Hey, friend!

What a few months.

Laracon US was a blast! I've been campaigning for the return to physical conferences as soon as it's safe (whatever that means) and boy, was it everything I wished for. Reconnecting with old friends, making new friends, giving a talk about Laravel in the Enterprise, and having a great full week with the Tighten team. 

The summer, as great as it was to spend so much time with my kids, is over, and while I miss them, I'm so glad to be back to the easier schedule that allows me to work while they're in school.

I spent this summer fully taking over in my new role as CEO. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on things. I love business development calls. That's unbelievable! When we first started Tighten, one of my main motivations for working with a partner was so I didn't have to take these calls, and now they're one of my favorite parts of my job. But it makes sense: I meet with people with a real need and get to envision how we can help. That's the whole goal here, right?

I'm still working on my new secret video course. The deadline is the end of September, so I hope it'll be released for the public some time in October.

The third edition of my book is supposed to go to print in the next few weeks. I didn't remember how many times they sent it back to me for review before we finally print. I thought for sure I was done with it a month ago.

And... it's 86º in my house right now. I might go on a rant later about home warranties, but for now: they're a scam. They're all the worst parts of the insurance industry, where they take your money but don't want to pay it out, but much less regulated and with much more opportunity for scammyness. Thankfully, I didn't pay for this warranty--it was a concession made by the sellers of the house--but after 3.5 weeks with no functioning A/C, I'm still pretty annoyed! But if it all ends with the warranty paying for a $5-10k new A/C unit, it'll be worth it! Fingers crossed.

That's it for now. Maybe next time I'll have only waited a month between newsletters, and then I'll actually write about things, not just give updates. Maybe.

What Else?

• Y’all. Herd *is* Valet. It’s just a different flavor! You’re not giving up if you use Herd. It’s literally just Valet packaged up with its dependencies in a nice GUI. We’re all friends here!! (Tweet)
• Yesterday I accidentally deleted my terminal shell (zsh) and I suddenly couldn't open my terminal to even fix the problem I'd caused. I freaked out a bit. Thankfully, I found an easy solution, so I made a little video showing how you can change your default shell on macOS. (Tweet, with video)

That's it for now!

Until next time...

Your friend,
Matt Stauffer