development
17 postsReverse Engineering My Own App from Compiled AWS Code
I accidentally deleted my local Email Bits repo and had no remote backup. Here's how I recovered the entire codebase from compiled Lambda functions and minified S3 assets.
Building The Early Days: A Voice-First Parenting Journal
I built a voice-to-text parenting journal before my daughter Lydia arrived. Speak your memories, get a written record - built for exhausted, one-handed new parents.
Building Email Bits: A Modern HTML Email Template Library
Email clients are still a mess. I built Email Bits to give developers production-ready HTML email templates they can actually own - plus AI-assisted customization for everyone else.
Building a Simple Gift Card Tracker with Modern Web Features
A quick weekend project that turned into a fully-featured gift card management app with search, sort, and URL persistence - all built with vanilla JavaScript and modern UX patterns.
Open Sourcing Astro Themes
I've created a couple free & open source software Astro themes in 2024. In 2025, I'm going to up the ante and release 1 theme every other month.
Making the Web Fun Again: Building a Digital Zen Garden
Rediscovering the joy of building delightful web experiences through a digital Zen garden. A reminder that websites can be both technically sound and genuinely fun.
Practical Applications of AI in Personal Projects
A comprehensive guide on implementing AI features in personal projects, from content enhancement to user experience improvements.
Training An AI Model To Create Backyard Sports Characters
A brief post on how I fine tuned my first ever text-to-image model on the characters from Backyard Sports
How to Add Puppeteer to an AWS Lambda Function
AWS isn't always straight forward. Here's a brief guide to adding a Lambda Layer with Puppeteer + Chromium to an AWS Lambda function execution environment
Reflecting on Buildspace Nights & Weekends | Season 5
42 Days - Start to Finish for the Final _buildspace season - In Short Pod - A Way to Curate & Create a Hyper-Personalized Podcast.
Build Something For Yourself
After 1,000+ one-on-one mentor sessions, I often repeated some advice. This post embodies the most repeated, piece of advice I'd give to students.
List of Government Design Systems
A design system is a collection of reusable components / standards that aid in digital product design & development.
Building a REI Resupply Used Inventory Notifier
Get notified of 'New' Used Gear. This was a humble attempt to help encourage people to minimize the impact on the Earth.
Backstage Software Template Repository
Solving a need that was discussed on Hacker News to put as many Software Templates for Backstage into a single place for other teams to use
What I Wish Someone Told Me Before Going Into Gov Tech
This is my take on another blog post titled 'What I Wish Someone Had Told Me' but after spending 4+ years in the Public Sector at the VA.
Tracking Estimated Website Carbon Emissions for 15,000+ Gov Domains
Read how I used GitHub Actions, puppeteer, and other tech to hack together a site in ~3 hours to track Estimated Website Carbon Emissions for Federal Websites.
What is Cabeça de Queijo?
Learn more about why I started and the tech stack behind Cabeça de Queijo - a Brazilian Green Bay Packers fan club based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.