What I'm doing now

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

Work

I am working at Arena Flowers as a Senior Ruby Developer. I work on supporting our existing customer-facing apps and websites as well as our internal fulfillment systems.

I get a good split of adding value to legacy systems, and working on greenfield projects using the latest version of Rails and other new technologies where applicable.

Raising a family

I have a happy, if slightly chaotic, existence in Mid Sussex with my wife, 2 young children (aged 5 and 6) and cat. As my children get more and more independent and capable in every aspect of life, I'm begun to notice I have a little more in the tank for myself again.

On the side

I am continually chipping away on my personal site: samdking.co.uk (this site). This site is built on Eleventy, a Javascript static site generator, and replaces my old and ageing PHP blog previously on samueldking.co.uk. I ❤️ trashing old code. I use this site as a playground to try new visualisations of my personal data. I've been using Claude a lot this year to level up my coding.

Since I began journalling in early 2021, I've started systemising more and more parts of my life in Notion. Spending is something I keep a keen eye on. I'm mindful of saving and investing for the future, whilst spending with abundance on things that bring me joy.

I’ve also been tinkering with my long-running Monday Night Football stats site with my good friend Davs. This site collates and displays results from our weekly football games as far back as 2015. You can find this at mnf.davshoward.com. Davs handles most of the frontend, and my site powers the backend, and is written in Laravel.

Running

Running is my primary hobby, and something I've begun to take very seriously over the last few years. Consistency is key. Races keep me interest piqued and competitive fire burning. Parkruns, and in particular engaging in some Parkrun tourism, lends a helping hand too. But really running is an escape for my mind. Life takes on an optimistic glow when I'm in the zone in a run.

Right now I'm in maintenance mode, but will begin training for Barcelona Marathon 2027 before the year is out. This year I've run PBs in the 5k, half marathon and marathon.

Podcasts

I love listening to a podcast. Honestly I have more shows than I can listen to. Even on my listening cadence of 10-15 hours/week, I generally run anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks behind the latest episodes.

Reading

I love reading. But I don't devote enough time to it. My phone is too big a distraction. I love losing myself in a novel, but find learning about a new subject equally absorbing.

Writing

I’m trying to build a regular writing habit on my blog. So far, it is inconsistent.

Content Creation

I've been dabbling in some content creation in the running space on Instagram since the summer. It's great to have a creative outlet for all my thoughts. I don't know how far I will take this, but I'm enjoying the ride.

You can find out what I’ve listened to, have read, and watched this year; as well as what I'm up to fitness-wise. Also check out my weekly stats for the year.

Page last updated: 4th November 2026