The blog home of Jeff Putz
I had a productive therapy session again yesterday. I've told the story here, but we talked a bit about the pivot point in my life where I stopped letting life happen to me in favor of being intentional. The short version is that, around the time I got divorced, I started being more intentional about life. That's everything, from the professional scene to dating. It was a strange time, because…
The dumbest thing about Hyundai's car/Internet thing is that as soon as you get out of the car, it reports a dumb range that's not possible, but is based on like the last ten feet you drove, 2 mph up your driveway. So like today, it went from 259 to 310, with the battery at 74%. So I added a screen to my app to get your battery size and the estimated efficiency from your dashboard (neither of…
I don't generally write much about politics anymore, because there isn't anything to say that hasn't already been said by someone else, probably in a more eloquent way. But I keep seeing ads here locally that I find totally baffling. I still can't believe that Trump ever got elected, let alone twice. He's just such a dick to people, and totally out of touch with everything. He doesn't understand…
I had my annual wellness checkup with my new doctor this week. Prior to that, I had another blood draw to see if my vitamin D situation got better with the high-potency supplement (it did), and where my triglycerides were. This time, I wanted to control for alcohol as a variable, so I abstained for almost three weeks prior to the labs. In previous tests it any drinks typically came the previous…
Back when the last eclipse happened, I looked into the next best opportunity to be under one. That day was today, with the primary candidates being Barcelona and Reykjavik. When we were there a few years ago, on a 10-night cruise around Northern Europe, the intent was always to go back to the places we liked the most, which turned out to be all of them (except for France, but that had more to do…
Simon is 16 now, and he's a licensed driver. I'm happy that he is, to the extent that driving unlocks a lot of potential for him in terms of jobs, and hopefully social interaction. I didn't get my license until I was almost 20, which was not great. Part of the reason to push him toward being licensed was so that he could drive himself to school. Because his school is very small and serves the…
Sneaking in a staycation on the Disney property is typically an every-other-year thing, but with Simon hurtling toward adulthood, and difficult work schedules, this was the easiest thing for us. With Florida rates available at Coronado Springs, I booked about a week out, for a Monday to Thursday, three-night run. I was working Monday, so the idea was to run over to the hotel and do afternoon…
At risk of having written about this before (and that's Google's fault if so)... One of the strangest things about vacations is that I find myself catching a breath and recognizing my surroundings at the weirdest times. And by weird, I mean in the restroom. Think about it... you get away from people, and the sounds and the sights, and it's just you. It's quiet. I'm starting a staycation right now,…
The crappy algorithms of the Internets have, in the last year, pointed me at a lot of autism advocacy material. It is generally well intentioned, but also... not right. A lot has changed since my son was diagnosed, more than a dozen years ago. The thing that has likely changed the most is the number of adults who have sought a diagnosis. This is absolutely a good thing. It certainly changed my…
You hear a lot about the use of AI in various capacities, and one of the biggest is with regard to building software. The idea is that you prompt it to make stuff, and you get software. Meanwhile, people talk about "vibe coding" empowering non-software developers, and that's the end of jobs. I'm here to tell you that's nonsense. As I've said a billion times, vibe coding is like the AI slop that…
There's this Metric song on their new album called "Time Is A Bomb." Emily, the singer and lyricist, is just seven months behind me in age, and I imagine she has a lot of the same thoughts as me, regarding our stage in life. Now that I'm back to work, there's a little more routine in my life. I'm surprised that I've been at this job already for four weeks. It went by so fast. And I realize that I…
I feel like anxiety and discontent has been the standard since the pandemic. I feel like it's been years of worry, insomnia and anxiety. Then, this weekend, something clicked. I was alone for much of it, but I felt content. I almost forget what it's like. When I decided to tear down the "paid" forums , I also learned that there was a new, cheaper but better tier in Azure to host stuff, but it…
Back in 2020, before everything closed up, I built out a multi-tenant version of POP Forums that you could buy. Give me money, and it magically provisions an instance of the forum for you. It's very customizable, which is why running on PointBuzz , it looks like it's part of the site. But the reality is that buying is a little clunky, and I've never done any marketing for it. I don't enjoy that or…
All of our car history over the last 12 years has been Tesla, plus two leased Nissan Leaf's (the second of which was totaled in an accident). The Model S was exquisite. I loved that car, but didn't love paying for it. The 3 was solid, and then my Model Y was a rattling mess with poorly aligned body panels, even if it was mechanically sound. Diana's Y (which replaced the totaled 3 ) was better, but…
As a proper Gen-X'er, I was sold the idea that college was the natural progression toward a normal and reasonably prosperous American future. I ended up studying journalism and radio/TV, neither of which has been particularly relevant to my career since I turned 26. I graduated with a GPA of 2.65, C+'ing my way through a bunch of academics that I didn't care much about. Granted, I know now that…
I'm alone this Friday night. Diana is working which is fairly typical. But Simon is, for the first time, at the parks by himself, having driven himself. Yikes. Things are strange. But it's not really bad strange, and in fact I've been kind of craving change after the last six months. Simon being mobile isn't something I necessary looked forward to, but at least in the last few days, he's been…
I finally landed a car, and it ended up being new. It was an exhausting process. But whatever, I think with the year I've been having, I deserve it. I actually got a pretty good deal from one dealer, but the car I wanted was spoken for. Then looking around town, they were generally in short supply. I settled on a Hyundai Ioniq 5, with a Kia EV6 as my back up plan. They're built on the same…
I did the math, and I've bought 13 new cars. That's nuts. Of those, I had to negotiate a deal for 10 of them (the other three were Tesla online orders). The first one, a Toyota Corolla that I leased right out of college, was not a very good deal, because I didn't know what I was doing. But my dad filled me in on all of the dumb shit that they do after that, and I'd consider him an expert since he…
Honestly, I'm still trying a little to reconcile the loss of my previous job. I've never been in one place for four years, and I miss the people. But what I found seems to be a better job with better opportunities and pay, so I'm happy with how it ultimately turned out. I started on an odd week though, because it's the week that they take off to do a massive hackathon. Mostly small projects by…
Now that I'm employed, of course things are coming up, going down and breaking. I mean, sure, better now than a month ago, but I can't catch a break. First off, our fridge is toast. After de-icing it twice, I figure the heating coil is dead. And then, speaking of ice, the ice maker stopped working. It turns out that this KitchenAid model, along with Whirlpool and other related brand models, have a…