Hi all,
Greetings from the depths of summer in central Texas. It’s been lots of fun, but after a too-much-fun-and-excitement cruise (that included a tire blowout on highway 6 just outside College Station), I’ve been feeling the summertime blues.
In the month since my last missive, we’ve had a lot of exciting change at Chez Sap:
I am no longer under-employed! I started a new job as a Senior Developer with FBS in July. This job felt like a homecoming. For those unfamiliar, FBS makes an MLS system and APIs for developers in the real estate space. I used FBS’ data feeds in my first developer job at W+R Studios a decade ago, where I met my mentor and friend Jon, who recruited me back into the industry. The company is ~40 years old, and, for the last ~20 years, 100% employee owned, built on the conviction that the problem with capitalism is that we don’t have enough capitalists.
I tried the self-employment thing for a hot minute (shoutout to Arneson CPA for helping me with the LLC setup), but between self-employment tax (did you know your employer covers 50% of the payroll taxes for social security and medicare?) and healthcare (did you know the federal government won’t let you deduct a healthshare membership from your income tax liability, despite it being way less expensive than health insurance?), the amount I needed to make to justify going all-in on building my own business was going to significantly exceed what I would otherwise make.
That said, I still am technically operating Kalos, but in a very limited capacity. Mostly, that means building out the technology for Mockingbird, including our iOS and Android apps, as well as planning for the future of publishing on the web. I’ve also been bootstrapping
stealth media projectforredactedthat I’m very excited to show once it’s ready.We bought a house! After a number of false starts, we finally found a home in Waco that we’re excited to raise our family in for a very, very long time. Our rental has served us well, and we almost bought it, but the 60s ranch style home with a kidney pool(!) tugged at my Californian heartstrings. Here’s to suburbmaxxing.
Scouring the web
There’s a significant chance you’ve seen The Odyssey at this point. I think 3000 years exceeds the statute of limitations on spoilers, but Nolan made enough subtle and not-so-subtle changes/enhancements that certain elements of the film could be construed as spoilers. So, if you’ve seen and/or don’t care about spoilers, you should read Will McDavid’s review over at Mockingbird. When I saw the film, something about it felt Christianized, but I couldn’t put my thumb on why. Will’s scapegoating observation nailed it.
Nina Power’s brief meditation on visiting her parents’ home in the English countryside resonated with me. I always got a similar feeling when we visited Jenoa’s parents before we moved to Texas. It’s still there, but I’m grateful that we get what feels like the best of the city and the country living in Waco.
My old coworkers over at the Next Token podcast get real about the felt experience of being a developer right now. I’m enjoying my work more than ever in some ways, but the lack of best practices, guidance, and patterns for the day to day work of building software with AI can be exhausting.
Griffin Gooch at Reality Theology interviewed Christianity Today editor Bonnie Kristian about her upcoming book, In Defense of Evangelicalism. The interview is great, and made me more excited for the book. There’s a whole cottage industry of books, blogs, and podcasts built around critiquing evangelicalism, and such critiques are very en vogue. They’re also, in my opinion, boring, smug, unreflective, unimaginative, and incoherent in many of their claims. I expect Kristian to be more charitable than I am (which is good, I should learn from her), and I look forward to what she has to say.
Jason Micheli reposted his review of David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved, and, wow. It reminded me of how good Hart’s book is, but more forcefully, reminded me of how great the grace of God is. As he puts it: “The Father is not less merciful than the Son enjoins his disciples to be.”
Cheers,
R
PS we can't wait to visit you guys and cannonball in that pool
what's the explorer looking book you're reading in the pic?