After this break, I return to code.

This is the first of many entries about getting back in to coding professionally. It won’t be easy, but I’m stoked about it. Here’s a link describing my break, with some hindsight rationale.

So, I’m ready to put in the work. I finally have a proper desk setup again with an external monitor and good internet. I’ve been putting in hours on skateboard.fyi, having fun using Claude for pair programming, and getting an MVP going.

A new book arrived in the mail, the new edition of Cracking the Coding Interview. It’s been a while, and the industry has changed, so I will need to study.

I remember how to code, but talking about coding is a different story. Interviews require you to talk about what you worked on. To talk about Glowforge is to talk aout work I did 2+ years ago.

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This next writing could be a different post about what I did the past few years.

2022. I needed change. I was stuck. My mental health was down the drain. The gray gloomy Seattle winter was getting to me.

So, I quit my startup job in Seattle and went to Mars College. I intended to go for 10 days, and stayed for 5 months that winter. Then 6 months the next. And another 6 months this past winter. I sustained myself off of savings, odd jobs, and some freelance contracts. I lived communally, in my van, and with my parents.

The past two years have allowed me to grow and plant new seeds. I trimmed back old growth to make way for the new. I feel more confident speaking publically and more sure of my ability to meet the challenges of the day. New friends and ideas to open my mind to possibility I could not see.

Now I’m back in San Francisco. My mother passed away in March of this year. It was metastizied breast cancer. She fought it for over a decade. Fuck cancer. I moved home when she got sicker, and spent the last month of her life with her and my family. We took turns keeping her company, helping her drink, eat, and go to the bathroom. It was maybe the most challenging month of my entire life. The mechanical sound of an oxygen machine outside my bedroom door, tied directly to the breath of my mother. And then, silence.

I went back to Mars after this. To see finals, see my girlfriend, and help put things away for the season. Somehow I ended up on the Mars Council, a leadership body.