Last updated: November 2026
This is my Now page, inspired by Derek Sivers.
Tech stuff 👨💻
Redesigned my personal website because I thought it looked too “Bootstrappy”. I’ve never been good at design. I’m great at a lot of things but my brain doesn’t operate on the creativity line for web design – or any design for that matter. When I try to think about designing anything – web, living room, office, my mind goes blank. Now if you have a design I will absolutely be able to implement your vision to the details.
Presented at JavaScript MN to talk about a crime dashboard that I created called Glass on the Street. Before going to speak I was super nervous and didn't feel prepared at all. Aside from work presentations, I’ve never given a talk or presented to a group of strangers before. Right up until the moment I spoke I was filled with anxiety. I was so worried that I would freeze up or forget what I was talking about. Those fears were completely unfounded - your anxiety is lying to you, as the kids say. The moment I opened my mouth and started talking about the project I was relaxed and had a great time. After the talk I was totally amped up and people loved the idea of Glass on the Street. I met so many cool people that night. I left being excited for my next talk.
So far I'm not impressed with Fable 5.2 on coding tasks. I’ve got no metrics for this but for speed and accuracy it feels the same as Sonnet 5.5 to me.
Coffee stuff ☕
The same friend who got me to speak at JSMN brough me two bags of Onyx espresso back from their trip to Arkansas. A bag of Monarch and a bag of Geometry. I like the Geometry more than Monarch. Both coffees are great, but Monarch tends to be more dark than I can appreciate where Geometry is right in that lightish sweet spot. I'm not saying it was a bribe, but him giving me those bags definitely got me over the edge to commit to doing a talk. I've been brewing that for the past two weeks and they're phenomenal.
In December we are doing a coffee tasting for my kid’s school. I’ve selected to coffees and will order them next week. This will give me time to let the bags rest after roasting and time to dial them in on the chemex. The coffees we're going to be pouring are:
- George Howell (Boston, MA), Montecarlos, El Salvador: Milk Chocolate, Orange, Walnut at $26.00. This is the chocolatey crowd-pleaser to open with.
- Messenger (Kansas City, MO), Sumatra Kerinci Natural: Apple Juice, Cardamom, Candied Fruit, $21.50 for 10 oz. It’s an Indonesian coffee with spice notes, unlike anything else on the table.
- Verve (Santa Cruz, CA), Kenya Kiunyu: A washed Kenya from Kirinyaga with notes of guava, tangerine, white sugar, $28. This is the bright, juicy one.
- Black & White (Raleigh, NC), Hanan Million Getachew Natural: Complex florals, mango, peach tea, and blackberry jam, $28. The fruitiest of the four, so pour it last.
Photography 📸
All summer I was using Bennett’s Color 800 recipe on my Ricoh photos. Now it’s fall and winter I am going to shoot only RAW and edit in Lightroom. I don’t like RAW + JPG because it’s just so much more to walk through + edit. My time is limited already. This also will save battery life. Ricoh has bad battery life, cutting down on processing an extra photo will help save some juice.