PetPlace
After 5.5 years at Johnson Health Tech, I started a new job at PetPlace on May 19th. It's very intellectually demanding, and I feel more engaged than I have in a long time.
My primary project right now is building out 24PetShelter, a management tool for pet shelters.
The biggest shift is I'm going from an almost purely backend position to a frontend heavy full-stack role. I'm practicing my React skills daily and learning React Router 7 (formerly Remix), which I really enjoy.
Midlife Momentum
I paused my newsletter because I wasn't happy with the content. Additionally, with my new job, I didn't have the mental energy or free time to figure out what I wanted it to be. I have some ideas for what it might become in the future, but right now, I'm focused on my job.
Keto Diet
I'm still following the Keto diet, although my new insurance doesn't cover Virta. I'm not too worried because the blood meter I'm using is just a white-labeled Keto-Mojo device, so I can just get supplies myself out of pocket.
As of June 27th, I've lost 80.9 lbs, and my fasting blood glucose is normal.
My latest blood panel shows high cholesterol, so I'm pivoting to way more low-mercury fish (sardines and sockeye salmon) and will have a new panel taken in September.
Claude Code
For the last few weeks, I've been playing around with Claude Code and have found it to be very useful. In particular, I've been leveraging it to modernize my RSS Cloud Server project, which has been on the back burner for several years.
It's very much AI-assisted and not "Vibe Coding" because I know specifically what I want to be improved, and I'm running everything through my extensive tests and doing code reviews. It's allowing me to take months of work and compress it into hours.
The biggest variable is that I'm so stretched with my new job that I haven't had the mental bandwidth for side projects. Using Claude Code has allowed me to start checking things off my to-do list and giving myself more margin.