alexmiranda

From Meetup to Mailbox: A Kubernetes-Powered AI Workflow (Part 3)

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Turning Event Data into Action: How I Built an AI-Powered Email Digest with Go and OpenAI Link to heading

In Part 2 of this series, I shared how I built a respectful, containerized web scraper to collect dynamic event data from Meetup.com using Python and Selenium. But scraping data is only half the journey.

In this post, I’ll break down the second half of the pipeline: the Meetup Emailer, a Go-based service that transforms raw event JSON into a professional, friendly HTML email digest using OpenAI’s GPT API—then sends it to a configurable list of recipients over SMTP.

From Meetup to Mailbox: A Kubernetes-Powered AI Workflow (Part 2)

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Building a Respectful Web Scraper: Lessons from Scraping Meetup Events Link to heading

Web scraping often gets a bad reputation in the developer community—and for good reason. Too many scrapers are built without consideration for the target site’s resources, terms of service, or basic web etiquette. When I needed to gather event data from Meetup.com for a personal project, I decided to build a scraper that would be both effective and respectful. Here’s what I learned along the way.

From Meetup to Mailbox: A Kubernetes-Powered AI Workflow (Part 1)

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

From Meetup to Mailbox: A Kubernetes-Powered AI Workflow (Part 1) Link to heading

Automating web scraping and email delivery with Kubernetes CronJobs, containerized tools, and shared data pipelines.

This blog series documents a workflow I built to periodically scrape events from Meetup.com, summarize them using OpenAI, and send an email digest — all running on Kubernetes.
This first post focuses on scheduling and running the workflow using a Kubernetes CronJob.

From Dust to Clusters: Building a $0/Month Kubernetes Lab on Apple Silicon

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

From Cloud Bills to Homelab: Why I Repurposed My M1 MacBook Air Link to heading

I wanted to experiment with Kubernetes but quickly ran into a common roadblock: cloud costs. For something as hands-on and experimental as Kubernetes, paying by the hour for clusters I wasn’t using 24/7 didn’t make sense.

That’s when I discovered the homelab community—and realized my unused M1 MacBook Air could become a zero-cost Kubernetes sandbox.

Contributing to Open Source (Hugo Theme)

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Background Link to heading

When creating this site (ammiranda.com) I needed to pick an existing theme (or create my own). I chose the Hugo static site generator as the technology backing the site so I looked at available Hugo Themes. After a quick review, I picked the Hugo Coder theme. I ran a security scan via Mozilla Observatory once I deployed my website. The results revealed a shocking hole because the generated HTML lacked a content security policy (CSP). This post will detail my process adding CSP functionality to the theme as well as upstreaming the change to the theme project’s repository by opening a pull request on Github.

Adding docker-compose To An Existing Project

Sun, 22 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Background Link to heading

Docker-compose is an amazing CLI tool for managing multi-container applications. This post gives an overview on how an API project incorporates docker-compose (including makefile commands for ease of use).

The App Link to heading

The app is an implementation of the freeCodeCamp’s timeserver API project. I used Golang with the Gin web framework to create the REST API. You can view the code for the project here.

Fixing Hugo Build Using Github Actions

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Background Link to heading

I created this site using Hugo with the Hugo-Coder theme. I wanted to set up the site to build and deploy using a continuous integration pipeline provided with Github Actions. However I ran into a thorny issue which I will explain below along with the solution I found.

The Problem Link to heading

I created a build workflow file in the repository to utilize Github Actions.

About me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi I’m Alex. I build scalable backend systems and APIs that power modern web applications. I currently work at SailPoint as a software engineer, developing identity governance solutions using Java and Golang.

Previously, I built high-performance APIs at Persefoni using Go, and developed microservices architecture at iStreamplanet. Earlier in my career, I created single-page applications with React and Backbone.

I’m passionate about distributed systems, data visualization, web security, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies like blockchain. Beyond code, I enjoy travel, reading, photography, cooking, and staying fit.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Feel free to contact me. I love learning about interesting projects (preferably open source).

If you want to encrypt your email please use my PGP key.