Steven Hull

It's been a busy past few days. Between the Plant, exercising horses, and helping with my elderly mother, it's been hard to stay on top of code and still get chores done. Yet my KenpoKicks project is slowly moving forward: 1. Moved to file-only logging. 2. Tightened Helmet. 3. Cleaned up 404 + final 500. 4. Refactored userModel for virtual fullName. 4. Stood up Admin → Users with aligned columns. Up next: Finish out admin User management, build a admin action logging model, controller, routes, and view in the admin console. I haven't posted in a while, but I'm still here, plugging away. #NodeJS #Express #KenpoKicks #DevLife #RanchLife #CodingKenpoist #Sequelize #BuildingInPublic

🚨 Security win for KenpoKicks 🚨 Role-based protections ✅ CSRF tokens across every form ✅ AJAX submissions fortified ✅ Took some wrestling with Pug, mixins, and DevTools, but I finally got there. And boy, what a PITA. But it's done now. Onward to Helmet headers 🛡️ #NodeJS #Express #WebSecurity #CodingKenpoist #KenpoKicks

It’s been a heavy stretch. Losing Charlie Kirk is a hard blow—his voice, his courage, and his work meant a lot to me. Too young, too soon. My prayers are with his family, his wife, and his kids. As for me—long hours at the Plant, ranch chores, livestock to feed, and horses to keep fit. Still pushing forward on KenpoKicks: the admin console is now role-protected, students can’t slip into restricted areas anymore. Next up, CSRF protection and more hardening. Small steps, steady progress. This is turning into a much bigger project than I anticipated, but I need to stay on it, because there's still other projects I want to do. You know, even with as busy as I am, I have to take pause and give thought: We have to keep building, learning, and honoring the ones we’ve lost by carrying on with strength and integrity. Yol Bolsun, Charlie. May there always be a road. #NodeJS #Express #CodingKenpoist #KenpoKicks #DevLife #FullStackCowboy #HeavyHeart

Been running flat-out this past week—keeping production moving at the Plant, slammed with ranch chores, and working my horses as best I can. Still carving out time for KenpoKicks.com—the admin console is getting stronger every day. Just wrapped ENUM migrations to lock down belt colors, technique groups, and attack angles (cleaner data, fewer headaches). Next up: belt model refinements and building role-based admin authentication before I shift to managing users. Sets & forms to JSON are waiting in the wings. I haven't posted much lately, but I'm still here. I'm tired, but I can't stop at this point. Too much to do, too much to learn. #NodeJS #Express #Sequelize #SQL #ORM #CodingKenpoist #DevLife #FullStackCowboy #KenpoKicks

Usually I stay ahead of the game, but today life won. No meaningful code, no commits. Just a long-ass day keeping machines running and people producing while the code waited its turn. Some days the software engineer and the aerospace engineer wrestle for the same 10 hours, and today aerospace took first. Still grabbed quiet wins: cleaned Kenpo techniques, pushed them into my KenpoKicks DB, and fixed the belts table (yep—forgot Brown). Small stones, bigger pile. Now it’s up to the ranch to feed the livestock, then back down the hill to spend the night with my mom. Back at the crack of dawn to the ranch. Duty before comfort, always. Tomorrow’s plan: exercise Mister & Diamond, knock out as much ranch work as possible, and—if I'm still able to see straight after all that—build an adminLogModel and start fleshing out that controller. I’m tired. Edges feel singed—like I’m riding that thin line between drive and burnout. But the creed holds: be well-rounded, be honorable, be prepared. That’s Kenpo, that’s ranching, that’s code, that’s life. At least, that's my life. LOL Sharing to stay accountable—no posing, just promises kept in public and private. If you’re building with mud on your boots and a terminal open, ride along. We’ll get there. 🐎 #DevLife #RanchLife #CodingCowboy #CodingKenpoist #NodeJS #MariaDB #BuildingInPublic

Big weekend getting my daughter settled in San Jose as she starts her junior year at San Jose State. Proud doesn’t even begin to cover it. In between hauling boxes and wandering a campus where this old dog definitely feels out of place 🤠, I carved out a little time to keep pushing KenpoKicks forward. Cleaned up the admin console and started mapping out user management — one step at a time. Balancing family, ranch, and code isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it. Building, learning, and supporting the people you love — that’s the real journey. #DevLife #NodeJS #CodingCowboy #BuildingInPublic #KenpoKicks #ProudDad

Weekend recap: ☀️ Ranch in triple-digit heat — sweat, dust, and 1,000 lbs of livestock giving me the “work faster” look, as if I wasn't working hard enough. LOL 💻 Back to VS today thinking code would be easier, or at least a nice break... 🐛 Wrong! Bugs bucked harder than any green-broke mare. But hey, I stayed in the saddle and got it fixed. For now. I think. #NodeJs #Express #RanchLife #DevLife #BugWrangling #CodingCowboy #Kenpokicks #BuildingInPublic

