Meadow - Now Pages

Now (February 10, 2026)

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2026-02-11

Hi, welcome to my Now page! You can see previous versions here.

Hi! It's been a while since I updated my now page. If you've been following my blog, then you know I've been busy-really busy-posting almost once every day for the past fifty days or so (see context). I've, in fact, been so busy that I've pretty much put aside any other writing projects. However, I recently rethought my whole approach to this, and I'm now giving myself more time between posts. That means that, thankfully, I've been able to slowly get through other "writing things" that require my attention, so here we are.

For a while, I thought that my "now page" no longer served any function as I was posting every day, but I suppose now it does? It's still a fun thing to work on every once in a while: an easy, low-effort sort of post. It doesn't show up in my new writing heatmap widget, but well, what can you do!

... let's see ...

Things are going well! As I recently mentioned, I've been making some important changes to my lifestyle. Specifically: exercising more, writing more, and ditching caffeine. I don't know if it's because of one of these in particular or all together, or maybe something else entirely, but I've been in a much better headspace than I have been in a long, long while. Less stressed, less irritable, generally calmer, in a better mood.

I've been reading a lot as well! Though recently someone at work asked our group if we'd read anything interesting lately, and some folks on my team started talking about productivity books or career performance stuff. I couldn't bring myself to share that I had just read "Lincoln in the Bardo", and that it made me both sad and happy. (I hope my teammates are also reading more interesting things than just stuff like "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".)

... Well, I guess I'll talk more about books below. If I don't stop myself, this might become a full blog post in its own right rather than a quick update ...

Now

As said above, much better mood and more energy. There're still some gray days (especially when I sleep badly), but for now they are the exception rather than the norm.
I'm still trying to understand how my new writing schedule looks. I'm giving myself two days per post rather than only one, as I was doing before. So far it's going well, I think. I haven't really published anything, but I partially wrote a post yesterday and finished it today. I didn't end up publishing it, though, because I want to embed a technical demo that's not ready yet. Hopefully tomorrow.
- The fact I couldn't publish it is actually the reason why I'm writing this right now :)
Work is going well. Finally closing up my old project and soon will start a new one. Though it's with a big team, and that's intimidating. You know, social anxiety and all that. But I'm sure in some weeks everything will fall into place, just as always.
I submitted an entry to January 2026 IndieWeb Carnival which I not something I've ever thought I would do! I've wanted to for a while, but my inner critic just kept telling me I shouldn't. I think it's a sign that things are moving along in the right direction.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- I don't know if I should remove this from the list; it's been here so long! I think the problem is that I have the audiobook only, and I no longer have much time to listen to audiobooks (well, I do, but it's no longer a habit).
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
- Still excellent, though also partially on hold. This is also an audiobook.
The Will of the Many by James Islington
- This came highly recommended, but I almost dropped it after reading the first few chapters. I don't know why, but I just didn't like them that much. But boy, am I happy I didn't! I'm now about halfway through the book, and holy crap, is it good. It's been a long time since I read a book I can personally call a "page-turner".

Related to "reading": I've mentioned many times how reading and writing in my "native" language feels extremely weird. In this last post, I concluded I'm probably missing out on a lot of stuff, so I've decided to do some investigation and came up with some books in Spanish to add to my reading list! These will be the first books in Spanish I read since I got out of high school:

The Days of the Deer by Liliana Bodoc
- This one looks especially interesting. Seems like a "Lord of the Rings" but set in Mesoamerican mythology rather than European.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Watching

Nothing right now. We started rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender a while back, but we didn't stick to it past the encounter with Toph (who is definitely my favorite character, btw).

Podcasts

(Hey new section!)

Lost Terminal - interesting story and ideas, and excellent to listen to in short sessions.

