Stuff I'm Using

I bought a $3,600 mechanical keyboard. I am not proud of this, exactly, but I am also not embarrassed, because it's the best object I own and I use it nine hours a day and the math, when you do it, is not insane. That keyboard has its own essay, which is also secretly an essay about making a $66M investment and what each of those decisions taught me about the other.

This section is the lighter file. It's where I put the restaurants in Victoria I send people to when they visit (Olo, Marilena, the unmarked counter at Hank's), the books I keep buying extra copies of so I can give them away (Stoner, A Pattern Language, Four Thousand Weeks), the gadgets that have survived a year of actual use, the podcasts that didn't get unsubscribed, and the small handful of products I've quietly become evangelical about.

There's no affiliate code on any of this. I'm not building a recommendations business. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, buys too much stuff, lives on an island, and has finally accepted that the people in my life would rather get a list of what I'm actually using than another think-piece about ambition.

If you're new here and want a softer entry point than the divorce or money writing, the power-washing essay is a good place to start — it's mostly a story about my first business and why I still think entrepreneurship is the best therapy I've ever paid for.