My writing/blog/whatever-you-want-to-call-it
My writing/blog/whatever-you-want-to-call-it
I'm trying to get into the habit of writing more frequently, so I decided to write a short post today with five things I've been enjoying lately. These are things that are either a) actively making my life better or b) pushing me to expand in a new direction. Your milage may vary, and some of these may not be directly applicable to you, but I hope you enjoy a peek into what's making my life good right now.
I had been using Mint to track my monthly finances, net worth, and investments since I was ~16. Last year, Intuit sunset the Mint product, which left me without a budgeting tool. I researched a couple different options, and ended up trying Monarch Money. Monarch Money is really good, and I find myself wondering why I used Mint for so long. It tracks income, savings, and net worth really well, and the integrations it offers are a lot more stable than Mint. When I used Mint, I often found that accounts would disconnect or go missing, and other than my ADP 401(k), which I assume is running on some os390 mainframe somewhere in North Dakota, my accounts have mostly stayed connected.
The budgeting and goal features are excellent. I find myself sticking to the budget I set a long more than I did with Mint, and I have gotten into a consistent habit of recategorizing transations in and tracking my purchases nearly every day. I've also used the goal feature to track some different savings goals and expense accounts, and the interface is a joy to use. It does cost a bit, but it's worth it and they offer trials. If you're interested in trying out Monarch Money, use my referral link to get a free month of premium.
I've been working with Istio for a few years now. Service mesh is complicated, and one of the biggest things I hear feedback about is the need to statically allocate resources for sidecar proxies. This is valid, especially with infrastructure teams responding to the economic environment and working with less budget than they previously have had at their disposal. Istio Ambient Mode is a new way of building a service mesh built around node-level proxies for L4 processing (TCP, UDP) and Waypoint (namespace-level) proxies for L7 processing (HTTP, gRPC). This is a huge step forward for Istio, and I'm excited to see how it evolves.
Solo.io, the startup I work for, has been a major driver behind Ambient, based on feedback we received from our customers. Ambient has been in development since 2022, and it's officially now in beta. I'm excited to see more companies adopt it. I've been playing with it myself and I'll be writing a blog post about using OPA as an external authorizer for Istio Ambient Mode soon.
I have a hard time finding jeans that fit me well. I'm 5'10", 205lbs and have a ~30" waist, which is a pretty uncommon size. It's particularly hard to find jeans that fit well in the thighs, for which I blame the years of Olympic weightlifting. Once I find a brand that fits, I'm usually a loyal customer until they stop making whatever variant of the jeans I like. After several years of wearing Athletic Fit Goodfellow jeans from Target, I decided to try out Everlane's Selvedge jeans. They fit well and are comfortable, and I like the way they look. I've been wearing them for a few weeks now and I'm happy with them.
I'm a frequent gym-goer, and I usually use lifting straps to protect my hands from callus tears and wear. I've tried a lot of different lifting straps over the years, and recently fished a pair of the Rogue Oly Leather Lifting Straps out of my bag. I remember why I used these for years - they are comfortable on the wrist, durable and grip the bar well for snatches and heavy deadlifts. I had been using some nylon straps before but they wear out too quickly. The leather straps are a bit more expensive, but they last a lot longer and are more comfortable to use.
I'm saving the best for last here. I've been living in Miami for just over a year now, and I've frankly had a hard time building community here. I attribute this to working remotely and not having the same access to the outdoors that I typically have been able to enjoy in other places I've lived. I was browsing Reddit a couple months ago, and saw someone posted about a Hack Night for technical people in Miami. I decided to go check it out, and I've been going nearly every week since.
Hack night is a fun concept. It's not like a traditional meetup, with monthly meetings and a speaker followed or preceeded by networking. I cut my teeth on those meetups and love them, but Hack Night is different. It's a weekly event, and it's more like a study group than a meetup. People come to work on projects, ask questions, and help each other out. There's typically a 5-10 minute lightening demo halfway through, and then people return to the work they brought to do. I've met a lot of cool people and learned a lot of new things at Hack Night, and I'm grateful for the community I've found there. If you're in Miami and you're a technical person interested in joining us, DM me on X and I'll send you the details.
Those are five things I'm currently enjoying. I think it's important to take time to reflect on what's making your life good, and I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me on X.