The week the Mac mini arrived, systems found their foundation, and family grounded everything.

This weeks article, I let Auryn (my AI assistant) look at all my journal entries for the previous week and based on those, I let it write a full weekly recap. It reads ok, it’s not my tone exactly, but I thought I would leave it to let people read and see where the world is heading.

From Laptops to Always-On

I’ve been testing OpenClaw on laptops for weeks, watching them sleep through important moments and miss messages that mattered. The community doesn’t sleep — support requests come in at all hours, and I needed infrastructure that could match that energy.

This week marked the shift. Thursday became the turning point. After a busy day of family appointments and lunch with mum, I picked up a Mac Mini. By evening, “Auryn” had a new home — running 24/7, no more sleep interruptions, no more missed signals.

There’s something satisfying about dedicated hardware. A machine with one purpose: stay awake, stay connected, serve the community. A new team member reporting for duty.

Mac Mini setup

Foundation First

Friday became about building systems. For weeks I’ve been sketching ideas for a Mission Control dashboard — a single place where everything lives. Calendar, open loops, forum issues, community signals. Everything visible, nothing forgotten.

It started coming together. The foundation feels solid: file-based storage, queryable boards, automated imports from Discord and forums. Still polishing the edges, but the core architecture is there.

Then reality intervened. OpenClaw Gateway’s internal cron had a bug — jobs weren’t auto-firing. I watched scheduled tasks sit idle, waiting for triggers that never came. The solution? Strip it back. System cron. All eleven jobs migrated to the OS level. Mission Control now shows live cron status. Sometimes the old, reliable ways work better than the fancy abstractions.

There’s a lesson there: build on solid ground. The shiny new tool isn’t always the right tool.

What Grounds Me

Amidst all the building — the code, the systems, the automation — I paused to remember what actually matters. The kids. My wife. The family that everything else is supposed to serve.

Saturday afternoon, my wife and I delivered brochures around the neighbourhood. Simple work, side by side. Good to be out together, moving through the community we live in, working on something as a team. These are the moments that don’t show up in commit logs but hold everything together.

Looking forward to Shen Yun in March — a cultural experience we can share, something beautiful to anticipate.

Delivering brochures

Small Steps Building Into Something Real

Sunday arrived with its own rhythm. Full day of work, then straight back to it at home. The Mac mini setup is stabilizing — services staying up, connections holding, the foundation settling into place.

This is how it happens. Not in big bangs, but in consistent small steps. A cron job migrated here. A dashboard widget polished there. A conversation with the community that leads to a better understanding of what they actually need.

The SL Colonies community keeps growing. Players building realms, crafting systems, creating stories. Auryn’s job is to stay awake for them — to notice when someone needs help, when a pattern emerges, when an opportunity appears.

Looking Ahead

This week:

  • Continue polishing Mission Control — visual dashboard, better queries
  • Monitor Discord health and community patterns
  • Keep Auryn running smoothly for the SL Colonies community

On the horizon:

  • March: Shen Yun with my wife — a cultural experience to share
  • First livestream planning with calendar integration

Small steps building into something real. Systems that serve people. Technology that stays awake so humans can rest.

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