It’s time. After 25 years of stories across countries, projects across industries — startups, bars and restaurants, a printing business, software, product management — I feel the need to start writing.
Dumpster diving
I’ve always been interested in computers. I still remember the first time I saw one with MS-dos on it. A defining lore moment. Unfortunately, my family was too poor/uninterested to have a computer at home. So I did the obvious thing — I “scrapped” garbage for computer parts discarded by big companies and built my own when I was around 13. Mostly to play games though (OG RPGs).
Since then, most of my life has revolved around computers. Even my hobbies. I might have spent years on actual World of Warcraft /played game time.
This is sick
Last year I wanted to move away from computers and build around my other interests — motorbikes, nechanics, and off-roading. I had a plan to open an off-road shop in Europe. Went back to school. First of the class at 40, studying with 20-year-olds (I was ahigh-school dropout at 16 btw).
But then I got sick. Doctor told me I was autistic and that I have MCAS — mast cell activation syndrome. Basically means I’m tired all the time and I’m made out of paper (explains all my injuries in the army and JJB). Manual labor will at most be a hobby. After not even a year of trying to get away from computers, I was forced back in.
Learn to code bruh
In late 2025 while being stuck on my couch, I started studying coding seriously. Before that it was light Python and hacking WordPress — HTML and CSS don’t count. I took Harvard’s CS50X and Boot.dev. The value you can get online today is incredible.
January 2026, I started building. Everyone says start with a to-do list, so I did. Built a to-do list and a task manager using SvelteKit, Tailwind, TypeScript, all the jazz. It was not a success, but it taught me a lot about what real coding is.
Side quests
I tried to be more active on socials, which is hard for me — Asperger’s, and typing everything is slow even with my split keyboard. So I started playing with the idea of speech-to-text.
As with a lot of things on Linux, tech is not the problem. Fragmentation is. Every solution I tried was just not working on my Pop!_OS or Omarchy computers. If I wanted something, I’d have to build it myself.
A simple task turned into a mini project, which turned into a huge project, which turned into nui.cat. The side quest became the quest.
WTF is this journal
So now I have a main project, side quests, split keyboards, a Jeep, a Harley, three kids, and I need a place to talk about it or my wife will physically implode. A dev journal is a good way to document my thoughts and experiments.
FYI: I don’t know how much I’ll write or how often. I might talk about things like UI/UX, AI, or software — things like dad life, my Jeep WJ, my Harley Fatbob, cats…
Disclaimer: I use AI to correct typos and grammar in my writing but I never rely on it to write the content of my posts. All you see was written by me.