STILL ALIVE & KICKIN' 26 FEB 2026
NEW PUPPY
It finally happened. We have learned what dogs are and are not safe for 
He's honestly very sweet and loveable. He's only been with us for a few days at this point - and is only 7 weeks old - so to me there's nothing definitive there, but if these early days can indicate anything at all, they do all point to our having gained a wonderful new friend and family member.
I plan on 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BELOVED WIFE
She doesn't use Hive...probably doesn't even know it exists...so this isn't for her I guess, or at least, not overtly - but tomorrow is my wife's birthday and I am very much grateful to be celebrating another year of her making the world a better place.
I guess I just wanted to take a moment and reflect in my own journal on just how grateful I am to have her in my life. Have there been times when she's driven me completely insane? Times when I just wanted to hurry up and go to work to get away from her on a bad day? Times when I've told myself to just hold on until the kids are old enough to fend for themselves and then leave? There have been.
...but you know, most of those times, it was her, asking me to grow and be my best self - and me wallowing in utter refusal. Thank God for self-reflection, for patience, for neuroplasticity even. Looking back on all those times I thought she was so hard to live with (all long in the past at this point), I can see clearly now that it was really me who was the one that was hard to live with. I am grateful to her for having the courage to be honest - even when it's a hard conversation - and for her patience and grace among my oh so many failures and shortcomings over the years. By giving me honest feedback, and the space to grow, she has helped lift me up to be a better version of myself, and has given me the opportunity to be an active and present member of my family - probably the greatest gift since Jesus in my opinion.
I try to support and celebrate my wife everyday, not to save it all up to treat her right on special occassions...but, with that said, on special days like this, I do tend to reflect a little more deeply on just how fortunate I am to have her in my life.
Happy Birthday my love, even though you'll probably never read this, I love you to the moon and back.
TECH NEWS
I know I told you recently that I had taken a break from working on Skullie and Dev's Adventure...and at one point I had a draft in which I followed up with a whole section on my new software project, DTMAN (Desktop Manager)...but I also know I lost some drafts and some of the content I had written.
In case I already told you about DTMAN, I won't trouble you with all the details, but I AM excited to share with you the latest addition!
Ok I have to get into some details, just so you know what it is.
DTMAN is super rad dude, like for real. I created a script generator that automatically adds a new button to a master file to call the new script, and it outputs several files: a main script, a core script, and a templates/build instructions file. When I create a new script through the generator, I have a field for entering a description of the script, and that same description goes into the master buttons json file for the popup tooltip, and also gets factored into the build instructions. The generated scripts only functions are really to build up the containers and layout type stuff, the actual content gets added after. Anyway it's super cool - the DTMAN app has a built in generator that lets me quickly and efficiently create new buttons/functions to run. Some buttons take me to websites or open folders/files on my PC, some launch third party software, some generate emails or help me check in parts received, some help with electrical calculations...the list is growing significantly with each passing day.
...but yesterday/today, I built my own Ecency/Hive post editor UI inside of DTMAN! It's still super basic, but it creates a basic post body based on a template (there are a few I've made to choose from), then I can add sections based on another collection of templates. Each section has a title and a main body, and that data gets saved in an intermediary json file. Why not just drop the text straight into the main body of the generated post template? I'll tell you why! Mostly, because keeping each section as a new entry in a json file allows me to use my editor to reorder sections or edit them individually, without posing any threat/risk for the main post document itself.
Each entry is an isolated item in a process data json file (each post has its own process data file), so I can pull up sections individually in my editor and rework them. This is also nice because it's centralized inside of DTMAN, which runs continuously every day - so I can quickly create or work on a new section without having to go to a site or navigate a full post draft. Once complete, I have a generate post button that generates the full post as a text file - so I can just copy and paste into the Ecency editor, double check formatting and layout, and I'm done! It doesn't write posts for me or do anything that I feel the Hive community would frown upon - heck it doesn't even do the markdown stuff for me at this point (all though I did have a version that did do that, but the markdown feature was destroyed during a significant refactor...think of it like how NASA was able to get to the moon and back so many times in a row back in the 60's, but now has lost the technology and cannot figure out how to recreate it...).
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I'll probably work on adding a markdown editor next, that will let me highlight text and set it to bold or strikethrough or whatever, but for now, I'm really enjoying just having a custom editor that lets me organize and develop my thoughts in a way that feels like it was built just for me!
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If you enjoy my content, check out the Albus Index!
Here you’ll find links to various post-groupings, so you can find all posts related to a specific topic quickly. Topics include lists of brewing recipes, flutes, crypto talks, rucking posts and an index of all acoustic covers. The lists are updated as new content is added, so they can always be used to quickly navigate my content.