Og (pronounced Auggie) Maciel

The Week the Mill Began Watching Itself When the Mill Learned to Watch Itself

A leadership parable about automation, accountability, and a team teaching their mill to inspect itself before release day.

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The Winter When the Mill Would Not Ship A quiet accounting of effort, debt, and the cost of deferred work

A parable about priorities at work and how a group of craftspeople will attempt to find a way forward, part of a new series
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The Mandate and the Mill (A parable, or so I’m told)

This is a short parable about how good intentions, poor prioritization, and silence can quietly undo the very outcomes leadership says it wants.

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Tracing the Edges of My Ikigai: What You Can Be Paid For What it means when your paycheck no longer reflects what you’re building

“I need you to give me a date for your last day.”

That moment changed how I think about work, alignment, and what I’m willing to be paid for. I wrote about it here.

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Locked Out of the Kitchen: A Software Engineer’s Saturday It’s a Saturday afternoon in early November, and instead of daydreaming about the holidays or planning what I’ll do during our annual office shutdown—a much-appreciated week off right before the end o...

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Murder Hornet: Chapter Four If you’re new here, this is part of my ongoing experiment where I’m publishing raw, completely unedited chapters of a novel I’ve been writing (and rewriting… deleting… swearing at… and rewriting again...

I’ve been publishing the unedited chapters of an unpublished novel I started two years ago. Today, I’m publishing the fourth chapter. This novel aims to improve my writing skills, as it features four protagonists, each narrating their own chapter and story.

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Introducing Murder Hornet: Prelude + Chapter One For the last couple of years, I’ve been chipping away—sporadically, inconsistently, but always with intent—at a book that’s been sitting quietly in the background of my life.

I finally decided to share the first pages of Murder Hornet — a story set here in Chapel Hill that’s been living in my head (and hard drive) for two years. Prelude & Chapter 1 are up now

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Week in Review — Week 40 of 2025 This was a pretty intense week at work, but I think I managed to balance it out with some intentional time at home with my family, which made it all bearable.

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I Should Have Known That! Trying Something New

We're starting a family game night

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The “Don’t Break the Chain” App? After writing about the “Don’t Break the Chain” technique yesterday, the software engineering side of me got me thinking: is there a “Don’t Break the Chain” app or something equivalent to what is done...

Toying around with the idea of creating my own “Don't Break the Chain” desktop app to reinforce my personal learning experience with Typescript and Electron

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Don’t Break the Chain I don't remember exactly when I first heard of the Don’t Break the Chain method (or technique, if that's even what it is), but I remember that it was something people said would help me establish a ha...

First time I write something that is not software or work related in quite some time.

open.substack.com/pub/ogmaciel...

"Hotdogs A-Z" 1000 pieces puzzle

"Hotdogs A-Z" 1000 pieces puzzle

New "Hotdogs A-Z" 1000 pieces puzzle

"After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup" by Julia Austin

Aaaaand...

* "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy" by Becky Chambers

"The Hidden Girl and Other Stories" by Ken Liu

"Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" by Karen Hao

"The Bee Sting" by Paul Murray

These are the books I managed to finish this month of July.

Did a bit of organizing around the home office today

Exciting week ahead

2000 uninterrupted days of reading on my Kindle. Next update: February 16, 2028

2000 uninterrupted days of reading on my Kindle. Next update: February 16, 2028

A glorious afternoon to scare off, if temporarily, the lingering winter temperatures, and watch the birds

These are the books I finished in January 2025.

Now that the puzzle is gone and completely put away, I can go back to my writing for the remainder of my time off from work. I also went on a book shopping spree and bought and preordered SIXTEEN books.

Some of them will most definitely become part of my book recommendations at some point.

The puzzle is now done and I can go back to writing again 😁

Book Recommendation for January 7, 2025: "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

If “read more books” made it onto your New Year’s resolution list (again 😉), I’ve got just the thing to keep you on track!

Start the year strong with this week’s recommendation:
👉 bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recom...

#ReadingGoals #BookRecommendations #NewYearsResolution #BellwetherReads

Week off Work #1 Project 2

This is my home office, where I work, read, relax, and create. Before 2024 ended, I redecorated and organized it to feel comfortable and provide the environment I need to be creative, relaxed, and energized.

I’m sharing the five that touched me the most.

👉 Tap the link to read to the full review: bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recom... 📖✨

Book covers for my Top 5 Books of 2024

My book recommendation for this week is a year-end wrap-up of my Top 5 books from 2024. According to Goodreads (www.goodreads.com/user/year_in...), I read and finished 57 books, but five of them deeply moved me emotionally, through curiosity, or the author’s writing.

Stickers

Cleaning up my home office and came across these stickers, two of which were personal projects I created through the years 😁

Book Recommendation for December 24, 2024 "The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth" by Zoë Schlanger

My book recommendation for this week is “The Light Eaters” by Zoe Schlanger—an eye-opening dive into plant intelligence, communication, and our interconnected ecosystem. A must-read discovery!

👉 Tap the link to read to the full review: bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recom... 📖✨

Hey Book Reading friends out there! I came across some reward points from multiple friends, and I’m itching to get some great reading material for the holidays. What were your Top 3 Best Reads of 2024?

Book Recommendation for December 17, 2024 "Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman" by Patrick Hutchison

My book recommendation for this week is “Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman” by Patrick Hutchison—a humorous, inspiring memoir about escaping the grind, finding purpose, and embracing simplicity.

👉 Tap the link for the review: bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recom... 📖✨

My book recommendation for this week is “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams—a heartwarming tale of love, family, and redemption set in a small Irish village during the holidays. 👉 Tap the link to read to the full review: https://bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recommendation-for-december-10-2024 📖✨

My book recommendation for this week is “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams—a heartwarming tale of love, family, and redemption set in a small Irish village during the holidays.

👉 Tap the link to read to the full review: bellwetherweekly.substack.com/p/book-recom... 📖✨