Hello there!
My name is David Szabo-Stuban and you’re reading this because:
You’re interested in AI
You’re interested in no-code
You thought this was a DIY blog
Well, the Lumberjack is a DIY blog, but not in the way you’d think.
Lumberjack
On September 27th, 1999 the video game Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings was released. I wouldn’t know about it because my twin sisters were just about to be born a week later, so that kept the whole family quite busy.
The other reason I had no idea was because we didn’t have a computer. Only 2 years later we would buy a computer and I would hopelessly start my transformation into a nerd. For years I would play games, engage in online forums, and read everything I could about IT. I built my first computer network the same year we got our first computer. Two years later I saved up just enough money to build my first ever PC.
I played countless games and used it as a way to escape reality. But AoE2 was special.
As a little kid, playing Age of Empires 2 was hard. I never had enough resources or time to do what I wanted to. Turns out that was a pretty good life lesson actually.
But in the game — unlike life — there were cheat codes. The one I found particularly useful was the “lumberjack”. It gave me 1000 pieces of wood. So I just went all the way and typed it in as many times as I could.
The clipboard wasn’t working so I had to type it in fast.
Really, really fast.
After a while, I could do it without looking at the keyboard.
Later I realized that — unknowingly — I memorized the entire keyboard and developed muscle memory, allowing me to blind type. This is a skill I still benefit from today and it all started with a cheat code. Lumberjack.
Good enough substitue
I grew up in a blue-collar family. My grandparents were masons, seamstresses, nurses. Everyone in our family had the same philosophy: there are no cheat codes, no shortcuts in life. Everything is hard and things are more impossible than possible.
You are always under-resourced, and always short on time. Scarcity is just how people like us live.
Except my grandfather.
He always found a way to get what he wanted — if not the actual thing, then a good enough substitute. He just didn’t care about how many resources he didn’t have. He made it work what he had.
If that meant learning a new skill, so be it.
I remember how my grandfather bought an old worn-down house and rebuilt it with his bare hands (and sheer power of will) even though he was already retired.
Everyone in our family calls him Tata. He’s the most resourceful man I know and I learned a lot from him about life and he taught me how to love dogs.
He always had this simple approach to life that said “anything is possible, if you can find a good enough substitute”.
The Tree Coffin
I remember when he bought their house, there was a huge, old walnut tree in the middle of the property. It was beautiful and majestic - even more so to my 5 year old self.
But it was sick.
Hollow in the inside so it had to be cut down.
But my grandfather loved that tree so he had another idea.
He did cut the tree down, but he kept the trunk. It was the thickest trunk I’ve ever seen. When they told me the tree would be cut down, I started crying.
Tata looked at me and said:
“This tree is dead. But it doesn’t have to live on as a tree. We can still remember it. We will package it up nice and tight and we’ll have a table here. This was your favorite tree and we will always remember where this tree was.”
Then he cut down the tree but left a stump about 3 feet high. He built a casing for the dead stump, a “tree coffin”. Then he proceeded and built a tabletop on top of the stump made out of concrete. As the concrete was drying, he picked up a nail and wrote the date in the concrete while it was setting.
It’s been almost 30 years since this happened and the table is still as good as new. You can see it on the right side of the photo above. That’s the tree coffin.
A few years later he explained to me what allowed him to come up with the idea.
He said:
“It doesn’t matter how rich you are, you can always find things you need but cannot afford. But know this. You can have anything you want, even now, if you are content with a good enough substitute. It doesn’t have to be perfect or beautiful, as long as it does what you need.“
This is Tata. A retired mason who was living like a king.
He just found his cheat code. For him, it wasn’t lumberjack. It was the good enough substitute.
The Bench Vise
One thing that strikes me from these memories is that my grandfather had a workshop in his house. At the end of the garden, connecting the house with the garage.
I spent a lot of time there as a kid, tinkering. Exploring my curiosity. I was carving trinkets and (sometimes my toes). The centerpiece of the workshop was a vise. Handy little tool that allowed him to be incredibly productive with any DIY project he would do.
I asked him about it one day and he said:
”This little thing is called a bench vise. A workshop is not a workshop at all without it. This is the key to it all. It makes everything I build ten times faster and easier. I can have the best tools but I would still struggle without my bench vise.”
I grew up seeing how a man would see a need rising in his family and immediately going to figure out the solution and manifesting it.
The first time he always did was going into the workshop, drawing some sketches, and putting whatever material he had to work on into the bench vise.
I wanted a swing? He built me a swing.
The dog needed a playground? He built a playground.
At one point he decided that he wanted rabbits. Then he built a rabbit hutch in an afternoon.
Every time he started the work the same way. Sketch, material, bench vise.
To this day I think that one of the best things a man can do for his family is turning ideas into reality. The ability to bend reality to your will and make something with your own hands.
This is why I’m fascinated with the DIY movement.
How fathers rebuild toy cars into a much cooler version for their sons. How they build an entire ball pit for their daughters. Playrooms for their twins. It’s incredible.
As I said, this blog is some kind of DIY blog, but not in the traditional sense.
DIY — just like my grandfather — teaches us that anything is possible.
When I moved into our new home, my wife saw an endless list of dreading tasks. The garden wall needs to be rebuilt. The lawn needs to be repaired. The outdoor stairs are rotten and need to be replaced.
