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.
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.
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.
Transformation Without Narrative Is Easy to Erase
When nothing breaks, no one notices. This is about the quiet failure mode that follows successful transformation—and how narrative preserves continuity.
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.
Standing Up a Control Plane
What I learned the hard way about control planes, SSH, and trust—written as a snapshot of real decisions, not a step-by-step guide.
I Didn’t Break Git. Git Broke My Brain.
A small failure that exposed a bigger assumption about tools, context, and how easily mental models can drift.
Standing Up This Site
Notes on choosing boring tools on purpose, standing up this site, and creating a place that prioritizes clarity over cleverness.
Another Corner of the Internet
A quiet reflection on why this site exists, what it’s for, and what kind of writing I intend to do here.
Building Real Technology Inside Facilities
Building stable systems inside a large institution taught me that quiet competence is fragile—and narrative is part of the job.
