Blog

I drifted away from the developer community somewhere around 2020. Here's what I lost, what changed, and why I'm looking to plug back in.

After working remotely since 2011, I don't love the term 'work life balance' anymore. But here's what's actually helped.

Every app is battling for your attention. A short take on notification fatigue and building with your users' sanity in mind.

How I automated changelogs and deployment notifications to keep clients informed without extra manual work.

How to use Laravel model observers to abstract critical logic out of controllers and into maintainable, testable classes.

A friend asked for three reasons new developers should learn PHP. Here's what came to mind -- plus a bonus.

A contractor built a custom framework inside Laravel. Here's why that's a problem, and when rolling your own actually makes more sense.

An accurate, GIF-based depiction of what my wife and kids do during a lengthy conference call. No explanation needed.

A casual weekly meetup for developers on Chicago's Northshore -- coffee in the morning, code all day, beer in the evening.

A short reflection on turning thirty, looking back at the last decade, and setting the next round of goals.

A reflection on civic responsibility, fatherhood, and why showing up on election day isn't enough.

The story behind launching Hire More Veterans -- a project inspired by my mother and our family's military background.

A quick take on the Evernote pricing backlash, and why developers of all people should understand that good software costs money.

From MAMP to OS X Apache to Vagrant -- how Laravel Homestead changed my local development setup for the better.

A shift in thinking about Laravel migrations vs seeders -- when to use each, and why seeds should only be for testing.