2025.H1 Reflection

Date: 2025-06-28 | reflect | reflections | release-notes |

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In 2025.H1 I turned 31, had a baby, got a new remote job, started running again, made a few financial bets, didn't build much, and wrote 52 essays.

High: New job has been great and it's fully remote (Profit)
Low: Not building much, focused on other things (Build)
Seed: Baby is here! Very tired but very excited for the future. (Connect)

Top Releases

We made a baby! (Connect)
I got a new job (Profit)
TTL Calculator - Convert DNS TTLs to human-readable seconds and back
Added an RSS feed to my blog

Top Shares

Create

Build

I haven't been building much outside of prototypes for my Shares that go in my example project repo for HAMINIONs Members.

This is because I've been focused on other things:

Studying for interviews
Ramping up at my new job
Preparing for baby
And now taking care of baby

The break has been nice and allowed me to explore other tools and domains I don't usually use in my side projects. Now I'm feeling ready to get back into it whenever I find some time.

(I still have a Create time block on my calendar but calendars mean nothing to babies so it's all a lie currently.)

Posts: 52
Views: 180k

I've continued to write a lot this year. I think my sustained velocity is mostly because I like it, I can move it forward in small batches, and I take notes of my ideas when they come to me throughout the day.

It's pretty easy for me to sit down for 20-30 minutes at a time to move a piece forward:

An idea into an outline
An outline into a post
A post into a video

Compare this to my Builds where I'm often trying to do a bit more planning and thinking and typically need closer to 1.5-2 hours to make meaningful progress (though maybe this is a sign my process isn't very effective and could be batched smaller).

My reach across my blog, YouTube, and socials has largely plateaued. That's okay, I'm not really pushing for these to get wider reach anymore. I like that people read them which leads to insightful discussions but I've given up on this being more than a hobby for me.

The ads pay for my site's hosting costs and HAMINIONs Members help pay for my Build costs which is cool and makes me feel better about paying money to try out new technologies / Builds.

Profit

In January I quit my job to look for something new. I wanted to be fully remote and Rippling was doing RTO - no raises, no promos, and pushed out if you don't come in enough.

I read the writing on the wall and started to look before I needed to look to give myself some buffer since interview cycles always take longer than I expect.

Interview stats:

Applications: 150
Companies in process with: 30
Total interviews: 65
Offers: 5
Total time spent studying / interviewing: 88 hours
Question pass rate: 88%

Read about my full interview cycle: My 2025 Job Search as a Senior Software Engineer - Results, Timelines, and How I Study for Interviews

I eventually landed at Vanta - a security, compliance, and trust company.

I'm still new but really enjoying it:

Tech is pretty good and improving
Tech stack I like (TypeScript - an A Tier language for me)
Culture is great - people are supportive, encourage you to take time off, while remaining ambitious

I'm off for a few weeks to take care of baby but excited to get back to work when I can.

Health

Last year I found a workout routine I liked and stuck with it - stationary bikes / rowing for cardio and lifting. That was good for me for awhile but I started to feel stagnant.

This year I've been focusing more on general fitness - running and circuit training. It feels better for me and gets me up and moving more which I think is important since I spend so much time sitting in a chair at my desk.

I ran my first 5k a few weeks ago and then subsequently twisted my ankle so haven't run in a couple weeks but excited to get back outside and enjoy the summer weather.

Wealth

My long term plan for wealth building remains the same: The Simple (, Long, Short, Boring, Probable) Path to Wealth

But I have been adding a bit of variation here and there.

The first thing I've done is start investing more in bonds, specifically tax advantaged bonds. Tax advantaged is key because it usually allows me to get a higher rate than traditional bonds or savings accounts which makes them more attractive as long-term money vehicles.

(lmk if you'd like to learn more ab this as I have more thoughts / strategies)

Though we haven't actually seen a long-term market crash we expected after the tariff debacle, I still believe this administration's fiscal policy is a train wreck waiting to happen. Bonds are a key part of a Boglehead portfolio, useful for hedging against potential stock market dips. Over time the stock market almost always wins but now that I have a family, feel the stock market is a bit precarious, and think many stocks are overpriced - I think it's time to start investing in hedges over time.

The second thing I've started doing is a bit of active investing. This is not something I would really recommend to anyone but sometimes I feel like doing it so let myself make small trades if I think it's a good deal.

My best trade doing this was picking up 1 stock of Nvidia around $80 and now it's at $157. But most trades are small options plays to buy or sell stocks at a price I think is attractive (or bank the premium otherwise).

Am I making a lot with this? No. But it hasn't hurt me yet and gives me a reason to check into markets and see what's going on in the world.

Some people are into sports bets and I guess I'm more into small stock bets.