Projects

Projects have been a bit hectic. I lost access to my Azure account due to weird circumstances (you can read more about it here), which caused everything to be offline for the past month or so. A couple of weeks ago, I moved everything to a new provider, and it's all back to normal as far as I can tell. There was a bit of data lost, but besides that, all is well.
- I did make some changes to my backup system, so now at least they're being replicated to multiple other providers! So if something happens to my current one, it should be easy to recover.
I've been doing some general cleanup of Guestbooks, nothing really that visible though. The only new functionality is that now you can change your "display name" for when you reply (oh, and you can also reply to comments! Not sure if I'd already mentioned it anywhere).
I've also been fixing some bugs in Mochi. I took advantage of the opportunity to make a general improvement to the UI (and implemented Kudos). Check it out!

Now (November 25, 2025)

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-11-26

Hi, welcome to my Now page! You can see previous versions here.

Happy Thanksgiving folks! I don't live in the US, but I'm lucky that my wife's family does celebrate it so I get to live part of the experience. Sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming having the whole family here (and her family is huge!), but I'm always grateful to be part of it. And you know, one only tends to remember the nice things. The great majority of the family also has similar views on stuff so there's very little of that all too common disagreements that are typical of this time of year.

...

I'm still playing Silksong and recently got into the Citadel (started Act 2). I'm actually way into it by now, but I decided it's time to take a break. I think I'm just tired of bashing bugs around, and want some of my time back to do other stuff. It's amazing how much more free time I have now!

On the side I've been working on an Obsidian Plugin to sync writing to TrackBear and I have to say it's been great at helping me stay motivated with doing my Morning Pages. I believe being able to see my writing progress on a dashboard pushes me to keep on moving that graph upwards. I'm now in the process of publishing the plugin the official Obsidian store, which should hopefully be done soon.

Now

I've decided to start a new writing project as I felt stuck on here (something I've mentioned AT LENGTH in my past Now updates) . I think I have too-high standards for my blog, which is why I feel like I want to write but never end up doing so. That's why I created a "dumpster" for myself! It's a public facing page, but I'm trying to treat it more as a place without standards. I'm not sure what will happen with it or if I will eventually bring back some of the stuff I write there over to the blog (probably yes).
I recently discovered an excellent app called Readeck to queue up the stuff you want to read from around the web. You're meant to self-host it so it might not be as friendly for non-technical folks. If you're curious I can create an account for you on my instance, just ping me!
- Seriously, this app is so good. You can "save" new articles from the Readeck site itself or (often more conveniently) from the official browser extension (that works even on Android!).
- My favorite feature is that it remembers your progress in each and every article, so I can read a bit on my phone and then open it up on my computer and continue reading there, and then again on my phone.
- I'm using it for both personal and work stuff. I usually have tens of tabs with papers relevant to my job, but I'm lucky if I end up reading one of them a week. Now, since I have a queue, I can just go through it whenever I have time. This organization has really done a difference for me, and my browser window definitely looks cleaner!
I'm seriously considering paying for Kagi. There are two main reasons for this:
1. Google sucks, Bing sucks. I don't want to look at ads just to make money for them. I'm not complaining about the search results (even Bing is mostly acceptable after it builds up a profile), it's more of a philosophical thing.
  - For years now I've been using Ecosia which is actually a really nice project. It's a Bing based search engine, and the foundation behind it gives pretty much all their revenue to planting trees. You should check them out if you didn't know about them! Search results are decent.
2. I've been thinking just how important search is for our internet use. We often don't think about it because Google/Bing just work, but Search in fact the cornerstone of our internet experience (especially if you are an Information worker). It not only shapes OUR experience as users, but also what the internet itself is shaped up to be. I think a lot of the crappy ad-farm sites that are commonplace now exist solely because they're gaming Google's algorithm. And Google's algorithm is made for making Google the most money, not to optimize the experience for the user doing the search, nor for the sites the user is reaching (sadly this is the case even with Ecosia). The fact that search works is just a byproduct of the fact they need to keep users searching.
  - I feel that using something like Kagi is a statement and a direct way of reclaiming our agency as co-creators of the web. You pay, yes, but that lets you play a role in what you want your (and others') experience to be. Kagi also has some awesome features like custom page filtering, ranking, and Lenses (which are totally awesome)! And their new crowdsourced AI detection thing is, I think, also moving things in the right direction.
  - The thing keeping me back is that it's so expensive! I've been trying to find someone that wants to split the "Duo" license with me, but no one around me is ready to cast the yoke of Google. I really wish there was a way to "team up" with random strangers without worrying that they'll eventually ghost you and not pay their part.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- Man I really need to get back to reading this! It's been a long while that I don't touch it but I do want to finish it. There's a lot of good stuff in it.
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
- I love Terry Pratchett so much! It's been a while since I read anything from him. I'm only a few chapters into the book but I'm liking it so far.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- I first read this book in my freshman year at college and it was such an important part of my formative experience at that time that I was extremely surprised when I realized I basically haven't re-read this book even once! It's still as good as I remember, though there are many things I didn't remember, and now that I'm older perhaps understand some things a bit better.

