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TL;DR - In 2026.02, I built an AI orchestrator, launched CloudSeed Rust, moved to a terminal-focused dev workflow, wrote several posts, stuck to my exercise routines, and generally led a very balanced life.
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I'm still off on my parental leave and doing my programming retreat at Recurse Center so while I have free time to work on money projects, it's not the main focus. In fact I actually reorganized my systems to prioritize projects that are meaningful in ways other than making money to better align with what I want to do.
My new prioritization system is:
It's similar to my original hedgehog (things ppl want, makes money, I enjoy) but gives more of a focus on utility and long-term enjoyment than having 2/3 focused on external properties.
I did ship two things that can make money:
I have some hopes to ship a few more projects that can make money but within reason and balanced against my other priorities.
This month marks 2 months into my 3 month batch at Recurse Center so I wrote a little reflection on my time.
I've shipped a lot of things I'm excited for and proud of so think I can already call this programming retreat a success.
Some things I shipped this month:
Underlying all these changes is my move to Rust which I'm very happy about. It has great tooling, is very fast, and the language itself is pretty ergonomic with expressive types and ability to write high level code. So I think I'm going to stick with it for my side projects for the foreseeable future.
I've been sharing a lot more these past couple months as I've had a lot more time to think about and distill my thoughts into posts. This has felt really good and is smth I'd love to continue to do longterm.
I typically write about what I'm thinking about / building and that hasn't stopped here. This month was focused on:
I'm using AI more in my writing to help me make diagrams and thumbnails and I think people are finding the AI-generated thumbnails to be far better than my own which I think is fine and smth I'm happy to outsource. I have gone back and forth over how much of the actual content to generate with AI and I've settled on allowing AI to do the research and review of my posts but to keep the actual outlining and writing parts myself. I find this gives me a lot of the breadth / depth / speed benefits of AI while keeping the core part me and also lets me stay more hands-on to ensure I'm learning from what I'm writing - which is one of the big reasons I write in the first place.
This has been one of the best months viewership wise of my last year and I think it's largely due to increased quantity and a focus on topics people are enjoying like Rust and AI so will probably continue with that as long as people keep watching it.
Things are going very well health-wise. I've started opting for healthier food when we eat out like avoiding fried things and focusing on things with more veggies in it. I've also changed up my workouts to include more walking and I typically walk 1-3 miles a day on the treadmill with some lifting every other day.
That's helped a lot in getting me out of the house and staying reasonably fit. Might not lead to a full 6 pack by summer but I'll definitely be more toned than my prevous workout routine, plus it's at a cadence that I look forward to.
Still no market crash yet but I continue to build up my emergency fund. I think AI is going to have a drastic impact on the industry and economy one way or another and I'm hedging my bets against the downsides.
I think my job will still be safe for a few more years as I lean into being AI-native but beyond that it's hard to say so doing what I can to adapt and stay ahead of the curve while also planning for the worst case just in case.
Enjoying life. I feel like we're getting the hang of being parents (though I hear this fluctuates at every life phase) and settling back into a balanced routine.
The help from friends and family has been invaluable and it doesn't hurt that I'm on parental leave right now but feeling really good about where we are right now.
Getting out of the house more now that the weather is warming up - more walks, more meals, more events. This has been great and looking forward to the spring.
Contumption:
That's it for this month. Thanks for reading!