But largely (like 99%) I stick to the simple path to wealth because it's worked well for us so far. We're not rich by any means but we have built up a nest egg that allows us to live comfortably with safety and stability for our family. As I get older, I'm thinking that's the true value of wealth anyway.

Happiness

(Moved to end.)

Observe

Connect

The biggest change in my life this year is also the most recent - we had a baby!

She is happy and healthy and very cute. But she is also a lot of work. Like WAY more work than I expected.

I knew that having a kid would be work and I was prepared for the 24 hour oncall kind of thing - be ready to take care of her whenever she needs it. But I hadn't expected it would be an 8+ hour per day active job.

The baby gets up every 2-3 hours and then it takes us about 1 hour to handle her - get her up, changed, fed, back to sleep, clean up everything, prepare for next time, etc.

I'm grateful to be able to take a few weeks off to help take care of her even though I'm new to Vanta as I'm not sure how I would've done this without some time off and certainly not without a partner.

Shout out to all the parents out there - I really did not appreciate how much work this is.

Explore

Outside explorations have been minimal. Megna has been very pregnant so we've spent a lot more time indoors or on short excursions near the house.

More outside explorations to come once Megna and baby can travel a bit easier, with a larger percent likely around seeing grandparents and family.

Reading: On book 5 of The Wandering Inn

I'm pretty taken with litrpgs of late as it kind of feels like an anime in book form. They're similar in that it's not the best writing or story arcs but it's pretty light and fun and has cool world building backdrops. It's a bit better than anime in that there's little filler and I can quickly pick it up and read some wherever I am (I read on my phone) including before bed (I don't fall asleep watching stuff very well).

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Watching: Severance

We got Apple TV to watch Severance and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We've also been watching Below Deck which is amusing and astounding in equal measure - like who is throwing around $60k for a 3-day boat trip?

Listening: YouTube

Not currently listening to any one podcast or creator recently but I will note that I've largely stopped listening to podcasts on my podcast app and have preferred listening to videos as if they were podcasts. The videos seem to be more targeted about a specific topic which I find keeps them more on topic and concise whereas a lot of podcasts are ppl just rambling about random stuff which can be nice but often is just low signal imo.

Only been doing this for a couple weeks but really like it and not sure I'll go back. (I have YT Premium so can listen to videos in the background just like a podcast).

Shameless plug: I have a podcast if you didn't know - HAMY LABS POD. It's basically the same as my YT vids if you prefer video.

Playing: Types

I haven't been gaming much recently. I am trying to cut down on my gaming time but I also haven't really found any games that have called to me recently. I was thinking GTA 6 would be one of those but it got delayed. Add on the baby and not sure how much gaming I'll reasonably get done.

What I have been playing around with a lot is types. I'm currently between 3 languages - C#, F#, TypeScript - and they all have different type systems that can accomplish similar things. So I've been playing around with finding the similarities and differences to write better logic in each.

Super nerd answer I know but that's what's been occupying my free cycles lately.

Learn

Some stuff I've been learning and pondering this half.

How to take care of a child - Currently learning and likely will continue to learn for the next many years.
TypeScript - Reacquainting myself with it at Vanta. There's a lot of room to improve the codebase and we've got some very smart ppl making proposals for additional ways to leverage TypeScript which has been rewarding. My contribution has been to push for Result Types in TypeScript.
Graphic design with affinity designer - I've been playing around with creating more visuals recently and have dusted off my copy of affinity designer. I'm not as proficient as I used to be but reminds me of why I liked to create visuals so much in the past.
AI Tools - AI has become a crucial part of my daily workflows. I mostly use it as a better Google but have started playing with it as a code assistant. Claude Code is the first one I've felt is a net positive but this is smth I want to continue to explore as I think it's going to have a big impact on the future of humanity.
Datastar - Datastar is a new hypermedia-focused framework and it's pretty zippy. It's what's powering TTL Calculator right now and I think I'll be building more with it in the near future.
Modern C# - Many of the big languages have started adopting functional patterns and I'm taking another look at C# to see what it can do. I like coding functionalish and I have a hunch that one of these popular languages may have just passed the threshold of allowing me to do that. As much as I love F#, there's just not that many people who use F# so I've been pondering taking a more mainstream path to be a bit more practical with my Builds and Shares.

Next - On Happiness

What is Happiness? I used to think it was freedom to do what I want when I want.

But then I'd have so much free time that I'd get irritated trying to find a show to watch or game to play.

I still value freedom and think it's important and in many cases a privilege to have but I don't think it's the main thing.

With a kid, I find some of my values are shifting. I have way less freedom and time than I did a week ago. But I also feel like I have way more purpose.

There's a saying "a tired dog is a happy dog" and maybe it's as simple as that - I'm using my time meaningfully which is its own source of fulfillment.

Idk maybe this is just a babymoon phase - we'll see how I feel after another 3 months of sleep deprivation.

Until then, thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next one.

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