I'm the cutout bin guy.
I owe most of my musical taste to digging through cutout bins. Streaming killed that kind of discovery, and it's hard to replicate the experience in streaming apps.
Writing
This blog originally started as "The Cocktail Napkin" in 1996. It's still my journal of unbridled creativity.
I champion frictionless. I am the friction.
The Head of Design at Anthropic says the design process is dead. She’s right. I was part of what she’s burying, and it took 30 years and a layoff to see it clearly.
The next creative team.
Got laid off this morning. The AI-augmented design process I was building is what every creative team needs next. And I’m available to build it.
I’ve never trusted fast.
AI is the best scale anyone has ever built. But it’s still a scale.
I’m building a network I can’t explain.
It’s cheap enough that you never hit that moment where you have to justify spending $200 on anything. You just keep ordering more tiny boxes.
The storm cleared the static for me.
Kansas City storms revealed how emergency weather radio nets transform from dorky rituals to vital systems when severe weather hits. From Oklahoma tornado sirens to scanner traffic, I’ve found myself drawn to amateur radio and storm spotting, contemplating the leap from observer to participant.
I don’t know what I’m doing but it’s working.
Cobbled together a radio station with eBay leftovers and curiosity. Didn’t expect much. Got disco pirates, weather loops, and the occasional existential crisis. Honestly? Not a bad trade.
‘Well, Hell.’
I was trying to figure out how to make my blog not be only about my problems, but then (well) one more post about my problems.
I’ve been tested.
A heady mix of time alone to think, the slow creep of age, lingering anxiety about what the stroke may have left behind, and some of the best therapy I’ve ever had has cast a sharper light on things I used to brush off.
What’s up with the stroke?
Stroke’s done, heart’s ticking, just waiting to see if I get a tune-up in March.