I write, occasionally

My friend, Kaylee recently invited me to be on the Iowa Tech Podcast and I almost turned it down because I didn’t think I had any relevant content.

I clarified that I've not been involved with an Iowa-based company in over 15 years and have been remote for so long that I’m not used to chopping it up about tech IRL. The invitation honestly made me a bit anxious.

But I agreed, did the interview, had a great time, told my story, giggled a lot, and missed most of the talking points I should’ve hit, hahaha.

Here are the points I wanted to expand on...

1. Take calculated risks

You might not have gathered from my career history, but I’m a fairly risk averse person. Some of the changes I’ve made have felt risky - leaving something comfortable …

Big ups. Big downs. Took some risks. Continued to go with the flow... Thinking. Learning. Growing.

The year ended with the heartbreaking loss of our "nephew," Elias... which is part of the reason its taken so long to write this retrospective. He was an incredibly special kid with an incomprehensible diagnosis that he and his family fought as hard as possible to overcome... The loss has taken a while to settle in.

Last year, my first boss and one of my classmates were also taken too early by cancer.

2025 was unkind but kept moving.

Work

The year started off strong at Panther, the cybersecurity startup I was working at. Then it took an unexpected turn when I got a call from my former Venmo leader and friend, Papanii. Shortly after, I …

A couple weeks ago, my buddy Judson asked if I'd be willing to "stealthily take some photos" of him proposing to his amazing partner, Katie. I immediately told him how I stoked I was for them, but I'm not even close to a professional photographer and didn't wanna fuck up capturing their moment. He said it'd be super casual, in a remote park, and just wanted a couple mementos, so I agreed to scout it out with him. His goal was to get a "down on a knee popping the question under a light from a distance" sort of look.

The Recon

Judson told Katie that he was going to meet me for happy hour... but instead, we met at the park after work to figure out a game plan. It was my first time visiting this park, which was effectively closed for the …

I've been dealing with some minor, intermittent skin issues for years. It's been treatable, but last year the eczema came hard, spread further and was a little gnarlier... so I started seeing a dermatologist and allergist. They tested for chemical allergies, environmental allergies, had me change everything that I put on my skin or clothes and none of it helped. I suspected a food allergy or something, but the allergist disagreed, and wanted me to come in weekly to get shots. Yeah right.

Despite everything else they suggested, things got worse toward the end of the year... peak gluttony season.

In December, we did an "advent calendar of beer" from Confluence, so I was having at least half of a craft beer every day for nearly a month - …

This site is almost 24 years old now. TWENTY FOUR.

When I think about myself at 24... man. What an ignorant, overconfident punk, this site must be.

So, this all started as a work study project in college - a monolithic PHP+MySQL app that evolved into a multi-service, server side rendered javascript front end that hits a REST API (with an integration layer, various caching strategies, standalone CMS, etc)... but it's maintained a similar theme, and I've been very intentional about collecting and keeping as much data as possible the entire time.

Why?

Why not just use social media, medium, substack, or whatever else?

1. It's fun
2. I own the data and I control the experience
3. If you don't build your personal brand, someone else may build it for you

You know those Christmas cards that folks send that include a little 1-pager about what they've been up to for the year? I really like those... So, here's my 1-pager for 2024.

Travel

I stuck around North America again this year, visiting...

• San Francisco to hang with my team @ Panther
• Montana to snowboard and kick it with Kirps, Mason, and Ryan
• Moab for the Bronco Off-Roadeo and national parks
• Arizona for some golf, baseball, and hangs with Kari's folks
• Chicagoland to hang with family
• Oregon to visit Kari's brother, Victor
• Chicago to run around with our friends, Trent and Maurizio
• Canada for some fishing with family.
• Cornell for Kari's 20-year reunion.
• Minnesota to camp and celebrate Kari's birthday at August Schell's Oktoberfest

... but I’m …

My biography on social media for the past 20 years has been: Builder. Fixer. Thinker. Rocker.

I thrive in creative environments and have a real need to be designing, producing and moving to stay happy. My therapist recently pointed out that my self-esteem is directly tied to my productivity, which was something that I needed to hear.

Over the past few years, I found myself laying in bed before I fell asleep or after I woke up, just scrolling - trying to find a few, unearned dopamine hits… and I'd zone out several times a day to do the same.

