Now

Updated September 6th, 2026 from Washington, USA.

I started programming again

After months of putting it off, I finally dove into Clojure.¹ What a powerful, efficient language! I've been having some issues wrapping my head around the "intended" way to get things done, but when I finally do figure a particular thing out it brings me genuine joy. This is also my first time working with an in-editor REPL and I'm genuinely blown away by how much easier it is to iterate on your code. It's just plain fun.

I've decided to take on a side project while I learn: a cli app for randomly generating RPG characters and returning them as plain text, Markdown, or HTML. I figure it hits all the basic stuff and leaves me with a better impression of the language. It's nowhere near done, but it's been great to have an outlet for the "okay enough reading, let's make something" urge I am constantly wrestling in my mind.

Quitting competitive games is going great

Embarrassing to admit, but it turns out that gaming is a lot more fun when it's not a non-stop competitive grind! Who could have predicted this!? 🃏

Instead of Counter-Strike, I've been playing a bunch of other stuff that's been more relaxed: Final Fantasy XIV Online for meandering through a million quest lines and playing dress up; Team Fortress 2 for the dopamine rush of airblasting someone off the map; Project Zomboid for losing over and over again.

We also picked up Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream yesterday. It's a lot of fun to be an audience member as my wife drives.