as we approach the first birthday of our dog Dutch, i wanted to look back on our time with him as a puppy with fondness and appreciation for what he’s taught us and the many fun things we’ve done with him.
A photo of Dutch and I at Del Mar dog beach in southern California.
in june of last year we decided to bring a puppy home. we had been talking about getting a dog at some point, then one day i ran into an old friend at the gym who had some puppies available from their litter of goldendoodles. we really weren’t planning on getting a puppy right then, but we saw this cute little ball of fluff with his unique silver and black coat and we fell in love. after a lot of discussion over a couple days we decided to take the plunge into puppy fueled depression and sleep deprivation.
the first days were predictably up and down. one minute he was amazingly cute and adorable, and the next we were at our wits end trying to meet his needs while also satisfying the other demands in our lives.
days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. at some point i forgot to set my 1am, 3am, and 5am alarms and i woke up at 6am panicked that he probably soiled his crate. after rushing to let him out, it was clear that he had slept through the night without an accident.
it’s easy to look back on our time with Dutch with a focus on the things we couldn’t do, but the reality is that there are many things we did with Dutch that we wouldn’t have done otherwise. days that we were tired, but we still went on a fun hike in the hills. afternoon trips to Dutch Bros to get him a pup cup. cold evenings this winter when we went outside to run around in the snow together. all of these little moments brought so much joy and silliness to our lives that we may not have had otherwise.
it’s been a growing and a learning experience to raise a puppy (and we’re not out of the woods yet), but Dutch has been the best addition to our little family that we could have asked for and i’m grateful for him in our lives. here’s to many more wonderful and silly adventures with him hanging his tongue out the car window and wagging his tail emphatically.
i haven’t written about my new app Albums on this site, which is a little bit intentional and a little bit of an oversight. let me explain.
i don’t know who reads this blog. intentionally. i have no analytics, no email subscription list, nothing. if i had to guess, the number of people that read any given article is more than five and less than one hundred. i’m not sure if that’s me being dismissive of my own reach or trying to be somewhat realistic about the deluge of content we wade through every day.1
so back to not writing about my new app here. it’s a bit of an oversight because this is my “official” website. it’s the one that bears my name and the one that has some reasonably important announcements on it. it should probably contain at least some reference to my first indie iOS app in over a decade. as for it being intentional, i don’t consider the app to be “finished” yet. it’s still missing functionality that i desperately wanted to put into the first release, but somehow convinced my perfectionistic ADHD brain to push below the line. i stubbornly didn’t want to announce the app in a long-form post until it was “ready”.
but that’s kinda silly since as we’ve established: i’m not sure if any significant number of people read this blog and even if they do, is an app ever truly finished? i may be waiting a long time.
so without further delay: i shipped version 1.0 (and 1.1) of my first indie app in over 12 years. it’s called Albums, and it’s one of the things i’m most proud of building.
Some screenshots from my new app ‘Albums’ displaying a portion of my music library.
I’ve been through this “new year” thing a few times. Not as many as some, but more than others. The last few years I’ve gravitated toward “themes” instead of listing a bunch of unrelated goals/wishes. That way when I list out any specific goals, it becomes more about listing actionable steps to support a singular goal instead of a bunch of things I need to keep in my head throughout the year.
My theme this year is “Consistently Show Up”.
Consistently showing up in all areas of my life that matter. Family. Hobbies. Work. Friendships.
Looking back on the last… <checks notes>… three years, I think it’s safe to say most of us have experienced some level of burnout given everything that’s gone on. My hope this year is that instead of trying to go 110% and then revving down to 40-50% to recharge, I can maintain a consistent rate of 80% or so. Similar to a long distance runner, I’m pacing myself for the marathon distance, not a bunch of sprints.
Something I’m experimenting with this year is that if a goal doesn’t have a defined cadence to it (it’s not something that I want to do daily, weekly, or monthly), the number I’m aiming for is 23. For example: go snowboarding 23 times, read 23 books, and write 23 posts this year. Depending on how that goes, I’ll stick with it and aim for 24 next year. Catch me in 2050 to see if I’m reading 50 books.
If you’re interested in following along with my 2023 journey, I’ll be posting updates here, on Mastodon, Instagram, and there’s a rollup of my activities on joemc.xyz. Please say “hi”, I’d love to check out what you’re up to as well!
I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs recently. One quote that’s been bouncing around my head quite a bit is this one from 1983:
“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”
I’m sure there were many meanings tucked away inside that simple phrase, but the story I’ve seen attributed to Andy Hertzfeld (who was at Apple in 1983) centers around resisting the bureaucratic nonsense that was increasing in the Mac group at Apple as they were growing. Don’t give up your scrappy, win-at-all-costs, counter-culture identity just to conform to “the system”.
Dutch is a 9-week old Goldendoodle, a frequent member of the “good dog” club, and lover of fetch. He’s named after our favorite coffee chain, Dutch Bros. Coffee1 and as a nod to Dutch Formula 1 driver (and defending world champion), Max Verstappen.
He’s the newest member of the family, and we love him so much!
Who’s a good boy?
Financial disclosure, I own a [small] number of shares in Dutch Bros ($BROS) ↩︎
