Now

Here’s a look at what I’m up to right now as of November 10, 2024.

Fun

After the election, I changed my morning routine and switched from doom-scrolling to reading. This has meant 30 minutes to an hour of reading each morning!

I recently joined Bluesky with (seemingly) the rest of the developer community. If you’re on there, let’s connect! I’m @adamfortuna.com to match this site.

We’re also planning to adopt a dog! I started getting allergy shots earlier this year, and after 18 weeks, I’m now immune! We’re now on the lookout for a furry addition for our household.

I also upgraded my phone from an iPhone Xs to an iPhone 16 Pro Max. It’s notably faster, and I’ve already gotten used to the larger screen. I see why it’s hard to go back.

Programming

On Hardcover, I’m working on a major overhaul. We’re switching from using Next.js to using Ruby on Rails with Inertia.js. It’s a LOT of work given the 129 tasks involved.

We’re nearly to 20,000 users, 200 subscribers, and 3.5 years in! Still a super fun project, and I’m confident we’ll be able to continue growing.

I’ve paused a bunch projects I’m working on, or want to work on, to focus on the main ones – Hardcover, this blog, and Minafi. Minafi needs an update (Rails 6 -> 8), and this blog needs to be migrated from Vercel to elsewhere (in protest of their support for Trump). Everything except Hardcover is in maintenance mode in my eyes.

Fitness

Now that I’ve mostly recovered from ACL surgery (July ’22), I’ve been exercising more. After working with an online personal trainer for 6 months, I’ve tweaked my fitness routine down to something relatively simple:

• Gym: 3x a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
• Cardio: 2x a week (Tuesday, Saturday)
• Walk 10k steps: On days I don’t work out. 6k steps minimum on days I do.

I switched from going to the gym at 8 a.m. to starting earlier, at 6 a.m. Combined with less time on social media, I’m not staying up as late and can start the day earlier.

I’ve also started taking walks after lunch each day, which puts me in a much better mood in the afternoon.

Finances

We’ve been looking into buying a house for about the last 2 months. We’ve spent the last 6 years living in an apartment, and I stopped working 5 years ago (my wife 4 years ago, right before COVID). During that time we’ve traveled to see friends across the US and tried to figure out where we want to live long-term.

Turns out, we really like Salt Lake City. Who would’ve guessed? (not us).

We’ve seen about 2 dozen houses so far and have been getting closer and closer to what we want. We might be homeowners before the end of the year (!)🤞

Travel

2024 was the first year we traveled internationally since before COVID. We went to South Korea for 2 weeks in April, which was amazing.

More recently, we spent the end of October in Barcelona, Spain, followed by a cruise (Barcelona, Spain → Lisbon, Portugal → Porto, Portugal → Tangier, Morocco → Cadiz, Spain → Barcelona, Spain).

If you’re ever in Lisbon and enjoy shellfish, I encourage you to try Cervejaria Ramiro. You need reservations for the main restaurant, but there’s a walk-in version next door. We enjoyed shrimp, tiger shrimp, barnacles, clams and langoustines with a bottle of cava and a beer in one of our favorite meals ever. Thanks to Anthony Bourdain for the recommendation!

For once, we don’t have any travel scheduled for anytime soon. With a new house and dog in the cards, we’re allocating the foreseeable future to that. I have a penciled-in travel plan for 2026, though: work from Japan for a month. I’m continuing to learn Japanese (I took it in college), and I am excited to try my own foreign exchange program. 😂

Social Life

Between travel, house hunting, and the election, I haven’t been the most social person lately.

We went to FanX, SLC Comics, not long ago, and it was fun as always. We go every year.

More recently, we saw Heretic (2024) with some friends. I loved it.

We’re headed to see Kevin Smith live with friends next week, and a few others are visiting. We’re meeting for dinner. It’s been a while since we had a board game night.

What’s Next?

I’ve been trying to be more lenient when things are going perfectly. Schedules shift, but it’s better to make incremental progress on something than nothing.

Saying no to new projects is a priority now, in order to better focus on everything else.