Is this thing still on?

Welcome to the second installment of the catskull.net newsletter!

Since my last newsletter in May, I blogged a lot! I dropped the second installment of my science fiction series (catch part 1 if you missed it). My friend Sam made me a custom trading card which was incredible. I wrote a lot of random opinion posts about a cacophony of topics which I’ll just let you explore for yourself. I had a blog post go semi-viral (front page of Hacker News).

 Probably my favorite (and best) post was a massive Lore Drop where I covered approximately the first 6 years of my life.

I beat 50 video games in 2025 and I wrote a giant post about them all, including mini reviews and micro lore drops along the way.

I love to read Wikipedia. I built a tool to help me remember the interesting things I read about. At the time of writing I’ve archived 773 Wikipedia articles.

We kept up our playlist ambitions and rounded out 2025 with 48 weekly playlists. We usually take a break during the holidays or else we’d have 52. It’s pretty wild to constantly listen to and come up with stuff to put on them. Some weeks I’m eager and excited to share, other weeks I’m at a complete loss. Check out the current playlist, or dive into the archives or the master list to see what we’ve shared.

I started a podcast where I talk to my friends and other cool people about things. It was a lot of fun to connect with people in this way, and honestly I enjoy listening to the episodes myself. The other day, one of my friends who I’ve known since second grade asked me what podcasts I listen to and I honestly said “the only podcast I listen to is my own” and he said “that’s the most Dave DeGraw answer of all time”. I yam what I yam. You can check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts or watch the videos on YouTube. Since September I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus but I hope to get it going again soon. If you’d like to be a guest, even if you’ve already been a guest, let me know!

I’ve always really liked tie dye shirts and I’ve gotten decent at making them over the years. I found a cool source of 100% recycled cotton shirts made in the USA and I made some for my friends. I also finally learned how to do super small scale screen prints by using a vinyl stencil. That was a lot of fun and it’s cool to see my friends rep my merch. I’ve thought about selling them but due to the costs and time they’d be well over $50 for a shirt and I don’t think I’m that big of a deal.

In August I resigned from my job as a Staff Software Engineer. What does the “staff” mean in that title? I wish it meant they gave me a big staff like Gandalf so that I could use it to fight off a Balrog, but unfortunately I don’t really know myself! I wrote a blog post that captured some of my thoughts around that time. The TL;DR is that I was/am extremely burnt out. I’ve been doing professional full-time software development since about 2014, and even before then I was doing paid web development while in High School. I’m sure everyone gets burnt out on their career to some extent and the solution isn’t necessarily to just quit, but that’s what I did. It had been a long time coming. I just needed a change.

Since then, I’ve been substitute teaching public school in my area. I’ve focused on 6-12th grade and for the most part, it’s been a really welcome change of pace. I also wrote a few notes about teaching school back in October. Going from just a few very shallow and debatably productive interactions with my coworkers each week to working with upwards of 150 students in a single day has been like sandpaper for my soul. I can make a small difference for each one of the students. I can remember having substitutes and I’m working in the same school district that I myself attended as a student. I’ve loved having the experience of working in a ton of different schools across age ranges, subjects, and administrations to really see and observe what I like and don’t like. I haven’t had the depth of experience that something like student teaching would bring, but the breadth feels like almost exactly what I was seeking. I think I’m doing a good job as well since I was offered a month long position filling in for a teacher at one of my favorite schools, which I’m currently in the middle of.

Money wise, it’s been quite daunting. Assuming I substitute every day, I think I’d still only pull in about 1/6 of what I was making as a software engineer. But you know what? It really hasn’t been that bad. The only debt we carry is our mortgage and generally speaking our home and vehicles are in decent repair (though having 4 kids constantly destroying things tests that for sure!) My wife decided to start selling some baked goods on Facebook Marketplace and she’s actually found a lot of success with that!  Combine that with drastic spending cuts, we’re doing okay for now. The other day my Mom told me to ask her for help before our mortgage is foreclosed which is both concerning to me that she assumes our situation is that dire, but also slightly reassuring that our situation is not that dire… yet. I’ve been keeping my finger on the pulse of the software development job market to some extent and it both seems like it’s tough out there, but also it seems like I could reasonably find something if I had to. The problem is that reading through the actual job postings for the most part fills me with dread so I think I’m still recovering from the brutality of my career so far. Still, summer vacation is fast arriving and I won’t be able to substitute at all during that time, so I feel like I need to find something to bring in income.

I hesitate to write about the next part of this because I’m embarrassed but I’ll just fill you in because I do view it as an accomplishment. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for essentially my entire life. I remember in 6th grade when my family moved and I had to start a new school I came home crying every single day because I was so stressed out and overwhelmed. My dad was bipolar and eventually succumbed to the illness. I have been given a very soft bipolar diagnosis and I actively take medication for both anxiety and bipolar disorder. It’s hard to explain how I feel, but the best I can say is that it’s just hard for me to enjoy things. It’s not that I’m sad all the time, but most activities are just not very fulfilling for me. As part of my mental health journey, I sought out a medical cannabis prescription. That was something totally new for me, I’d never previously done anything that is considered anything like “drugs”, but I’m glad that I did it under the prescription of my actual doctor. I didn’t go to some specialist that just helps you jump through a loophole. That really did help me a lot. I was happier, more go-lucky, more open, easier to connect with people, and genuinely it helped me improve some important relationships. It helped me enjoy things more. But man, there’s really no silver bullet and eventually the benefits waned to the point where it felt like I was using it just to cope with a baseline rather than elevate me above my baseline. It is also really freaking expensive. So as part of my major life changes when I resigned from my job, I made the decision to quit it cold turkey. My prescription expired and I don’t plan on renewing it. They say that cannabis is not addictive or habit forming in the way other drugs like opiates can be, but for me there were withdrawal symptoms. I was extremely irritable for about the first month. It was rough for me and my family. My dreams became extremely vivid, which wasn’t really a bad thing at all, just kind of interesting. Since then, I think I’ve leveled back out to my normal baseline which is to say I think I’ve been dealing with a fair amount of seasonal depression. I lack a lot of the motivation to do a lot of things. I have barely touched my drum set since August. The only thing I really want to do is sit around. In a lot of ways it feels like I’m kind of back to square one, just lacking fulfillment and enjoyment in most activities. A lot of family activities feel completely overwhelming. But you know what? I’m proud that got rid of medical cannabis. It became a source of anxiety in itself, wondering if I’m just totally addicted to a drug they somehow got approved for medical use. I set a goal to stop using it, and I accomplished that goal. There are times I desire to use it, but they are mostly fleeting and feel more like echoes of a bad habit like biting your fingernails than an addiction. I hope that someday I can be who I want to be without using something like cannabis and I’m working for it. But even Abraham Lincoln, one of the people I look up to the most, was able to accomplish incredible things despite dealing with his own moderate mental health issues. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a bit of a sad boy and maybe that’s okay.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter! I’m very thankful for you personally, for being willing to give me your email address and for being interested enough in me to want to hear about my activities. I’m really very thankful for all the ways my life has been blessed, and I’m optimistic the best is still yet to come! Until next time,

✌️