Thomas Hastings

New Book for Christmas

I received a new book for Christmas, Disciplines of a Godly Man^[1] by R. Kent Hughes. It has a lot of Godly wisdom and reminders about what men are called to, and it’s given me a fresh perspective. I’m only a few chapters in and already have a lot of work to do. Each chapter ends with a reflection. I need to go back and re-read each chapter at least twice to gather and internalize all of the wisdom.

It has been nice to take a break from the computer and dive deeper into this book. This season has been filled with many advancements in AI, which has made my life interesting and a little busier than usual for December (I’ll share more about that later). In the meantime, I wanted to get my first post for 2026 out. Here’s to many more.

To Catch a Scammer

My parents had been married for 30 years and 8 years ago my dad passed away. I encouraged my mom to get on social media so that we could keep up with each other. Before this, my mom hadn’t been interested in social media but signed up because I asked. My dad took care of the technical aspects of their lives. Growing up, my parents had always asked me not to talk to strangers, not to give out personal information in chatrooms, and never to meet anyone in person whom I had met online. I thought it sounded like good advice, and I didn’t think I’d have to give my mom the same advice almost 15 years later.