Watching

An aunt recommended us Bon Appétit, Your Majesty and it's been surprisingly fun! It's a weird mix between drama and comedy that's really entertaining to watch. The actors are also really good, and the cinematography is great.
- The overall story is so-so, but every episode on its own has been drawing me in so far, so it means it must be good.

Projects

As mentioned above, I'm working on an Obsidian TrackBear plugin.
I'm also picking up work on Gustbooks once again!
- After much debating whether I should or not I decided to go ahead and implement a sort of "reply functionality" where the guestbook owner can reply to messages. Still trying to finalize the design.
- Recently Kayla brought to my attention the fact that people might want to spam other Guestbooks (as in fact happened to her not long ago)! Come on folks, that's not a nice thing to do! In retrospect, that was obviously going to happen.
  - Added a "delete multiple messages" functionality to the dashboard so at least spam can be dealt with in a single fell blow.
  - But that's not enough. I'm now thinking of adding some sort of spam detector thingy to Guestbooks. I'm familiar with basic spam detection on email, and think maybe we can do the same for Guestbooks? With a single shared filter that all users contribute to?
    - I haven't decided if "spam messages" should just be blocked (maybe a warning shown to the person trying to post the message?) or if a more complex spam folder should be added on Guestbooks. The latter is probably better, but it's also quite a bit more complex to implement.
  - Anyway... I'll think more about it. This "Now" page is probably not the place to get into a design specification 😅

Now (November 13, 2025)

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-11-14

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions here.

Wow almost a month since my last now update! Well I guess my head has just been busy with other stuff (a good part of it has been with playing Hollow Knight: Silksong). I've been meaning to update this page for a while now, but I never manage to find the motivation to do it. You know how it is.

But today... Today is different somehow. Since my last now update, the amount of writing that I do has decreased substantially (I even stopped doing my morning pages!), but the thought of it has always been in the back of my mind. Though lately it has been getting stronger. I recently (two weeks ago) began journaling mostly every day, and now here we are.

I think two things conspired to make me take a break from writing. The first was that writing and editing Sacred Labor was perhaps a bit traumatizing. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew with that one! I think the story turned out quite well all things considered, but during the whole process I had to force myself to write it. I thought this was going to be a good thing for me, not to depend on motivation to write something, but maybe I aimed too high :P Anyway... The second thing was that I've been using most of my free time playing Silksong. It's been great fun, but creative pressure is starting to build up and wants out. I guess that's good.

It's good to take breaks every once in a while, if only for the fact that it allows us to see ourselves from a different point of view.

