The Studio
Welcome to The Studio. Some of it’s real, some virtual — either way, this is where I work, and these are the tools I reach for. Some links are affiliate links.
Think & Write
Notion
Notion is my goto for writing, editing, sharing collaborating and so much more. The more I use it the more I can’t stop using it.
Anthropic Claude
Claude is my writing companion and coach. I could certainly have claude write for me but then I never learn to improve. So for editing, grammar, improve weak spots, trimming the fat, Claude’s my AI assistant.
Bullet Journal
I discovered the Bullet Journal method a number of years ago and found it to be the best way to get the chaos of life understood in a living breathing framework. It becomes an operating system for your life. Go BuJo!
Build & Ship
Cursor
Cursor is where my agentic AI journey started. Vibe-coding or real coding either way it’s an incredible tool.
AWS
AWS is where I host static sites — S3 for storage, CloudFront for CDN, fronted with Cloudflare for DNS and SSL. Cheap, fast, and gives me room to grow into the rest of the AWS surface as my projects need it.
Github
Every project lives here eventually — code, docs, infra. Public when I want others to see how I work, private when it’s still cooking. The center of gravity for everything I ship.
Macbook
My daily driver and the machine everything starts on. Writing, design, code, music, all of it. The Mac lets the system fade into the background so I can just flow.
Mac Mini
My always-on inference node, nicknamed Orca. Runs Ollama and serves local models to the rest of the OpenClaw stack. Quiet, efficient, and surprisingly capable for its size. (32GB and up only)
NVIDIA
My DGX Spark handles the heavier model loads in my home AI setup. 128GB of unified memory means I can run models locally that I’d otherwise have to rent cloud GPUs for.
Logitech MX Keys
Logitech MX Keys all day. with the Mac / PC / Linux compatibility and the ability to pair up to 3 machines to a keyboard this one’s the winner each time.
Create
Figma
As a designer, I’ve found Figma to be the first place I go for digital creative work. Whether I’m freelancing or doing personal promotional work it starts here.
Procreate
What amazes me about Procreate is how effortless it is to just draw. I do a lot of satire cartoons, but here’s also a lot of other explorations taken using Procreate because it truly allows you to just draw, add texture, layer and so much more.
GaragEband
Free, ships with the Mac, and gets out of the way. I use it for quick recording, podcast edits, and scratch tracks when an idea won’t wait. Not the most powerful DAW, but the friction is near zero.
Music
Guitars
Fender
The Stratocaster — the guitar I reach for when I don’t want to think about the guitar. Fender’s the sound in my head from before I ever played, and a Strat still does more jobs than anything else on the wall.
Ibanez Guitars
Thin necks, fast action, and a body shape that stays comfortable through a long session. My Ibanez is the one that shows up when the playing gets busy — it makes things easy that other guitars make work.
Martin Guitars
Acoustic duty. Nothing else sounds like a Martin under a vocal, and it’s the guitar that ends up in my hands on the couch more than anywhere else. Songs get written on this one.
Pedals
Rockett Pedals
Boutique pedals that sound like they cost more than they do. The Archer pedal lives on my board permanently — the kind of drive that makes a clean amp feel three-dimensional instead of just louder.
Ibanez Pedals
The Tube Screamer is a cliché for a reason. It’s less an overdrive than a tone-shaper — push the mids, tighten the low end, and everything after it in the chain behaves better.
TC Electronic Pedals
Delay and reverb duty. Great sounds out of the box, and the TonePrint thing means I can load someone else’s settings and reverse-engineer why they work. Ridiculous value for the price.
Mics
RØde
My podcast and voiceover mic. Broadcast-quality sound without a broadcast-quality budget, and it’s forgiving enough that a spare room still sounds like a studio.
Shure
The SM57/58 is the mic you can drop, forget about, and still record with in ten years. When I need something that just works with zero fuss, it’s this.
SeNnheizer
When a source needs to cut through the mix, this is the mic. Present and focused right where it matters, so I’m not fighting for space in the EQ later.
Learn & Languages
Duolingo
I’m over a 600 day streak on Duolingo where I learn new vocabulary and refresh less used tenses and conjugations, plus it’s fun!
italki
I use italki to take my French learning journey beyond exercises on an app and learn from a native speaking teacher.
Google Gemini
Voice mode is the killer feature here — I practice spoken French with Gemini whenever I’ve got idle time. Pressure-free reps between Duolingo and italki lessons.