What I'm doing now

Updated May 26th, 2024, from my apartment in Saigon.

Work, work, work

I’m currently working on the most challenging project of my career building a marketplace for aftermarket domains for Spaceship/Namecheap. It’s required me to level up my skillset from a primarily UI-focused front end web developer to a full stack software engineer working inside a service-oriented architecture at an enterprise software company. To say it’s been a challenge would be an gross understatement, but the good news is after a rocky start, I’ve managed build a team around the project and we’re making strong progress.

However, 1.5 years in turbo mode is taking its toll and I’m ready for a long break. In 2025 I’m looking forward to taking some time off to catch up on life.

Chronically sore fingertips

I have two beautiful acoustic guitars hanging on my living room wall and I’ve been putting them to good use. Thanks to Andrew Lardner’s incredible Patreon page, I’ve been on a learning spree for fingerpicking-style guitar compositions.

I’ve also got myself a decent recording setup with my MacBook, a Zoom H2N microphone, and a Pixel 8 as a webcam to shoot HD video. My goal is to start publishing performance videos on YouTube once I get them nailed down.

It’s a bit of an uphill battle however as I try to cope with my inability to supinate my wrists due to being born with congenital dislocation of the radial head. Then there is the perfectionism, which amplifies when I know I’m being recorded, so getting a satisfactory take of a piece without major mistakes seems almost impossible.

Finding a second home

As much as I love Vietnam, the longer I spend here the more aware I become of the things that it’s lacking which are important to me: accessible outdoors and hiking, a decent arts scene, educated and interesting people, close to US family and friends, jeans weather, long summer days, high-quality services, clean water and air…

I have considered many places but nothing quite checked all the boxes: New Zealand (seasons don’t quite align), Hokkaido (socially isolating, language barrier), Portugal (EU seems depressing), California (taxes, politics), Vancouver…