Now

Thinking about the perennial issue of writing more. Not sure what I'll write about though. Or if I want that writing to appear here on my blog or for it to be more private journal-style. I feel my blog is currently sort of in hibernation mode, waiting for the Great Thaw.
Related to the above, I've been thinking a lot about the issue of "momentum" for my internet identity. Every idea I get for a post gets rejected by my inner critic with the thought that "your readers won't be interested in that!". It's like I built this image of Meadow and now it's so hard to do anything because any action will change it, and change it for the worse. Things are in stasis. No change, preserved, but at the same time there's no possibility for growth.
- I actually have this idea that it would be fun to create a brand new blog and just write there for some weeks without disclosing my real fake-identity. I get the feeling this will ease the pressure of trying to maintain a given expected identity, to remain on brand so to speak.
- At the same time, this is really just putting off the inevitable right? Whatever new persona I assume will eventually calcify, and I'll be back where I'm now.
- So, for the moment, I'm just staying here. Trying to figure out how to break the ice that has formed around my pen. I'm trying not to worry that much about it though. My approach is write first, and everything else will come on its own.
I've been struggling with my 3y/o a bit lately. The experts of the internet assure me it's a normal part of child development but he can just be such an asshole sometimes. Expressing himself with violence, crying over everything. I just don't know how to handle it, especially if I'm tired/irritable myself.
- Though to be fair sometimes he's also a perfectly sweet and kind kid, so all hope is not lost yet.
- I'm trying to frame this as him not having the tools to deal with his big emotions. This outlook helps a bit, and allows me to reframe the situation so that my role is to help him learn techniques to deal with how he feels.
  - Too bad I also struggle with this myself! I guess we'll just have to learn together.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- Man I really need to get back to reading this! It's been a long while that I don't touch it but I do want to finish it. There's a lot of good stuff in it.
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
- I love Terry Pratchett so much! It's been a while since I read anything from him. I'm only a few chapters into the book but I'm liking it so far.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- I first read this book in my freshman year at college and it was such an important part of my formative experience at that time that I was extremely surprised when I realized I basically haven't re-read this book even once! It's still as good as I remember, though there are many things I didn't remember, and now that I'm older perhaps understand some things a bit better.

Watching

An aunt recommended us Bon Appétit, Your Majesty and it's been surprisingly fun! It's a weird mix between drama and comedy that's really entertaining to watch. The actors are also really good, and the cinematography is great.
- The overall story is so-so, but every episode on it's own has been drawing me in so far, so it means it must be good.

Projects

Recently I discovered a site for tracking reading progress called TrackBear. Going to the website every time I want to track writing progress is a bit tedious so I'm toying with making an Obsidian plugin for it. Still very experimental. I'm also really making this just for myself as I'm not sure how to make it generic and useful for everyone without it becoming too complex.
- If you would be interested in using this then I would love to hear from you, and what your workflow usually looks like!
I'm also working on a tentative project I'm calling Hoarder. It's a bookmarking service for links and text and images (knowledge in general). It's still not super well formed as an idea though it's already quite functional!
- I don't know yet where it's going or if I'll keep working on it so I haven't announced it anywhere. However, I'm already using it for my own bookmarks so I guess that means it's functional enough for the average person?

Now (October 15, 2025)

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-10-16

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions here.

So.. ahem.. hello! It's been a while since I last updated my now page. My previous update was almost two months ago! I could tell you the usual, that life got in the way, or that I've been busy with work or some other excuse, but the truth of it is that I just didn't feel like it. You know, sometimes you do something because it's fun, but then it's no longer fun anymore and you still feel like you should do it.

I have been struggling a bit with wanting to write on my blog but not really wanting to do the work to make it happen. I know, silly. This morning I saw an email from Derek Sivers about some new updates he pushed to https://nownownow.com/, so I thought I would use this as an excuse to write here 😊 also, updating my now page is kind of like writing on my blog but not really. Much lower stakes, or at least it feels so, even though it's basically the same as doing a normal post (just with more structure).

