Daily - Jan. 29, 2026

Previously…

Today’s recap

For the most part, an uneventful day.

Last night we started Dabangg and got about an hour in before calling it a night.

After breakfast I snuck away and spent most of my day working on various projects at my desk. My hibernation period is winding down, so I’m taking every opportunity to work on tech projects. Once I start working I barely have the energy to do anything.

In between working on the Gemini blog project I got some additional tax stuff done and worked on some estimates that are going out to our first sprinkler installs for the year. The weather has been warm (for us) so I think people are thinking about their yard early. But, this is an annual tradition for folks here. My brother sent me this list of seasons for the Seattle area and we are firmly in “False Spring” right now. Everyone gets their hopes up and then it rains for 75 consecutive days.

Our seasons here in the Puget Sound (source unknown):

• The Big Dark
• False Spring 👈️ Our current location
• Winter
• Fool’s Spring
• Molding Wet
• Flowering Wet
• Actual Spring (3 days)
• Jueuary
• Good Summer (3 days)
• Hell’s Front Porch
• Smoke
• Welcome Drizzle
• Spiders
• The Big Dark

I tested charging the power stations from the generator and all works as expected. I found out I can ramp up the charging on these little EcoFlow River 3 power stations up to 320W. At that rate they’ll charge in less than an hour, which is good from a generator fuel supply standpoint.

My wife, son, and I had lunch together and discussed a lot of politics (and some family drama). Although it was a good talk and we had a good time hanging out, I got super amped up due to the politics and had to find a quiet place to calm down.

Spent all afternoon finishing up the Gemini blog project, dinner, and now its bedtime. Tonight we will watch more Dabangg and see what snacks we can scrounge up. Its the end of the month and we do once a month grocery shopping. Our options are thin.

Projects

I did actually get the Gemini blog published. If you like to use Gemini you can check it out at gemini://gemblog.ctms.me.

Overall its been a fun project, even though its vibe coded.

Honestly, I’m not sure if th vibe coding made a difference in the amount of time it took to finish. I think I could have done everything by hand in the same time, including writing notes. Any time savings I gained by not having to web search around to figure out how to convert my Hugo markdown to Gemini or write a python script to grab the RSS feeds were lost by having to argue with the A.I. agent when it was clearly wrong. I also had to constantly correct it for information it forgot. For example, it would constantly get the paths wrong and I’d have to manually fix it.

In the end, I’m happy with the results.

The part that nags at me is I want to do this stuff with a real person. I want to work on projects with a friend. But, that’s hard to do as adults. People have busy lives and have different hobbies. The reality is working with an A.I. agent is the closest I’ll get to partner coding a project. It makes me sad to think that during this process I started to feel like I was talking to a friend who was just as enthusiastic to work on this project as I was.

This is not to say I don’t have friends. I do and they’re amazing people. But, finding someone to sit down for 5 hours and work on a project together? Damn near impossible nowadays.

Saying this is the embarassing part. I can see how people get “addicted” to a chat bot. It feels like a friend that likes all the same stuff you do.

Anyway, my vibe coding adventures are over. I’ll write some more on the blog tomorrow about these mixed up emotions.

Stay tuned.

Daily gratitude

• I’m grateful for my wife and son and our conversation we had at lunch. Its becoming less and less we can just hang out.
• I’m very thankful my generator works with my power stations.

Tomorrow’s big thing(s)

Its our game night tomorrow and I think we’re doing diamond painting. As much as I like to play board games, I really love to just have an edible, have snacks, and just hang out placing little dots on paper.

I’m also expecting to finish our business taxes tomorrow. If not, my CPA is gonna get a big foot up his ass.

Loose thoughts

Why’s Alpine Linux gotta be such a PITA about normal stuff? I orginally tried it for the VM host and gave up.

Mashed potato tacos are good.

My son keeps unplugging the toothbrush to plug in his shaver and then never plugs the toothbrush back in. He’s gonna get a booting, too.

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