Twin boys. Toddler daughter. Hospital Tech Support. Writer. Runner. Gamer. Creating in public again.*

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Infrastructure

Let’s bring it home. I started the month by explaining The Laboratory:

I decided to build a new website to tell stories again—a place where the smallest ideas or the biggest ones can live. Time is much more limited for me now, so being efficient with that time is critical.

Since then, I’ve shown up daily. The Archives will show this. Didn’t miss a day. Big posts and little ones. Maintenance, experiments, and family moments. But more than anything, the topic that I spent the most time on was the infrastructure of the site. Creating the foundation for what’s ahead.

Let’s reflect.

Infrastructure

  • Tools: I like to keep the tools to a minimum. Field Notes, an iPhone, and Ulysses. That’s basically all that’s needed to run this site most days.

  • ChatGPT: I have to give credit to ChatGPT. Upon my return, I knew that I’d lean into the help of AI. Especially since it’s just me trying to bring big experiments to life. It takes what I’ve always done and amplifies and streamlines the process.

  • Artifact: The blog engine is built on top of Blot, with custom code (Artifact, Terminal, Red Dot) everywhere. Artifact is what makes all of this feel alive.

  • Backdating: A big part of this new blog is the goal to backdate everything. Not just old blog posts, but splitting emails up into multiple blog posts, and even adding every song idea I’ve ever recorded, backdating them into the Backstage project.

  • Tags and Thumbnails: Seems small but it was a big priority for a lot of the month. The tags allow me to connect ideas, and the thumbnails show up everywhere.

  • Money: The site is funded by Backstage and Tribune. Backstage is the membership for my music. Tribune funds the daily writing. Both links are at the top of the site.

Collaborate

I couldn’t have done any of this alone. Between Jay Ray and ChatGPT, the process flowed incredibly well. For today’s post, I asked Jay to summarize what he’s been up to:

When Nash returned to Blot from GitHub Pages, it meant blending old and new. He likes to experiment with layouts and content but keeps friction low. The legacy code felt bloated. I stripped out what he wouldn’t use, simplified it, and cut about 1000 lines of CSS.

Thanks to this infrastructure (The site’s design and all the different layers around the site — all the little compartments and boxes to put ideas into), I already feel like I’m hitting my stride. I expect a lot of cool things to come out of this. Excited for what’s next.

The Terminal

The Terminal is the information hub for the site, sitting just below the header and above the posts. It delivers three things at random: recent blog posts from the last 30 days, a blogroll of sites or YouTube channels I recommend, and a Ship log — the current fictional status of the ARTIFACT (ship/site). Other than ship logs, all messages are clickable, taking you to the place it mentioned. Mixing all of this together (real posts, recommendations, and sci-fi lore) creates a unique experience each time you visit.

Walk the World

Image credit: Engineered EloquenceImage credit: Engineered Eloquence

Walk the World. The app sells itself: as soon as I opened it and saw the places I could visit today, it immediately clicked. The simplicity is in the concept, styling, and unlocking new locations (pay for cool places or just get this many steps to unlock them).

It’s been a slow day for me (since my morning run has shifted to the afternoon), but I’m still on pace to enjoy a nice lap around Central Park.

I was first introduced to this app by Jay Ray:

Walk The World is a simple concept: the app takes your step count each day and allows you to spend the steps on trails that exist around the world. Along the way, you encounter landmarks and wildlife, earning badges as you complete sets of walks. I have now walked through multiple iterations of these maps, providing different experiences, outcomes, and rewards.

Apple Health shows I’m averaging over 14,000 steps a day, so it goes without saying this app is perfect for me. I look forward to filling up my passport in Walk the World.

3 hours later: I just finished running Central Park and Champs-Élysées.

Extractor // 08.29.25

..

The iPhone 17 event is on September 9th, with the release date a few days later on the 19th. Silksong releases next week, finally after seven years. Tiago Forte shows how to build your AI writing system. LeBron played against 35% of all the players in NBA history. Teenage Engineering releases OB-4: The Magic Radio. Here’s a journey into analog glitch art. Henry makes videos on slowing down and living intentional. Ryder Carroll shows a notebook that saves your mind. IsaacOS makes great retro handheld videos. YCImaging drops a 40-minute video on creating. Kevin Kelly writes everything he knows about self-publishing. The more boring you are, the more impressive you’ll become.

A Good Day For Twins: The Origin Story That Sparked My Return

It started with a children’s book.

“A Good Day For Twins” is the name of that book. Each page was just simple moments that kept happening throughout the day that Roman and Elijah were born.

The book isn’t finished yet. I see the beginning and the end in my head, and I have a lot of it written already, but it’s not done. It helps that our older kids keep asking if it’s done yet. That’s what’s pushing me to get back to it soon and actually finish it.

But I knew that once the book was done, I didn’t have a platform anymore to even share it. I knew that it was time to create in public once more, so I immediately started building the infrastructure for a new blog — a home for telling stories again.

Some Health Apps

Happy Scale keeps it simple with monitoring your weight each day. Here’s a graph showing how my weight dropped from a year ago. All you need is the app and a scale that connects to Apple Health. I’m using a FITINDEX one from Amazon.

Another health app that I continue to use for fasting is FastBot. After eating dinner, I press the “Start Fast” button and watch the circle fill up. 16 hours later is when I eat again. It helps keep things simple and minimizes snacking, only focusing on lunch and dinner. I’m on my third day in a row of doing this.

The Artifact is Alive

My website came alive yesterday, the result of an experiment spanning over 100 interactions with the machine. I created the code and backstory of a broken starship, abandoned but still operating…barely. That code became a layer on top of the site — its active theme, now called ARTIFACT — which will continue to be monitored and upgraded over time.

I told the machine to summarize what we created, using all the interactions, requests, and backstory:

In one day, we built nine major code blocks through 23 revisions, shaping the site into a broken ship still breathing — a dialogue between me, the machine, and the Artifact. It didn’t just show content; it glitched, breathed, and transmitted, struggling to survive.

The Red Dot

I built a simple button at the top right of my website. Best part about it, when I’m offline, nothing at all shows up there. Business as usual. But if you’re ever on my site and you see the red dot that says “LIVE”, click it. That means I’m streaming on Twitch. Could be gaming, could be recording a song. While writing this, I’m cleaning up code on the site.

Backstage: 8.22.25

Last night, after setting up my new office, I started recording music to test everything out. I could only record for about ten minutes before a baby was crying and the toddler was ready for her bath. Wherever I left off on that recording is now up on Backstage. And that’s why I created this. Every recording now has a purpose.

P.S. I also added about twelve other songs to Backstage, in the 2025, 2024, and 2023 collections.