Now

As mentioned above, I've been wanting to write something but have been struggling with actually sitting down and doing it. I think I'm just getting in my own way, the old problem of feeling like I don't have permission to do it. I'm still journaling daily which I guess is good. Updating my now page is also good. Baby steps.
I have been playing the new Hollow Knight: Silksong on my Nintendo Switch. It's a great game! Though I've found I quickly get tired of smacking bugs around so I've been taking breaks every couple of days. Still, lots of fun. I imagine this is also a contributing factor of why I haven't been writing on my blog that much 😆
I replaced a huge chunk of my screen time with reading, which is great! However, I recently realized that I've not read any blog post in quite a while. Not so great. I believe reading blogs one likes is essential to (1) cross pollinate ideas, and (2) get inspired.
- There's so many talented people out there! The other day I saw a really nice idea from Veronique about making hand-made cards with her website written on them. I would love to do this. At least I would if I lived in a city rather than in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. Still, very neat. I might actually do it whenever I have to go on a work trip or something.
- I also read a series of posts from Wil Wheaton that really resonated with me and where my mind is right now.
On the other hand, these days I'm finding it hard to sift through the noise of the digital world. It's easy to get distracted by other more-flashy-but-less-nutritional stuff. Maybe I'm just hiding in my books?
I'm trying to get mentally prepared for NaNoWriMo. I've never participated, but I might just do it this year. Not planning on writing anything publishable, but more as a way to get the old gears moving. Unclogging the pipes by forcing water through them.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- Man I really need to get back to reading this! It's been a long while that I don't touch it but I do want to finish it. There's a lot of good stuff in it.
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
- I've had this book recommended to me many times and now I can see why! I'm almost in the middle of it and I'm really liking it so far. The author knows his stuff, and the parallels he makes with modern science help (me) better connect the ideas together.

Watching

After a long while of not watching anything, wife and I started a rewatch of "Big Band Theory". I forgot how funny it is. And oh how different are the characters in the first episodes vs the later ones. It's nice seeing the different pieces fall into place, and both the authors and actors trying out new things till they find a mixture that works.

Projects

Aether -- I wanted to do a real life project in order to get some experience with the Django Framework. I started by implementing something a simple: a status website like https://status.cafe/ . Eventually I ended up bolting lots of other functionality on top: cross posting to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Status.cafe; drafts; persistent profile pages. I'm thinking of adding something like Tumblr's post schedule/queue but I'm not rushing it.
- I use Python every day at work and it'd never occurred to me to look into Django. Of course, I knew about it but always thought Python would be a terrible choice for a web server because it's not very efficient, at least not when compared with compiled languages like Golang. But lately I've began to appreciate just how important flexibility and ease of use are when one is a single person maintaining multiple projects.
I'm also working on a tentative project I'm calling Hoarder. It's a bookmarking service for links and text and images (knowledge in general). It's still not super well formed as an idea though it's already quite functional!
- I don't know yet where it's going or if I'll keep working on it so I haven't announced it anywhere. However, I'm already using it for my own bookmarks so I guess that means it's functional enough for the average person?
- If you by any chance do try it out then I would love to hear what you think about it 😊

Now (August 25, 2025)

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-08-26

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

All of us got sick with the flu. We're now recovering and thankfully it wasn't terrible for any of us.
Puppy is growing really quickly. He's almost double the size he was when we picked him up two weeks ago. We're still dealing with puppy chaos, but every day he's better behaved.
Writing has been going well! I've managed to do my morning pages almost every day these past two weeks, and I've even squeezed in some blog posts! I've also managed to make a sizable dent in my correspondence backlog. I only have 3 more emails I need to answer, though the further back they go the harder it is to bring myself to answer them.
I've started doing Homework for Life and it's been going great. I don't always feel like I find good stories but the act of reflecting on the past day has great implications for the next day. It also pushes me to be more present in the moment, more observant, as I wonder if that moment will make a good story.
- The idea is that at the end of every day you take 5 minutes or so to write down one or two things that happened that day that might make a good story. I think this is an awesome way to both be more grateful with what goes on as well as more observant and attentive.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- Man I really need to get back to reading this! It's been a long while that I don't touch it but I do want to finish it. There's a lot of good stuff in it.
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Watching

My wife and I started the new season of "Wednesday" last week!
We also stumbled upon "My Lady Jane" which was an unexpected surprise! I like the humor and the freshness of the storytelling.
- I read the show was cancelled, which is a shame as I think it has a lot of potential.

