Updated June 1st, 2026 from home in West Cork.
Life
We have a healthy crop of vegetables and have happily settled into the quiet routines of country life. Our first kid is due any week now and we’ve set up the nursery, bought a stroller, and much, much more. We’re both just so excited to meet the little kiddo and for the adventure of parenthood. Here’s to new experiences!
Exercise
I had aspirations to run the Lap of the Gap this year, but I pushed that off to 2027. I’m back to running 2-3 days a week and, handily, we have some forest roads right across the lane. The race isn’t until late May next year so there’s time to ease back into real training.
It had been 18 months since I last played golf during the Bandon trip in 2024. After a long layoff I picked the clubs up again and played my first couple rounds (not terrible scores and not too bad of rust). What I love about golf here is the baseline quality of courses (high) and the price of club memberships (low). It’s a far more accessible sport here than in the US.
Books & Words
I’ve kept up with the blogging habit (23 posts so far this year) and it feels easiest to write as if no one is reading. I built a small macOS app that pulls all my running logs from Strava and embeds it in daily notes that have beautiful maps and charts for all the data. It’s been lovely to have a much richer history of journal entries that stretch back the last 2 years.
I continue to read about a book every week. There’s no rhyme or reason to what I read, which I’d like to change. A goal for 2026 is to be more deliberate in how I connect what I read to what I want to learn. My “to read” shelf is well over 50 books, though, so there’s the perpetual challenge of reading as many as I find worth buying.
Code
In 2025 I redesigned this site and I continue to make small adjustments to it. It got me back into making things and it’s a nice, calming side project. My guidepost is Ethan Marcotte’s post about websites as worry stones.
I’ve also switched my music listening back to local, downloaded music tracks. The problem is that my perfect music app doesn’t exist. With Claude Code’s help I built a small, native macOS app that I continue to develop. It’s just for me and has been a lovely exercise in craft.
I also worked with William to ship my first piece of real, production code as we built Lately, a way to send private letters to friends through WordPress.com.
With inspiration from Derek Sivers’ Now project.
