Family on Og Maciel's Journal

Why Christmas Music Gets Me Every Time

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I know it may sound weird to start talking about Christmas when Halloween hasn’t even come up yet. But last night, while my oldest daughter was making dinner, she put on a Christmas station on Pandora—and just like that, I was transported straight into my first Christmas memory.

I must have been maybe five or six. And when I say I “remember” it, I’m not 100% sure if it’s a real memory or something I pieced together from old photos—but it feels real. Someone dressed as Santa Claus came to our house. To this day I don’t know if it was my dad, a friend of his, or someone my parents hired—but “Santa” showed up. And to my absolute shock, I got a G.I. Joe dressed in full camouflage, plus a yellow helicopter and a Jeep with some kind of weapon mounted in the back. This was the early 80s, so getting war-themed toys was totally normal. That’s the first Christmas I can truly recall.

Week in Review — Week 43 of 2025

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Growth + Co. on Unsplash

Another week in the books, and this one was a reminder that life is a balancing act between chaos and comfort—between AWS meltdowns and Japanese takeout, between one-on-one meetings and long overdue naps. Somehow I made it through with my sanity mostly intact, a few small wins along the way, and plenty of caffeine to prevent a total system crash. Here’s how the week unfolded, one day at a time.

Planning My Escape (Sort of)

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by 🇻🇪 Jose G. Ortega Castro 🇲🇽 on Unsplash

Today I stumbled across an article claiming that the magic number you need to save for a “comfortable” retirement is $1.5 million. I only skimmed the article, but I’m pretty sure it was written for people living in the U.S. who plan to retire around 67. And by “comfortable,” I’m guessing they mean having a roof that doesn’t leak, food that isn’t ramen, and health insurance that doesn’t send you straight into bankruptcy.

The Great Couch Debate (and Why My Office Survived)

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Grovemade on Unsplash

Over the weekend, my wife and I were talking about how good it would be to finally replace our old, beat-up couch in the living room. I don’t even remember where we originally got it—I just know we hated it from the very first day we assembled it. It’s too small, the back cushions are too soft, and if you lean back for more than twenty minutes, you end up pressed against the hard frame and needing a chiropractor. Most of the time we double up the cushions to make it usable, which also means there’s now a silent competition in our house: whoever grabs the extra cushion gets an additional twenty minutes of comfort.

Week in Review - Week 42 of 2025

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some weeks test your patience. Others your stamina. This week? It tested my calendar, my caffeine intake, my emotional bandwidth—and somehow still managed to remind me why I do what I do. Between last-minute presentations, sprint planning chaos, infrastructure headaches, and keeping my team sane, I also got to celebrate something far more meaningful: 25 years of marriage to the quiet girl who changed my life. Here’s how Week 42 unfolded.

The Quiet Girl Who Changed My Life

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My wife and I couldn’t be more different from each other. She’s sweet, and I’m savory. She’s calm and easygoing, while I’m hyped up and intense. I talk a thousand miles an hour but am very much an introvert, whereas she chooses her words carefully and is a social butterfly.

I remember when I first met her. It was April 1999, and I had just agreed to go on a blind date with my friend’s sister’s best friend. I was going through a rough phase in my life—one where I’d pretty much given up on romance and decided to focus entirely on work. One of my sisters kept insisting that I should start dating again. She even set me up with someone she swore would be a good match, telling me we were both Geminis and that I’d just been “looking for the right person in the wrong places.” I wasn’t sure what to think of that at the time, but I went along with it. The date was pleasant enough—she was kind, we had a good time—but there were no sparks.

Week in Review — Week 40 of 2025

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This was a pretty intense week at work, but I managed to balance it out with intentional time at home with my family. I maintained my gym routine every morning and continued my reading streak, now at 2,134 days.

Monday

Monday was packed with meetings, including a scheduling mishap where two meetings with the same invite list were double-booked. “We joined one for 15 minutes, then dropped into the other while everyone else waited for us.”

I Should Have Known That!

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Trying Something New

Yesterday, I resisted the urge to work on a desktop app and instead went shopping with my wife. While browsing, we discovered the “I Should Have Known That!” trivia game.

Childhood Memories

This discovery brought back memories of childhood when I would play board games with my sisters. We’d spend hours playing Monopoly and Canasta, creating memories that I’ve cherished for decades.

I’ve long held a desire to create a similar tradition with my own family—a regular game night where we could all disconnect from screens and connect with each other.

Twenty Three Years

Wed, 28 May 2014 18:32:00 +0000

My parents were eagerly awaiting our arrival on an early Spring morning, and when our plane finally landed after the almost 10 1/2 hours flight and we made our way to the luggage claim area, the reunion was filled with a lot of hugging, laughter and a huge sigh of relief. For someone who had spent most of their entire lives in a small and sleepy town in the East coast of Brazil, waking up and finding yourself at JFK Airport was nothing short of a major event! I had never seen so many people of so many different races and speaking so many different dialects in my entire life, all 16 years of them! Everywhere I looked, everything was so different from what I was used to… even signs (so many of them) were in a different language! Eventually we grabbed our luggage and made our way to the parking lot looking for our car.