KenpoKicks Training Diary — AJAXified. W00T! The past couple days have been about refining function through form. ✅ Built modal-based training log entry system ✅ Hooked it up with AJAX submission (no page reloads) ✅ Auto-refreshes the dashboard with newly sorted entries ✅ Direct linking to view/edit individual logs ✅ Delete functionality with route cleanup ✅ Squashed a nasty 404 bug caused by route order ✅ Learned (again) that Express routes are indeed greedy Next up: Flashing success messages after log actions. Small thing, but polish matters. At least to me. Building software the same way I train: 🧠 Plan 👊 Execute 🛠 Repeat until clean #DevLife #NodeJS #FullStackRancher #KenpoKicks #BuildingInPublic #CodingCowboy #AJAX #ExpressJS

Just wrapped up one heck of a week in code. Hell, in life LOL. I chased bugs for hours and hours that just wouldn't die, refactored form security, figured out why my data was vanishing on page refresh, and finally got my training logs writing to the database and loading reliably. Fix one thing just to see something else break SMH. If it doesn't sound simple it's because it wasn't. It was long-ass days, endless error logs, and old-school troubleshooting (you know the kind... output this to terminal, then output that to terminal) — all while running the Plant, maintaining the ranch, and handling family obligations. But that’s the life. Between commits and ranch chores, weightlifting, riding, and feeding steers, I keep chipping away at this platform. A few more pieces to go — log views, editing, deletion, and some clean form security — and then I’ll be ready to show the next piece of what I’ve been building. Code. Learn. Ranch. Repeat. If you’re fighting to keep your momentum going, I'm with you. Just don't ever stop. Ride it out to the end, and let's see where we all end up. #DevLife #CodeAndCattle #FullStackRancher #KenpoKicks #BuildingInPublic #NodeJS #Express

Been reflecting on how much I relate to Miami Vice — both the ‘80s series and the 2006 film. I might wear boots instead of linen suits, ride horses instead of Ferraris, but the code runs the same: ✅ Do the work. ✅ Stand by your word. ✅ Handle business with precision and intensity. Whether I’m working with livestock, practicing the arts, running the Plant, writing software, or lifting weights under a desert sky — I live by a quiet code. There’s no backup coming. No glamorous wrap-up. Just a man, a mission, and the will to see it through. #DevLife #CodeAndHonor #FullStackRancher #MiamiViceMindset #KenpoKicks #SoftwareCowboy #NodeJS #NeverQuit

Ran the plant all day, which is enough in itself. Hit a workout hard when I got back to the ranch. Then dealt with a lame horse, and all the livestock, until well after dark. Really frustrated right now... spent a large part of yesterday and today trying to squash a DB create bug that just won’t die, in between everything else that I have to do. Not sure why, but my route isn't reaching my controller. Not the first time this has happened, but it's still aggravating when my code doesn't just.. ya' know... run. LOL, I guess. Calling it for the night. Eventually I'll get it. Just wish I could focus full time on just code and ranching, but such is life. #DevLife #CodingCowboy #KenpoKicks #CSRF #BugWrangling #FullStackRancher #BuildingInPublic #NodeJS #Express

Yup. I did it. I hung up my spurs for a full week. No Plant, no ranch, no code—just family, mountains, and the open road. I jumped off cliffs into ice-cold streams, rode a steam train through Yosemite, fished until the sun dipped, and read The Walking Drum under the whisper of pines. Sometimes a man needs to step back, breathe, and remember what he’s made of. Now I’m back—reset, sharpened, and ready to build again. Yol Bolsun, friends. Let’s ride. #DevLife #KenpoKicks #FullStackCowboy #CodingKenpoist #WarriorMindset #NodeJS #SoftwareEngineer #Kenpo #LifeInBalance #Outdoorsman

For the first time in 6 years, I’m hanging up my spurs for a full week. No Plant, no ranch, no code—just the open road with my wife and kids, first to Solvang, then up to the quiet of Shaver Lake. I’ll be off the grid here for a spell, trading commits and code for sunsets and family. When I get back, I’ll saddle up and hit the ground running—fresher, sharper, and ready for the next ride. Yol Bolsun, friends. See you in a week.

