Is it weird (how much) I missed Claude Code?
And other surprising observations from a recent business trip
A week ago I came back from spring break in Ft. Lauderdale. OK … - it was actually a business trip as I began immersing myself into the world of state and national lotteries1. Turns out they have (what to me) seems like a surprising number of conferences. It’s been a good number of years since I attended any sort of conference - possibly since I spoke at three back to back EU Amazon seller conferences that for some reason my boss didn’t want to go to. Joseph - thanks for that awesome trip to London-Paris-Munich btw.
While traveling I decided to take the chance that there wouldn’t be any operational or customer issues with 3DVisionGym.com. That’s my entirely vibe coded side hustle that’s superior imho in every way to the competition but clearly needs a better marketing expert than me driving traffic. The low traffic explains my willingness to step away without bringing my development laptop. If something happened I’d then be relying on the not yet 100% bulletproof Claude Code /remote-control service. FWIW - I got some great feedback from my favorite production tester/customer2 and it seems my laptop took a snooze and the remote connection got lost. Hopefully I’ve got those settings sorted for the next. If you haven’t checked it out the remote-control feature via the Claude app is pretty slick. You know, except for the whole not working 100% part.
Overall the trip was great, I got to meet so many folks from my new workplace, start to understand what the industry worries about when they get together, and pressure test my colleague’s accuracy in predicting what wardrobe is expected. This is the sort of situation where someone tells you that definitely it’s a sports jacket (reception) and then suit (day 2) event but you wonder if people are going to show up in a polo shirt. Similar to when someone tells you it’s a toga party and it’s really black tie - one learns a lot in that first few moments when you enter the event3.
The trip took place partly in an alternative universe where I actually was able to open a 15” laptop and get work done in coach. That was weird enough - but what truly surprised me was the realization upon getting home as to how much I’d missed Claude Code (CC). It wasn’t just because of the exciting announcement that the context window on CC was expanded4. The warm, productive embrace of having dev superpowers was something I missed faster than I’d have thought. A relaxed sigh was expressed when I dropped down into my pandemic desk chair5 and pasted in that super-user-tester’s feedback and said “here’s another set of complaints from ______, I’ve dropped in a file with their progress from the DB, so LFG!”
I’m sure you’re only still reading to confirm the predictive accuracy of business attire. Well, it turns out that too high a bar was set for me. as there were plenty of folks in polo shirts at the event. Not a problem - as I probably needed a suit that fit me, and maybe even a sports jacket6. But they were accurate in that I didn’t need a tie - which is all I really cared about. After two days walking around more dressed up than I have since traveling for business in Japan over 20 years ago - I realized two things. (1) I’ve finally hit an age where when I look at myself in the mirror in a suit I don’t feel like I’m heading to my Bar Mitzvah and (2) the more important red line for me is not wearing a tie. Which I’ll get into in the story about long running bet with my dad that I doubt he even remembers - I’ve got it about half written up as an “ode to career limiting behavior.”
All said, I have to admit that I still cannot shake the feeling that it’s very hard to trust someone is a technologist if they’re wearing something nicer than jeans and an unrumpled t-shirt. Everyone has their own biases, I suppose.
tldr; I’m realizing that a lot of what folks have been saying on how agentic coding can be a different (and sometimes fraught) experience that earlier abstractions from the metal.
That feeling of “if I’m not running an agent on something am I losing time?” feeling that the last 2-3 NY Times articles isn’t just limited to young tech bros. Boarding a flight for my next trip I caught myself thinking if there was a way to get everyone running on Codex before boarding and whether it would run async well. That’s after stopping several times past security to kickoff the next thing.
I’m checking out Codex as that’s what we’ve got at the new gig. I’m feeling it’s a breakup with Claude situation - but it’s not surprisingly way better at diagram generation.
I’m sure I could “stop at any time” if I had to kick the habit. Though … If I were starting up a list of possible psych thesis topics I wouldn’t quickly skip over this one.
What’s next?
I’ve been doing a bunch of onboarding as I just passed 4 weeks of a new gig. It’s hurting my brain - but also giving me some thoughts about what has worked (and hasn’t worked) in understanding what’s important quickly in new roles. I’ll probably share some of that in a few weeks - in addition to the backstory of my deeply felt issues with neckties.
Though I did get as close as I ever have to Spring Break. Getting to observe IRL a whole set of youth based poor life choices. Most obviously, a blatant disregard of proper sunscreen application. “Spring Break 2026 - sponsored by your dermatologist in 2056” should be the motto.
This is the sort of customer that you set the “comped for life” flag because their input is worth so so much.
For the record, that’s something I probably saw in a movie - anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been the sort of person who would have believed they’d been invited to a toga party. Nor a black tie event fwiw thankfully.
If I’d known you could pay more for a bigger context window I would have been throwing my credit card at Anthropic even faster than normal.
You know, the one you bought when your company gave you $500 to offset the bummer of a deadly global contagion and you figured you may as way buy whatever Wirecutter recommended since you were never leaving the house again.
Though I definitely wish I’d bought these clothes when in Hoi An last year. Even if I didn’t believe the salesperson who claimed I’d look like Daniel Craig with a new suit. Given how hard that is to believe that was even thrown out as as argument, I should remind everyone that my Vietnamese is quite poor. Possible I misunderstood.