About Me
I'm Ritchie Macapinlac, and this site has been my online home since 2000—which makes me older than dirt itself. What started as a simple personal site has evolved into my digital journal where I document whatever has currently captured my attention, from Tesla road trip logistics to Docker deep-dives to the reality of parenting while trying to maintain some semblence of productivity.
When I'm not wrestling with code or explaining why the wifi isn't working to my kids, you'll find me planning overly detailed road trips, rebuilding my Linux setup for the nth time, or discovering that the "simple" productivity system I just implemented is anything but. My wife questions most of these life choices.
Turns out documenting the process of figuring things out is useful—both for me and for other people who think "there has to be a better way to do this."
Under the Hood
This website is built with Middleman, a Ruby-based static site generator that perfectly enables my tendency to overthink simple things. It's designed to be fast, accessible, and—most importantly—something I can break and rebuild without taking down a database.
The whole thing is just static HTML files deployed via GitHub Actions. Content is written in Markdown, styled with SASS, and served with a focus on speed and accessibility.
Rabbit Holes I Keep Falling Into
Family Adventures
Life with humans I'm responsible for keeping alive. Real moments, not highlight reels, from the socially awkward parent.
Playing with AI
Learning to coexist with our robot overlords through hands-on experimentation. Both 'wow, this is magic' and 'terrible idea' moments.
Building Things
Creating, breaking, and occasionally fixing technology. Code that compiles on the third try and hardware held together with hope.
Figuring Things Out
Personal growth experiments and life lessons learned the hard way. The messy process of becoming a slightly better human.