field-notes

Observations captured in motion — lessons from active projects, incomplete systems, and work still in progress.
03
Jan
A Fastmail migration that turned into an unexpected audit of identity.

Untangling Email (and a few other things)

A five-hour evening spent untangling email, contacts, and identity. What started as a Fastmail migration turned into a reckoning with legacy systems, quiet dependencies, and the parts of my digital life I was finally ready to let go.
4 min read
01
Jan
Buying a Laptop Shouldn’t Be This Hard

Buying a Laptop Shouldn’t Be This Hard

I argued with myself for months over a decision that should’ve taken an afternoon. This isn’t about specs — it’s about letting go of an old identity and choosing a tool that stays out of the way.
5 min read
31
Dec
What I learned the hard way about cost, impatience, and building guardrails for myself—written as a snapshot, not a guide.

Letting a Jump Box Kill Itself

I wanted an ops host I could start when I needed it and forget about when I didn’t. What I built instead was a jump box that shuts itself off when I stop paying attention—and taught me more about cost, discipline, and designing for human failure than I expected.
3 min read
24
Dec
Mermaid, as it turns out, is less about drawing pictures and more about admitting how things relate.

I Didn’t Set Out to Learn Mermaid. It Just Kept Showing Up.

A reflection on how diagramming crept into my work—not as a goal, but as a way to think more clearly about systems and decisions.
4 min read
23
Dec
Standing Up This Site

Standing Up This Site

Notes on choosing boring tools on purpose, standing up this site, and creating a place that prioritizes clarity over cleverness.
2 min read