I tried setting 15 minute app limits for all of the social media apps on my phone, but kept ignoring the warnings. Every time that I saw someone else scrolling, I’d judge them and then recognize that …

Seriously, how did we get here?

I have such a hard time comprehending how anyone, in good faith, can endorse Donald Trump to be the President of the United States.

Especially after not being endorsed by many of the highest ranking people of his own party, who he hired… his Vice President, his National Security Advisor, his Director of National Intelligence, his Secretary of Defense, his highest ranking military officer, his White House Chief of Staff, and the list goes on, and on.

These Republicans, and so many other people who’ve worked with him know that he’s wildly unethical, a threat to our nation’s security, and to our democracy. How can anyone believe otherwise?

• He's the most compulsive of liars.
• He stole and illegally hoarded …

A couple weeks ago, I was playing the red course at Willow Creek's Men's Club with some great dudes.

I wasn't playing well, as I'm in a bit of a slump, but I got my first par of the round on hole 4 - a 180yd downhill par 3. So, we walked up to the next hole - an uphill, dogleg left, par 5. I had honors, so I grabbed my driver, teed my ball up and took a couple practice swings. My buddy, Judson stopped me and said that the group ahead was within my reach... because when my driver's on, it's on. So I stepped back, noticed a bunch of tees laying around the box and said, "I guess I’ll just do a little house cleaning” and started picking up tees. Judson responded, “you could also just stand here and breathe.”

And that statement was the …

This was my 10th 80/35 music fest, and the first year that it didn't take place in downtown Des Moines. The venue change received a ton of pushback from locals and leadership stepped down... but the Des Moines Music Coalition and volunteers did what they could to make the fest happen.

I just wanted to share my experience…

To start off, I only knew 3 artists on the lineup, but one of my favorite things about this festival is discovering someone new. 80/35 has always impressed me by curating interesting, fun low-to-mid level artists that I never would have experienced otherwise.

On Friday, we biked down to Waterworks Park and entered via the tunnel from Grays Lake. The first annoyance was that there wasn't an easy way to get to bike valet …

2023 was a strange year. It felt gluttonous and hard to catch up, but it was always gonna be tough to follow the year of free boi summer.

We had lots of good stateside travel, a couple annoying financial issues, and I accidentally bought a Bronco.

We hosted fewer events and I made a conscious decision to only hang with folks who also invite us to things. This turned into spending time with new sets of great people but also seeing old buddies less than I'd hoped.

Travel

We didn't get to leave the country, but did take lots of road trips and I got to see 20 states.

• I went to Florida to visit my buddy, Kevi
• Minnesota for Bock Fest, Beyoncé, and Oktoberfest.
• Took a road trip to visit Kari's parents in Arizona, which also allowed us to see …

10 years ago, Kari and I were visiting Chicago during one of her fall breaks. I was there to work with my startup cofounders and she was there to hang out, shop, and enjoy our favorite city.

We got in late, ordered pizza from one of our favorite spots, and then crashed at an Air BnB. The next morning, Kari woke up unable to control the entire left side of her body. Being young, naive, and frankly stupid, we (I) thought that maybe she slept weird. Maybe she had a pinched nerve or something. I suggested that she try some stretches or yoga to see if she could work it out while I showered to get ready for work. She agreed, but the stretches weren’t helping, so we decided to go to the nearest walk-in clinic.

Preparing for how slow and …

The upper midwest is effectively devoid of off-roading and overlanding opportunities. Most people in the scene are settling for camping in parks, getting invites to a handful of events on private land, or making long hauls to get our fix outside of the midwest.

We'd been planning a fall overlanding escape to the Ozark National Forest with our cousins, who have a very similar setup as ours (Ford Broncos and off-road teardrops). We scouted out some campsites that we could drop our campers at while we wheeled through the forest. Ideally, we'd pull the teardrops through the trails, but some of the water crossings can get pretty high, and no one wants a wet mattress...

The week before we were set to leave, the forecast predicted temps in the …

The rear bench seat of my Jeep spent most of it's life in a Christmas tree storage bag... and I had a similar plan once I traded my Jeep in for a Bronco. But I was pretty bummed to learn that it was a lot more work to add/remove the rear Bronco seats (bolts, sensors, and tools? wtf!)... so, I just went scorched earth and ripped everything out, along with the seatbelts.

