Let's cut right to the chase...

First question you probably have is why do I have a blog? Simply put, I LOVE software and technology and I end up trying things and building things fast almost EVERY day. My goal here is to share that journey with you - my learnings, my builds, and maybe save somebody some time when they're exploring the same technology. Maybe give someone a laugh about something silly I encountered. Or maybe I'm just reviewing some fun tech products.

But here's the real deal - I'm doing this for MYSELF. I want to be able to come back here in 3 months and see tons of my blog posts on what I've built and worked on. That's what excites me!

Quick intro about me (because hey, we're gonna be friends here) - I'm a big foody (comes with being Italian), very big on family (again, Italian blood), and I've lived in Arizona most of my life until spending the last 3 years in Seattle as an application developer. When I'm not at my day job, I love exploring technology and building websites that help family/friends.

The Tech Stack (AKA The Fun Stuff)

Wow, that was a lot about me - let's get into the good stuff here. The TECH and what I'm using for this website:

First off, I'm a BIG fan of NextJS and have been following along for a while now. While I usually recommend static site generators like Astro/11ty for small business websites where content is mostly static, this time I wanted something different.

The moment I saw Payload CMS 3.0 released out of beta, I knew it was time. I've been holding off starting this website and blog for a while, following the Payload team's progress. When they coupled with NextJS for super easy install - I had to jump right in.

Here's the full stack I'm using:

Payload CMS 3.0: First CMS that installs directly into any Next.js app

NextJS: My go-to frontend framework

MongoDB: Using M0 (because it's free and I can set up multiple projects, though I do love Supabase)

Styling: TailwindCSS and ShadCN paired with Claude+GPT for VERY fast building

Hosting: Had to go with Vercel - it's too easy not to do it (while self-hosting with coolify/docker would be cool, that's more a separate project)

What Makes This Cool?

ALL the content here is living in the CMS, NOTHING is hard coded. I wanted to fully take advantage of Payload CMS. Anytime I want to make a new section, I make it into a reusable block.

The coolest thing about setting up Payload was just HOW FAST you can get something up and running. I won't lie to you - it's a little overwhelming at first when you see all the files. But once you take a quick dive in (while I'm sure there's more I need to uncover), it wasn't really that bad.

What Did I Learn?

That Payload is awesome and how far technology has come! I can see this being a replacement for WordPress websites. Also found out how much I enjoy jotting down my thoughts in blog posts instead of my usual iPhone or Google Pixel notepad.

Honestly, I'm not sure how many people will actually tune into this but I'm proud of it and excited to document my journey as I build things. I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Goodbye Friend