Blog
Welcome to the SmekerBuilt blog — where engineering meets real life. Here, I document lessons from the shop floor, the design desk, and the daily chaos of running a business while raising a family. Whether it’s building complex automation systems, fine-tuning Access databases, or wrangling kids and conveyor belts, every post is grounded in experience and built to share.
Explore stories, tools, rants, and reflections from 30+ years of figuring it out the hard way — so maybe you don’t have to.
Shortcut One-Pot Sausage Bolognese
A shortcut bolognese made in one pot, with Italian sausage and the pasta cooked right in the sauce. The food processor handled the vegetables, so
Tommy, Evie, and the Tucson Moon
Tommy, Evie, and Tucker fly a laundry-basket rocket to Tucson to make sure Dad is okay, and the moon sends them home with a reminder.
Why I’m Building More of My Work Around Grok Bot
Grok Bot now runs the sites I manage, a personal finance dashboard, and Precision Conveyor’s operations, mostly through chat.
Why I Left OpenHAB for Home Assistant After 20 Years
After 20 years on OpenHAB, a new house and Home Assistant’s MCP connection were enough to switch.
Spicy Crockpot Mongolian Beef & Noodles
This was really good. The onions cooked down into the sauce and gave it almost a French onion soup flavor. Could have used a little
Sheet-Pan Hot Honey Chicken with Sweet Potatoes, Jalapeños & Feta
This one turned out really good, but there are definitely a few things I’d change next time. It wasn’t nearly as spicy as I wanted,