If you’re reading this, the site is live. Which means I actually did it.
I’ve been meaning to build this for a while — a real corner of the internet that’s just ours. Mine and Jennifer’s. Not a brand, not a content strategy, not a hustle. Just a place to write honestly about what we’re doing and thinking, including the parts that are hard to say out loud.
Here’s the short version of who I am: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Jennifer and I got married in 2004 and made the best decision of our lives — we packed up and moved to San Diego. We bought our house in North Park in 2007 and never looked back. Our daughter Kendall was born here, which makes her the real native. The dogs — Rocket and Astro — came later and immediately took over everything.
I’ve been in technology since the early nineties. I owned a company called Computer Network Systems — CNS Planet — and I still technically own it, though it’s been pretty dormant. In between I’ve worked at startups, enterprise companies, and everything in between. I’ve done a lot, built a lot, and been laid off more times than I care to count.
The most recent layoff was in January. A few days later I had a cancer scare. I’m a cancer survivor, so when something comes up it carries a certain weight. Thankfully it turned out okay. But those two things landing in the same week — that’ll recalibrate your perspective fast.
The longer version involves crypto, which I’ve been writing about for years through my newsletter, Crypto Clarity. I got burned early. I rebuilt. I learned. Now I write about it honestly — no hype, no this-is-going-to-the-moon nonsense, just the stuff that actually matters for people trying to understand what’s happening.
I also run a lot of automation in the background — n8n flows, AI tools, the whole stack. I wear a Limitless AI pendant that records my days. My family finds this only slightly unhinged. I think it’s incredibly useful.
So here’s where we are right now, and I’m going to be honest about it because that’s the whole point of this site:
I’m 61 years old, turning 62 in July. Every day I reach out to as many people as I can. I apply on LinkedIn and Indeed. I customize every resume and cover letter — every single one — and mostly hear nothing back. I’ve applied for roles at half my past salary and suspect the fear is I’ll keep looking. I applied to deal craps at the local casino. Haven’t heard a peep. The job market right now is something else.
I have real decisions to sit with: Do I take Social Security at 62? Do we rent the house and slow travel overseas for a year or two? We’re working on Italian citizenship — my father was born in Italy — so Europe is actually a real option, not just a daydream. But then there are the dogs. And Kendall just started college, which we’re paying for, and we need to figure out how that works going forward.
Jennifer writes about travel at WanderWell — she’s smarter and better at it than I am, honestly. We love to travel whenever we can. The slow travel idea isn’t escapism, it’s a genuine possibility we’re running the numbers on.
This is the scariest stretch we’ve hit yet. And we’ve hit some stretches. But I’m pretty sure we land on our feet — we always do. The thing I’m trying to do differently this time is not disappear into the quiet of it. I’m going to try to fail publicly, figure things out in the open, and maybe help somebody else who’s in the middle of their own version of this.
That’s what this site is. The Road section is where the posts go as they come. The Crypto Lab is where I track what I’m watching. The Family section is password-protected — you know who you are.
Glad you’re here. Pull up a chair.
— David