I don't know if "fun" is the right word for me, but since AI coding has taken over nearly all of my individual hand coding (or augmented IDE suggestion coding), I find it much less satisfying to solve difficult problems with creative solutions. That always tickled a part of my programming brain, and I didn't realize how much I enjoyed that until I didn't do it anymore. Now, sure, I've broadened out to more systems-level thinking, but now the hard problems that I have generally aren't engineering problems, they're personnel problems, integration problems, planning/priority problems, and solving those usually means taking a deep breath and having a "conversation" with a senior manager, making an annoying business case, whatever else. There's much less satisfaction in that for me.
They were targeting Medium-users with Gutenberg, which in my opinion was a misread of the growth and direction of WordPress. Even after blogging died, WordPress was still always focused on being a blogging platform. Back in the early proposal/RFA days of Gutenberg, the debate between Mullenweg, the WP Core steering team, and most vocal of the WP development community was really whether there was this "silent majority" of WP users, or whether the software should cater better to developers/power users. Mullenweg, and most of the other core steering members, believed that the silent majority were interested in an easier WYSIWYG visual editor, and they used SquareSpace and Medium as the benchmarks. Even in 2017 this was kind of justifiable, online writing/publishing didn't really seem like it was being hollowed out like it would be just a few years later.
"I do not believe the quality time theory. I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them."
Because I think that among highly motivated workers there's a falsely held belief that you can make up for missed time with your children by planning "exclusive time" with them, either over a nice vacation, or special night in a month, or whatever. And, don't get me wrong, any time is better than no time. But I think that strong relationships might be made best in the down moments, the "bored" time, the random stuff, the drives to school, picking up the house, mealtimes, random crap, that those are the times that you discover the little nuances of your children's personality (and your own personality).
Before kids, I frequently defined myself by my work or my hobbies. Meet someone new and you're chatting with them, and I'd say "Oh, yeah, I'm a software engineer, yeah, I like to fish, I play basketball, I love watching football and drinking beer, I'm from [X] city, I want to this college and studied this subject." And that's how I defined myself. It's pretty normal, I think. Since having kids so much of my identity has changed and how I identify myself has changed. That "I Think You Should Leave" sketch from Season 2 or 3 resonated with me, the "DONT TALK ABOUT YOUR KIDS" sketch because it's so hard not to, especially with other people who have kids, it's like ... what else can I talk about? The hobbies I had before kids seem utterly pointless and valueless in retrospect.
After our second, my wife got sick, she was diagnosed with ALS when he was just over a year old, though she had undiagnosed symptoms going back to before she was pregnant with him. She physically can't care for him, and so I've been my son's sole caretaker, and my daughter's primary/default caretaker though she's 8 years old, so my wife is able to contribute more evenly with parenting for her. As he gets older, depending on the progression of the disease, that can increase with my son as well, but for a newborn, infant, baby, and toddler, there's just so much physical care for those ages that it's hard for someone with a neurological, degenerative disease to contribute in the same way.
Kids truly changed everything with me. Every single way that I define myself. I don't define myself by my work at all anymore, and I sometimes define myself by my hobbies, but I feel entirely defined by my kids. If I was answering some general inquiry about myself, and if I was allowed to be frank, I'd lead with my kids, it's how I see myself.
When I saw the Bob Odenkirk line from Mike Birbiglia's podcast/interview, I legitimately cried, because it hit me right in the throes of parenting hell. I have a wife who I'm taking care of, I had a ~7ish year old who I was trying my best to help through adolesence, and I had a 1.5 year old who I was completely and wholly responsible for keeping alive, keeping healthy, and keeping happy. And this quote just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Birbiglia: "Who are you jealous of?"
Odenkirk: "Anybody who has little kids at home, growing up. ... Yeah, there's no question I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up, I was being a dad. I mean, that was my job, and I didn't have to ask myself, 'What am I doing here? How can I be a part of this world? How can I be meaningful today?' I didn't have to ask that question, because the fucking answer is 'Pick up everything between here and the door, and make sure they get to school, and have a laugh with them.'
I understood my purpose."
And god, that fucking resonates with me so, so hard. It still makes me cry when I hear that or see the clips of it, because I realized that when I was answering that question every other time trying to describe myself, and when I answered with what I do, and what I studied, and where I'm from, or what my hobbies are, those were all bull shit. And now when I think of who I am, I know who I am, I am dad.
I am a bad software engineer. I'm a mediocre project lead. I think I'm a good colleague. But I know that I'm a great dad.
The 2026 midterm election date is November 3rd, the jobs numbers are released on the first Friday of the month, November 6th. Intentionally trending numbers down in August, with only two more jobs reports before the election, would be risky (and stupid, and extremely unlikely). The Trump Administration just doesn't look ahead like that either, they live in the perpetual now.
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