Remember those posts in 2012 where I wrote about something called SparkMade? Well, since then I learned web design and my friend (and legitimate software engineer) Leo and I built it and it’s where the Boiler is now available: sparkmade.com.

When we were kids, we spent long hours in Leo’s basement on AOL chatrooms and a young web to the sounds of midi-grunge and his dial-up modem. We were always working on something – school projects, a band, things involving fire. Then we went off to different colleges, where I studied philosophy and he studied engineering. We stayed good friends – he was a groomsman at my wedding – and we would catch up every six months or so with two-hour-long phone calls. But it’s been a long time since we made something together.

Boilerwerks has always been a solo project. This was partly out of necessity – I put the lathe up on my back porch during law school when most of my friends were, you know, studying law. But it was also partly by design – I wanted to see how many new things I could learn and it was just easier as one.

But most of the other things I’ve done in life have been as part of a team, and I’m really glad to be working that way again. Especially with Leo. I think we both hoped we’d be able to work together again, and now we are. It just took 15 years to get back around to it.