Putting the band back together

— 4 minute read

Whew! It's been 7 whole years since I last made a blog post on a site I owned. I can't believe I let it sit that long. That's more than a lifetime. Literally - my last blog post is older than my children!

A 7-year recap

Here's some of what happened in the last seven years:

  • My oldest son was born.
    👶🏻

  • Atlassian Stash, the product I worked on for most of my career, was renamed to Bitbucket Server.
    Stash logo→Bitbucket logo

  • My oldest son came with Phaemie and I to Fiji at 5-months old. It was his first time leaving the country.
    🇫🇯🏝

  • As a 9-month old, he visited Kerala, India and saw inside a fair-trade sewing factory.
    🇮🇳🛕

  • In the interest of having a career that snakes between technical and management, I became a Development Team Lead at Atlassian. I spent far less time writing code, but thoroughly enjoyed the conversations this allowed me to have with my coworkers.
    👨🏽‍💼

  • Phaemie and I bought our first home - a townhouse in Carlingford, NSW.
    💸→🏘

  • My second son was born.
    👶🏻

  • Our family travelled around New South Wales living in a motorhome for a few weeks. We drove roughly 1600km in a square, and visited Dubbo Zoo, Warrumbungle National Park, Port Macquarie, and the beautiful Mungo Brush beaches near Tea Gardens.
    🚙🏜🏖

  • In the interest of having a career that snakes between technical and management, I became a Senior Developer again. Unfortunately, I still spent far less time writing code, and much more time reviewing it.
    🤓

  • I unsuccessfully attempted to build a collaboration app during a short sabbatical. (This dream still lives, but I need to level up a bit as an entrepreneur)
    👨🏻‍💻🤝

  • To spend some time with my kids while they were young and to build some software of my own, I left Atlassian.
    👋🏼

  • My youngest son was born.
    👶🏻

  • I learned to play the banjo.
    🪕

  • I joined a startup as a co-founder and invested entirely too much time and money.
    🕵🏼‍♂️💸

  • I sold the townhouse and bought a freestanding home in Stanhope Gardens, NSW.
    🏘→🏡

  • I realized the mistake of giving so much time and money to a co-founder I couldn't trust, and quit.
    🤦🏻‍♂️🤕

  • I baked a whole lot of sourdough bread.
    🥖🍞

  • I started building WellBread with Phaemie
    👩🏿‍🍳👨🏻‍🍳🧑🏽‍🍳👨🏾‍🍳

So, uh, yeah. It's really been a while! And while I've thoroughly enjoyed spending the last year and a bit with my family, I haven't had nearly as much professional contact and feedback as I would like. So in the interest of getting back into the conversation, I thought I'd revive my blog. It's good to have a place where I can share long-form ideas again!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!