Dev Log 08.30.2026: Release Readiness, an MCU Marathon, and the Corkscrew Tail Protocol

Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Category: Dev Logs

Published On: August 31, 2026

🤓 The Technical: Sunday is maintenance and deploy day, and the workflow keeps getting lighter. I've stopped forcing a release for every project every week - it's a lot of effort for the sake of a version bump - but I still run the release readiness check on all five repos, because "we didn't build a feature this week" and "there's a Symfony security advisory" are two very different reasons to skip a deploy. This week the personal home page got a pass. They Said It! needed a release, so that got packaged and shipped. Accumulated Knowledge needed one too, and I squeezed in a few UX improvements I'd noticed while adding data before sending it out. The other two droplets were just package updates and reboots, which I timed against the oven preheating for dinner. Efficiency. Off the clock, I finally set up a desktop slideshow on the media server mini PC and started building out its library, which goes a lot faster now that I'm on fiber.

😎 The Atmosphere: Solo productive-hermit day, MCU on in the background. Started with The Winter Soldier - top-tier - then just skipped through the library until something stuck. Ended the evening on Thor: The Dark World, which I'll defend to anyone. It's in contention with Ragnarok for my favorite Thor movie, and I think the reason it gets dinged is that it's heavier and more emotional than the fun ones. The funeral scene alone. I also have a Plex playlist called Stark Workshop that's just the movies where Tony tinkers with Jarvis in the background - my usual coding soundtrack. An MCU Favorites playlist is probably next.

🐶 The Coworker: Hubert was extra cuddly this morning and fell asleep on my arm, so the noon start became a 12:30 start. Not negotiable. He spent the afternoon sunbathing on the deck, then napped on my bare mattress while the bedding was in the wash. Bigger news: we're trialing a new care routine for his corkscrew tail to try to avoid surgery at nine years old - warm water wash, towel dry, a new pet-specific blow dryer, and an antimicrobial spray. First night on fresh sheets and so far, so good.

😡 The Rant: McAlister's forgot my pickle. It's free, so I'm not going to fight DoorDash over it, but they have some of the best dill pickles I've ever had and I was looking forward to it. Also, it's 2026 and the Google TV movie app's scrub bar still doesn't show thumbnails. Rewinding to a specific scene is pure guesswork.

🙂🙂🙂 The Smiles: Slept nine hours straight and woke up feeling physically capable of doing the day, which hasn't been a given lately. Then I actually did it: bedding washed, CPAP cleaned, dishes and laundry cycling all day, two releases out the door, three servers maintained, dog washed, bed made. Time got away from me more than once, but everything I set out to do got done. That's a good Sunday.