What Is Mike Michelini Up To Now: July 5 - 11, 2026

Happy July 4th to my American friends.

Even though I am here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, this date still brings back memories for me: BBQ, camping, being outside, and that feeling of a long summer weekend.

This year, I am spending the holiday weekend in a very different way. I am going back to Wat Umong for a 3-day silent meditation retreat.

And honestly, I need it.

The AI world has been moving so fast that it can create a new kind of FOMO every day. New models, new tools, new demos, new people getting into vibe coding, new possibilities opening up everywhere. A lot of my friends are experimenting with the re-released Fable model and all kinds of new AI workflows.

But the more I work with these tools, the more I keep coming back to one thing: the models are already good enough for a lot of what we need.

The harder part is clarity.

What do we actually want to build? Who is it for? What problem are we solving? What should be a real product, what should be a feature, and what should just stay as an experiment?

That is why I am stepping away for a few days. Not because I want to stop building, but because I want to build from a calmer place.

On the GFAVIP side, the team has been making strong progress on the GFAVIP Chat / Home app. We are expanding it across iOS, Android, and desktop, and the iOS version is currently pending approval. You can follow the download path at gfavip.com/download.

This app is becoming more than just chat. The vision is for it to bond the Global From Asia VIP community together more tightly, while also giving us an apps tab for many of the web applications we have been making. That becomes especially important for this year's Cross Border Summit, where we can connect the apps and features we built last year with newer pieces of the GFAVIP ecosystem.

We are also working on something very different but exciting under Excalibur Brothers: a men's care product line. Beard products, hair gel, and more, made in Thailand. Billy Beard is working with us on this, and the early concept page is live for feedback at mikesblogdesign.com/eb-menscare.

It is still early R&D, but that is the point. We want feedback before pretending everything is finished.

And soon, Miles and I are heading to Vietnam for the Horizon AI expo in Ho Chi Minh City. We have been preparing HeadlessEmpire booth materials, banners, and graphics for that. It is exciting, but it is also one more reason I can feel the system running hot.

So yes, overwhelm is real.

I love to build. I love to create. These days have had an insane amount of both. GFAVIP, Cross Border Summit, Excalibur Brothers, HeadlessEmpire, the apps, the AI tools, the content systems, the future Mikes Blog Now app we hope to bring back after GFAVIP is working across mobile and desktop - there is so much to do and so much to say.

But sometimes the most productive thing is not another prompt, another sprint, or another all-night build.

Sometimes it is silence.

Thanks for choosing to check this out. I hope you are also finding ways to touch grass, refresh, and get clear about what really matters next.