August 2026

5th and 8th grade officially started today, bringing to a close one of the best summers I've experienced. Or maybe I'm just more appreciative and aware since I've been writing about what's been going on in my life?

The last day was spent relaxing, playing video games (more on that below), spending some quality time together, and was capped by being savagely attacked by "Chief Wolfears" and his warrior accomplice. It was a moment that had us laughing so hard; I was in tears. I cannot tell you the last time I laughed that hard for so long. It was a joy-filled moment to close out a great summer. My oldest son definitely lives up to his name.

To welcome in the school year and all the students, my mom and I dressed up as historical patriots for the first day of school. It was fun seeing the little kids grin and want pictures. And even more fun to see the older kids hold back smiles for fear of not looking cool.

Tangent: I really enjoy middle school kids. They're at a special moment in time where they're still "kids" but also beginning to gain an understanding of the workings of the world. I hope today and everyday I can show them that you're never too old to be a kid. I hope that through my interactions--on a ball field, helping out around school, etc--I can inspire them to have fun, achieve mighty things, and to be their best. I hope that I am a lighthouse.

It's kind of funny; my mom once shared with me her passion for helping middle schoolers as a counselor. At the time I thought she was crazy but now I get it. There's probably some genetics at play.

/Tangent

The youngest has been practicing hard this month to get ready for the school soccer season. He's never played soccer before and I'm not much help. I know enough to be "dangerous" but I am not a soccer guy. I goofed around with a soccer ball as a kid, saw the MN Thunder a few times, but never really got into the sport. In the fall I would do the totally normal and sane thing and run Cross Country for 5,000 meters. Tomorrow, he plays his very first soccer game ever. He's excited, I'm excited, we're all excited!

The oldest is officially registered for fall baseball. That means I am just two weekends away from having some baseball back in my life.

This month we started down the 3D printer rabbit hole. We have two printers now and a lot of filament. We have a hand-me-down FlashForge Finder that I've added some upgrades to: a new print surface and an acrylic enclosure. The Finder worked great till we needed a larger volume. Our step up was a Creality Ender-3 V3 KE and I'm sure we'll have another in the future.

I've been trying to pick printers that have good open-source support behind them. And zero cloud. It's somewhat ironic to me that I've made my livelihood on the web and I'm at the point that I refuse to use nearly all platforms. Zero cloud and self-hosting all the way.

We've been printing lots of things. The printers are almost going every night. We've done the gimmicky toys but what's been really exciting is the ability to print the things we need. There's a lot of great models out there people have shared and when we can't find something, Printytron has been a great help. We're working on learning how to design our own models and have successfully created a few. It's definitely a learning curve.

In between printings, the boys have me playing Sea of Thieves and I've really enjoyed sailing with them. I don't live anywhere near the ocean but have always felt a draw to the water. While it's just a virtual ship, it has definitely scratched that itch. It's also been a great opportunity to teach the boys how to work together to accomplish something. How to stay focused, how to triage issues, and how to bounce back after failure. I know there are some who think video games are a waste of time. I'm definitely not one of them. Video games are a perfect way to learn a lot of life skills in a safe, no ramifications way.

We started using LX Family this month to get ready for the school year. I don't feel it's quite ready for primetime but it's definitely getting there. There are a lot of things still in German (which is kind of fun to use my rusty German skills) but LX Family is actively being developed and changing. What we're using it for works great. If I find the time, it might be the project that lets me keep programming while I focus on more Enterprise Architect things at work.

At work I've started working on my first enterprise level project. Working at a layer above what I'm used to has been interesting. It's more... peopley than I expected. More... this group doesn't have enough time to do A properly. If A isn't done properly, it'll change the solution for B. Both A and B will then have tech debt but maybe it's ok; it'll probably not change. What are the cost impacts, the deliverable impacts, the people impacts?

There's no coding escape to catch a breath. There's definitely a lot to learn on how to manage all of these new challenges. Where's my human debugger? :P

The summer went by quick. I know it's a bit cliche, but it's true. Time goes by quickly and doesn't stop. The only thing we can control is how we use it, what we do with it. I am very fortunate to have experienced some really awesome moments this summer and to have the opportunities to share and learn new things. While it does suck that summer is over, I'm excited to see what school, soccer, fall ball, and work have in store.

- Ben