Projects

I worked quite a bit on Kitty to make it nicer. The "innards" are basically unchanged but I remade the whole UI and reordered things up a bit. I still haven't "publicized" it but I hope folks will find it useful!
- I'm kind of hesitant though because having folks pour out their hearts into Kitty is really a huge responsibility on my part. What happens if something goes wrong and data is lost? Or what if I ever need to close the service? But well.. I still think it will be useful to some. Let's just hope for the best :P
Started a brand new project which I'm calling Fern. I'm thinking of it as "a slightly inefficient web framework aimed at maximizing developer experience for single devs".
- The idea started as I was going through Kitty's code and realized that over the years I've come up with some nice patters. Moreover, I could extract these patterns into a framework.
- Not long ago I was also checking out Lapis a really nice web framework for Lua. So that inspired me to make fern also a lua-first framework. It's hoisted to a GoLang backend and I'm hoping it to be batteries included.
- I think most of the stuff is already there, though I still haven't tried making anything "big" with it. I'll need to get a couple of projects done before I'm comfortable sharing it with other folks. However, I feel it has a lot of potential.

Now (August 10, 2025)

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-08-11

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

We have a new puppy! He's a 2 months-old border collie and is surprisingly well behaved for a puppy. Of course, he misbehaves when he's bored and has bouts of zoomies wherein everything becomes a toy (even my kids). Though he tends to be calm most of the time.
I'm finding myself recovering my habit of writing morning pages! I actually only missed one day last week, which is saying a lot considering that for the past 2 or three months I did at most 2 days a week. I think part of it is the puppy, who wakes me up early to take him out to pee (again, surprisingly well behaved).
Thanks to my wife and her campaigning against LLMs I realized how over-reliant I was on them for my self-expression and work. I wrote a bit about it in this post. It's been a week that I'm not even giving myself the chance of using them to correct my grammar and I've found that words now flow much more easily, and my self-confidence has improved.
Recently I discovered The Moth and the concept of personal storytelling, which I fell in love with. Well, I was already doing it a bit of it here in my blog, though I didn't really know it. I plan to do more of it hopefully!
Related to the above, I recently started reading a book called Storyworthy. In it the author suggests an exercise which I started doing yesterday. The idea is that at the end of every day you take 5 minutes or so to write down one or two things that happened that day that might make a good story. I think this is an awesome way to both be more grateful with what goes on as well as more observant and attentive.
My oldest is adapting well to going back to kindergarten after a bit more than a month out, which I'm really happy about.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
- Man I really need to get back to reading this! It's been a while that I don't touch it but I do want to finish it. There's just much good stuff in it.
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

Watching

My wife and I started the new season of Wednesday last week!
While talking with my wife we also realized I had never seen Prison Break. She was scandalized at the idea and so now we're also watching Prison Break.

Projects

I'm trying to teach myself the Gleam programming language (it's awesome, with tight functional flow but still feels familiar, and has one of the most healthy and positive and overall loving communities I have ever seen formed around a language).
- To do so I'm making a forum very much like https://forum.status.cafe/ .
- I don't know if I will end up publishing or hosting this anywhere though. It's mostly for educational purposes.
- I've also given myself the challenge of not using LLMs to write it, and it's been a lot more fun! I realized that much of my disillusionment with programming at work came from how I was using LLMs, and how I really spent most of my time waiting for it to come up with a solution rather than coming up with a solution myself. Also, given that Gleam is not a mainstream language, LLMs perform really poorly on it, which is an added bonus.
  - Well, I'll probably use LLMs, but only for busywork stuff like filling documentation, and the initial set of styles (I'm not really good with design stuff).

Now (July 27, 2025)

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-07-28

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

Just came back home from a long holiday in Italy. Today is actually my first day back to work. I'll miss being with my family all day, but at the same time I'm excited to get back to my usual routine!
I'm not a fan of Instagram, but I'm trying to use it more as it's a great way to keep in touch with people (mostly family) that I care about but with whom I don't have an ongoing correspondence. Ever since I started, around two weeks ago, I've gotten in touch with some long lost friends and the connections have made me really happy!
I have many emails I need to answer. I should really get on top of my correspondence!
Not much else, besides trying to get used to being back to work.
- Oh, I also just saw that recently Obsidian became free for commercial use! I'm planning to move my Work note-taking to Obsidian. Previously I was using a custom software. The experiment of building it was fun, but it's not even close as powerful as Obsidian 😅

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
Dracula by Bram Stoker

Watching

Naruto
- Currently on pause, as I'm spending most of my free time reading. Dracula is so good!

