Dev Log 04.28.2026: Staging Fixes, WSL, and a Hard Visit

Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Published On: April 28, 2026

The Technical: Resolved a high-priority staging site issue today — emergency ticket landed first thing, got the fix in and the PR submitted before end of day. On the personal projects side, I finally moved the bot dashboard/API over to WSL. The performance jump on composer and npm versus the old Windows mount is significant — not subtle, not marginal, just noticeably faster. Got VS Code configured for the new setup, did some initial testing, and the environment feels ready for a real workflow run.

The Atmosphere: Started Veronica Mars Season 2 — first two episodes down. I really enjoyed Season 1 overall, though some stretches felt sloppy and the finale didn't quite stick the landing. Season 2 is off to a slightly rocky start by comparison, but I'm still enjoying it. The big draw so far has been the casting — Charisma Carpenter from Buffy and Kevin Smith are both early guest highlights, and there's young Tessa Thompson and Krysten Ritter showing up too, presumably pre-breakout. Always fun to spot someone before they were someone.

The Coworker: Hubert had a full day. We split a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel this morning, he soaked up some sun on the deck this afternoon, and then he got to ride along with me to pick up dinner and over to my parents'. He's now thoroughly conked out — earned it.

The Rant: Went to my parents' tonight and brought dinner. Sat with Mom for a while. Dad was asleep the whole visit — and I mean the whole visit. He's been given a month to live. He's stopped eating.

What's been hitting hard is how fast it's all turning. Saturday I was over there helping move some furniture, and Mom and Dad wanted me to bring food from a local chili dog place for our weekly Tuesday dinner — kind of a fun, unhealthy splurge instead of cooking like we usually do. That's three days ago. Today he's not eating at all. The distance between those two days feels much, much longer than three days.

The hardest part isn't even the grief — it's the isolation around it. My parents haven't told many people, so there's almost no one in my life I can talk to about any of this. I sit with it during the day, drive home with it, work through it, log my hours, watch my shows, and then I sit with it some more. If you've read this far, thank you. I don't know what I'm asking for by writing this down, exactly. Maybe just to not be the only person who knows.

The Smiles: Even on a heavy day, there were good moments worth holding onto. I got to text with my favorite person for a bit, which is always a bright spot. Hubert was extra cuddly and snuggly today, which felt like he knew. I made some real progress getting my hobby projects properly set up on the new rig. And the visit with Mom, despite everything, was a good one — today was her and Dad's 53rd wedding anniversary, and I'm glad I got to be there so she wasn't alone for it. That counts for something.