Before I actually start, here’s a picture of the reason (Schrödinger) I so very much prefer working from home (see above the title). I think no further comment is needed.

Anyhow, let’s get started here.

The topics I thought I’d write about

Whenever I start one of these posts / journal entries (rambles, ngl here), I tend to write out just some keywords and topics which I believe are important to my (subconscious) mind right now. Things that have gathered over the days, maybe reappeared after a while. I think a good analogy is that I feel like my mind is like a lake that’s kept at height by a dam made out of many small stones and rocks. And I need to get the whole system flowing again, but I can’t go in with my two cupped hands and start shoveling out water just like that. Who has time and patience for that, anyway. I don’t. I won’t do that - you go and do that. And I certainly can’t go full treebeard on the dam, either.

I have to pick rocks from the dam like the good hobbit I am. Until even treebeard is convinced that, in fact, I am not some sort of half-way shaved ass squirrel.

So I pick stones from the dam, some smaller and some bigger ones, in the hopes that some picks actually do impact the dam’s structural integrity. And if I pick just the right rock, the dam breaks, the lake starts flowing, you get the picture.

Let’s leave the analogy and let me tell you some (ridiculous - don’t laugh) thought-pebbles I decided to pick from my lake-mind’s dam.

On some of those was written….

• I think I want to talk about coordination of teams in corporations…..
• I think I want to talk about decisions when picking systems and architectures. How to weigh them: business proposition, delivery speed, existing customers, future prospects…..
• I think I want to talk about the challenges around data residency. It’s an important topic, and it has challenging technological and architectural impacts. It also shows how dependent modern deployment approaches are on customers’ willingness to accept tradeoffs in their data privacy/residency……
• The insanities with recent vulnerabilities such as PHP2Shell, 2Shell, HTTP2Shell, WhateverTheFuck2Shell-like exploits, and CVEs in the SWE environments. Companies spend gazillions on security, only to be blindsided by some super critical CVE in their supply chain that they can barely influence, anyway. Funny, right? Maybe one day they’ll just give up and go full caveman: on-prem software via USB, delivered by mail pigeion, and installed and served on air-gapped servers…..

The last one is actually interesting…..

Small wins

So I keep trying to write about technical and business topics. I get stuck. And when it comes to technical topics, I feel like the internet already knows way more than me, and that kind of inhibits me. Maybe not. Maybe it’s because I spend hours every day staring at code, logs, and traces. Debugging. Working through issues. But I love this stuff. So why haven’t I written about it before? I think it’s related to the business dimension, not the technical dimension that my mind tries to avoid at all cost. I think the business pebbles are worthless, they weigh nothing, they never contributed to the structural integrity of the dam. But they still cost me time to pick them up and throw them away. What a waste, I should write a complaint (and laminate it, I am german, after all…) to whoever is in charge of the mess I call a lake-mind. Or is mind-lake better?

Today I debugged a super interesting issue across multiple resources and systems, and finally coming to the solution made me really proud. I started by using a system we built for a hackathon - an observability aggregator with a LangGraph agent attached to it. It helped me work past ArgoCD’s visibility limits (ArgoCD is like an interactive GPS-connected fleet management tool DHL may use, only that it does not track DHL trucks but software components). Merging Loki logs (Loki is a system that collects logs for you - events within each software component. If the software component is the DHL truck, the logs would say things like: ‘truck engine heating up to 95 degrees celcius’, ‘truck unexpectedly long on location’, etc.) with ArgoCD ApplicationSets, plus failure mode data? You can solve a lot. Figuring out the issue, the fix, even turning it into a playbook, that made me happy. That’s when I realized: even small wins like this have such a powerful effect on me.

Running and habits

Felt low energy these last two days. But I went for a run: 15K, good time. I feel like I’m plateauing already. That’s not real though. Early gains just don’t last forever. My training is solid overall. I added the marathon page for extra motivation. And I added a 1,000 km goal starting yesterday — just because I like the number 1,000. Why not? (What can I do a thousand of? A thousand push-ups, maybe one day.) That’s ambitious before April. Consistency isn’t my thing, but maybe this helps me build better hobbits. I can’t say ‘habits’ anymore without thinking ‘hobbits’. I cracked two hobbit jokes at work today. Something’s wrong with me.

The words keep coming

An hour ago, I had nothing. My head was empty and drained. Or was it full and clogged? Maybe like a lake with a dam? Low energy, semi-good mood. But now that I’m writing? My mood and energy are through the roof. Maybe none of this is coherent.That is ok, treebeard did not release the river to end up with laminar flow. Maybe it doesn’t sound like thoughts from a bipedal primate. But I love that the words and thoughts keep flowing. Now I I tell myself it doesn’t matter how or what I start with — just write. The words will find their topics. I’ve read how powerful journaling is, and thhis definitely feels like that.

Jesse Itzler and Misogi

I’ve been reading more about Jesse Itzler, the entrepreneur from a previous post and author of Living with a SEAL. His life is interesting. Happy, lighthearted - though not easy, as in ‘without challenges’. He talks about planning out the year. About keeping in touch and staying on top of mind of others. About living with urgency. Trying uncommon and unknown things. Saying yes even when uncertain, then figuring it out along the way. He pitched Marquis Jet as a young man and got thrown out of the meeting with the man with the money. He got an NBA player to record a Foot Locker commercial - after getting the deal from Foot Locker BY TELLING THEM HE ALREADY HAD THE PLAYER ON BOARD. What a legend, what a gamble. I love this so, so much. There’s so much room for creativity and flexibility. I must get myself to a point where this approach to things becomes my default. And he speaks about Misogi (challenges). Each year: pick one goal that matters. Something truly ambitious. Ambitious enought that you can actually fail when trying. Which, even if unsuccessfull, levels you up so much that it still brings true growth and, by that, a different type of success! That’s how you build an interesting life. That’s how you get to know yourself.

What did I want to say?

Looking back at my list, I smile. Except for one point — software simplicity as a response to supply-chain chaos - I didn’t even expand on any bullet points, far less on business topics at all. Simplifying software? Core principle for any product I’d build. Simply because simplicity matters to me (I’m a simpleton, after all). I believe that good tools solve small problems well. They don’t try to do everything. Being easily overwhelmed, I get it. This is why I love The Grug Brained Developer: a layman’s guide to thinking like the self-aware smol brained. I guess this was more of a meta blog post. Thoughts about my internal process - thinking about thinking, not thinking about thoughts.

With that out of my system, I won’t spew LinkedIn Lunatic bullshit nobody cares about. I was gonna. But no. Sign from the universe. Thank you. I gladly accept not giving a fuck about business BS. I will forever ignore business pebbles laying around my mind-lake lake-mind thought-rock-dam.

Emmy’s waiting

I have to stop. Emmy is already judging hard (see below). She’s waiting for my belly and her mandatory biscuit time. How dare I keep her from duty for something as trivial as pouring out my heart? Mental housekeeping? Entertaining you? Emmy doesn’t care about any of that.