These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Seeing this guy getting cancelled online. No real proof he did anything wrong, but that counts for nothing. People on social media, eager to virtue signal and jump on the bandwagon. No room for nuance, no benefit of the doubt. Makes me sad that this is the world we live in.
2
Felt like punching a wall today, thought I had that feature figured out for clients but then came a nasty surprise that threatened to derail everything. On reflection it’s probably not that bad but man there seems to be no end to the entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
3
From the book Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes…
Having too little discretionary time (i.e., less than approximately two hours a day) is associated with less happiness because of stress. Yet having too much discretionary time (i.e., more than approximately five hours a day) is also associated with less happiness, because it fosters a sense of lacking purpose.
4
I was a lonely teenager. Not for lack of friends; I had plenty of those. It was more that I rarely felt fully myself. Crippled with shyness, I was constantly hiding, afraid to draw too much attention. I overcame my shyness many years ago, but I still feel lonely sometimes. Not sure that will ever go away.
5
Seeing another guy running a similar business to me and he’s crushing it, even though his product has plenty of flaws and I’m not sure he gets good results for his clients. But he’s a great salesman, and it seems like that’s 90% of success in this line of work. Unfortunately.
6
Another scheduled setup call for this lady. She moved the first, ghosted the second, finally have her on the third. Sending her the link to make the first payment… waiting for her to pay, all seems fine, then she disappears from the call. 2 hours later, haven’t heard from her.
7
Installed Claude Code today, playing around with it. As with any new tech, there’s a learning curve. Right now I’m like a caveman rubbing sticks together trying to make fire. So far, lots of effort and blisters to produce a little smoke, but I know if I keep going I can create an inferno.
8
Getting all excited by the possibilities with Claude Code, has me thinking about other mind-blowing tech moments I’ve experienced…
- Getting a SNES for Christmas
- Visiting an internet cafe for the first time
- Listening to NBA basketball live via internet radio in the 90s
- Using an iPhone for the first time
- Using an iPhone to tell my TiVo to record live TV
9
Nine years ago, right before I took that last-minute flight to Prague, I couldn’t sleep, got up at 5am and went for a walk along Playa de Las Canteras. I had a strong feeling that flight would change my life, a feeling made stronger when I saw a boat on the sand with her name on it.
10
Another big day of cold calling. I’m offering these businesses a way to get more customers. Most common objection is that they’re busy enough already. I also frequently hear that they get a lot of people like me calling them up. Makes me feel like I’m in a red ocean.
11
A friend after hearing him vent about his problems…
Were you really expecting to have no more problems at some point in your life? You’re just going to wake up one morning and none of this would be happening? There would be nothing on your to-do list. Do you actually want nothing on your to-do list? Life is mostly about solving problems, and you can solve these.
12
Someone criticizing me for having ads in the newsletter. I wonder if they criticize Facebook for all the ads on their platform. Probably not. People generally find it acceptable when a big company makes a shit ton of money from ads. Not so much when a lone creator makes a modest income.
13
Sad news about James Van Der Beek. He said about a year after his diagnosis…
I was healthy. I was doing the cold plunge. I was in amazing cardiovascular shape, and I had stage 3 cancer, and I had no idea… It is the second leading cause of cancer death, but… it’s also the most curable. I really want people to understand that [when found] in the early stages, the survival rates skyrocket.
If he’d had a colonoscopy a few years earlier, he’d still be alive.
14
Early morning grocery run, have my little treat at the cafe then walk to the supermarket. I see a guy across the way get out of a pickup truck with a shotgun and fire it in the air three times. I freeze, wondering if there’s about to be a mass shooting. But apparently that’s just how some folks around here celebrate Carnaval.
15
Trained Claude Code to find fodder for my newsletter. It can read other newsletters, browse Twitter, check YouTube, etc. Comes back with content suggestions, most of which are spot on. I used to pay someone $500/month to do this exact job. Building apps with it now, too.
16
Listening to Ricky Williams talk about cannabis as a performance-enhancing drug. He found it incredibly useful in his NFL career – helped his body heal and his mind unwind – even though he lost pay and gained criticism for failing drug tests.
17
Brainstorming with AI is underrated. I describe a problem, and because AI knows so much already and can do deep research on the fly, it can quickly come back with several solutions that I didn’t even know were possible. The amount of trial and error it saves me is incredible.
18
Words from Ann Patchett…
It helps if you can realize that this part of life when you don’t know what’s coming is often the part that people look back on with the greatest affection.
Right, but it’s easier to look back with affection if things turn out well. Not so much if things turn out poorly.
19
Her MO: target small business owners who are clueless about tech and online marketing, charge them a few $100 for a crappy 3-page website, then $40/month for a GBP that you set up quick and never touch again. Wish I had a list of her clients. I’d call them all and expose her scam.
20
I get my news from Wikipedia. Every morning I check what’s trending on there. Prince Andrew was #1 this morning, googled him and saw he’d been arrested. I figure if anything significant happens in the world, I’ll hear about it this way. No need to check a news site and drown in sensationalist headlines.
21
Claude Code has made me way more productive. But also busier. Because now all the half-baked ideas and tasks I thought I’d never get to seem doable, and I’m eager to do them. It’s a variation of Parkinson’s Law: work expanding to fill the capability available.
22
Shouldn’t have driven down here. Ice and snow, worse than I thought. I just have a humble front-wheel drive, not a 4×4. Three options:
- reverse out
- turn and drive straight out
- drive down further and follow the loop to safety
Third option would be best except there’s an empty car blocking the way.
23
The snappy editing in Hot Fuzz = me in super-productivity mode, checking things off my list like a madman. It gets addictive. Overall, I do find it hard to feel good about myself unless I’m getting things done, feeling like I’m making the most of my time.
24
I’ve signed up five new clients to monthly subscriptions in the past nine days. Sounds more impressive than it is. I was trying to close a few of them for weeks. Plus it’s a lot of work up front for not much money. Should do well in the long run, so long as I can deliver good results.
25
Weird to think that there will eventually be a last NBA season, a last Olympics, even a last human. Because everything comes and everything goes. Empires, species, planets and galaxies… all rise and fall. Everything that exists is temporary.
26
Old family story, before I was born: folks had their car stolen out of paid parking. They’d left the ticket in the car, so the thieves were able to drive out easy. Which is why I never leave the ticket in the car. Can’t call it generational trauma. More like hand-me-down paranoia.
27
I use ElevenLabs to transcribe client calls. Upgraded to $22/month, quickly used up all the credits. Next tier is $99/mo. Spent an hour building a free alternative with Claude Code and open source tools. No slick interface, but it works. Give me another hour and I’ll have the slick interface, too.
28
One of the key reminders from my ACT practice every morning: thoughts are just thoughts, not truths, and I don’t have to take them seriously. It’s easy to get attached to a thought and believe it’s a fact. And when you get stuck with the wrong kind of thought, it can lead you to some dark places.