Projects

I've been thinking of adding something to my site that pulls data books I'm currently reading from Hardcover and displays it here with my reading progress. Though I likely won't have time to do it until I'm back home.
- Maybe even add a list of recently finished ones? Or a sortable table of ratings and whatnot?

Now (July 13, 2025)

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-07-14

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

Currently on a long holiday in Italy!
My experiment of replacing my phone time with just reading has been going great! I've already finished three books since I started, which is a lot more than I usually read. I feel my mind is a lot freer. Though I did download Terraria to play with my brother, but we haven't had any sessions yet.
I mentioned in the last "now page update" about creative writing practice. I really want to continue with it but it's hard to find the time. I could do it in the evenings when the kids are asleep, but my energy levels are low, and it's also the usual adult socialization time with the rest of the family. Anyway, I don't want to let this go.
I've been trying to distance myself from Amazon and the Kindle environment. To this end, I've been toying with KOReader, and its excellent set of plugins. There's even one that automatically uploads your status and quotes to Hardcover! It's truly what I've always wanted Kindle + Goodreads to be, but better.
Depression has been much better. Not sure if anything specific changed, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth 😋 I've ben trying to be more mindful about what I feel, and taking some me time whenever I feel dark thoughts crowding in on my mind. I know that if they manage to overcrowd everything then they'll be there most of the day, so it's important to stop them before that can happen.
- These past few days, as I fall asleep, I've been thinking about the history of my depression. I didn't use to have any when I was younger (well, except for a surprise bout once when I was a teenager), and it's a curious exercise trying to revisit all the places I've lived in and what happened in them. There are many things I feel guilty about, and I wonder if those have anything to do with it. This also made me think that I haven't been to a therapist in ages!
  - Funny that when one is feeling bad then it's really hard making oneself go see a therapist even though there's the desire to do so. But when one is feeling good (as I do right now) I do have the energy, but I feel it's unnecessary.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Watching

After being having it recommended multiple times I've finally given in and started watching Naruto. It takes a bit to get going, but so far I'm enjoying it!
- Though my watching is currently on pause. Probably until I get back from my vacation.

Projects

I've been thinking of adding something to my site that pulls data books I'm currently reading from Hardcover and displays it here with my reading progress. Though I likely won't have time to do it until I'm back home.
- Maybe even add a list of recently finished ones? Or a sortable table of ratings and whatnot?

Now (June 29, 2025)

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-06-30

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

Currently on a long holiday in Italy!
I've been successful at replacing all my phone time with reading rather than social media or playing games. I still do it sort of like an escape, but it's much better than what I was doing before.
Creative writing practice has stalled a bit. Not because I don't want to, but I just don't seem to find the time to do it! Maybe I have some time in the evenings, but I'm usually quite tired by then. It's fine though.
Been rediscovering my love for haiku recently! It's a great form to capture thoughts and feelings in a sort of snapshot way.
I've been trying to distance myself from Amazon and the Kindle environment. To this end, I've been toying with KOReader, and its excellent set of plugins. There's even one that automatically uploads your status and quotes to Hardcover! It's truly what I've always wanted Kindle + Goodreads to be, but better.
Depression has been acting up a bit. Mostly as lack of energy.
I've also been enjoying my time on status.cafe. It's probably the social media I've used the most. Though to be honest my use is constrained to posting random thoughts or haiku every now and then. It's fun.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
Fairy Tale also by Stephen King

Watching

After being having it recommended multiple times I've finally given in and started watching Naruto. It takes a bit to get going, but so far I'm enjoying it!
- Though my watching is currently on pause. Probably until I get back from my vacation.