Long, rough week at the Plant. Just non-stop. Then my evenings were something else all together: -Rode Monday evening. -Worked out HARD Tuesday evening. -Ran firearms drills Wednesday evening. -Dinner at my son’s tonight. And still… I pushed commits through it all. Because I'm afraid if I stop, even for a moment, I may not regain my momentum, and I'll never finish what I started. #CodingKenpoist #DevLife #FullStackRancher #KenpoKicks #NodeJS #Express #MariaDB #BuildingInPublic

Long weekend on the ranch — feeding stock, fixing gear, working horses, cleaning pens, chasing dust and daylight. Monday wasn't any easier. LOL. But even through all the chaos, I still managed a few commits. Pushed code after saddle time and sunset. Because progress doesn’t wait, and I don't have much patience. #CodingKenpoist #DevLife #FullStackRancher #BuildingInPublic #KenpoKicks #NodeJS #Express #MariaDB

Long week. Long days. Ran the plant and wrestled code when I could... This last couple days battle? 🔐 CSRF. What should’ve been a simple protection layer turned into a full-blown session & form-handling brawl: ☑️ Hidden tokens vanishing ☑️ Flash messages crashing ☑️ Avatar uploads breaking ☑️ Validation skipping ☑️ Ghost sessions and mid-form logout gremlins But after digging deep and debugging line-by-line, I locked it down: ✅ Global CSRF protection ✅ Proper session destruction ✅ Form resubmission handling ✅ Validator working as intended ✅ UX intact, no regressions One more chunk of the KenpoKicks app hardened. One step closer to launch. And I’m still standing. Barely. LOL #DevLife #NodeJS #Express #CSRF #Sequelize #FullStack #CodingCowboy #KenpoKicks #LateNightDebugging #CodingKenpoist

Dev Log: KenpoKicks Today I wired up the foundation for one of the most important features in the app — the Training Log. ✅ Finalized the data model ✅ Designed and implemented the migration ✅ Created 18 well-thought-out log categories (Forms, Sparring, Bag Work, Meditation, and more) ✅ Hooked it into the users table with clean foreign key constraints ✅ Migrated and ready to build the controller next This log isn’t just about reps — it’s about legacy, discipline, and documenting the warrior’s path. Tomorrow, the trainingLogController gets built. #DevLog #KenpoKicks #NodeJS #Express #Sequelize #MariaDB #FullStackRancher #CodingKenpoist #BuildingInPublic

🧨 4th of July weekend wasn’t fireworks and rest for me — it was livestock, code, family, machines, and just enough sleep to survive. Friday kicked off feeding animals, wrenching on my daughter’s car, then sweating it out on the treadmill before heading to my son’s ranch to fix the water pump on my old John Deere. We closed the night with family and fireworks. Saturday started early again: chores, a ride with my youngest, and setting up shade structures for the horses (not done yet). I ended the night down at my mom’s, taking care of her overnight. She’s 93, and every hour with her is sacred — but let’s just say sleep was in short supply. Sunday? More livestock. More code. Rebuilt the entire front steering system on my Ford Power stroke. Had lunch with my mom and wife, watered her shrubs, hit the treadmill for another 40, then home to feed and crash. Through all of it — the tools, the sweat, the family duties — I still managed to push forward with KenpoKicks: ✅ Cleaned up the dashboard UI ✅ Built out a full profile view with user data and avatar ✅ Routed and rendered a sleek new layout, ready to expand It may have only been 9 commits this weekend, but every line of code came at the end of a long day. I didn’t get time alone with my wife like I hoped… but I kept my promises — to my family, to my animals, to myself. Back at the plant today. Tired? Yeah. Worn out? Maybe. Done? Hell no. The code continues. #DevLife #CodingKenpoist #SoftwareEngineering #FullStackLife #BuildingInPublic #KenpoKicks #CowboyCoder

🛠️ Building the digital soul of Kenpo, one technique at a time. Today I added 10 fully detailed yellow belt techniques to the kenpokicks archive — not summaries, not shortcuts, but full, step-by-step precision as I’ve taught them for decades. This isn’t just data entry. It’s legacy preservation. Each move, each angle, each principle — cataloged for future generations of martial artists. My son will build on this. Someday, maybe my grandkids will too. #NodeJS #Express #KenpoKicks #DevLife #MartialArts #CodingKenpoist #FullStackCowboy #LegacyInCode #Sequelize

🛠️ Progress update from the Full-Stack Rancher 🐴 Between running the plant, wrenching on my middle daughter’s car, riding with my youngest, and getting a workout in… I still managed to: ✅ Build and migrate the new Kenpo Technique model ✅ Seed the DB with the first full technique ✅ Lay the groundwork for dynamic training references This new structure will make every Kenpo technique searchable, filterable, and clickable — belt by belt, form by form, technique by technique. One step closer to making KenpoKicks a living digital archive of everything I’ve spent a lifetime teaching- and still learning. #DevLife #NodeJS #Express #Sequelize #MariaDB #CodingKenpoist #CodingCowboy #BuildingInPublic #KenpoKicks