diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 459ff0ba0a8b..a16f38e27138 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -14,3 +14,6 @@ go.work.sum
 
 # Project Specific
 *.csv
+
+# My stuff
+/log*
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index f3e3a4879075..0406dc36e952 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 export K8S_VERSION ?= 1.27.x
 CLUSTER_NAME ?= $(shell ../kubectl config view --minify -o jsonpath='{.clusters[].name}' | rev | cut -d"/" -f1 | rev | cut -d"." -f1)
-
+AWS_DEFAULT_REGION ?= eu-west-1
 ## Inject the app version into project.Version
 ifdef SNAPSHOT_TAG
 LDFLAGS ?= -ldflags=-X=github.com/aws/karpenter/pkg/utils/project.Version=$(SNAPSHOT_TAG)
diff --git a/pkg/cloudprovider/cloudprovider.go b/pkg/cloudprovider/cloudprovider.go
index c53136eed133..4c4a5289adfc 100644
--- a/pkg/cloudprovider/cloudprovider.go
+++ b/pkg/cloudprovider/cloudprovider.go
@@ -281,6 +281,7 @@ func (c *CloudProvider) resolveNodeTemplate(ctx context.Context, raw []byte, obj
 	return nodeTemplate, nil
 }
 
+// JANOTE: calls into karpenter-core scheduling
 func (c *CloudProvider) resolveInstanceTypes(ctx context.Context, nodeClaim *corev1beta1.NodeClaim, nodeClass *v1beta1.EC2NodeClass) ([]*cloudprovider.InstanceType, error) {
 	instanceTypes, err := c.instanceTypeProvider.List(ctx, nodeClaim.Spec.Kubelet, nodeClass)
 	if err != nil {
diff --git a/pkg/providers/instance/instance.go b/pkg/providers/instance/instance.go
index a6efb8762181..a9d038b5f02b 100644
--- a/pkg/providers/instance/instance.go
+++ b/pkg/providers/instance/instance.go
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ func (p *Provider) Create(ctx context.Context, nodeClass *v1beta1.EC2NodeClass,
 		instanceTypes = instanceTypes[0:MaxInstanceTypes]
 	}
 	tags := getTags(ctx, nodeClass, nodeClaim)
-	fleetInstance, err := p.launchInstance(ctx, nodeClass, nodeClaim, instanceTypes, tags)
+	fleetInstance, err := p.launchInstance(ctx, nodeClass, nodeClaim, instanceTypes, tags) // JANOTE
 	if awserrors.IsLaunchTemplateNotFound(err) {
 		// retry once if launch template is not found. This allows karpenter to generate a new LT if the
 		// cache was out-of-sync on the first try
@@ -219,6 +219,7 @@ func (p *Provider) launchInstance(ctx context.Context, nodeClass *v1beta1.EC2Nod
 			{ResourceType: aws.String(ec2.ResourceTypeFleet), Tags: utils.MergeTags(tags)},
 		},
 	}
+	// JANOTE: here fleet is created. Use prioritized instead?
 	if capacityType == corev1beta1.CapacityTypeSpot {
 		createFleetInput.SpotOptions = &ec2.SpotOptionsRequest{AllocationStrategy: aws.String(ec2.SpotAllocationStrategyPriceCapacityOptimized)}
 	} else {