Projects

I'm working on a silly side project, which is a Discord bot that posts images to both Bluesky and my GoToSocial instance. It takes care of image conversion, compression, and using LMM to extract a caption (which is not always accurate but 💁‍♂️). It's aptly named image-poster.
I've been thinking of adding something to my site that pulls data books I'm currently reading from Hardcover and displays it here with my reading progress. Though I likely won't have time to do it until I'm back home.
- Maybe even add a list of recently finished ones? Or a sortable table of ratings and whatnot?

Now (June 22, 2025)

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-06-23

Hi, welcome to my now page! You can see previous versions of this page here.

Now

Currently on a long holiday in Italy!
Uninstalled all card games from my phone. Now I feel like I have much more free time to use for writing or other stuff.
Started doing creative writing practice every other day. Basically do around 200 words for a random writing prompt. For now it's been a great exercise at it pushes me to write with muscles I don't normally use.
I've been enjoying my time on status.cafe. I like that it's a truly microblogging platform. No likes, no retweets, no anything. Just what you write. Its focus on status also makes it really low psychological risk/effort.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
Fairy Tale also by Stephen King
Something in the Woods Loves You by Jarod K. Anderson

Watching

After being having it recommended multiple times I've finally given in and started watching Naruto. It takes a bit to get going, but so far I'm enjoying it!
- Though my watching is currently on pause. Probably until I get back from my vacation.

Projects

I'm working on a silly side project, which is a Discord bot that posts images to both Bluesky and my GoToSocial instance. It takes care of image conversion, compression, and using LMM to extract a caption (which is not always accurate but 💁‍♂️). It's aptly named image-poster.
Working on having my page generation code also generate a different file for each of the previous versions of my now page.

Now (June 15, 2025)

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-06-16

Hi, welcome to my now page!

Now

Currently on a long holiday in Italy! My wife and sons are down with some fever, I hope I don't get it as well.
I want to get back onto writing but I don't know how. Not just journaling, but blogging and stories.
Wondering about whether the time I spend playing Magic Arena on my phone is taking time away from my other interests. I genuinely have fun, but maybe it's also an escape.
I've been enjoying my time on status.cafe. I like that it's a truly microblogging platform. No likes, no retweets, no anything. Just what you write. I think it's a good outlet for me right now. It's focus on status also makes it really low psychological risk/effort.

Reading

(you can also find me on Hardcover)

On Writing by Stephen King
Fairy Tale also by Stephen King

Watching

After being having it recommended multiple times I've finally given in and started watching Naruto. It takes a bit to get going, but so far I'm enjoying it!

Projects

Not much right now, as I'm on holiday. I did clean up the UI of Mire quite a bit before leaving though. Added a feature I've wanted for quite a while now: track reading status from a feed's page.
I also did another silly side project, which is a Discord bot that posts images to both Bluesky and my GoToSocial instance. It takes care of image conversion, compression, and using LMM to extract a caption (which is not always accurate but 💁‍♂️). It's aptly named image-poster.

Now (February 17, 2025)

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last updated: 2025-02-18

Hi, welcome to my now page!

Thinking

What it means to be truly happy
Observing how much of our day to day life is like dominoes
How hard it is to let myself be loved
Spirituality, and both my lack and desire for it
How to be authentic, especially in the context of creativity and communication

Reading

(you can also find me on StoryGraph)

Be Love Now by Ram Dass
Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

Projects

Mainly working on my new site. Adding small features no one needs
Creating my own analytics software to use with my site and other projects
- Right now, I feel it's very much a carbon copy of tinylytics so I hesitate to share it publicly

Other

I've been (successfully) managing to wake up early every morning, doing some yoga with Yoga With Adriene, and then writing a bit

Now (January 25, 2024)

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Here's what I'm currently thinking about.

How to be authentic, especially in the context of creativity

Books I'm reading / listening:

The Android's Dream ~ John Scalzi

Now (December 31, 2023)

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Here's what I'm currently thinking about.

How to be authentic