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2023

december

attempted to save my mom's business server - running MS SQL 2005 on Windows Server 2008. I tried to get it running in a VM to upgrade the hardware, but it's too brittle and fragile for me to have much faith in it.
visited a local artist's art show
attended aunt's 70th birthday party
made delicious venison stew from the deer we butchered
learned about Meshtastic; which re-inspired some personal projects
slowly stumbled through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

november

learned to skin and butcher a deer
completed a large client project, made some money
learned to use Helix editor; trying to replace Sublime Text
built internal time tracking and invoicing app
refinished kitchen table

october

took a great bicycle ride
visited friends in California
started working through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

september

I've been contemplating living off-grid for years now. I've been mentally stripping away the conveniences of modern life one by one. This month is the washing machine. A particularly gnarly shirt wouldn't stop stinking so I put it in the sink, boiled some water in the kettle, and just poured it over. The color of the water was unbelievable, a dark brown. What the hell has the washing machine been doing all these years? Nothing, it appears. I've seen a few designs for off-grid washing machines from the solar/battery powered motorized drum to the hand-cranked bowl, but none of them had the simplicity of just some boiling water in the sink. As a kid I remember thinking that the scene from Willy Wonka was weird where Charlie and his mom are washing clothes with a big spoon in steaming water, but now I see the genius. I'm going to try washing all my clothes by hand with boiling water in the sink for a month and see if I can stand it.

butchered our first quail
harvested 1 gallon of black eyed peas
won a bicycle
inherited a better bicycle
derailed by moving father-in-law
derailed by a client project with a tight deadline
used a RP Pico to build a little VOC gas sensor that reports to MQTT
took a great motorcycle ride

august

started a new software project; the first one in a long time that has clear commercial value and could be a source of income
compiled FreeType and HarfBuzz, started building a UI kit from the ground up
harvested our first honey
gave away a lot of tomato and cucumber
preparing fall crops
beat Factorio!
hatched a new batch of quail

july

I used to vastly prefer summer over all other seasons, but this year has me reconsidering it. The heat, humidity, and mosquitoes make it very hard to be outdoors for any period of time. I can't tell if the weather is changing or my tolerance window is shrinking with age.

learned to extracted honey from hive frames
took a relaxing motorcyle ride on the parkway
reconnected with old friends
wrote a lot of ARM assembly. my FORTH interpreter is starting to work.
harvested buckwheat; tried grinding it into flour with limited success. I really want the hulls intact to make a buckwheat pillow.
harvested basil and made pesto

june

built 35' hügelkultur garden bed
built quail tractor
committed to removing processed sugar from my diet. allowed: conservative amounts of honey, maple syrup, and fruit; not allowed: white sugar, anything with added sugar.

may

I got this gemini server running on my home router, a MIPS device running OpenWRT and only 8 MB of flash. Too small to install gcc to compile a server, and the OpenWRT development environment/Docker image is 14 GB. cross-compiling a server written in C for MIPS seems like an exercise from hell, getting everything to link correctly. luckily, Go's cross-compiling situation is really nice and I was able to produce a binary that works with this one-liner:

GOOS=linux GOARCH=mips GOMIPS=softfloat go install -ldflags "-s -w" tildegit.org/solderpunk/molly-brown@latest

read Starting Forth and Thinking Forth - Leo Brodie
read How Green Was My Valley - Richard Llewellyn
repaired fences
hatched quail
practiced beehive inspection

april

There's a restaurant in my city that lists Yuengling on the beer menu under "imported."

lots of garden work and mulching
first dirt bike ride of the year
studied Forth
visited friends in Raleigh, NC
started our first beehive and captured a swarm of bees
helped brother-in-law install roof trusses

march

started an ambitious new project
learned RISC-V assembly
built two 15' hügelkultur beds
built three more vegetable and flower beds
published maypop, self-hosted admin and accounting software for small farm cooperatives

maypop

february

added email notifications to Oasis
built coldframes from recycled windows
built 40' hügelkultur bed
started beekeeping class
built windbreak fence for apiary

january

meeting with our small farming cooperative group and planning for the upcoming growing season
prepared father-in-law's house for sale
published oasis, self-hosted forum software

oasis

2022

december

wrapped up outstanding client projects
spent time with friends and family relaxing and slowing down for the winter
computers diverted from landfill: 3

november

The last decade has had me chasing dollars and building software for the web. With the new year approaching, I am finally able to lay it down, say no to new clients, dive deep, and explore new areas where my skills can have a greater impact. After fifteen years of work, it feels like my real career is finally getting started. I have finally learned to separate "me, the freelancer looking for work online" from "me, the human being," which facilitated the creation of this space.

cleared low-hanging pine limbs in the back yard to let more light into the garden
declared war on the invasive english ivy
started simplifying and rebuilding Lichen in Forth
deleted GitHub account (!)
computers diverted from landfill: 3