Updated 2025-06-26
It's officially summer, even though the weather hasn't been any better than spring. First camping trip went well even with a bit of rain, and finally got to camp & surf in Tofino. Also took the Hullo ferry for the first time, which was pretty awesome. It's a bit pricey, but it's fast and the experience of watching the Stanley Park and Vancouver skyline approaching from the water as we come back from Nanaimo... heavenly stuff. One of those moments that I think about the privilege I have. Watching my building show up as we approach the city, then leisurely walk to it from the ferry terminal. Indescribable feeling.
Updated 2025-06-27
Recently read The Burnout Society (4/10) and Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (9/10). Currently reading Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, Crowd Source and Dom Casmurro. Next I'll have Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. Recently watched Murder of Couriers (10/10) and Schitt's Creek. Now watching Schitt's Creek and The Handmaid's Tale. Up next we have Novelette is Trying.
For music, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish remain dominating the rotation after their awesome concerts, but entering the mix is The Weekend.
Updated 2025-03-17
This is more of a wishlist of things I'd like to be doing right now than a real reflection of what I'm actually doing, but it all starts with an aspiration. Writing these down also helps me to reflect: if these are the important things to me, what's stopping me from working on them?
The grander a life's purpose is imagined, the wider a gap is created between its idealism and the everyday experience - the endless flurry of maintenance tasks that embodies a life of responsibilities. How to reconcile the mundaneness with the aspirational?
To embrace this contradiction, overcommitting to a laborious journey that is by definition impossible to complete. In vowing to summit the insurmoutable, there's nothing else to do but to throw one feet in front of the the other. To succeed is to stay moving.
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I'm still working at AWS, with manageable levels of stress and off-hours work. The biggest challenge has been the same in the past years: aligning work that is interesting and fun with work that brings impact and recognition. I still prioritize doing cool stuff and doing it well even if a lot of it will end up invisible and delaying my career advancement. It's an uncomfortable situation at times, but it's the best compromise I've found in which I can taste the privilege of enjoying my craft. I'm having some cake and eating it too. The one unresolved aspect is working for Amazon, and this seems to be getting worse considering the latest USA political developments, but I trick myself into not thinking about it too much - at least it's not Meta or Xitter, and I'm not working on anything ethically dubious, it's mostly deep in the weeds fault tolerance and availability improvements. Though I am a cog in the machine, and in theory I can afford to leave. For now I'll hang on because there are other facets of life that could use the paycheck and stability.
I've owned my domain and this website since 2019, but it never really took off because social media has been a much easier path to interact with people. This transition cost has decreased recently, so I'm ready to renew these efforts. This website is going to be the basis for the RSS feed and possibly a newsletter, so I'm back to shaping it up. This page is a big part of that.
I'm increasingly letting go of centralized social media, but I still want to be in touch with loved ones and like-minded people, so I migrated my online presence to the respective federated alternatives: (Xitter to Mastodon, Goodreads to NeoDB). Being realistic though, I know that the vast majority of the people in my life will not install a new app to follow me, so I'm also looking into broadcasting my activity in more ways than federation.
I'm kind of giving up on Pixelfed for now. I'm thankfull that this project exists, but I still can't just whip up my phone and share an ephemeral "story" with it, the UX is not there.
In January 2025 I was able to get my Mastodon, Pixelfed and NeoDB activity merged into a single RSS feed (used to generate the my home page updates). This was much easier than I thought and renewed my belief in the power of these open platforms.
Next steps: 1) Consolidate my writing on this project's notes about the fediverse and RSS 2) Investigate how to deliver newsletters with a curated selection of my updates; 3) Automate a new type of activity: additions or changes to my written material - like this page;
To read more: my journey towards an independent web.