All I saw was an opportunity. What else can I turn this barren corner into? Maybe a home gym? Or a playground? A pool? Anything is possible. “Just give me ideas.” - I said to my wife and we started thinking. Then, I got to work. It’s still going and it’s going slowly. But there is progress.
It might not be exactly what we would buy from the store or what a contractor would build, but it’s a good enough substitute.
This was my Tata’s legacy in me. He taught me that there is a cheat code in life. But instead of typing in lumberjack into a console to get what I want, I can figure out how to build it. I can pick up skills along the way and I will become the most capable man in my family. Won’t be perfect, but it will be a good enough substitute.
Digital Yard Work
However, I feel like there’s a disconnect. Tata spent most of his life doing yard work. He faced problems in his yard that he solved in his workshop.
I spend most of my time looking at a screen. My wife does too. We all do. According to GWI we spend 6.5 hours on average online every day.
I spend my day in front of my laptop doing stuff in an imaginary world called the internet and then when I unplug, I go out to do yard work.
But our digital life needs yard work too, because it’s not an easy world to live in.
It’s a cluttered, chaotic world.
Multiple bank accounts.
Endless subscriptions.
Laptops, iPhones, smart TV.
Online billing, home security system, tax filings.
Social media accounts and content.
Then on top of that add my ADHD, which makes me forgetful.
So sometimes when we’re faced with a challenge or a problem, people are used to just accepting it.
When I’m frustrated with how things work with the apps I use I’m trained to just look for another app. But then I think of Tata. If he was 50 years younger, he wouldn’t give a flying fuck about what apps can do.
Nope.
He would sketch what he wants, put his smartphone into his bench vise, and figure out how to bend it to his will.
Men used to be like that. Now we’re not. We just buy another iPhone, replace our things if they get broken. Then we all go on TikTok and like videos telling about how the Japanese glue broken pieces of bowls together with gold. But we still don’t do it.
So I think about what my Tata would have to say about this. He would say something like:
Are you really ready to just accept the fact that you are at the mercy of some random developers?
Are you really ready to give that power over to some strangers in the other side of the world?
Are you really ready to then look at your family and say I can’t, sorry.
Yes, you can go and buy stuff at IKEA. You can also hire people to do your yard work.
But doing things the hard way. The strenuous way.
As Teddy Roosevelt famously said in his speech in 1899:
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.
If you embrace the philosophy of a good enough substitute, if you learn how to type in lumberjack in your own life, you will build these things instead of just accepting the hand you’ve been dealt.
You will build things you never imagined would be possible. You don’t need to be an engineer, an architect, a designer. Whatever you build, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be a good enough substitute.
Home base
By now, my wife got used to how I am quite similar to my grandfather not just in our home but in our digital life too. She wanted a way to keep track of our todos and chores because she’s very organized and I’m - as I said - forgetful.
So I bought Ben Lang’s Couple’s home base and started customizing the shit out of it for our family. Automation set up to pull all our financial data up to date, using AI to categorize our spending and notify us when we go off-track.
Or when I realized that I could use Siri and Reminders to make me less forgetful but sometimes I would forget to do them, so I pushed it to Motion. I hacked a few solutions together to solve problems in my family.
She was feeling down and I created an entire concert recording using GPT-4o and Suno about how much I loved her.
Knowing technology makes me more capable. It makes me a better provider, and a better husband.
I have a study in our house with a computer and a home studio.
Like my grandfather, I have my own workshop. But instead of a bench vise, my workshop’s focal point is my computer.
Because it’s not enough to know your way around fixing appliances and tending to plants anymore. You also need to know your way around APIs.
I know what you’re thinking
“Oh god you wrote a wall of text just to brag how you can code, big deal. What a presumptuous asshole.”
Here’s the big twist:
I don’t code.
I don’t like it. I don’t have to.
Because I don’t want production-ready software that I can sell.
I want working solutions.
I want ugly, but working.
I want a good enough substitute.
I look at a problem and type in lumberjack. Pick up my axe and start swinging it. Chopping down the problem as quickly as I can.
So one day when my kids come to me asking for a playground I can build one for them, just like my grandfather did before me.
Or when my kid will want to play a video game about their own imaginary fantasy story, I can build it for them.
Most of my problems — and most of my clients’ problems are like this. A good enough substitute is perfect. It’s fast, efficient and gets the job done.
This is the only way to be present in their lives. Kids today will grow up to be digital natives in ways we cannot yet imagine. Our job is to prepare for this and be ready. Be capable. Be competent.
And just like my grandfather did to me, I can also teach my kids that anything is possible. Inside a computer or outside of it.
On the Lumberjack I share my thoughts about technology, and stuff I build for myself and my family. Sometimes, clients hire me because they realize they don’t need a development team to build something that just works.
If you’re a developer and think “no-code is stupid and I write great code with or without AI and you will have problems with scalability anyway”, then this blog is not for you.
100% of the problems small businesses and families face can be solved with coding.
99% of the same problems can be solved without coding.
If there is an urgent problem that needs solving, coding will get you the perfect solution, but it will be too slow and too expensive and needlessly overengineered.
But using no-code and AI you can get a good enough substitute.
Everything I do here is free, but if you like my work, consider supporting it. I’d be super happy because it would allow me to do more of it.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Stay up-to-date
Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.
Join the crew
Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
