Now
Last updated: 2026-05-06
Things shifted more than expected since the last update. The situation is heavier in some ways, lighter in others. Still showing up. Still building. Trying to be honest about both.
Current State
- Two new colleagues starting at the helpdesk — I can finally focus on the bigger picture
- Full-time salary now, which makes a real difference
- Switched from ChatGPT to Claude for both work and personal use — the values align better
- Finally have Microsoft Business Premium, running my own Intune environment
- Still carrying more than I was hired to carry, and finding out I can handle it
Current Projects
Ember — still building the companion I actually want to have around.
Phase 1 foundation is ongoing. The idea hasn’t changed: something that knows me, runs on my own hardware, and doesn’t need me to start every conversation. Warm, a little playful, genuinely mine. It takes the time it takes.
Bartender.studio — taking shape as a principled consulting arm. Honest technical work. No SaaS, no agency. Just good infrastructure, done right, for people who care about that.
market-den — personal algorithmic trading system, small starting capital, leverage intentionally off until there’s a proven edge. Slow and deliberate.
Learning Right Now
- Running Intune properly, in my own environment now
- Growing into DevOps and incident management on the job
- Better documentation habits — writing things down before they live only in my head
- What sustainable self-hosting actually looks like long-term
Focus Areas
- Less carrying everything. More delegating what can be delegated.
- Building things because I love building them, not as a way to avoid sitting still
- Reaching out to people I care about, even when I have nothing left at the end of the day
- Figuring out what I am actually worth, and eventually saying it out loud
Outside of Tech
Still healing. Slower than I expected, faster than it felt like at first. Some things are clearer now. Some things are still unresolved and I am learning to leave them that way for a while.
Writing more. The blog has become the place where I let myself be honest about all of it.
Next Check-in
I update this page every few weeks, or whenever something meaningfully shifts.