It’s 3:22am and I’m sitting in our extra bedroom on the couch, feeding Emilia. Every night between two and three am, I get up for Amelia's nightly feed. Usually I'm half asleep and trying to stay that way, whereas tonight my mind is racing while I have the silence of the house to myself.

Despite being literally older, in many ways I still feel like I'm the same person I was 20 years ago. A lot about me (who I am, what I like, what I enjoy), but so much hasn't changed. I still feel like the same person I was when I was 16. A good fart still makes me laugh. The dumbest memes and jokes make me laugh. And I don't know if that's something I want to change.

And now that I'm a parent, it feels even more weird. I'm like 13 going on 30 but with two kids. It’s surreal to remember your own childhood while your kid is simultaneously experiencing their own.

It has me wondering even about my own parents. Is my dad the same guy he was as teenager, growing up biking around with all of his cousins in Edmonton? Or is he different now, as a older adult with grown up children and a new family. And is what is my mom like? Is she still the same young immigrant to Canada, super focused on assimilating, or is she now someone completely different? I don't know if it's because they're my parents and they're hard to see differently, but it makes me wonder what their inner lives are like.

And then... Serena coughs and I snap back to reality. I have 3 hours until I need to get up. There’s only 3 hours each evening before I sleep.

Excuse the disjointed rambly nature, I blame the midnight feeds.

What I’m working on

I dragged Inkling to the finish line, piece by piece. I finally got the UI into a good spot. It was much slower than I want, but the app is finally live in the app store right now. If you have 5 minutes, give it a try!

The other project I put on pause before which is >80% done is called Split, it’s a swim coach stopwatch, built for multi-lane timing. Right now coaches have 2-4 stopwatches around their neck that they juggle as their swimmers race. Don’t ask me why they don’t just look at the timing board (that’s what the rest of us do), but they like to have that control. Split is built around better UX for that timing on both phone and table, while having a couple of nifty features.

It still feels a little too AI in the UI, but I've refined it enough that I’m satisfied for now. I mostly need to finish testing and do some last mile stuff (settings, support, app store things). I’ll aim to finish that after Inkling is out.

And lastly, I’ve been learning to program in C just for fun, BY HAND! Still very early days, but enjoying it.

What I’m reading

• The quiet grief of adult friendship - This piece is an emotional gut punch. It may or may not have been written by AI, but for once I don't care care. Maintaining friendships as an adult is hard! There is a natural drift away, and I’d argue technology doesn’t help. Texting can feel like you’re keeping things alive, but no amount of texts are a substitute for in-person hangs.
• How 'The Karate Kid' ruined the modern world - Hard things take time. If you’ve done something hard before, you already know this. But the era of the movie montage (karate kid, beautiful mind, social network) makes it seem like 6 months of progress is a long time. Long enough to get great. Usually it’s not. Now things feel "too hard" when really our expectations are just too high.

Steven