Where this started
I have a habit of asking what is underneath.
I began with things small enough to hold—broken toys, stuck wheels, and furniture waiting to be assembled. I wanted to know what every part was doing. Eventually, that instinct found software.
The objects became harder to hold: cloud infrastructure, complete products, and decisions people need to trust. The question stayed remarkably similar: what is happening underneath, and how can it become more useful?
Selected work
A few places curiosity got serious.
Systems, then complete products, then tools close to home. Three turns that changed what I notice.
A feature became a system.
What has to stay true around the code?
At Microsoft, work around allocating GPUs to guest virtual machines pushed me beyond the individual feature. The useful move was often to slow the problem down: trace the request, find the promise that stopped holding, and treat capacity, consistency, latency, reliability, and failure as one system.
I learned to zoom out until I could see the promises surrounding the request—not only the code handling it.
The edges disappeared.
Can someone understand—and trust—the answer?
At an early-stage company, I worked across architecture, data, AI-assisted workflows, privacy, and the interface as one product path. Correctness mattered, but so did whether a person could understand where the result came from and what to do next.
A product is the complete path a person experiences, not the collection of components hidden behind it.
A small audience made the need clearer.
Would I use this? Would my friends?
A game-economy tool I wanted open beside RuneScape. Quieter games for friends during a Toronto winter. Small utilities for friction I kept meeting. The audience was sometimes tiny, but never imaginary.
Useful things often begin with someone I already know and a problem that refuses to leave my head.
Recurring notes
Things I keep coming back to.
Not principles polished for a wall. Just patterns I have seen often enough to trust.
When things get messy
Slow it down before speeding it up.
When a system is breaking, I am usually the person trying to make the room quieter. Trace what changed, find the promise that stopped holding, and make the next decision from evidence rather than panic.
Calm is useful when it creates clarity.When an idea appears
Build for someone real.
The projects I care about most begin close to home: a market tool I wanted open beside a game, or a quieter way for friends to spend a winter evening together. A small audience is still an audience.
Useful beats impressive more often than we admit.When I understand it
Leave the door open behind you.
I like turning complicated technical ideas into language another person can actually use. Teaching, writing, and open source are different ways of making sure knowledge does not stop with the person who found it.
Knowledge gets better when it can move.I am still learning where confidence ends and curiosity should begin.
From the workbench
Smaller does not mean less real.
Experiments, useful detours, and things that may stay unfinished.
Old School RuneScape alchemy tool
Tracing the gap between a fluctuating market price and a fixed in-game value—without turning the answer into a financial terminal.
Calmer online games for friends
Built so a Discord call could feel social without becoming another intense multiplayer night.
Graph and organization interfaces
Exploring reusable layouts for relationships that remain legible as a graph gets denser and interaction gets harder.
Small utilities
Batch renaming and other focused attempts to remove friction from repetitive work.
If I understand it, I should be able to explain it.
05 Walks & field notes
Thoughts that are allowed to change.
I use walks to talk through whatever has been occupying my head. The goal is not a perfect lesson—only a clearer thought and a more honest question.
What deserves to exist when software is cheap to produce?
AI has shortened the distance between an idea and working software. I am still learning what should happen before we start running.
Read the note ↗06 Now
A page that should become outdated.
Last revised / August 26, 2026Building
This notebook, an OSRS market tool, and a better habit of finishing small useful things.Learning
How to communicate product judgment as clearly as I can communicate technical systems.Practicing
Aiming at problems that once felt beyond me—and trusting the evidence when the work says I am ready.Returning to
More volleyball, more consistent reading, and long walks without trying to optimize them.Sharing
Writing down what I learn instead of leaving it trapped in code, meetings, or my own head.Away from the screen: my fiancée, family, friends, volleyball, the NBA, games, anime, and trying to repair something before admitting I should call someone.