Updated: February 8, 2026

Personal

I’ve been getting back into a consistent weight lifting routine, using the StrongLifts app with a riff on the 5 set x 5 rep program, three times a week with two different workouts. Presently, I’m using 3 sets x 5 reps.

Previously, 5x5 or as I’d been doing it, 4 x 6 was taking between 45 minutes to an hour and I was struggling get sessions in. Then, particularly as weeknights were challenging to set that time aside for, the weekends were more or less frustrating, and so I didn’t for a bit.

Rebooting to something shorter and simpler, 2 sets and 5 reps as a “lite” program that the StrongLifts app uses was going better, so I added a third set for the first two of three lifts in each workout.

So far, workouts are about 32 minutes and have been going much better.

Creatively, I’m taking something of a break from photography. Through the fall, I wasn’t feeling my best about the work the work I was doing and now that we’ve been encased in snow with super low temperatures for the past couple of weeks (as of Feb. 8, 2026), my motivation to take the dSLR out for landscape work has been nil.

It’s cool, though, because I know this is part of how creative cycles work for me.

Work

Work through most of 2025 was incredibly busy and 2026 has started more or less the same with several nettlesome technical issues to address. There’s the addition of agentic large language model-based development, research, and troubleshooting.

So far, I’ve found working with large language models as agents both promising and helpful. I see where I can leverage the new tools to improve what I am doing and how my team operaties. Primarily, I’ve found it as a way of troubleshooting, obstacle clearing, and delegating documentation updates.

That said, I feel that being fully mentally involved working with an agent is nearly all-consuming. I think I can see having a primary and one or two secondary agents working on independent Git worktrees or investigating questions across different applications, but I’m not yet following how I’d do anything like keep a multi-layered system like Steve Yegge’s Gas Town fed.

Reading

See my 2026 reading list.