With the rear seats out of the bronco, the floor is pretty ugly, with random bolts, holes, and cuts in the floor liner. It was gonna be pretty annoying to use as a "truck bed" this way, so I did what many others have done, and started researching/designing a flat "bed."

Goose Gear's system looks nice but is frankly overpriced. I didn't need the modularity that they offered, …

As soon as Ford announced that they were re-releasing the Bronco, I knew that I wanted one. However, I’d just bought a Jeep that I really enjoyed, so I decided to wait a bit. This would allow the aftermarket to catch up and Ford to shake out any issues within the first couple years of launching. 2024 felt like the model year to go after. The vehicle should be relatively stable, the aftermarket would’ve had a few years to catch up and with any luck, they may launch their anticipated hybrid model along with some other mid-cycle refreshes.

If you’ve been following the rollout of the new Bronco, you know that it's been a shit show. Launching a vehicle during a pandemic and then dealing with the post-pandemic supply chain left folks …

After 20 years of tinkering with home automation, I thought it'd be fun to blog about how I've come to approach things.

First, the background

My entry into home automation was tinkering with old school, X10 powerline/RF lamp and outlet modules that were paired with remotes, motion sensors, and a "smart" module that you could program via a PC to begin adding automation.

Since then, I've played with tons of brands and ecosystems, but I've primarily used Zigbee, Zwave, wifi/mesh, and PoE devices.

I've gone pretty deep with Hue, Lutron, Arlo, Ring, Nest, NuHeat, Sonos, Amazon, Google, Apple, Liftmaster, Bond, and other random generic smart devices.

To tie the ecosystems together, I've mostly used SmartThings and HomeAssistant, but …

I almost didn't write a year-end blog because I kinda captured the year already, but ... 5 weeks late, I just wanna say that 2022 was one of the best years that I've had in a while.

Most things have already been shared on my yearly stats page and blogs:

• I quit my job
• I got a hole-in-one
• I took 6 months off

Oh, and we got a dog.

But, I ultimately focused on myself and leisure and felt more alive than I have in a long time.

I realize that I'm incredibly fortunate to have had those opportunities, but I'm now back to work, where I'm learning a ton and that's exciting.

I've started getting out to my coworking space more often and have def missed that change of scenery.

I'm spending less energy on internet friendships and relationships that …

Retired folks often say that they somehow become busier after they stop working. This year I got a taste of what that meant.

In April, I quit my job to take a break, reset, and enjoy a summer off with my educator wife. Those planned few months turned into 6+ months of "pretirement" and it was incredible.

I wasn't necessarily busier in pretirement, but I was definitely more active and more productive with my own wants. I got to wake up nearly every day and just wing it. I loved it.

Health

I generally felt way better than I did during my typical desk job life. I easily closed my nerd watch rings daily, maintained a healthier weight and my general mood, outlook, and overall mental health was immensely better.

I unexpectedly found golf …

I grew up playing golf, but fell out of the game for school, work and other priorities. I'd been wanting to get back into it, but kept procrastinating. So, when my friend Ben asked me to join him for 9 holes to celebrate his 40th birthday at Glen Oaks, I thought… here's my chance.

At first, I was a bit apprehensive to have my first round in 8 years be at a fancy country club. I didn't even have clothes to pass dress code, but I figured this would be a great way to dive in head first and get back out there. So, I quickly went shopping and got a few practice swings in at the driving range.

On Ben's birthday, I showed up to find him sipping on a Miami Vice cocktail with his buddy and business partner, Ben Sinclair. This immediately set the …

I recently decided to leave PayPal so that I could take a few months off and recharge.

Here's how I got to where I'm at...

2013-2015: Building Modest

Building a startup is quite an experience. In our situation, it was even more strange because we had a team of 4 with a nice chunk of funding before we even knew what to build. So, we spent ~6 months flipping back and forth between ideating and contracting while we figured things out.

Once we got the idea to build a contextual, mobile-focused commerce platform, we moved fast. In a couple years, we grew the team from 4 to a little over twenty and had some solid initial clients. We built a full-fledged commerce API, a couple web apps, JS SDKs, mobile SDKs, white label mobile apps, …