unlock” Assetto Corza Competizione by reaching the GT3 events in Assetto Corsa.

Wednesday is now Writing Club!

Another new tradition born this month: I’m opening up my place as a quiet and cozy space for writing on Wednesday nights. So far it is just me and Cassie so, you know, super secret. But if you’re reading this, then we must have stuck with it!

Insights & Advice

• YAGNI. I had forgotten. Defer decisions as long as possible. Why do I always forget this?
• Appreciate the ideas! Too often I try to jump ahead to the specifics and the doing and suck all the joy out of the idea and the inspiration.

Random Links

• For the Philadelphia folks, Hi Lo Taco at 11th & Walnut is so good :food:
• Vince Guaraldi, Since I Fell For You :music: