Lots of coffee updates since my last time writing.

Middle State Coffee

Rating: 4/5 Location: Denver, CO

This place was great. They do mostly light roasts, which I love. I’m annoyed this was the last new coffee spot I visited in Colorado before I left. I wish I’d had time to try their main location and more of their coffee. The coffee was a bit bitter for a light roast, but I still enjoyed the flavor.

Horizon Line Coffee

Rating: 4.5/5
Location: Des Moines, IA

I got a 1:1. It was delicious. It was washed coffee, but it still had flavor. I did this on my drive across country, which was two weeks ago at this point, so I don’t trust the flavors I’m imagining, but it was great. Worth checking out if you are ever in the area.

Simple Merchant Coffee

Rating: 4/5 Location: Newport, RI

This is my home shop, and it was good to be home. This place has the best vibe and some really strong coffees. The owner is cool and friendly, and the staff is generally great. Excited to get back and have a birthday Salted Caramel Latte.

Very Good Coffee

Rating: 3.5/5 Location: Pawtucket, RI

My friend Chad told me about this place, it’s a pop-up in The Guy and His Pie pizza restaurant on weekends, and it is pretty darn good. They have a relationship with Hydrangia, whom I tried very hard to reach last year about the coffee box, and I got to drink it this past weekend. The artist, as I’ll call him, is a craftsman and really cares about the coffee he prepares.

Small note: My first cortado during the 1:1 was fantastic. The second was a bit soupy with more warm milk than microfoam, likely because the barista was swamped and had to rush. It’s best to go early and avoid the rush.

Bucket and the Bean

Rating: 2.5/5 Location: North Kingstown, RI

Note: They’ve only been open two weeks. This review may change.

This is the newest coffee place I know in Rhode Island, and I was excited to try it out. I came in hoping to get a cortado or cappuccino to test them out, but when they mentioned they normally use Five Points but were on Lighthouse coffee because they ran out, I went for an Enjoy Coffee Roasters pour-over, Juan Puerta - Araza, highlighted as a co-ferment. (I do miss naturals—everyone’s on co-ferment these days, but I want more light roast naturals.) I got an iced pour-over since they said it was no problem.

They skipped the math for the pour-over, used the usual recipe, then poured it over ice without adding extra. It was cool, but it didn’t have enough ice.

I stayed to watch them steam milk, but it was cold out, so most ordered iced drinks, and I didn’t get to see their technique.

This place feels more like a vibe spot than a coffee shop—more like Custom House than Simple Merchant. That’s fine, but it doesn’t feel like a higher-end shop.

Updates on review formatting for Coffee

I feel pressured to leave five-star reviews or none at all. I don’t want to negatively affect a business, and I worry that anything below 5 stars could hurt their discoverability on mapping sites.

Honestly, I blame Uber. If you give a driver 4 stars, they always ask what’s wrong. It’s like you must give them 5 stars, or else something is wrong.

This is not how reviews should be done. There’s nothing wrong with not always getting the top rating. It shows you’re genuine, not artificial, and lets us tell places apart. Four out of five stars is fine. Even two out of five can be good when the alternative is one star.

Anyway, I’m working toward normalizing things. I just left a 4-star Google review for Bucket & the Bean, though I really wanted to give them a 3, or perhaps even a 2. Still, I share feedback closer to my true opinion here.

This leads me to a bigger issue, that every rating site has its own format for reviews. There is no standard. I did a little looking around, and there is h-review, though it is being added to h-entry on microformats. I want to start changing the way I do my reviews so they can be better cataloged, and maybe someday we can return to a world where more information is individually hosted rather than controlled by sites like Google, Apple, and Yelp.

Probably more to come on this in the future.

Work Updates

• I am back to working with Rollin Renovations. We still have a lot of work to do on this website and with record keeping, but we are getting there.
• I did a bit of work on Authentic Auctions to clean up the mobile navigation. I am also working on updating the quality of the videos we upload to YouTube. I’m finally learning FCP after years of resisting (also, Apple made it more affordable, thank you).
• I have been interviewing for a couple of mobile jobs. I really want to get back to doing that more regularly. More to come on that later.
• After a couple of strong weeks working on features for Sacred Space, I’m considering a new direction—more on that soon. Last week, I paused feature work except for a discussion about setting up Coinflow as our payment processor.
• A new parent project will include several child projects. Details are vague, but I will share more soon.

Moments

Coco in Matt’s Jacket

Sardellas Pizza pizza reviews comming soon

Zack working

My favorite wine in the wild “Glou Glou” by Las Jaras

In my previous post, I wrote about how Apple’s Contacts app treats your relationships like a filing cabinet — a flat list of static cards with no context, no history, and no awareness of how people actually matter to you. That’s a product problem. But it’s also a technical one.

Underneath the Contacts app sits a framework called CNContact, introduced at WWDC 2015 as a replacement for the widely despised AddressBook.framework. AddressBook was a C-based API with no Objective-C layer, opaque types like ABRecordRef, and virtually no error handling. When Apple announced its deprecation, the WWDC audience cheered — one of the loudest reactions in the conference’s history.

CNContact was a genuine improvement. Type-safe. Thread-safe immutable objects. A keysToFetch system that lets you load only the properties you need. It’s a well-engineered API for an outdated model. Because while the engineering got better, the underlying concept of what a contact is didn’t change at all. A person is still a card with fields on it. Name, phone number, email, address.

It’s 2026 and that model is broken.

What CNContact Actually Is

CNContact is an immutable object representing a single contact record. You access the database through CNContactStore, and when you fetch contacts, you specify which properties you want via keysToFetch — conceptually similar to a SQL SELECT where you name your columns.

A contact has string properties for names (givenName, familyName, middleName), and multi-value properties for phone numbers, email addresses, and postal addresses. Those multi-value fields use CNLabeledValue — an immutable tuple pairing a label (like “home” or “work”) with a value (like the phone number itself). Modification goes through CNMutableContact, a mutable subclass. A CNContactType enum distinguishes between people and organizations, though the distinction is thin — the same flat field structure applies to both.

The engineering is competent. The problem is what the engineering models.

A Contact Is Not a Business Card

CNContact knows a person’s name, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, birthday, organization, and social profiles. That’s what you’d find on a business card, plus a birthday.

It doesn’t know when you last spoke to this person, how you met them, who introduced you, or what your relationship actually is. It can’t tell you whether someone is important to you right now or someone you haven’t spoken to in three years. It doesn’t understand any connection between this person and your other contacts. There’s no concept of interaction history, relationship strength, or the social graph between the people in your life.

CNContact models a person as a record. It does not model a relationship. In 2026, the relationship is the valuable part. The phone number is the least interesting thing about someone in your network — what you can’t easily recover is context.

The model doesn’t even work well for its most basic use case. There’s a single organizationName field — one company per contact. People consult, freelance, change jobs, hold board seats. CNContact can’t represent any of that. It’s not a model of a person or a business. It’s a model of one person at one company at one point in time.

Apple does expose a contactRelations field — you can label someone as a spouse, parent, or assistant. But it’s a string label, not a link. It doesn’t point to another CNContact. You can’t traverse your network. You can’t ask “show me everyone connected to Sarah.” The relationships, like everything else in this framework, are flat text on a card.

The notes field is singular — one freeform text blob per contact. If you want to track conversations over time, or keep structured notes about multiple interactions, you’re appending to a wall of unstructured text. No timestamps, no separation, no history.

There is no concept of archiving. A contact exists or it’s deleted. There’s no “inactive” state, no way to move someone to the back of the drawer without losing them entirely.

The Identifier Problem

Every CNContact has an identifier property — a string that should uniquely identify the contact. The natural instinct is to use this as a foreign key, linking your app’s data to a specific person.

That instinct will hurt you.

The identifier is local to the device. The same human being on your iPhone and your iPad will have different identifiers. The identifier isn’t stable across backup and restore cycles. Developers on Apple’s own forums have reported that the same contact accessed through different code paths on the same device returns different identifiers — share a contact from Contacts.app and you get one with an :ABPerson suffix, select it via CNContactPickerViewController and you get a different one without it.

Apple can correlate contacts across devices because they control iCloud and the sync engine beneath the framework. Third-party developers cannot. The workaround is rolling your own matching logic — normalized phone numbers, email addresses, name combinations — essentially rebuilding deduplication from scratch.

If you want to build anything that tracks a contact over time — notes, interaction history, relationship metadata — you can’t reliably key it to a CNContact. The identifier that’s supposed to be your anchor is quicksand.

The Frozen Schema

So the identifier is unreliable. Could you at least store your additional data on the contact itself?

No.

CNContact has a fixed set of properties. No custom fields, no metadata dictionary, no extension points. The schema is what Apple decided a contact needed in 2015, and it hasn’t meaningfully expanded since. “Last contacted,” “relationship strength,” “met at WWDC 2024” — anything not on Apple’s predetermined list requires your own data store.

That data store needs a key to link back to the contact, which brings you directly back to the identifier problem. You’re building on a foundation that shifts under your feet.

Even the simplest CRM systems offer custom fields, tags, activity timelines, and relationship types. CNContact isn’t missing features — it’s missing the concept that a contact might mean something different to different people and different apps.

Your Data Lives on Apple’s Terms

I’ll save the full portability deep-dive for a future post, but the short version: getting your contacts out of Apple’s ecosystem is harder than it should be.

The only native export format is vCard. No CSV, no JSON, no bulk API. On iOS, you can share one contact at a time. Export is all-or-nothing per contact — you can’t select which fields to include. Import vCards back in and you’ll likely create duplicates, because the “unified contact” system that deduplicates on-device doesn’t survive a round trip.

Your contacts flow into Apple’s ecosystem with minimal friction. Getting them out requires workarounds and third-party tools. This asymmetry is not accidental.

Built for a World That Doesn’t Exist Anymore

The keysToFetch system is well-designed. The immutable/mutable pattern is sound. CNLabeledValue is a good abstraction for multi-value properties. Apple’s engineers built a competent framework.

They built it to digitize the Rolodex, and they succeeded. CNContact is an excellent digital Rolodex card.

The problem is that we don’t live in a Rolodex world. Our relationships are contextual, dynamic, and cross-platform. A contact isn’t a card with a name and number — it’s a node in a network, with history, context, and meaning that changes over time. CNContact doesn’t model any of that. Its closed schema means you can’t teach it to.

It’s a 2015 solution to a 1985 problem, and it’s the foundation that every app on Apple’s platforms is expected to build on when it wants to work with the people in your life.

What’s Next

I’ve spent enough time studying this framework to understand that patching it isn’t the answer.

The problems compound. There’s no stable identifier, so you can’t reliably extend a contact with your own data. There’s no extensible schema, so you can’t store that data on the contact itself. And there’s no universal key to map against — some contacts are unique by phone number, some by email, some by name and company, some by something else entirely. Every contact is a special case.

You could try to build a mapping layer on top of CNContact. Normalize phone numbers, deduplicate emails, fuzzy-match names. But you’d be building an increasingly fragile bridge between your data and a foundation that was never designed to support it. At some point, the cost of maintaining that bridge exceeds the cost of building something new.

The model needs to change. Not the UI on top of it, not the permissions around it, not the visual design — the model itself. What a contact is. How identity works. How relationships are represented. How your data moves between devices and platforms.

I’m working on that. More soon.

This week was packed with trying many different coffees.

• Subjective Coffee - Westminster - This place was rad. It has a very retro, almost Fallout-style, coffee vibe. Like an old diner with great coffee. They had two coffees available on espresso, which is rare, and one of them was partially natural. It wasn’t my personal favorite, but it was interesting enough to warrant a second visit.
• SOGO Boards And Beans - This place was also Rad, but it had a more artistic vibe than the old diner one for me. I got overwhelmed by their speciality drinks and did the Toasted Marshmallow latte, and it was out of this world. I did this before my friend said they are supposed to be very particular about their beans and light roasts. So I ordered a light roast espresso that was not a light roast espresso. Or if it was, the shot was pulled way too long. Bottom line, this place is cool. I would do a sweet drink, go here for a treat, not for super high-quality coffee.
• Navah Coffee House - Westminster - I went here for a coffee and to meet up to sell a backpack. It is super close to where I’m staying, and there is plenty of space to work if you want to work outside the house. The woman serving the coffee was incredibly nice. I ordered a Latte, but what I got was not a Latte. It was a coffee with some sort of warmed, somewhat spiced milk. It actually tasted pretty special for a latte, but not what I ordered. Cute spot, great staff, sub-par coffee.
• Novo Coffee - Downtown - We ended up here after Little Owl was closed downtown on weekends. The shop is cute, with a few pour-over options, including one meant to be light and fruity, but it wasn’t. They also wouldn’t do an iced pour-over, which annoys me—it’s just math; you account for the ice’s weight. Overall, the place was okay. The company was great, the staff was nice, and it’s a good spot to work, but the coffee wasn’t special.
• Dillon Coffee Lab - Dillon, CO - This place was out in the mountains, and my friend Stephanie had recommended it to me. When I talked to them about joining HCB last year, they said they don’t do light roasts because of the altitude at which they roast. I can confirm that they don’t do light roasts after visiting. Still, they did an iced pour over that was very fruity and tasted of grapes. I enjoyed it, and I would recommend giving this place a try.
• Red Buffalo - Silverthorn, CO - This place was very busy. It is downtown, and there were a lot of people in there. They have a very homey vibe. They had high-end pastries and offered an espresso flight (espresso prepared three ways: regular, con panna, and cubana, I believe). They also had some light roasts for purchase. I’m drinking a Costa Rican from them this morning. They gave every indication of being serious about their coffee, but when I went to make it this morning, the bag wasn’t sealed; it was just rolled and twisted. Big red flag for me. The coffee this morning is unique and bright, though, so maybe I’m being too picky.
• Steep Brewing + Coffee Company - Dillon, CO - This place is a brewery that also serves coffee, but it’s clear they focus more on the beer. They just pour Breckenridge Coffee Roasters rather than their own, and when I asked about a light roast, the answer was simply “no.” I walked out after that. The beer selection looked interesting, but for good coffee, there are better nearby options.

Also related to coffee this week, I found CoffeeBeaned, which is supposed to be a list of roasters around the country, but the site is terribly out of date. This is the same thing that happened with Acromaps and something I’m working on for that site; maybe I’ll make something for all the coffee roasters I’m checking out.

Tech Updates

• Sacred Space - Exciting updates to share! We have added a version page at the bottom of the site, allowing you to track new features and functionalities as they are released. Last week, I implemented versioning and event filtering on the events page. I also added new event properties, such as type and payment method. These properties are the key filters I recommend for event searches.
• Your Contacts App is Broken – I wrote this to introduce a new project where I’m building a tool to solve the contact management issues I’ve been experiencing, and to share my approach to fixing them.
• Python Qt App - I began connecting the nesting feature in this project, but encountered several bugs that I plan to resolve before completing this integration. My time spent on it was limited due to uncertainty about the best approach for upcoming changes.
• I continue to work on an incredibly custom web project.
• Claude Code -> I’m continuing to use Claude and Claude code throughout my development and personal communications process. The problem is that some of the stuff I feel like I’ve been producing isn’t as much me as I want. Claude makes decisions I don’t love, but aren’t bad enough for me to change, so I start with Claude’s suggestion and keep refining it over time. I endeavor to write more code my way in the next couple of weeks and use Claude for more guidance.
• Starting work on a Culture Corner Project
• Started on designs for the 2025 Citywide Sticker Font of the Year.

Life Updates

• Talked with my friend Mitch, an extremely smart, capable, and experienced iOS developer who is looking for his next opportunity. If you need someone, you should reach out. I predict he won’t be available long.
• Continued with some sewing projects. Did you know they ask you to show your license when buying a Bic Lighter in certain parts of Colorado? That was a new one for me.
• Had a 24-hour bug that really got me for a day or two.
• Talked to a bunch of former coworkers this week.
• Got to take a friend to an Acro class at Movement.

Moments

Beautiful sunset over the mountains

Citywide Sticker Font Award Sketches

Toasted Marshmallow Latte from SOGO, was soo good.

Red Buffalo Coffee

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When I was a kid, my dad carried a Filofax everywhere. A thick leather binder stuffed with business cards, meticulously organized. It was his most important professional tool — his grail. He could flip to any section and find exactly who he needed, with notes scribbled in the margins about when they’d last spoken and what they’d discussed.

I sometimes wonder if he had a better handle on his network than any of us do now with our phones.

Everyone has a contacts app. Almost no one thinks about it. It’s done roughly the same thing since phones went digital: show you a list of names with phone numbers and email addresses. Apple’s Contacts app is the one I know best, and with macOS 26 and iOS 26, they finally gave it a visual redesign. They somehow made it worse. But the real problem isn’t the redesign. The real problem is the model underneath — and it hasn’t changed in decades.

What Your Contacts App Actually Does

Apple Contacts is a card viewer. You scroll a list, tap a name, and see fields. It stores names, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, birthdays, a photo, and a single notes field. That’s roughly what you’d find on a business card, plus a birthday.

Here’s what it doesn’t do. It can’t tell you when you last talked to someone. It doesn’t show you how the people in your life are connected to each other. It can’t help you organize contacts in meaningful ways — groups exist but are barely functional, and after more than a decade you still can’t create a group on iPhone without workarounds. It doesn’t track any history or context about a relationship. It doesn’t handle the basic reality that people change jobs, move, and get new numbers. There’s no way to archive a contact — you either keep it or delete it, with nothing in between.

It treats every contact the same. Your spouse and someone whose card you scanned at a conference three years ago sit in the same flat list, given equal weight.

The Redesign Made Things Worse

With macOS 26 (Tahoe) and iOS 26, Apple applied their new Liquid Glass design language to Contacts. The result has been rough.

On macOS, users are reporting that the app crashes when adding new contacts, closing mid-entry without saving. The new photo and background blocks take up enormous screen real estate and flicker when scrolled. Basic operations are broken — copying a contact’s name pastes it as oversized, centered text in Mail, and you can’t copy a company name or job title at all. Users with large contact databases are hitting white screens. Dragging contacts to groups randomly fails.

On iOS 26, you can’t delete contacts from search results — you have to manually scroll through the full list. The redesigned Phone app makes it harder to actually call someone from your contacts. Everything requires more taps than before.

The consistent theme: more visual chrome, less functionality. The redesign is cosmetic surgery on an app that needed a rethinking.

The Things That Were Always Missing

The Tahoe redesign exposed problems, but the app was stagnant long before it.

There’s no interaction history. Contacts has no idea when you last emailed, called, or texted someone — even though your phone has all of that data. There’s no concept of “important” versus “stale” contacts, no way to surface people you’re losing touch with or flag people you need to follow up with.

There’s one company field per contact. In the real world, people consult, change jobs, and hold multiple roles. Contacts doesn’t accommodate that. When someone’s information changes, the old data is simply overwritten — there’s no history, no record of where they used to work or what their old number was.

The notes field is singular. One freeform text blob per contact. If you want to track multiple interactions or keep notes over time, you’re appending to a wall of text with no structure.

You can’t archive. A contact is either active or deleted. There’s no “I don’t need this right now but I don’t want to lose it” state — something my dad’s Filofax handled effortlessly by just moving a card to a different section.

Group management on iOS still doesn’t exist in any real way. Smart groups, tags, filters — none of it. The merge and deduplication tools are unreliable. Sharing is limited to one contact at a time, in vCard format only, with no ability to choose which fields to include.

A Card Viewer, Not a Relationship Tool

The fundamental issue is how the app thinks about what a contact is. To Apple Contacts, a contact is a record — a static card with data fields on it.

But your contacts aren’t records. They’re relationships.

Some people matter more than others at different times in your life. The context of how you know someone, what you’ve discussed, who connected you — that’s the valuable information. The phone number is the least interesting thing about someone in your network.

Apple does allow you to add relationships to a contact — mother, spouse, assistant. But it’s just a text label. It’s not a real link to another contact in your database. You can’t traverse your network. You can’t ask “show me everyone I know through Sarah” or “who do I know at this company.”

This flatness shows up across Apple’s entire product line. In Photos, you can tag a person’s face — but it’s not connected to their contact card. Everything about people in Apple’s ecosystem feels siloed and disconnected, like each app reinvented the concept of “a person” from scratch.

A contacts app should understand relationships, not just store records. It should have opinions about your network — who you’re close to, who you’re drifting from, who you should reconnect with. Instead, what we have is a filing cabinet.

Competitors Exist, But They’re Built on the Same Foundation

There are alternatives. Apps like Cardhop offer better search, natural language input, smart groups, and interaction tracking. Users are actively leaving Apple’s broken Tahoe experience for these tools, and for good reason — they’re genuinely better at the basics.

But they’re all built on top of the same underlying contact model. They can make the card viewer faster, smarter, and prettier. They can add features on top. But they can’t change the fact that the foundation treats a contact as a flat record with a fixed set of fields. They’re still building better Rolodexes.

The demand for something fundamentally better is real and growing.

Why I Care

I’ve been thinking about how we manage relationships since studying social networks in college in 2005. Twenty years later, the default tool for managing your most important connections is still a digital address book. My dad’s Filofax had sections, annotations, and a system that reflected how he actually thought about people. Our phones, with all their power, offer less.

A contact isn’t a name and a number. It’s a relationship — with history, context, and meaning that changes over time. The model underneath Apple Contacts, and every major contacts platform, doesn’t reflect that.

In the next post, I’m going to dig into why — at a technical level — the foundation is broken. And after that, what I think we should build instead.

This was a light week for coffee because I was working pretty hard at home and mostly brewed Chemex.

• Sweet Bloom Coffee - Arvada, CO - Despite their reluctance to produce more natural coffees, this place is just awesome. I was able to get a 1:1 with the Gesha from weeks past at the Arvada location, even though it’s no longer available on the website.
• Olympia Coffee Roasters - Doing their Little Buddy as a Chemex. I’ve found that I use a 1:16 ratio for hot coffee and a 1:10 ratio when pouring it over ice. This remains my most consistent coffee over the past two years.
• Coffee Ride - Pouring over some of their coffees. I finished the Nicaragua La Bastilla Natural, and as I got to the end of the bag, it really began to grow on me. I have a little bit left of Colombia Finca Villa Betulia Honey Caturron, which still isn’t my favorite. It is a little too funky, even for me.
• Blue Sparrow - RiNo - I love this place because they do a bunch of different cold brews, including a Japanese-style flash brew, which is really nice. Got a cortado that was okay. It was with their house. Am I the only one who wishes more shops would always have a backup espresso for trying?

Life Updates

• Finally got my Subaru back with the replacement charge port cover. Now I can do that again. I’m excited to save a little more on gas.
• Got to do brunch with my good friend Tim, who was in the area skiing on vacation. Tim and I have a very antagonistic relationship, which I thoroughly appreciate, and he hasn’t gotten rid of me yet. It’s good to have friends that you can joke around with.
• Finally did some sewing with the Sailrite on this trip. I made a grocery bag with my friends, but it was too big, so I had to make a smaller one. I learned a bit about sewing binding with the needle position on the LSZ Sailrite.
• Made 3 dinners last week; one was California burritos, but the challenge is not overfilling them. I failed at that. Another note, chicken thighs marinated in Bachans overnight are really great with rice and broccoli.

Tech Updates

• Continue working on the laser cutting program. There will be some pretty cool updates to that soon. Working with Qt and Python is a challenge, but we are pushing through.
• • Side note: I hate that Python doesn’t support true visibility and protects private variables and methods until I start writing tests, and then I like that I can take shortcuts to manipulate objects quickly to test exactly the part I want.
• Sacred Space is starting to fill out as a site with some real events. Last week was a little blower in use because of Envision, a major festival at which we are most prevalent.
• I’m playing around with Plausible.io instead of Google Analytics, and loving it. It shows me traffic across all my websites on a single page, with a better dashboard.
• Continued work on Authentic Auctions has resulted in the listing and selling of several cars in the past couple of weeks. I’ve also been working on a new format for van information as we move further into that market.
• Continued working on my research around the CNContact from Apple and running into some interesting notes. I will be posting more notes on it here over the next couple of weeks as I investigate doing something significant here.
• Incredibly custom web project coming online soon.

Moments

Brunch at Blackbird in Evergreen with Tim:

Sewn bag for Evan, its too big:

Sweet Bloom Cortado:

Blue Sparrow Cortado:

Coffee

I realized that I have missed a few places along the way and will continue to bring them out in future weeks.

• Corvus Coffee - This place is awesome. Okay, I don’t know that, but their coffee is awesome. They have a Hacienda Senora Natural that is tickled me and I can’t stop going and getting it. It is exceptional in all the ways I like a natural. From Costa Rica, really great cherry taste.
• Sweet Bloom - Again coming in strong. I had them twice. I had an espresso when I needed a quick boost, and even with the house washed it hit. I then found out the other location still had some of the natural gesha that is no longer on the website, this was also great.
• Atlas Coffee - They carry corvus, but I walked into the location and walked out without ordering. Just didn’t feel like a place I was going to get somethings special.
• Onto - I may have made the mistake on walking into this place right around chinese new years and the place was packed. Their logo is super cute and I couldn’t resist buying stickers (also their stickers don’t have words, just art, which is the best type of sticker for me). This is not a place where I would expect a great cup of black coffee, but their Vienna was good I got the Black Sesame in the same visit.
• Queen City Collective Coffee - This place was the find of the week. They had a great natural Ethiopian on espresso and it was just fantastic. They are a bigger shop but when I asked them about wholesale, they said there orders didn’t require large quantities so they could be a good candidate for next years Hanukkah Coffee Box.
• Coffee Ride - Boulder - I’m going back on my previous statements here. The Nicaragua has really grown on me. I have figured out how to make it in a way that really works. I drink it iced after doing pour over with a 1:10 ratio and I get much better notes.

Tech Projects Updates

• Create a new van template at Authentic Auctions for this van. It made it through auction without sale, but you are getting a lot of van for the asking price, and I wanted a way to show this better.
• Sacred Space
  • Facilitators have a new view that allows them to create a landing page for them and their events.
  • Wrote a whole TDD (exercise I did for an interview) on how we are going to update the Event object to be more searchable as we keep expanding the number of events we have.
  • We have a lot more events, but that was my business partner, not me.
• Untitled Multi-Genre Game - This project is still in its infancy and I can’t talk to much about only to say that I download Godot and started looking at how this game engine works. I’m more interested in this from a building and story telling perspective, but I also have some friends who would be people would play with it.
• Culture Corner - This is an independent initiative I’ve started to connect with old coworkers. The goal is to create a small zoom meeting twice a month for friends to hang out and catch up. Attendance is not required, but if you are interested on getting on the mailing list, fill out this form.
• Top Secret Project -> This is a project to fix what is wrong with Contacts and CRMs. I have some plans, but it’s still early and I’m ready to share a bunch about it yet, though maybe I’ll write some posts on the parts of the system I think are currently broken this week.
• Python Qt-App -> This is a project I’m working on as a consultant. I’m helping build out an app that is used for industrial purposes. The current code base was written in Python and Qt with AI and doesn’t have a structure or tests. I’m working on both of those things.

There are a couple of other projects on the list that I haven’t enough time to really develop, but I’ll talk more about them in upcoming weeks.

Pictures and Other Updates

Someone on facebook asked for the first picture of me doing acro from 2017:

I ate too many donuts last week:

Met with my younger brothers best friend and a great blast from the past Kevin:

I also cooked way too much fried chicken when making my Chicken Katsu Curry:

Went on a hike with some amazing Great Swiss Mountain Dogs:

Had some amazing coffee drinks:

Coffees

I’m in the Denver area and still hunting for coffee that works for me. Because this is my first weekly review, I’m going to include a couple from a couple of weeks back.

• Lima Coffee Roasters - Fort Collins - Vibe was great, but my coffee was pretty poor for the cost. Didn’t have many naturals
• Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters - Lakewood/Westminster - I love it when they do naturals, but until last week, they have had only six washed coffees and blends. Last week, they released a Gesha, but it looks like it is already off their site.
• Coffee Ride - Boulder - I love everything about this place and mission, except the coffee was a bit of a miss for me; it could also have been the coffee I picked. I tried the Colombia Finca Villa Betulia Honey Caturron, and it smells like Ginger. First time I have ever had a coffee smell like ginger, but the taste is very Cardamom for me. I also tried the Nicaragua La Bastilla Natural, and while it is a natural, brewed at 16:1, it still feels like a darker roast to me. I wanted more fruit. Despite all of this, I will go back and try another coffee there before too long. The shop is too cool. They started by delivering coffee on Bicycles!
• Huckleberry Roasters - Denver - This place has the same issue for me as Sweet Bloom. ALL OF THEIR COFFEES WERE WASHED. I got a 1:1; the barista was cool enough to make me one even though it wasn’t on the menu. The macchiato had no art. This doesn’t by default mean it is bad, but this one was bad, and the coffee tasted a bit burnt.
• Verb Coffee Roasters - Boulder - Saving the best of the week for last. This place has been on my radar before. Two years ago, we found it by accident while trying to go to another coffee shop in Boulder. It was hands down the best cup of coffee I had that year. Last year, I came back, and my coffee wasn’t anything special. I thought I had heard about them changing management or something, but apparently that was all in my head. Talking to coffee people at Sweet Bloom, I was encouraged to check them out again. So glad I did. Since I went a couple of weeks ago with family, I have been twice more and can’t wait to go again. I had a great YEMEN - WADI JANNAT - NATURAL SL34. I also had the RWANDA - NOVA WASHING STATION - ANAEROBICNATURAL RED BOURBON

Achievements

• Did a really deep dive on the process of the Hanukkah Coffee Box and have some big learnings for next year.
• Added Ruff to a project I’m working on in Python thanks to a recommendation from Ethan Hunt.
• Made some big changes to the ways event locations are handled for [Sacred Space]https://www.findsacred.space]. This allows users to specify directions at their convenience, rather than an address. It also allows users to keep their address private until people sign up for the event.
• Font Awards for 2025 has finished, with Citywide as the winner, and I have set up the website to start accepting nominations for 2026. Any font created or redesigned in 2026 is eligible for the award.
• I am working on some of my leather crafting. I made a cover for my leather notebook with rivets.
• Started work on a new project that has the potential to change the way we deal with people through our technology.
• Discovered Post Oak BBQ and tried the Ron Swanson Sandwich Texas-style.
• I decided to start doing these weekly posts again.

Photos

Just a fun gorgeous day, hiking in boulder.

This is from my two trips to Post Oak in one week.

I was sent on an errand to find swim trunks for a friend in Colorado in February. After 3 stores, we found options at Target!

A former coworker and good friend was talking about how they created a quick prototype of a project using nothing but Windsurf and AI, and how they were able to build out the project’s scaffolding very quickly, with very little manual input.

The next day I had an idea that it would be cool to honor all the fonts that were created in 2025 and have people vote on them in a bracket. After reaching out to Dan Cederholm of Simple Bits for a sanity check, the idea carried some merit. The project began with a pretty simple ask of Claude Code: could you make an online app with Next.js that lets people vote on fonts and pick the best one through a bracketed system? Not going to lie, the first version of it took less than an hour.

The first version used standard web fonts, didn’t have a font preview, and was far from good, but the time-to-quality ratio was rather impressive. Still, like all coding projects, the last 20% of the work has taken 80% of the time. The site is live, and we are actually past the initial round and onto the bracketed rounds.

So far, AI has issues with deploying code, making reusable components on its own (I have to prompt it write reusable components), and general style issues.

The scope of this project was relatively simple, so doing it with AI was a great way to see it really shine. The security was not a super big concern with this app, as I’m not storing any personally identifiable information, only tracking voted cookies. It has inspired me to use it on some other bigger projects, though not for the full thing. I’m excited to see how this tool can help me bring more of my ideas to reality in the software space.

First up, a new edition of the Hanukkah Coffee Box. This is the second year of the box, and I’m even more excited about the roasters. I had more time to plan (though I still managed to be late on releasing), and so I got some different roasters from around the country. There are a couple that were new to me last year and even a few that I haven’t personally tried before. I have only tried a couple of them because the roasters asked for feedback, but they all smell fantastic. This year, I made about 50 boxes and have already sold about half. Head to the website to learn more about the box.

I’m working on a project that is aiming to fill some of the void I found with the disappearance of Acromaps. This project will allow people looking for different experiences to see them and connect, both in their community and while traveling. More on this coming later.

In terms of major projects, there is also the car auction consignment website Authentic Auctions, which is slowly taking off. Through Authentic Auctions, we work with people who are looking to sell their automobiles on auction websites. We take the magic out of it and help you through the entire process.

There is also a follow-up project on the Coffee Box for year-round interest. It will be focused on the use of analog tools and experiences. It will have to do with coffee, paper, and writing tools—more on this as it gets developed over the next little bit.

On top of all of this, I’ve been doing some construction with Rollin Renovations (website not available yet, though I’m trying to convince my boss we need one). This has been a real eye-opener on how houses are made and maintained. It’s been awesome to start seeing under the hood of a home, fixing problems, and learning from people in a new area.

On a side note, I’m delving back into Ruby on Rails. It’s been a while since I’ve played with it, and I know that a lot of people feel like it is old tech at this point, but it still has some powerful areas. While things like Prisma are great, they are all independently added, and there is something about having your entire chain put together and tested as a whole. I have yet to deploy a Rails project fully, but hopefully will in the not-too-distant future, and we’ll see how it goes.

I’m not an artist, and I’m not going to do anything crazy with my photographs for each day.

#1: Mustache

This is a handlebars mustache.

#2: Weave

#3: Crown

#4: Murky

#5: Deer

#6: Pierce

#7: Starfish

#8: Reckless

#9: Heavy

Despite extensive research, the original statement by Sarah Frost remains elusive. Several weeks before the meeting, Sarah Frost commented on the financial system of the hospitals operated by Brown University Health. To balance the budget, Frost mentioned that the Birthing center at Newport Hospital could be at risk of closure to meet the company’s financial needs. Newport residents were understandably concerned.

The Noreen Stoner Drexel Birthing Center has been an instrumental part of the community here in Newport since its creation in 1995. Based on statements from the hospital personnel present in the meeting, the center has roughly 500 babies being born every year.

If the birthing center were to close, residents would be forced to drive to neighboring hospitals to give birth, at a distance of roughly 30-40 minutes away, requiring traveling over bridges. Current and former hospital staff expressed concern that babies would either be traveling via ambulance or be born in the ER in Newport. Neither option is optimal for patient care.

The town hall meeting was filled with pleas from mothers, hospital staff, and community members for Brown University Health to continue operating the center. Many mothers talked about how positive the experience was at Newport, compared to other locations.

Despite the outpour of support, the clinic is run by Brown University Health, and the result of the meeting was the city council sending an official document to Brown University Health to keep the center open. Both Jamestown and Portsmouth followed Newport’s lead and passed resolutions opposing the closure.

Despite an official request to the press office at Newport Hospital, I have been unable to ascertain the amount of loss the birthing center incurs yearly. According to Forbes, the cost of having a baby can average between $14,000 and $27,000. Assuming a pregnancy rate of roughly 500 per year, that is somewhere between 7.5 and 13.5 million per year. That is assuming that the patients or insurance pays for no births.

The question that I have is, would it be possible to raise additional money from the State, county, townships, and philanthropic gifts to make up the lost cost and replace the contributions made by Noreen Stoner Drexel when the facility was opened?

Are there any other proactive steps we can take to ensure the long-term survival of the clinic?

Since starting this piece, Brown University Health has come out and stated that the Clinic will not be closed this year, but will be up for review next fiscal year.

Aside

Writing this was particularly hard. Finding source material from the new pieces I was reading online was very challenging.

I wrote this piece because I was upset with the coverage I was seeing. People mentioned the financial challenge, but there are no specifics. When I requested additional statistics from the Hospital, they were not forthcoming.

Many of the stories did not talk about the history of the center, did not mention information on the numbers, but instead focused on the emotional aspects of the story.

While this is an emotional story and I’m passionate about the issue, focusing solely on the emotion without understanding the financial numbers involved was only seeing half of the story. Even now that Brown University Health has committed to keeping the clinic open for another year, there is no resolution to the financial situation that initiated this entire process.

• zacharyc.com - Now built with Hugo.
• zacroyoga
• patagoniafanboy

Here’s the rub. WordPress is great for interactive features, such as accepting comments and starting forums. Even if you are looking to create an e-commerce site, WordPress is a solid choice. The challenge is that WordPress is built on PHP, and it has evolved over many years, forming its own ecosystem. There are tools on top of WordPress, such as Elementor, that make it easier to create reusable elements in your WordPress site. However, the site still sits on a Database, which primarily houses text. If your site doesn’t do a ton of interactivity, then it might not be necessary to use a system like WordPress. If you want to move your blog posts, you need to run a SQL query against your database to get the posts out. You need to install an extension to enable post caching, which reduces the number of times your website needs to recreate pages. Then, when you are developing, you need to turn that off to see changes more expediently.

It helped that the providers I used had 1-click WordPress installs. This made creating a new site straightforward. Before I knew what was happening, I had several websites running on WordPress, each with its own database and PHP code. Whenever a vulnerability was found in the WordPress code, I would have to update the sites manually. Every time you didn’t update the site, you left your website and the server it was hosted on vulnerable to attacks from malicious actors.

All this has led me to Hugo. Maybe this post should have been titled “Why Hugo?” Skipping ahead a bit, I settled on Hugo to try and master. It creates a static site, has a decent amount of online support, has a strong community, and has been around for a while.

Understanding Partials and Shortcodes

In my day job, before transitioning into iOS Development, I worked on a variety of web development projects with Ruby on Rails. Much of my internal terminology is built on the vocabulary popularized by Rails. In Rails, a partial is a small piece of code that is reused multiple times. It allows you to adhere to one of the primary tenets of Rails: DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). If you can write it once and reuse it, you can save yourself a lot of trouble when you need to refactor or make changes. This reusable code is typically saved in a file called a partial.

Hugo also has partials. But Hugo partials are not the same as Rails Partials. To understand how they differ, it’s essential to recognize that there are two primary types of content in Hugo.

• Layouts - These are usually theme templates, but they are used for rendering the shell of the page. This rendering process happens first.
• Content - This is the content of a page or post. It is often written in Markdown. It occurs after the layout code is compiled. Generally, content code resides in the content/ directory.

Hugo has two ways to make reusable code. Partials and Shortcodes. Both live in the layouts/ directory.

Partials

Partials are reusable code used for layouts only. This code is used when creating the page design, but you cannot access it in the content. The whole reason this post exists is that I’ve made this mistake several times. I write a component or piece that I want to reuse in a partial, only to find out that I can’t access partials from a Markdown file. You need to create shortcodes for that.

Examples of partials that come in standard themes are:

• Header - your site’s headers file
• Head - The content that goes in between your <head> tags
• Footer - Your site footer file

Your theme can include multiple files, and you can override them by placing them in your local layouts directory.

Partials CAN call other partials.

Shortcodes

Shortcodes are reusable code pieces that can be used in content. The one I use most often is rawhtml, which allows me to embed some HTML into my content pages, for example, when I need a table. Shotcodes are tremendous and are mostly what I’m thinking about when I’m writing partials.

They can be embedded with nested shortcodes.

Should I be using Hugo?

Many sites these days are not just static sites, but many of the ones I’m developing today are. For a write once and then serve model, Hugo has been working great. When building a more complicated auction site, Hugo is not the right platform for that.

There are other competitors out there as well, like Jekyll and 11ty. I chose Hugo because I wanted to spend some time learning more Go. C was my first real programming language, and Go was written by part of the team behind C.

Work wise, I’ve been working on some projects:

• Authentic Auctions
  • Made with Hugo and hosted on Digital Ocean App Platform. Coding this from scratch allows me to make a bunch of the pieces reusable. As opposed to projects built with WISYIWYG builders, code reuse is much easier with this platform.
• Dr. Ariel Palanca is a website I helped make for a clsoe friend for her practice out in San Diego area.
  • This was made with SquareSpace so much of what I did was in the squarespace interface. I find it combersome and hard to figure out, and not super intuitive to someone who is used to writing raw HTML and CSS.
• Farmers Friend Greenhouse Construction - I’ve been helping construct several large greenhouses for a local farm. It has been fun, but also very challenging. I built two last year and these are longer and were harder to construct. We are still not quite finished with the last one.
• Newport Acroyoga - Is one of my projects to bring Acroyoga to Newport, RI. I’m now on what I consider to be my third iteration of students going through the program, and I’m looking to find a way to grow the program and bring in more students. Going to look at redoing the website and social and bringing some things together.
• Zack’s Packs and Gear Repair - I’ve been doing some sewing work for Zack’s Packs and making some more tool rolls for Kingspoke Custom.

I’ve also been playing around with Windsurf for coding and writing. In fact, this post was crafted in Windsurf. While it is a powerful tool, it doesn’t solve the need for me to oversee what it’s doing. I do believe it is making me a little faster, but I would relate it to Dan Harris’ 10% Happier. It makes me about 10% faster, and 10% more productive.

I’m also starting to work on the update for Hanukkah Coffee Box project for next year. It starts earlier this year, December 14, 2025. So I guess it’s like Jewish Christmas in July for me.

When I reached out to Nick at Reprise, he provided me with some valuable advice. Don’t focus on small 1-pound bags of beans and try to achieve the right taste. It might take you a whole bag to dial in the flavor you want, and then you will have to recalibrate with the next bag.

Taking Nick’s advice, I ordered 2 lbs of Olympia Coffee Roasters Little Buddy, or HCB day 5, which was my favorite from the series last year.

So far, the experience is going well. I do love the taste of this particular espresso, and I am very much enjoying the process.

So I’ve been open to doing anything else. I’ve farmed a bit. I’ve done some work on tiling and learning how to do some construction things. I’ve made some progress on a couple of sewing projects that I plan to talk about. I’ve spent a bunch of time with my wonderful dog. I’ve visited family and did the challenging task of prepping and selling the van. Oh, and recently, I had to replace all the tires on my car because one of them had popped.

I set up a workbench:

I’m still not done with the top of it. I’ve started moving more of the stuff I don’t need every day out of my space to improve my productivity. I’ve gone to the gym a little bit, but not enough.

All in all, I’m dragging a little and have a lot of things that I wish I were doing that I’m currently not yet doing. I’m working on several web projects that I hope to discuss soon, and I’m trying to find more clients for my tech consulting business.

My last series of posts on Web Forms fizzled out because I was disappointed with the way DigitalOcean handles security around serverless and database connections. I’ll still finish it, but I’ll likely go to production with something like form-data instead.

More to come soon.

• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 1
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 2
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 3
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 4

Now it is time for SQL and input!

Talking about input

The plan for input is something like the following. The body of the post request should look like this:

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{
  "formId": "b863745d-53a7-4282-a286-fbd8388ba001",
  "data": [
    {
      "question": "This is a question from a request 1",
      "answer": "This is answer 1"
    },
    {
      "question": "This is question 2",
      "answer": "This is answer 2"
    }
  ]
}

This includes two top-level parameters:

• formId: allows us to use this input with multiple different forms.
• data: is a list of objects containing a question and answer.

The data will be entered into the rows discussed in [[Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 2]].

Handling the input in node

The current approach makes it easy to send in bad data. We will be doing things to protect for that later, but starting with good practices, break out the data input processing to a function:

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function processArgs(args) {
  if (!args || !args.formId || !args.data) {
    throw new Error("Invalid arguments: formId and data are required");
  }

  const formId = args.formId;
  const submissionId = crypto.randomUUID();
  const dataArray = args.data;

  return {
    formId: formId,
    submissionId: submissionId,
    data: dataArray,
  };
}

In the future, this could be a place where go through and check the validity of the data array, but for now, it’s just passed through.

Generate Insert SQL

Next up is the code to generate the SQL used to insert the data into the database. It’s pretty easy to read:

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function getInsertSql(data) {
  const now = new Date();
  const nowString = now.toISOString();
  const formId = data.formId;
  const submissionId = data.submissionId;

  const allStrings = data.data.map((item) => {
    return `('${nowString}', '${formId}', '${submissionId}', '${item.question}', '${item.answer}'),`;
  });
  const dataString = allStrings.join("").slice(0, -1);

  const sql = `INSERT INTO form_data (date_added, form_id, submission_id, question, answer) VALUES ${dataString};`;

  return sql;
}

This creates a long SQL statement like:

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INSERT INTO form_data (date_added, form_id, submission_id, question, answer)
VALUES
 (isoString, formID, submission_id, question1, answer1),
 (isoString, formID, submission_id, question2, answer2),
 (isoString, formID, submission_id, question3, answer3)
 ...

Putting it together

Now the arguments are parsed, and SQL is ready, we have to go through the process of writing it to the database:

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export async function main(args) {
  let name = "star-gazer";
  let greeting = "Hello there, " + name + "!";

  let connectionString = process.env.CONNECTION_STRING;

  const data = processArgs(args);
  const insertSql = getInsertSql(data);

  const rowCount = data.data.length;

  const client = new Client({
    connectionString: connectionString,
    ssl: {
      rejectUnauthorized: false,
      ca: fs.readFileSync("./certs/ca-certificate.crt"),
    },
  });

  process.env["NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED"] = "0";

  try {
    await client.connect();
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      body: "There was an error connecting to the database: " + error.message,
    };
  }

  const res = await client.query(insertSql);
  await client.end();

  delete process.env["NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED"];

  const bodyString =
    greeting +
    " " +
    "We have entered " +
    res.rowCount +
    "which should match data: " +
    rowCount;

  return { body: bodyString };
}

A couple of notes. Now that we expect input to insert data into the database, this function needs to be called where you can pass data. You can do a curl command:

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> curl --request POST \
  --url https://your-server.ondigitalocean.app/forms/form \
  --data '{
  "formId": "b863745d-53a7-4282-a286-fbd8388ba001",
  "data": [
    {
      "question": "question 1",
      "answer": "This is answer 1"
    },
    {
      "question": "question 2",
      "answer": "This is answer 2"
    }
  ]
}'

You can also use a tool like Postman or Bruno to send in the request.

Run it, test it, and check your database. Data should now be hitting your database.

Conclusion

By the end of this point, the entire backend is up and ready to put data into a database. What is missing is the front-end side of the Hugo Project. Part 6 will focus on putting the form together and adding the JavaScript on the form side for submission.

Secretly, I’ve always wanted to be a designer. It’s not that secret because I’ll tell anyone. The truth is that technology is not helpful unless it is easy to use.

To that end, I’m a font nerd. I’m currently reading Comic Sans, a book about a font people love to hate. I’m also a member of the Secret Type Club, run by the famous Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits.

Today, I want to talk about three different font things:

Back Slant

I’m redesigning my resume. A new one is coming. I want to reverse the italic text for one of the parts of the resume. The image I pasted was:

People in the STC chat came to the rescue and sent me links to things called backslant. With links to the following examples of fonts that have back slant options:

• https://publictype.works/font/cinegenic/
• https://hoodzpahdesign.com/product/beverly-drive-font/

I’m not sure if it is “back slant” or “back slant.” It’s a new vocabulary word for the win.

New Website and Font From Jason Santa Maria

Jason Santa Maria is at the same level of fame as Dan Cederholm. Both wrote foundation books when I was learning web design. I have referenced him before:

• Logo Idea Take 1
• Photo of the Day wavecrest on the end of focus (broken photo link)
• NYCs Best Cheesesteaks

In addition to the links above, JSM was part of the team that launched A Book Apart. I’ve read many of the titles, including the one he wrote.

After taking a break, JSM is back online and posting again. His site is awesome. He also does this amazing thing where he keeps old versions of his site alive. The Cheesesteaks link still works.

Citywide is in the shop section of his site. I’ve seen a preview of this font before in an STC meeting, but I’m super excited to have access to it now and use it in a couple of projects. Check it out.

Font Awesome 7

Misophonia Warning: The video on this page has trigger sounds of people eating. Don’t let the footage prevent you from seeing the font.

Symbol fonts have been around for a bit, but the one I’ve used at the past couple of startups I’ve been with has been Font Awesome. It’s a font that effectively allows you to find images for a specific type of noun or verb and put them on your site with a simple <i> tag or svg.

They have recently released news about the upcoming version 7 of their font. You can pre-order today for 20% off. The new version has three main pieces:

• Updated style for all fonts
• Faster delivery of fonts with improved technology
• Custom style packs with 200 standard icons.

And your purchase today means you will get 20% off on renewals.

• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 1
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 2
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 3

The saga of the web forms continues.

Last, we left our intrepid project and were dealing with an issue with the self-signed certificate for our database. After poking around TLS, one of my brilliant friends sent me the following links:

• For postgres - https://github.com/porsager/postgres#ssl
• For pg - https://node-postgres.com/features/ssl#self-signed-cert

To use the pg library we would use the second one. The issue is that I only have the self-signed certificate.

Setting the NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED environment variable to '0' works, but there was still hope for a better solution. My heart fell when I got the support ticket response from Digital Ocean.

Here are some relevant parts from the email

Basically, other than MongoDB, our managed databases use self-signed certificates. This is why you are seeing this error, you can either use env variable NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 to ignore the error or you can deploy the database on a droplet and configure the SSL certificate from any certificate authority.

I will recommend going through the below documents that covers this issue:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45088006/nodejs-error-self-signed-certificate-in-certificate-chain
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/can-t-connect-via-nodejs-error-self-signed-certificate-in-certificate-chain

Arg.

This solution strikes me as not a good plan for production-level code. Everywhere I see mention of NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED, there is mention of how NOT TO USE IT IN PRODUCTION. Oops, well, it looks like that is the solution to using pg. I’ve pushed back and asked for more clarification from the support team at Digital Ocean, but for now, here is a safer way to use the env variable in the code.

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export async function main(args) {
  let name = "star-gazer";
  let greeting = "Hello there, " + name + "!";

  let connectionString = process.env.CONNECTION_STRING;

  const client = new Client({
    connectionString: connectionString,
    ssl: {
      rejectUnauthorized: false,
      ca: fs.readFileSync("./certs/ca-certificate.crt"),
    },
  });

  process.env["NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED"] = "0";
  try {
    await client.connect();
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      body: "There was an error connecting to the database: " + error.message,
    };
  }

  const res = await client.query("SELECT * FROM test_table;");
  await client.end();

  delete process.env["NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED"];

  return { body: greeting, response: res.rows };
}

Putting it in a try/catch/finally block might be even safer to ensure the environment variable is unset. Truthfully, the nature of the serverless function is that the environment is constructed and removed for the function’s use, so it probably isn’t necessary to do it in JavaScript here instead of setting it in the project.yml file. The benefit of doing it here vs. there is that if there are additional functions, only the ones that need it will have the exception set.

Conclusion

This still isn’t a strong solution to this problem. Although there are a couple out there, I doubt how successful this project will be and whether I want to pay for another form of backend solution.

But I’ve started it, and like my friend Mike always says, I struggle to give up, even if I’m slow.

Next up: creating the functions to insert data into the database. Working on limits for daily submissions to prevent spamming. Adding additional security. Things like that.

• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 1
• Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 2

The next step in the process is writing the serverless function on the Digital Ocean App Platform to connect to the database. Warning: this post will not be a happy one. I’m in the middle of figuring out the best way to do this, but I’ve learned some things, and so I decided to share them.

Choosing a Postgres Library

When you got https://www.npmjs.com and look for a package to connect to Postgres, there are two main options:

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/postgres
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/pg

For most of the work I’ve been doing I’ve been using the Postgres package. It was used in examples found online so that was what I was using. Upon looking at their pages, I found several interesting things, node-postgres (pg) has about 8 million weekly downloads. Postgres has only about 600 thousand. Node-postgres also has some very recent code contributions, while Postgres seems to have must less frequent updates.

This means changing my code around a bit to use Node-Postgres instead of the Postgres library. Shouldn’t be that hard.

The source for the function using node-postgres looks something like this:

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import pg from "pg";
const { Client } = pg;

export async function main(args) {
  let name = "star-gazer";
  let greeting = "Hello there, " + name + "!";

  // Trying to connect to the database
  let connectionString = process.env.CONNECTION_STRING;

  try {
    const client = new Client({
      connectionString,
    });
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      body: "There was an error creating the client: " + error.message,
    };
  }

  try {
    await client.connect();
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      body: "There was an error connecting to the database: " + error.message,
    };
  }

  const res = await client.query("SELECT * FROM test_table;");
  await client.end();

  return { body: greeting, response: res.rows };
}

If this looks a little wonky its because I’ve copied it from the massive amount of attempts I’ve taken to get this working. The issue with the above is that while my database server is on an internal cluster and is only available to machines with a specific VPN, and even has a CA certificate installed. The signing agent for the certificate is Digital Ocean. This is a self-signed certificate and the node-postgres library is concerned about the security of that certificate.

Self-signed certificates are bad, and it’s good that Postgres attempts to prevent users from using them. Unfortunately, I’m unable to find a simple way to tell the library that I know what I’m doing and trust this connection.

Choices

This conundrum leads to a couple of options for solving this problem. None of them are great.

Option 1: Stick with the Postgres Library

I have confirmed, with some testing, that the Postgres library does indeed seem to ignore the self-signed certification, so using that library would dodge this issue.

The downside of this approach is that I’m using a less well-maintained library. While that doesn’t impact me at this moment, maybe there is a feature that I will need from node-postgres in the future and won’t have access to because of my library choice. Also, what if there is a security vulnerability in the postgres library?

Option 2: Accept TLS Unauthorized

You can set a setting at the environmental level to tell the node to accept self-signed certifications.

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> export NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED='0'

This one command, which can probably be set in the package environments variables section (though I haven’t tried that yet), will tell Node’s library to stop worrying about unauthorized TLS issues like self-signed certificates.

This isn’t good for all sorts of reasons. The prominent one is that I want to let this one connection go through without checking just the self-signed nature of the certificate. I don’t want to allow other unsecured connections. This environment variable will allow all connections to be insecure.

In case you set the variable to play with it, I recommend removing it as soon as you are done:

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> unset NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED

Option 3: Provide the correct SecureContextOptions

I haven’t gotten this option to work, but if I can figure it out, it’s probably the best one.

The connection options for creating the client with node-postgres allow you to pass in the following options:

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export class Client extends ClientBase {
  user?: string | undefined;
  database?: string | undefined;
  port: number;
  host: string;
  password?: string | undefined;
  ssl: boolean;

  constructor(config?: string | ClientConfig);

  end(): Promise<void>;
  end(callback: (err: Error) => void): void;
}

This is in the index.d.ts file for pg Client class. If you search for ssl in the file, you will see that the boolean here is a mask:

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export interface ClientConfig {
	...
	ssl?: boolean | ConnectionOptions | undefined;
    ...
}

Investigating the ConnectionOptions, tls.d.ts defines the interface as:

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interface ConnectionOptions extends SecureContextOptions, CommonConnectionOptions { ... }

SecureContextOptions has the property for ca?:

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        /**
         * Optionally override the trusted CA certificates. The default is to trust
         * the well-known CAs curated by Mozilla. Mozilla's CAs are completely
         * replaced when CAs are explicitly specified using this option.
         */
        ca?: string | Buffer | Array<string | Buffer> | undefined;

This is how you can pass in the certificate by using something like:

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const client = new Client({
  connectionString: connectionString,
  ssl: {
    ca: fs.readFileSync("./certs/ca-cert.crt"),
  },
});

The problem is that even if you include the CRT in this way, because it is self-signed, you still end up with a connection error.

This solution still doesn’t work. There is no obvious way to obtain a commercial certificate for both your Database server and include in your function.

Conclusion

I’ve submitted a support ticket to Digital Ocean to see if there is any direct guidance on the most correct way to do this connection.

In the mean time, the code that I’m going to write after the connection is made should be relatively similar regardless of which Postgres Library used. The next step is parse the arguments sent to the function, really defining the pattern, and inserting them into the database. For now, I’m just going to use the Postgres Library while I wait for a better solution from Digital Ocean.

Building on Web Forms On Hugo Sites - Part 1, the next step, discusses the database table. Database normalization is usually something I’m particularly interested in. Still, for the sake of simplicity, the approach here is designed for speed of entry and retrieval and not for minimization of data. If, for some reason, space becomes the more significant concern, there is room for optimization in this design.

Each form question will be tagged with the form and submission. For example, if Alice submits a form with a collection of answers and Bob submits it with different answers, the question and answers will be tied to the submissions from Alice and Bob, respectively.

Here is the thought process:

Creating the table in Postgres is pretty simple: The only additions from the diagram above are adding the ID and setting it as a primary key. Also, the data_added is just a timestamp. Timezone shouldn’t be needed because we will use the NOW() function to determine the timezone by the server and the user submitting the form.

Conclusion

This is a small part of the project; I am just creating the table. Next, the code is written on the server side to insert data into the table. Then, it’s on to building the JS on the static site side to call the serverless function.

Assumptions: You know a little bit about web development and are familiar with the basic concepts of a static website. You have a static site and want to collect data or do something else interactive with your web experience. For some reason, you don’t want to create a whole new interactive web experience; you want to add a component to a static site.

If you enjoy watching videos instead of reading (not me; I want this written down), you can view a Digital Ocean Developer Advocate tutorial here.

The Plan

Hopefully, this is going to be a multi-part series of posts.

My plan is pretty simple:

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+-----------+    +-------------------+     +-------------+
| Web Site  | -->| Servless Function | --> | Postgres DB |
+-----------+    +-------------------+     +-------------+

I’m choosing to go this route for several reasons:

• Learning to work with Serverless is Fun.
• Cost-wise, setting up a Serverless Function should be more cost-effective.
• It should be reusable for other future static web pages I build.

There are several cons:

• Databases aren’t serverless, so you have to pay for the database server.
• Security is a concern. You are effectively opening up a path for people to put data in your database.
• This is not a super common approach to serverless usage.

I’m using Digital Ocean for infrastructure. While there are other serverless services, I like the ecosystem behind Digital Ocean, and I’ve used it before.

Step 1: Database

The first step is creating your database. I’m using Postgres. There is no good reason for this, but once you log into Digital Ocean, click the Databases tab on the left side and create a database.

You will have to pick a region and configuration. At the time of this writing, the total cost is about 15 USD a month.

Accessing the Database

Once you create your database, you can select it in the Databases section, and it will display connection information.

Security Note: When creating a database, it is generally open to anyone with Internet access.

To secure the database, go to the “Trusted Sources” section of the page and add sources you can connect to. Depending on your service provider, this can be easy or hard.

You can go to What’s My IP to find your IP address and add it to the list of trusted sources. The problem is that some service providers, like mine (COX), do not give you an IPv4 address; currently, DO doesn’t support an IPv6 address. To get around this, you can set up your own VPN on Digital Ocean, which is another cost and another server but now gives a much more secure way to access your data. I did this and will write about how to do it. It’s not too hard.

Creating a Table

Next, create a table. You can do this in SQL or with a tool. I use Postico 2 to connect. Then, make a table like test_table.

Step 2a: The Insecure Way

If you are trying to get things up and running, there is a quick and dirty way to access your database. The fastest way I’ve found is to create a DO function and open the database system to public connections.

This approach involves removing trusted sources from your database and using the connection information to create the connection.

Next, you need to create a DO function. You can do so manually by building the structure or using the command line tools from Digital Ocean:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/functions/how-to/create-functions/ Specifically:

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doctl serverless init --language js example-project

This example is in JavaScript, which is what I chose, but DO Functions supports many languages.

Next, you will want to configure your functions environment. Specifically, you want to provide connection details like host, port, username, password, and database.

You can define these in the project.yml file in your function bundle. If you run JavaScript, you can add dependencies like Postgres in a package.json file at the same level as your source file.

My Source file is super simple and looks something like this:

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import postgres from "postgres";

export async function main(args) {
  let name = args.name || "stranger";
  let greeting = "Hello " + name + "!";

  let conString = process.env.CONNECTION_STRING;
  const sql = postgres(conString);

  const ins = await sql`INSERT INTO test_table (msg) VALUES (${name})`;

  return { body: greeting };
}

Then you can deploy this function to Digital Ocean using the CLI:

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doctl serverless deploy <<function_folder>>

You can then run it through your CLI or the web interface. If you want to pass values, you can get the URL and add it to Postman or Bruno.

This isn’t super safe because anyone can connect to your database; all that is required is a username and password.

Step 2b: The Safer Way

This approach requires slightly more work but is preferred and more secure. Instead of using raw functions, we will create an app using the Digital Oceans App Platform and give the app permission to access the database.

You can start by going to the App Platform Section on your Digital Ocean Dashboard and clicking the Create button at the top of the section.

If you are like me and don’t already have a repository set up, you can use a Sample App as a good starting point. In the search box of the Sample App start typing “hel” and you will see options for “Functions - Hello World” in a bunch of different languages. Pick the one you want.

I used the “Create New Repository” option, so I was taken to Github to create the repository. After the repo is created, it is deployed. Next you need to connect your database to the App. Go to App page by clicking on App Platform and selecting your App from the list. At the top of the page, there there is an “Add resources” dropdown. Click it and select “Create or attach database.” Notice there is an option for a dev database. I didn’t see this when I created my project, so I already have a production database. I just connected it.

You can clone it to your machine and edit the project.yaml file to include the environment values you need, modify the package.json file to include your dependencies for the database connection, and modify your source. An example is above in Step 2a if you want to do this.

Once you commit and push your changes to your repository, Digital Ocean automatically pulls in the code and redeploys. You can run the function from the Apps or using other tools, the same way I mentioned above.

End of Part 1

That is the end of Part 1. There are a bunch of things still to do. Next up is designing the actual database table I want to use to collect form data, creating a function to input the data into the table. Sanitizing the data to make sure it is safe to input. Then there is the aspect of connecting it to a web form securing the route to prevent bad actors.

Hope you enjoyed this. Let me know if you have questions.

It is true; Copilot is a must-have in VSCode. It often saves time when writing repetitive code in commonly used programming languages. When I want to know some piece of information, better and quicker results can be had by asking an LLM than searching and reading through all the ad-dense articles on the internet.

The argument is that AI is currently solving a different problem than what humans solve. The internet is not new. The information for solving most of your coding problems has been available if you know where to look. And if it isn’t readily available on the internet, the AI can’t do the deep reasoning of linking obscure topics together. That’s just not what it is made for. Instead of using Let Me Google That For You, you can now send people a response from ChatGPT.

In the process of trying to understand the competitive advantage of Gluino, I asked an Agent the simple question: “Where does AI let users down?” The response was interesting enough that it is worth an entire post.

Factual Inaccuracies and Hallucinations

AI models sometimes generate information that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect or entirely made up—a phenomenon often referred to as “hallucination.” This can be problematic when users rely on the AI for accurate, reliable information.

From ChatGPT

The issue is that these LLMs are only as strong as their training data. Many modern LLMs take years to train, and so oftentimes, the most recent data that is being used in the LLM is several years old. Other times, the of older events may be harder to find. Here is an article about how wrong Siri is about Super Bowl winners.

The real issue is the same thing I’ve been complaining about for years with AIs. While their level of accuracy is continually improving, their certainty in their results is unwavering. AI comes back very confident about its answers, even if they might be wrong. This is not a new problem. This YouTube video is a parody of a guy acting like Google. One person asks, “Vaccines cause autism.” Google shows a bunch of evidence disproving it, the user changes the prompt “vaccines cause autism true,” and Google can return one result, which leads the person to say, “I knew it.” This is confirmation bias, and very common in human behavior.

The more significant problem could be that if users learn information from AI and treat it as fact without researching the truth, falsities could spread more quickly. The repercussions of these inaccuracies could be significant over time.

Context and Nuance

While AI can handle many straightforward tasks, it may struggle with understanding complex contexts, subtle nuances, or ambiguous queries. For example, in conversations involving irony, sarcasm, or cultural references, the AI might misinterpret the intent, leading to inappropriate or off-target responses.

Context is perhaps the most important part of any situation. While this is something that we learn throughout our life, this is something that is very challenging for computers. The context in which a question is asked matters. Asking an AI a question is asking it in the context of the training data provided.

The example I’ve used here is the recommendation letter for one of my former students for a job. I have the context of knowing the person and having worked with them in the past. The AI hasn’t. The letter I got out of ChatGPT was written with passion but without any details or context on our interactions in the past. Some of this can be mitigated by improving your prompt. Prompt Engineering is an entire science at this point. Still, the response is only as good as the context you give it, and many AIs will have a limitation on the number of tokens they can take in as context. Sometimes, even when more context is provided the response is still off.

Handling Ambiguity

When faced with vague or ambiguous questions, AI might provide answers that are too generic or miss the user’s intended meaning. This can be frustrating, especially if the query requires deep insight or specialized knowledge.

This is similar to lack of context. Ambiguity can often be resolved by having more context. The abilility to decode what is meant by a question, or ask for clarification appropriatly is something that AI is still working on. As context improves, I guess ambiguity will also become less of a concern.

Bias and Representation

AI models are trained on large datasets from the internet, which can include biased or unbalanced perspectives. As a result, the outputs might inadvertently reflect or amplify these biases, potentially leading to skewed or unfair responses.

Because of the nature of the training data set, AI can only know areas where it has been trained. It is only as good as the data you provide it. It cannot empathize, interpret, and extract. These are skills that allow humans to relate to one another.

Again, this boils down to context for me. If you take, for example, accounts from enslaved people during the period before the Civil War, the amount of context we have is limited because of the systemic barriers to literacy provided to those who were enslaved. The documents of the time will present the world in a way that is more representative of those who had more unrestricted access.

Lack of Explainability

Many AI models operate as “black boxes,” meaning they do not provide transparent reasoning behind their responses. Users who need to understand how a decision was reached may find this lack of explainability limiting, especially in critical applications like healthcare or legal advice.

Like reading a random page on the Internet without looking at the source, AI can produce information that is perceived as valid and accurate. However, the lack of proof associated with AI responses can lead to distrust.

Limited Real-Time Understanding

AI systems often rely on data that isn’t updated in real time. This means they might not be aware of the most recent events or developments, leading to outdated information in fast-changing fields.

This combines the first two issues: factual inaccuracies and a lack of context. It concerns training data. A model uses data that is captured and trained. Data created after the capture is unused and unavailable to the model.

Overreliance on Patterns

AI is excellent at detecting and mimicking patterns in data, but it can struggle with genuinely novel or creative problem-solving that falls outside the patterns it has learned. This can result in responses that are formulaic or less innovative when a truly new perspective is needed.

In asking for further clarification here, ChatGPT says:

It struggles with unique, unexpected, or illogical situations because it tries to apply familiar structures.

The example I liked the most is: If you asked AI to complete the pattern 2, 4, 8, 16, 31, it might respond with 62 as the following number in the sequence. The issue is that 31 breaks the sequence, and humans will often ask what is going on, while AI will follow the doubling pattern.

Ethical and Privacy Concerns

In some cases, the ways AI handles data can raise ethical or privacy issues. For instance, when generating content based on personal data or sensitive topics, the AI might inadvertently produce content that users find invasive or ethically questionable.

However, morality is a complex process that needs to be taught to computers.

Conclusion

Many of these issues overlap and impact one another. The fundamental design of modern Generative AIs leads to many of these issues, but none diminishes the product’s usefulness.

The most striking area of AI is to give you a starting point. Starting with a premise and using AI to start you down a path, even if it is wrong, at least gets you moving. You can realize that the information it’s giving you is not what you need, but then, voila, you now know what you need, and it has gotten the ball rolling.

Tools like Gluino aim to solve some of the problems inherent in these tools. As the Technology space develops, I’m sure even more will help with these challenges.

While AI is fabulous and does help with many knowledge worker tasks, AI by itself is not enough to replace the creativity and intelligence of the workforce. It can be helpful as a tool but still requires operators and people to check its work. I disagree with my friend Scott, who says AI might put us out of a job. AI will likely augment our jobs, just as other tools like Google and Stack Overflow helped engineers in the past.

We live in an age where large quantities of information bombard us. These include emails, phone calls, text messages, news, magazines, and letters. They come from many different avenues and pass through our consciousness. Because of our brains’ nature, retaining all the information we receive is impossible. We do our best to cull and surrender the information we process to keep what we need.

Even after we cull down what we care about and surrender to the fact that there is too much information, our brains are not perfectly cataloged libraries of the information. Information becomes hard to find or is lost in the basement of our minds.

That is where PKMs shine. They provide a location for us to store the information we find valuable. It is the perfect place for us to store this information. Computers are good at searching for content, and it’s easier to see if the database it is searching is limited to the information you care about and not just cluttered with everything anyone has ever written on the subject or even the subset of extensive data used by modern-day LLM solutions.

The overarching point is that whether we have a strictly codified system for creating our knowledge or not, we all have a limited subset of the knowledge available. If we don’t use a tool to do this, our brains act as our PKMs. They retain the information we have access to and function as the database we use.

So, right now, we have two options:

• Manually write down what we need in our PKMs system, and I hope we find it later.
• Trust our brains to make the connections and keep the information relevant and together.

Neither of these solutions is excellent, but I’ve chosen the first one. If you want to give it a go and put something together, again, here is a list of options and who I recommend them for:

• Notion is an excellent option for someone who wants a lot of features, doesn’t want to learn Markdown, and wants a lot of enhanced functionality. However, it also costs money for features.
• ObsidianMD is my tool of choice. You keep your data locally in Markdown and asset files. You are responsible for managing and backing up your information.
• Evernote was once one of the most used systems for this, but it has lost market share over time. Another company bought it and is not as interconnected as some other tools. Also, it uses a priority feature to store its notes, so it isn’t as transparent as Markdown files.
• Bear App — This was the tool I used before Obsidian. It uses tags, not folders. It uses Markdown but converts it to pretty styles. It uses predefined styles and doesn’t give you the same customization as Obsidian.
• Standard Notes is another product I’m just learning about. It’s like another Bear App or Obsidian-like product.

Keeping files, screenshots, images, and other items on your computer is another example of your knowledge management. Cleaning up and managing your hard drive can be tricky, even following something like the P.A.R.A. method.

My database of information has become crowded, and information is placed in places that are either redundant or hard to find. Even when searching for phrases, it might be hard to find the exact document I’m looking for if I don’t use precise wording.

To conclude, while there are tools to help us with knowledge, they are all faulty and costly. The question is, where do they work and fail for you? Also, is what you are currently doing good enough?

These systems are a way to collect and manage the information in one’s life for reference, research, and retrieval. When discussing Taigo Forte and Second Brains, you discuss organizing and building your PKM.

There are a bunch of tools out there for doing this:

• Notion
• Obsidian
• Evernote
• BearApp

To name a couple. Each of these tools has two primary components:

• You can enter text, pictures, and thoughts into a file.
• You can link files together.

Linking files together creates what some people refer to as a knowledge graph. If you check out r/ObsidianMD, you will see countless posts about knowledge graphs. There is a whole field called graph theory that discusses vertices and edges. While these graphs are very cool, their interconnected nature provides data about how information is connected.

The problem with PKMs, or at least my PKM, is that organizing all the data is incredibly manual. The system user has to organize notes into folders and provide links from one document to another. What if you realize something is tangential later but haven’t connected it? Sometimes, finding a document you are searching for by idea instead of exact text can be complicated. This happens to me weekly, if not more frequently.

Could I be better about linking my documents? Yes, without question. That being said, I don’t always know how to use information in the future. I’m not sure about connections until an idea comes to me. Searching and analyzing information text is one thing that computers are very good at.

One of my friends who also uses a PKM system and knows what Gluino is and that I’m working on it asked:

If gluino could magically parse my obsidian docs that would be very cool Seems like a real hard ass problem though

He is right. This is a tricky problem, but it is worthwhile. It is one of the many avenues ahead of us with Gluino.

Related is the notion that the amount of data available in this information age is enormous. Knowing which data to trust is challenging, as is finding the signal among the noise. One of the reasons I created a PKM is to combine the information I trust with the information I don’t and comment on it. I’m excited about a system that even marginally better understands the information I trust.

While this post doesn’t magically reveal a feature or future, it represents how I process and think through this problem. I hope it helps some.

If you stumble upon this post and use a PKM or are starting to use one, we are researching the community. If you have a second and are inclined, please complete our survey.

The past year (2024) was both excellent and challenging. It’s awesome because I got to start working with one of my favorite people again, and it’s challenging because I’m asked to do a bunch of new things at work, and the world around us has shifted in a way I wouldn’t prefer.

The Notebooks

2023 in Review

My daily carry includes pocket notebooks. This year, I used seven Field Notes Brand notebooks.

• Number 53 - Birch Bark
• Number 54 - Deadest Prints Draplin
• Number 55 - Mackinaw Autumn
• Number 56 - MxLxBxD Edition
• Number 57 - Heartland
• Number 58 - DDC Irregular
• Number 59 - DDC Irregular

I also journal semi-regularly in Hobonichi Techo, as I have in years past. However, unlike in years past, I wrote a lot more. I tried hard not to miss days.

In reviewing my notes from this past year, I’ve found:

• Habit graphs of me trying to track my habits.
• Notes around my choice to leave my coaching position at Salve.
• Drawing Tree sketches
• Checklists of daily tasks
• Daily tasks and goals
• Basketball game scores.
• This is an ASCII art drawing of Gluey the Penguin.
• Hand Drawn maps
• Reflections on the Election

In addition to my journal and daily carry field notes series this year, I used several notebooks. I used a Muji Double Ring-bound notebook and another field notebook for the Gluino Project. In addition to my day job, I did some farming and used another field notebook to track my hours and tasks.

I also painted some with watercolor Moleskine.

All in all, this was a good year for my paper usage.

Last Years Goals

The main goal from last year was to be clean.

In short, I’ve made progress, but I’m not done. This year, I cleaned my apartment and had friends come by. I built out some storage on the wall with some woodworking. I’ve hired a cleaner to come in and clean my apartment regularly, and I’ve started to organize some of the more critical tasks for the future.

Still, there are areas of my life where I have too much excess, which is keeping me from being as clean as I want to be. I also want to set up a chore sheet to improve.

Breaking it down by the categories listed:

• Home - I downsized even more and organized a bunch, but I’m still not done.
• Car—I’ve attempted to clean my car more, but it still needs work. There have been times when it has been much cleaner than in years past, but I still have work to do.
• Fitness & Food: I’ve made progress without reaching the ideal. My diet needs more work, but I’m doing better than I did last year.
• Coding and Projects: My goal was to reduce the number of projects I worked on. I wasn’t super successful at this, but I took on many projects and finished more of them.

Regarding habits, 2024 was a strong year for at least some habits. I made it to the gym for my cardio almost every day in the year (this has since fallen off as I have started this new year with a van trip that has made that hard), and I did a bunch of reading and coding. Honestly, I am proud.

Achievements in 2024

I started working with one of my best friends on a company I believe in, Gluino. We are doing some enjoyable things, and I’m excited to share more of them as we go through 2025.

I also lost thirty pounds through hard work and dedication. Going to the gym nearly every day and working out helped me shed some weight. Only about an hour on the elliptical helped me.

I taught acroyoga throughout the year and started to get a stronger community. My class members also got MUCH stronger, and we progressed in our practice.

I survived another delivery on the eastern seaboard. Grace successfully carried four of us from Newport, RI, to Miami, Florida, in about six days of ocean time. Thanks to our onboard chef, Tommy, who did most of the cooking, the food was exceptional this trip.

2025 Goals

Here are the goals in no particular order:

• Continue to lose weight (heading to sub 200).
• Get my 5k under 30 minutes (yes, that is running).
• Sew more backpacks, pouches, and products.
• Help Gluino grow this year.
• Go to more acro classes in Boston!
• Work on watercolors and photography
• Focus on capturing instead of culling when taking notes.
• Grow professionally
• Get off of Wordpress for as many of my projects as possible.
• Get one or more apps in the app store with my name.

If this list seems random, it’s because that’s the type of person I am. I’m often all over the place, and this list is an accurate representation of that. Still, we are about a month and a half in, and I’m already making progress towards some of these.

The EZ Pass system in RI is supposed to be simple and easy to use, but I have found it anything but. The system requires you to manage a complicated account, track the battery life of your transponder, and often try to visit the EZ Pass office, which is only open on select days from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

There is only one office in Rhode Island, and I’m lucky to have one right next to my hometown in Jamestown. Yes, I need to pay to go across the bridge to get to it, but it is relatively close, and I guess that is an expense I’m willing to pay.

Now the rub: nothing with a van is easy. Registration in the state of Rhode Island was a nightmare. I had it registered as the personal vehicle it is, but Rhode Island does not let you do that if the Gross Weight is over 7000 lbs. So, I had to go back and register it as a commercial. There are some minor benefits to that:

• Your inspection is cheaper ($15/year instead of $35 for two years for cars).
• Certain places require a commercial plate to park.

The drawbacks vastly outweigh the positives:

• Registration is more expensive.
• You have to get your vehicle inspected EVERY year.
• You are no longer receiving resident discounts on bridges.

Yep, there is a benefit to having the EZ pass. The toll to cross the Pell Bridge drops from 6 to 4 dollars. However, if I do it in my car, it is $.91. Yep, over four times more to drive my van across the bridge.

The kicker is that the determination is based not on the vehicle’s actual weight but on its rating. My truck weighs 8500 pounds, which is over the limit by 1500.

This may sound like venting, and maybe it is. But I don’t use my van for commercial purposes and receive no income from it. In the end, it is just an expense. Owning one in Rhode Island is just a challenge.

In the meantime, I’m preparing to take a road trip to California, and part of that is preparing my van to drive across the country. When I got ready for the journey, I found the van had a water leak around the fan area. The work around this was done six years ago, and the fact that it has held up this long is beyond impressive. Still, this work needs to be fixed before I head out.

In taking apart the upper roof section of the fan, I found that part of the roof had developed rust, which meant I needed to take everything apart, repair it, and re-seal it. All of this was new work to me. After roping in several co-conspirators, we began tackling the job. We removed all the existing caulk and molding. Sanded down the rust and applied about 1.5 coats of a product called POR 15 and an upper coat of Rostoleum Satin.

Now, we are at the re-caulking stage and have run into a serious issue: the weather is about 33 degrees F, and the recommended caulk requires at least 40 degrees to work. The van is too tall for most garages in the area. The solution is to find a silicon caulk that works in -30 degrees weather. The problem is that silicon is hard to seal on top.

The current solution is to caulk with the Silicon, use some of the RV tape I bought, and use that to cover the silicon until I can get to warmer weather, where I can apply the suggested self-leveling caulk and let that heal.

Worse comes to worse, so I’ll re-do the work in the summer when the weather is more cooperative.

This has been a learning experience but also very stressful.

In typical Zack fashion, I decided that meant it was time for me to make one. To make this happen, I’m trying to gauge interest. My goal is to make between 10 and 20 calendars this year. They will be essential, as I don’t have time to make them overly elaborate. Hanukkah starts December 25th (yes, on Xmas this year), so I have limited time to get this to people.

If you are interested in ordering the coffee calendar, complete the form below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMlY1IxxEpdwshl2aifOK3pRdzm1QzIbGAjzJOd3wj62PYtw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Updates will happen when and if we have enough interest to make this a reality.

This was in college, so my affinity goes further back.

I’ve written several times about how I always carry a pocket notebook with a pen just in case I have an idea or need some paper to write things down. I’ve been doing this daily since about 2008. I miss days here and there, but I have a pocket notebook with me almost every day. I fondly review the old notebooks for ideas I may need to remember occasionally. Running through how I used to think helps me understand how I feel now.

I am not the only one with strong feelings about paper. There are a bunch of stationary writers out there. My personal favorite is Three Staples, though it has mostly gone quiet. Still, the photography and questions are the things I’m most interested in. I’m also partial to Field Notes and enjoy the edition ratings.

Another one is The Gentleman Stationer. This active blog has a shop where you can buy many of its recommended products. I have found some products I like through this site, like the book Darts and the Clairefontaine 1950s collection.

The first blog I found on this subject was Notebook Stories. This site occasionally has exciting posts and reviews of paper products, but generally, its cadence is slow. While I check out its posts, I often find little there.

This Post includes several other blogs I will check out, but many are already obsolete. As I learn more about this, I may post a curated list.

Here is the Field Notes Addict Tumblr I created a while back. It features a collection of images from my favorite field notes.

While hanging out at the library, I often sit by the technology section. I can turn around, pick up a book, leaf through some technology I don’t know well, and learn something. It’s a fun concept.

My library’s tech section consists primarily of “For Dummies” books and No Scratch Press. While this is better than not having anything, if young computer enthusiasts are coming here to learn about technology and computers, I fear for their development.

The shelves are devoid of books that influence the thought processes of industry leaders. I wish there were copies of some of the canonical books on programming here. Yes, my home library is tailored to my needs, but the books here could be more inspiring.

I approached a librarian the other day and asked about getting a book. I’m looking to read THE book on computer architecture, “Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach.” This is the textbook on how to learn about how computers are wired. The library doesn’t have it, and they often avoid getting textbooks because they are expensive and must be updated quickly. While that is true for some books, others last for decades. Also, some textbooks that need to be added should exist on this shelf. For example, Pragmatic Programmers should be one where there are multiple copies in case one is checked out.

I’ve got some ideas about what I want to do here. I’ll find a way to donate many books to the library. Another idea may be to create a mail order/borrow library system for these technical books that would be more easily accessible to anyone trying to learn this field. Another unlikely idea is opening a coffee shop with a collection of essential computer books for people to read and understand while sipping quality coffee. All these ideas still need to be set, but I want to do something someday.

A slight aside: a friend is trying to build an app for the iPhone using AI to help him write the code. What he has gotten out of the machine is impressive, but he doesn’t understand what the code is doing. It made me think about education for people like my friend. Even if AI can do 80% of the work, the remaining 20%, architecture and code design, is essential. That last bit of refinement may be tricky for AI to realize.

This morning, while scanning Hacker News, I saw this post. It discusses how AI doesn’t disappear tech debt; it increases its expense. This seems related to my concerns: I fear that people are entering the programming world without some fundamental tools in their toolbox.

While I’ve had one voyage that wasn’t super eventful until the VERY end, most of my voyages have had at least some sort of challenge and adventure. You never know what you will hit off the coast of the eastern seaboard.

As usual, Cape Hatteras was the turning point for this voyage. The first couple of days were relatively uneventful. One of the boat’s captains was a great cook, so we had great food. The seas were calm so that we could sleep.

When we pulled up to Hatteras, the wind shifted to dead on, so we kept our main sail up for stability. However, the pin holding the roller in the boom broke free, and the roller started coming out. We ended up lashing the boom roller to the boom, but this meant we were very stuck about the sail’s position, as we would need to move a lot of lines if we wanted to switch our position.

While I must have understood that there was probably a roller in the boom, I never appreciated it until I saw it sticking out the tail end of the boom by the foot of the sail. Thankfully, our roller is made of carbon fiber, so it arched a bit but didn’t bend (apparently, some boats have aluminum, and that bends).

Still, there was a lot of stress on the foot of the sale with the wind. In good times, there are three attachment points from the foot of the sale to the roller. As the days passed, we noticed that one of the points had broken, and we had two. We became terrified that if the next one broke, the third would fail shortly after, and then we would have a giant unruly sail flopping around from the mast. While the wind was still 20 knots, we decided to douse the main instead of risking letting the wind get higher. This was a challenging task as the wind was running pretty fast. We tacked the boat gently past the wind to direct the position of the fall of the sail before releasing the main halyard. The sail was expected to drop quickly, but it didn’t. Instead, Tommy had to go up the mast and pull it down.

We felt safer once the sail was on deck, but our speed diminished. When we finally arrived at the bottom of Florida, it was just past dark. This was problematic because the channel we tried to navigate was very shallow, and the markers needed to be illuminated. In the middle of some of the shallowest parts, we found our transmission had also gone, so we lost propulsion from the main engine, and Tommy had to hop in the dinghy to direct the boat.

With thrusters and Tommy’s nudging, we made it slowly and safely to the dock. It was an adventure and a half.

Although some details of this trip have yet to be included, this post maintains the spirit of the challenge.

If you want to check out Tommy, watch his YouTube videos and adventures.

Website Youtube

In this series of posts, I want to discuss how I’ve used AI in the past, how it has helped me, and how it hasn’t. I will also mention some interesting uses of AI that I have seen or heard about, hoping to inspire responsible use of what we call AI.

The Gemini Commercial

During the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, Google released a commercial for its AI product, Gemini. In the commercial, a father uses Gemini to write an appreciation letter to an athlete from his daughter.

There was a bunch of feedback on the commercial.

The issue is whether or not an AI should be responsible for writing something like this—for writing the words of a kid instead of having the child write them. Are we losing something authentically human by using an assistant to do work that we should be doing?

I agree with most of this in general. AI shouldn’t be used to do human things like show appreciation for something or someone. AI, by nature, doesn’t have emotion.

Where I differ is my belief that AI could be used to create a “framework” for a letter if you don’t know where to start. Asking the AI, “What should I put in my appreciation letter?” is much more useful than asking it to write the entire letter for you.

How I’ve used AI

There are two prominent examples of how I’ve used AI. One was very successful, and the other was a big failure, possibly due to how I wrote the prompt.

Acroyoga Teacher Description

I teach acroyoga at the YMCA. I’m their first teacher, so they needed a description for the job they were hiring me for if they ever needed to replace me in the future.

I asked an AI to generate a job description. I started the prompt with “Write me a job description for an acroyoga teacher.” What I got back from that was about 70% correct. That’s awesome. I went through and updated the content quickly and got the job description out very quickly.

This was a very successful use of AI.

Student Recommendation

One of my former cheerleaders asked me to write a recommendation for them for a cheer coaching position in their hometown.

I asked the AI to generate a recommendation letter, hoping that I could go in and edit it. What I got out was predictably full of platitudes without specifics; I hadn’t given it any to use.

I tried to modify the letter to be used, but in the end, I had to start from scratch. What the AI generated was an excellent example of what I didn’t want to write.

I might have gotten better results by asking about the format of my letter or if there were specific areas I should target, but generating the whole letter wasn’t successful.

The Legal Case for AI

I was listening to a podcast this week from Hacked where they were talking about the hype surrounding AI. One of the hosts mentioned having a lawyer friend who sends in the transcripts of testimony in his cases and asks the AI to find all the inconsistencies. This saves the lawyer a ton of time and should be easy for a computer to identify.

This seems like a very good use of AI, especially if you can tell the AI to err on the side of a false positive instead of a missed positive.

The challenge here is that if you have to catch all the inconsistencies absolutely, depending on AI might not be possible. But combining large data with specific targets sounds like a great use for a computer, and using something that can understand some of the subtleties of the language is pretty awesome.

Summary

I don’t want to call this a conclusion because I’m still investigating the use of Artificial Intelligence as we use it today. These specific examples highlight that there are good uses of AI and uses that might not be appropriate. We haven’t even talked about using AI to write college essays or anything else that could be considered academic cheating.

As a coffee enthusiast who has savored about two cups of coffee daily for the past 15 years, I’m still on a journey of discovery. The coffee process is a complex web of factors, and this post delves into one small yet significant aspect: the role of roasting companies and how coffee shops make their selection.

Roasters take green coffee beans and roast them to the point where they can be ground and used in the coffee process. Many companies roast beans, and some are big enough to roast at several different locations (think Starbucks).

I need to familiarize myself with the roasting process. However, I know that some people roast at home with an oven or even an old popcorn machine. Turning the bean so that the entire bean is roasted evenly is part of the challenge.

Most coffee shops are tied to a single roaster. Think of Starbucks stores serving Starbucks coffee. The same goes for Blue Bottle, which serves Blue Bottle coffee.

Here in Newport, Springline serves Springline Coffee beans. Empire Tea and Coffee serves beans roasted by Empire. Custom House serves beans roasted by Custom House. Hill Market serves La Colombe Coffee.

While some roasters are big enough to produce multiple varieties of Espresso beans, they often have a standard for their espresso, and when you serve one roaster, you are stuck with a very standard espresso experience from that brand.

On the West Coast and in more significant markets, it is expected to find coffee shops that serve from multiple roasters and switch between what they serve. In smaller markets, this is much less common. Here in Rhode Island, I only know one shop that carries multiple roasters and switches between what they serve: Simple Merchant. At Simple Merchant I have had coffee from the following roasters to name a few:

• Bolt
• Brandywine
• Dak
• Dayglow
• Enjoy
• Ilse
• Little Wolf
• Metric
• No Vacancy
• Onyx

Different roasters are known for different flavors. Some prefer a dark, strong coffee flavor, while others tend to have a light, fruity taste. While the processing method affects this, some roasters are better at one type. The variety of roasters allows you to try many different flavors. The next time you go into your local coffee shop, check to see who the shop serves and evaluate the coffee’s taste before adding milk and sweetener.

During this past summer, I found myself in a distressing situation with a realtor, Ben Willett. This post delves into Ben’s potential ethics violation and the disappointing lack of accountability from Keller Williams and his manager, Jen Bove.

Ben and my agent are in the same brokerage. Ben originally contacted my agent and said he had people interested in my property for the month of July. He had us on the line and went through the application without mentioning any concerns about the price. He came back after the application was submitted and, in an email, offered a 12% reduction in our price.

While I don’t begrudge him or his clients for attempting to negotiate on price, how it was done felt disingenuous. We did additional research on the market and discovered there was no one else at our price point, so we held fast, and they ended up capitulating. So we had a deal.

Due to platform restrictions, they could only pay part of their security deposit upfront, but I was okay with that. I wanted to start the relationship based on trust.

With three days left in the month after the partial security deposit was paid, we received a text from Ben about a cat they were bringing that was not included in the lease application. There is a little disagreement about whether Ben had told my agent about the cat verbally, but it was not on the lease.

Here is Ben’s Text:

My agent does not remember Ben mentioning the cat, but he admits it might have slipped his mind. He doesn’t believe it did. Either way, it was not in the lease and was brought back to us several days later.

Regarding the timeline, about half the time left in the month went by before I was notified about the cat. This made things much more challenging, as I had significantly less time to rent for the month of July.

Now, if this were slip of the memory or a something Ben did not know about, it would be one thing, but it wasn’t. After my tenants moved in, they discussed with me how they had another property lined up but had to back out because they would not accept the cat. This means that they knew the cat was an issue and PURPOSELY did not disclose this on their original rental agreement. While the clients are not bound by a code of ethics, Rhode Island real estate agents do have a code of ethics. This directly violates Article 2 of the code, which states:

Article 2 Realtors shall avoid exaggeration, misrepresentation, or concealment of pertinent facts relating to the property or the transaction.

This clearly shows that Ben violated the code of ethics. At this point, I was distraught with Ben and how the situation was handled.

In response to my frustration, I contacted Ben’s boss, Jen Bove, the owner of the local Keller William brokerage. Jen dismissed my concerns by saying, “She has never heard any complaints about Ben before.” She then promised she would get back to me early next week. She never did.

After much reflection, I realized I was not comfortable leaving the interaction where it was. I talked to several friends and one suggested leaving a Google review on my experience. One causal acquaintance was a fellow agent working on a deal with Ben. He told me he would try and prod Ben with the situation. Upon reconnecting, apparently, Ben had told my friend that he had talked to my broker and, in his words, “did nothing wrong” and, therefore, was completely non-plussed about my feelings.

At this point, I felt that I had write the review to talk about how these people had been treating me and perhaps prevent them from treating others in the future. At the very least, they were dismissing my feelings and not hearing my position.

Here is the original review in full:

Ben represented tenants applying to my home. He actively concealed information about his tenants on their application (e.g., knowing they had a cat and omitting it). After we agreed on terms and received the security deposit, Ben came back to us and said that his tenants actually had a cat. Would we need to fill out additional paperwork, or would the landlord just “be cool” with it?

Ben never apologized.

I contacted Ben’s broker about my frustrations with the situation, but no action was ever taken. I later heard that Ben talked to his boss and said he had nothing wrong, but I think differently.

I would not recommend using Ben in any of your dealings.

---

Also of note, he tried to move my tenants into another property and inspected it, but when they went to move in, they found the property was nowhere near acceptable for them. I’m not convinced that Ben actually cares about the needs of his clients. There are MANY agents in this town; find someone else.

After silence from Ben, the broker, and my agent, the morning following the posted review, I received a call from my agent. He told me that Ben had called me earlier that morning, demanding he get me to take down the review. My agent reiterated that it was my decision but that Ben wanted me to take down the review.

During my conversation with my agent, I disclosed that a call from Ben or the Broker would probably be more appropriate at this point. I said he was free to relay that information with my contact information to Ben.

The following week Ben called me and we had our first conversation. During the course of the conversation, Ben told me that he understood why I would be upset with the situation, but said the only person I could be upset with was my agent. Despite not having any proof other than his verbal conversation with my agent about the cat, which he claimed was witnessed by his assistant, he maintained that he had done absolutely nothing wrong. When I asked him about details like when he updated us about the cat, he used the word immediately, even though we have an indication from the text that it was days later.

No matter my concern, Ben seemed to have an answer to explain his behavior. While his answers were plausable, none of them came across as genuine. They came across as self-serving. I left the conversation more upset than I had entered it. I thought about updating the review with the content of the phone conversation but decided that rather than talk about how upset I was, I’d instead move on.

However, Ben was not content and decided to call me back and continue asking me to modify the review. In our second phone call, Ben was much more relatable, and I left believing that there was a chance that my interaction with him might not have been typical. I modified my review from one star to three stars and included the following at the top:

Update: I have now talked to Ben several times about this review. While my experience with him was less than stellar, it might be possible that I just got the worst of Ben, and this is not a true representation of how he does business completely.

Hopefully, I will update this with more information about the nature of our conversation and where I might have been mistaken below, but in the meantime, please consider making your own opinion about him.

The content of the second phone call is less vivid for me. I remember Ben talking about the phone call with my agent, remaining very constant, and he notified my agent verbally about the cat before the application. He also wanted to share more context on the experience of my tenants as they were moving out and how he had done his best for them when moving into the place after my rental.

He mentioned that he had learned a couple of lessons from this. Firstly, he had learned to put everything in writing and make sure that everyone knew all the information. If people’s applications were changing, he would now make them update them instead of continuing to shop old applications around.

I told him the real issue was that he and his boss ignored my concern and did nothing to hear me out until I made my post in a review. He acknowledged that it would have been better if we had talked earlier.

Again, at this point, I was happy for our interaction to be done. It was not.

Earlier this week, Ben contacted me for a third phone call. He referred to my words in my review about updating my review with more details as an invitation to continue discussing the situation with me.

We talked, and during the conversation, the line I had written in the section about how there are plenty of agents and I would recommend working with someone else really bothered him.

During the conversation, it felt like everything he did was still very self-serving. Ben wants to be a successful real estate agent. Ben wants others to know that he genuinely cares about his clients. The truth is, I believe him. He wants good things for his clients. I wonder whether Ben would be willing to bend the ethics of his position to benefit his clients at the expense of a landlord. I remain unconvinced as all our interactions only happen when Ben seeks something from me. Namely, he wants me to change my review and put him in a better light.

In addition to my experience, I have asked several other people around town about their knowledge of Ben. Several people who did not give me consent to share their names have shared that he does not have a good reputation. They volunteer this information only after I share my experience, so this is confirmation bias, but I leave all this interaction feeling that Ben is focused on Ben’s interest.

In response to our last conversation, I will update my review again. I will try to keep this post current as the situation evolves.

When I moved to RI during the pandemic, CrossFit was one of the activities I got into. There is a pretty cool gym on the island, and the group was fun, so I went regularly for quite a while. The group convinced me to participate in the CrossFit Open, and I’ve done that for the past couple of years, even if I have to do them as a drop-in (I am currently not a member).

I even did the open this year. It was a bad showing, as I’m in one of the worst shapes of my life, but it was still fun to be a part of it.

The Open is a way for all athletes worldwide to participate together. The athletes are then whittled down to the best of the best, and eventually, they have the CrossFit games, where they crown the fittest on earth.

I didn’t even know the games were starting. I was too busy with work, both farming and coding. Still, I saw a YouTube video from the founder of CrossFit about the tragic loss in event one of the games this season. Lazar Dukic went under during the swim section and didn’t come up. There was a lot of confusion, and it took a while for CrossFit to realize what was going on. They ended up canceling the rest of the events for the weekend.

After a discussion with the athletes and coaches, Crossfit decided to proceed with the games, skip the rest of Thursday’s events, and have a tribute video for Lazar on Friday.

After the games, there has been much discussion about them.

As someone on the far rims of this community, I find it hard to comprehend why this affects me. I wasn’t a Lazar fan before the event. I didn’t know his name. I knew the people who won the games and some other names, but not Lazar. I’m not at a level where I would ever be in the games, nor is that a goal of my training or fitness.

What scares me more is the lack of safety in place for the athletes and the notion that Crossfit, at this point, is more about the business of the sport and less about the goal of getting people to do more fitness.

This has been a constant concern for me, even with smaller boxes. The weights and moves that we are doing could be more technical and more accessible. If someone executes with poor technique, injury is a real possibility. Classes often have high student-to-teacher ratios, upwards of 15:1. How can a coach practically be responsible for the execution of deadlifts of 15 different students at the same time, especially if they are doing this under time constraints?

Technical lifting knowledge is the participant’s responsibility, and many participants still need to come to this sport with that knowledge to be successful and prevent injury. Some of us have a false sense of knowledge because we have done other sports.

To reach this high level of competition, with 315k in prize money for the winners, and not having athlete safety involved to a level where this could never happen seems negligent.

The PFAA, an organization of athletes and coaches set up to protect CrossFit games athletes, calls for profound changes. One of them is the removal of Dave Castro from the games part of the organization. I have never really been a fan of Dave Castro, but I don’t know how much responsibility lies with him about this tragedy. First, there was an issue with Glassman, and then Castro was fired. Eventually, he was brought back to this position. Is there an institutional problem with the leadership at CrossFit?

There is a lot of sense behind constantly changing your workouts and doing new exercises, including High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Crossfit is the way to go, but another competition series may come up that is more focused on athlete safety and, therefore, more successful.

This post was about Lazar’s passing, yet I’ve talked little about him. I didn’t know him, and I wasn’t even a fan, yet his passing changed the way I look at a sport I’ve been on the fringes of for about 15 years. I’m sorry he’s gone. I’m sorry I never got to be his fan. I’m sad he had to pass for us to see CrossFit this way and take safety more seriously. I’m grateful there is so much discussion about this, and that real change may come from it.

Simple Merchant

https://www.simplemerchantcoffee.com

513 Broadway, Newport, RI
M-Sat 7am-5pm (food to 2:30)
Sun 9am-2pm

This is the best coffee shop in town. They have up to five different coffees available for order at any one time:

1. House Drip
2. Rotating Drip
3. House Espresso
4. Rotating Espresso
5. Flash Brew (not cold brew, but a brewed coffee served cold)

The shop is fantastic, the owner is rad, and the food is vegetarian, with many options being served vegan. The milk is done right, and you get good Latté Art.

Milk Options:

• Whole Milk
• Nonfat
• Oat (usually Minor Figures)

Hill Market

https://www.hotelviking.com/dining/hill-market/

One Bellevue Ave, Newport, RI
Daily 7am-2pm

This coffee location is in the Newport Viking Hotel. Don’t let that fool you; it has top-of-the-line espresso machines and grinders. Service can be a little hit or miss, but it is way more often hit than miss. They have some fun drink options on the menu as well. I’ve had an espresso in a cookie cup.

Their coffee is La Colombe, which isn’t my favorite but could be better. They also have pastries and other options.

This place is often overlooked; take notice of it.

Empire Tea and Coffee

https://empireteaandcoffee.com

Locations

22 Broadway, Newport
Daily 6am-5pm

112 William Street, Newport
Daily 6am-5pm

251 Thames St, Bristol
Daily 6am-6pm

Information

Empire Tea and Coffee was one of the first higher-end coffee shops to open in town. Where they really shine is on the tea side. Other shops have a small smattering of tea, but Empire offers a far more diverse selection.

From a coffee perspective, they roast their own beans; honestly, I’m not a massive fan of their coffee. I have also seen issues with their training. Their milk never comes with latte art and is often served too hot or with too much foam.

Of note, even though they are using the same beans, different locations will have different tastes, even with things like Cold Brew which is all made at Broadway. This code be due to the quality of the ice served with it, but the Broadway cold brew tastes much worse than the William Street location.

Coffee Grinder

337 Thames Street, Newport
M-F 7:30am-6pm
Sat 7:30am-7pm
Sun 7:30am-6pm

This is the new location of The Coffee Grinder. The previous location is now Spring Line Coffee. I have yet to go to the new location, but the old location was a very traditional Italian-style espresso. It has a very dark and heavy flavor, but not for me.

Still, the location is great, and if you need a coffee downtown, this might be where I would head.

Mozz

https://www.mozznewport.com

181 Bellevue Ave, Newport
W-Sat 8am-6pm
Sun 8am-3pm

This is more of a cheese shop and a fantastic Italian-style bakery. In addition, they are pretty particular about their coffee. They use custom-made pods to produce their coffee, not ground. Still, it delivers an authentic traditional Italian-style espresso. They even have an espresso bar facing the sidewalk (in the shopping center). I have not tried their coffee, but their food is pretty great.

Nitro Bar

Locations

404 Thames Street
Newport, RI
7am-5pm Daily

2 Pond Ave
Newport, RI
7am-5pm Daily

Information

The Nitro bar gets a lot of hype. It is featured in local guides (even though, technically, they started in Providence). Their specialty is Nitro Cold Brew Coffee. As someone who thinks Nitro takes away from the flavor of the coffee, I’m not a fan of their coffee. They label their beans but don’t put roasting or origin information on their bags. Their espresso drinks are hit or miss based on the baristas. Some have decent training (Owen comes from SMC), others have very little training, and what comes out is pretty horrible. I’ve burnt my tongue on their stuff before.

They also have a kitchen and food. They talk about how good their food is, but I’ve always found it very overpriced. I’ve gotten an English muffin-sized sandwich for 12 bucks. It was good, but not worth the price.

My general feeling is that the vibe of this place is pretentious, and I don’t feel comfortable going there.

Springline Coffee

33 Banisters Wharf
Newport, RI
Sun-Wed 7am-5pm
Thurs-Sat 7am-7pm

Springline entered the old location for [[#Coffee Grinder]] past the Black Pearl. The spot is excellent, but I have roughly the same problem with the Coffee Grinder: the coffee tastes very burnt. The staff running it seems pretty young and not super well trained, but I’ve only been once. They have a single-shot espresso, so you can get half of what you usually get at other places, which is nice if you want a little less caffeine.

They roast, but I need to find out where. Their beans have the same problem of being pretty dark and classic coffee over the newer flavors I’m more interested in. I would not recommend it if you like third-wave coffee. If you like traditional dark coffee, this might be okay with you. The view is excellent.

More to Come

I’ll work on an updated list with even more coffee places locally. I’m considering the following list; please let me know if I miss yours.

• Custom House
• The Coffee Guy
• Mission Mornings
• Beaucoup

His message attempted to be bipartisan, but his preference for Trump was clearly expressed.

Many people were upset about it, especially on reddit. There was much backlash against Sticker Mule. Sticker Mule received so much attention and hatred that the owner took to email again. In his follow-up email, he stated that his support team had been dealing with a large amount of negative responses and even death threats. He said he had paid a 2.5k bonus to all his support employees, so the haters had done something great by giving his employees nearly 200k in bonuses. In his post on X (the modified version), he slipped and revealed some personal information in his screenshots, identifying the users.

As a result, the owner’s actions have significantly tarnished the reputation of Sticker Mule, leaving many customers and observers feeling concerned about the company’s future.

I have been using Sticker Mule to make my stickers for a long time. Their service has been excellent, and while their product selection wasn’t always where I wanted it to be (I wanted glitter stickers long before they offered them), they did a decent job. They also provide deals, so I would wait for a deal and buy stickers when the deals were offered. While I did MANY projects with them, I never bought much at full price, so I think my spending with them was not high.

Still, in the wake of this Sticker Mule situation, I wanted to know what else is out there. I’m not opposed to someone having a political belief, but I try to stay away from companies that openly express them. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of Trump and his agenda. I’m afraid to put any additional money into his presidential run, even indirectly.

This led me to do some research and put together an Airtable with data on all the sticker vendors I could find:

This table has a list of the vendors, locations if I could find them and the types of products they produce.

https://airtable.com/appDDusI21stzCrd9/shrR9HcYidUeiExzv

I’m debating putting together a set of tests for each of these products to come up with other criteria of evaluating stickers, but generally I just care that they last, can handle UV, and make it through a dish washer. This means I’m having trouble coming up with a good set of tests. Though now I’m also thinking about their interface and proofing process being a part of it.

In the mean time I’ll be trying some other vendors over Sticker Mule to see how they stack up.

While there has been research on ADHD and routines, I haven’t read one particular scientific piece that has stuck out to me. I respond well to routines and daily goals. Also, I have only self-diagnosed myself as ADHD, but most of my friends seem to say “that fits” when talking about it. I’m also convinced that my mom has it and that I got it from her.

Preamble aside, I think I’ve finally narrowed down my daily goals (read daily routine) to having three main components in it:

1. Workout
2. Create Something
3. Write Something

Workout

Since the day after Christmas, I have been doing a daily cardio workout. It is pretty simple. I hop on elliptical for about 30 minutes and usually get between 500 and 600 calories a day. With this process, I lost about 23 lbs. I’m still far from where I need to be for my shape, but I’m moving in the right direction.

Working out is more than just losing weight. It’s about the mindset of knowing I can create a habit and do it and knowing I can have a community of people at the gym (even if all we do is nod at each other). This is a step that I need to take.

Create Something

As students, we spend much of our time learning. I’m a constant student. I’m always trying to learn new things. My conclusion is that knowledge is better when shared (this is actually a fundamental principle of Gluino). Sharing lessons learned is far better than just keeping them to yourself.

I’ve spent so much of my life learning how to do things, and in the back 40, I’d like to spend more of my time creating. It doesn’t need to be a big thing. More often than not, it’s something tangible like a sewing project or a piece of art, or a shelf or a box. Every once in a while, it might be a paper or piece of software, but those are hard to hold in your hand. Those are hard to reflect on in 30 years and be proud of. I can’t tell you the software I wrote 30 years ago; I can show you pictures I took back then.

Write Something

This is about taking the art of creation and giving back. If I make something for myself, or even just one other person, wouldn’t it be great if I shared it with society at large?

Much of my life is spent conversing with myself in my fuzzy little head. Much of the knowledge I’ve gleaned has been penned in a journal, typed into a notes file, or hidden in my head.

As consumers, this is very normal. The number of people who listen to music dwarfs the number of people who create music or share music with the world. You don’t have to share music, but you should share something. Everyone has something worth learning; it’s just a matter of discovering it. The greater the collection of the information you share, the easier it is to find out what might be helpful.

To that end, I will create more than I do now. Only some days will be perfect, but I’ll try.

Goal

Wouldn’t it be great if, at the end of a year, you had 365 things you made that you could point back to? That is my goal. I don’t have space to add 365 things yearly, but I can make them document and share or sell them.

I’m making this post today and maybe another one on the box I made yesterday.

What will tomorrow’s creation and sharing be?

Last year the Wildsam Guide to Newport came out and I was immediately dissapointed. I remember reading through it and being like, “how can someone read this and appreciate the town of Newport?” It’s reviews seemed to be written by tourists who had some and spent some time, but never really invested in understanding what makes Newport so special. The history sections read like book reports. None of it connected.

I’ve written about it before but want to write a book. I’ve wanted to for as long as I can remember. As someone who had such a challenge reading, creating something that someone else would read is an epic dream of mine.

Last year the Wildsam Guide to Newport came out and I was immediately dissapointed. I remember reading through it and being like, “How can someone read this and appreciate the town of Newport?” Its reviews were written by tourists who had spent some time but never really invested in understanding what makes Newport so unique. The history sections read like book reports. None of it connected. The maps were poorly drawn, and much of the town’s history and understanding needed to be included.

There is also more to Newport than just downtown. People often use Newport to refer to all of Aquidneck Island, and some even include Jamestown. There is religious history, economic history, and restaurant history, and they are constantly changing. This town is one of the classic New England towns and has evolved.

Anyway, Wildsam missed this. Their rendition made me question their other guides. They are fun and pretty, but are they valuable and good information?

This has set me on the path to writing my own story about Newport, my guide. You might see more and more writing here on the blog as I delve into the questions I’m hoping to answer in the book. Eventually, I’ll work on my ultimate project, a Newport App.

If you have ideas about what you would like to see in a book, please don’t hesitate to reach out and give me ideas.

• Obsidian is my text organizer. I use it for everything from to-do lists to notes and thoughts, and even this blog post starts here. I can go on for days about why I prefer Obsidian, but that is better served by a later post.
• Visual Studio Code - I want to say this is a text editor, but it is closer to an IDE. I have many things set up to work in VS Code to help me through my day. As I’m mostly writing Clojure, Calva is a constant companion in VS Code.
• I use three browsers: Safari for personal stuff, Chrome for work and inspecting web pages, and Arc to play with and learn about. Safari and Chrome are used all day, every day.
• Warp - Terminal program built in Rust. I switched to this from iTerm2 in the past year. I’m not using one-tenth of the features offered, but it still feels like an upgrade from iTerm2.
• Github - I use Git for my version control and store all of my code on Github.
• Adobe Illustrator - used for all of my design work. Occasionally, I use Photoshop, but most of my work is in vectors, so I spend more time in Illustrator.
• Size Up - I’m a little embarrassed that I’m still using this software, but I love it and am used to it. Its keyboard-centric window manager lets me move windows around the screen with just my keyboard.

This is a subset of the programs I have on my computer, but these are the ones I use almost every day across all my machines. These are the tools that I hope to master.

We’ve talked before about tools being an extension of your hand. Well, this applies to editors more than any other software tool. You need to be able to manipulate text as effortlessly as possible, because text is the basic raw material of programming.

– pp. 82 in my edition

Let’s go one further and say that in this day and age when we read on the internet and send text messages all day, the text is the primary raw material of our lives. Being literate is one of the most essential skills in the world today. So is using a computer, even if it is just a phone.

This passage refers to the art of creating and editing text in an editor for a programmer, but the notion of knowing your tools extends to every job. I am unable to think of a job where tools aren’t a part of it, whether it is your power tools in construction, your pens as a writer, your knives as a chef, or even your boat as a sailor. Some jobs require more than one set of tools.

It is one thing to be able to use a tool, and it is a different thing to master its use. As tools get more complicated, the work to master them also grows. For example, a hammer is relatively simple to use, but a jackhammer is far more complex.

Mastering your tools is part of learning your craft. Throughout my career, I’ve used many different development tools. I’ve used IDEs, text editors, terminals, and even other operating systems. Each of these is a tool. Investing energy to become a power user in each of these tools is possible.

This brings me to where I am today. The tool stack I’m using today is different from what I was using two years ago, which is very different from what I was using five years ago, which is incredibly different from what I used at the beginning of my career.

Most tools have evolved, but some are no longer maintained. Many tools receive updates or new features. Each change may lead to additional time needed to master your tools.

The point of this is that you should set aside time in your life to continue learning and growing your ability to use your tools. That is the state I find myself in. When it came to XCode, I could split and move between windows like crazy when I was writing Objective-C Code for RelateIQ or Salesforce. My skills are a little rusty, and most code is written in Swift, not Objective-C (so no headers). I also spend much less time in XCode than Visual Studio Code or Obsidian.

I will discuss how to use and grow in these tools here. Today, let me talk about my favorite command, which I use more than any other command: Command + Shift + J. In XCode, this reveals the current working file in the explorer on the left. Obsidian and VS Code have file browsers on the right, and I have configured the same shortcut to show the current file on the left. I use this shortcut more than ten times daily, and I’m glad I’ve committed to putting it into my tools.

As a side note, if you haven’t yet checked out Gluino, do so. It’s a good tool to begin learning how to use.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to accept my reading limitation and find ways around it. Audiobooks have been a lifesaver. I voraciously consume audiobooks. I’m unsure how many years I’ve had an audible account, but I have over 300 titles in my library. I’ve listened to many of the titles more than once.

I’m a big fan of mystery and detective stories. My favorite series is the Longmire series by Craig Johnson, but I’ve also listened to everything from Vince Flynn, C.J. Box, and Lee Childs. I’ve listened to the Tier One series. I’ve listened to all available Game of Thrones books (each one is over 33 hours long) and some Brandon Sanderson.

I get caught up in these books. I listen to them when I drive. I listen to them when I go to sleep, and if there is an ending coming up, I will even start my day trying to finish the end of a book from the night before.

I’ve grown to understand and appreciate my favorite narrators, from George Guidall to Dick Hill. There are also narrators that I avoid and will stop books early because I can’t handle their presentation.

This is really just a thank you to those who produce audiobooks. Finding them has allowed me to read at a level I never would have thought possible before. It has helped me become much more literate without the trouble of reading.

My path through coffee started with Peet’s Iced Mochas. I would get one most afternoons and became slowly addicted. Over time, I began to appreciate the taste of coffee better. At the time, I was in California, surrounded by some serious coffee roasters and shops.

Like many other interests, I became heavily invested in learning and understanding coffee. I slowly became a real coffee snob. I stopped adding chocolate, then even sugar or milk. I started drinking espresso. When traveling, I would try different coffee shops to find the best. In Portland, I discovered Coava and started drinking straight Espresso.

In Bozeman, MT, I had the most amazing Yirgacheffe coffee at Rockford Coffee, which had the most fruity flavor I had tried up to that point.

As I tried different coffees and regions, my knowledge grew. This is similar to how someone who drinks wine learns about the different grapes, regions, and wineries. Various regions of coffee beans have different tastes.

I have found that the process by which the bean is prepared for roasting seems to have the greatest impact on whether I will like the coffee, more than just the region.

There are three different processes these days for coffee (though one is a bit of a catch-all)

• Washed
• Natural
• Anaerobic

This was a very lengthy setup to talk briefly about these processes.

Washed Process

Coffee is grown on a tree. The beans we use are seeds in a fruit that grows on the tree. Before beans are roasted, they are both removed and dried. The process refers to how this is done.

In a washed process, once the fruit is harvested, the beans are removed and washed from the fruit with water (hence washed) before they are dried.

Because the fruit is removed, the flavor of this process tends to be very traditional coffee—a little more chocolate to me. Traditionally, these coffees have a higher acidity.

Natural Process

In the natural process, coffee is allowed to dry with the fruit still on it before the fruit is removed. This process extracts more of the fruit flavor from the bean.

Natural coffees tend to have a more robust fruit flavor. Less traditional coffee flavor.

Anaerobic Process

In an anaerobic process, the coffee is put in an oxygen-deprived environment with additives to mix with different flavors. These coffees tend to gain a lot of flavor from the flavors they are put in contact with. They can have very strong flavors in addition to the coffee. Because there are many different things you can use to flavor the bean, the flavor of this coffee can vary quite a bit.

My Preference

I’m a very strong fan of Natural or Anaerobic coffees. I love fruit in my coffee. I have had some great naturals and even some watermelon anaerobic coffees.

My favorite local coffee shop, Simple Merchant, introduces me to many different coffees through its rotating espresso. I have consistently found that their Naturals are a much bigger hit for me than their Washed (and Jordan loves washed).

Many people do not like natural coffees. If you like traditional coffee flavor, you probably prefer washed coffee. Pay attention to the method the next time you purchase coffee to make at home.

One of the reasons I was such a computer person was a learning disability I had been diagnosed with. I was a slow writer. I wrote about 30 words a minute by hand. Compare that to the 70 words or so I can type per minute, and you have a compelling reason for me to invest in working on a keyboard instead of using a pen.

There is something great about working from the keyboard; the ultimate keyboard experience is the terminal. When Mac OS X came out with a built-in terminal, it was one of the coolest features I’ve ever seen. I was an early adopter.

Fast-forward to today and so much of our world is visual rather than textual. While webpages do have text, you navigate with your fingers on a screen or with a mouse. The terminal experience has been somewhat forgotten. Even git, the version control system, has tons of GUI front ends for the simple terminal text backend. When I see new developers working with Git, it is often through a GUI interface. I still do most of my commits from the command line. My favorite command is git add -p which allows me to see all my changes in the terminal and add them one by one to a commit to ensure I’m not adding anything I don’t want.

The terminal has changed. I went from using the built-in Mac Terminal to iTerm2 and, more recently, to Warp. I want to check out other new terminals.

There are also cool libraries, some that have been around forever, like Ncurses and this new library I saw on Hacker News yesterday, TerminalTextEffects. These libraries inspire me to think about what terminal program I would write. The problem is that interest in terminal programs isn’t what it used to be.

Still, maybe I’ll write something with one of these libraries. I’ll let you know.

The first version of the Internet was set up between institutions (military or education) to share information quickly. As time went on, the number of connected computers grew, and the number of people sharing information grew. It is now where almost anyone can share discourse, even if just a tweet from a cell phone.

I’ve been reflecting on recently how much technology is continually evolving and coming back with a different name.

If I go back to when I got into computers, there were two main forms of group communication. There was more directed communication with email, but when it came to group communication it really came down to two main technologies: usenet groups and internet relay chat. These technologies, now a part of our technological history, evoke a sense of nostalgia and connection to the past.

Usenet groups were email lists that you subscribed to, received updates from, and posted updates to. Some groups were private, but there were also large public discussions on everything from Star Trek (my friend met his partner on a Star Trek Group) to Sports. Groups used threads to discuss topics and the information was often stored on servers for a long time so you could look up past conversations long into the future.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was the first version of community chat boards. Communication was hosted on a server and was almost real-time (depending on your internet connection). You could have real-life conversations with a small or large group.

Over the years, these technologies have died off. There are still some Usenet groups, but their popularity is far from where it used to be. The same is true for IRC. The biggest IRC chat hub, Freenode, was taken over by people who were unfriendly to the community and may have moved.

We have modern products that are effectively the same as Usenet and IRC. Many people use these tools today without understanding their evolution.

Modern Usenet Groups: Forums

An online forum is effectively a Usenet group. Many things fit into this category. Stack Overflow and Reddit are just two of them. If you look at the way each of these is delivered, they start with a topic and then go into details about each item on the topic.

Forum software also exists. There are open-sourced items and products like Zendesk, which support community forums you pay for.

The concept of Usenet lives on, even if the underlying technology is no longer used. My favorite Usenet client was Unison from Panic, which was shut down in 2014 (nearly a decade ago). If anyone from Panic wants to share the source code, I would love to work on making a modern version for today’s world.

Modern IRC: Slack, Discord, Messages

First, there was IRC. Then there was America Online’s Instant Messenger. Then came ICQ, Hipchat, and many others.

While many of them are still used, the biggest incarnations of IRC today are Slack (owned by Salesforce) and Discord. These are online platforms that offer group communication and one-on-one chats. Text Messages and Apple’s iMessage are effectively the same things.

There has been technological growth here, but many things have remained the same from the IRC days. Slack Chatrooms even start with a hash (#), a throwback to how IRC rooms were named. The core of IRC still lives on.

The Cost of Innovation

My contention is that these new technologies effectively contain the same core concepts of Usenet and IRC. Usenet and IRC were incredibly text-heavy, but they were cheaper to host. Many Usenet and IRC groups were free to join and participate in.

The types of things we share have increased as the computer world has grown. We are no longer limited to text; we now have images, sound, and movies. We have also developed colors, sizing, and rules for how things are displayed. Beyond just picking your theme, there are many more customizations now available.

Presentation is also important. Instead of the simple text of Usenet and IRC, pictures that are displayed and then disappear (Snapchat or messages sent in IG) are used.

To address the need for these technological changes, companies have made the models popularized by these underlying technologies palatable by changing their presentation and making them available on the Web. You no longer need special technology (an IRC Client or Usenet Reader) to access the information. All you need is a web browser.

My issue with this is twofold. Firstly, we have made participating in some of these new versions of old technology expensive. You have to pay to set up a product usenet group in the form of a Zendesk. Slack and Discord both have a free option, but if you really want to use them, you have to pay the company. And if you aren’t paying with money, you might be paying with something bigger: your information.

This is the second issue: back in the day, the platform servers ran for Usenet and IRC were open source. If you wanted to dig into the code, you could see how the information was being used and shared. We have yet to learn how Salesforce is using your Slack Data. We have yet to learn how Facebook, Snapchat, or others use the data we share with our friends. The code is closed, proprietary, and owned by these companies. They could use this data to train their LLMs in the background. They could sell this data. They could track you using the location data on the snaps you upload and, using this, predict what marketing might be more effective for you.

Hope for the Future

One of my favorite movies has a quote somewhat like this:

You can never go home again… But maybe you can shop there. – Grosse Point Blank

My point is that we can’t really go back to the technologies of my youth. People have come to expect more, and technology is moving forward. Still, I lament the loss of what I perceived as a more free and open space.

• 1 Mile Run
• 100 Pull Ups
• 200 Push Ups
• 300 Squats (air)
• 1 Mile Run

It was usually done with a weight vest (yes, pull-ups with a weight vest). I am trying to remember if I did Murph last year, but I like to do it if possible. This year, I decided to do a solo Murph at my local gym. I modified the workout for me. I did elliptical instead of running and did assisted pull-ups. I also broke up my push-ups and squats into sets of 20 and 30 air squats and did them zippered together.

I haven’t been training much recently, so doing this workout would be a pull. I was most concerned about the pull-ups, but using the weight assist made them much more manageable. At the moment, they felt okay with assisting. At first, I was doing sets of 5, but eventually broke them down to 4 and then two sets of 3 and made it through the 100. With the weight-assisted machine, they felt doable, unlike in years past when I just felt dead.

I was wrong, though; the air squats and pushups are when I died. With only a couple of sets left, my left knee started bothering me, but I found that if I slowed down the rep, it didn’t hurt as much. I was able to finish. My final time was about 1 hour 40 minutes, about where I’ve been in the past.

Murph is a hero workout named after Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.

Firstly, here is a page on the differences between Clojure and other Lisps. The note at the bottom is about List/sequence library manipulations. It turns out Clojure does some very pretty interesting things with Vectors. Mostly, it just makes them easier, but understanding how they work under the hood might be important depending on the use case.

I’m still going through this post on Understanding Clojure’s Persistent Vectors. To put it a little cleaner, Clojure keeps persistent vectors by using a tree structure and abstracting the vector concept. Clojure can update vectors by creating small chunks of new memory when inserting but allows fast lookup on the order of O(Log32(n)). This means that, in most instances, Clojure vector access is high-speed. Its tree leaf size is 32, so if you are reading sequentially, you can access each item quickly.

However, it’s crucial to understand that this memory allocation strategy does come with its tradeoffs. Frequent memory allocation necessitates a robust garbage collection engine to handle unused memory. In a later post, Hypirion delves into the specifics of Vector Performance, shedding light on where the Clojure implementation may experience degradation. This underscores the fact that there are indeed tradeoffs in the design of Clojure vectors.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m still going to try to think about how I use Vectors and Lists in my programs.

I graduated from High School in Westport. I spent much of my life growing up here and so have a very long past here. Westport is an affluent town and much of the places that I went to as a child are no longer around. Still, my parents and brother still live here so I go back from time to time and have opinions on several restaurants and stores throughout the town.

Food

Little Kitchen

This is a long standing chinese food restaurant that has been here for MANY years. It is one of the few places my father can eat, so we go here quite a bit. It’s pretty tasty, but nothing compaired to chinese food on the west coast.

Sherwood Diner

I can’t remember a time when Sherwood Diner wasn’t around. The food is traditional Diner food, but this was the youthful hangout when I was child and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I usually get chicken fingers and fries, though I’ll admit that I haven’t been there in probably 10 years.

I’m working on a list of requests with scores and values. This list grows dynamically as items enter and leave it. It could contain 0, 1, or many items.

Let’s discuss the implementation of these structures in a more common programming language better to understand the difference between a list and a vector. Simply put, a vector is like an array of memory, whereas a list is more similar to a linked list. Here is some C code creating an array, which is akin to a vector:

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int num_array[10] = {1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55};
// Creates an array of integers accessibly sequentially

printf("Num at fourth position is: %d", num_array[3]);

Each number in the array/vector is stored sequentially. This is great for high-speed access because we don’t have to visit any previous elements to get the fourth (0-based index).

The downside of an array/vector comes when you want to add another value to the end of the array. You can’t just do that. Something may already be stored in the memory location right after the 10th element. So, to add a new element to an array/vector, you need to create a new array/vector with your item added:

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int new_num_array[11] = malloc(sizeof(int) * 11);
memcpy(new_num_array, num_array, sizeof(int) * 10);
new_num_array[10] = 89;

Lists in Clojure are more like a Linked List. Each item in the list has a pointer to the next one (assuming it is singly linked). Here is how one would make a list in C:

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struct NumberItem {
    int item;
    struct NumberItem* next;
} twelve, twentyFour;

// main func
    struct NumberItem *list = NULL;

    twelve.item = 12;
    twelve.next = &twentyFour;
    twentyFour.item = 24;
    twentyFour.next = NULL;

    list = &twelve;

    printf("first is %d, and second is %d\n", list->item, list->next->item);

What we can see in this code is that items in a list are grouped by pointer. Adding or removing an item is about updating pointers, not reallocating memory.

Clojure

Clojure provides an abstraction for these concepts in vectors and lists.

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;; List
(list 1 2 3)
;; Vector
[1 2 3]

The difference is that lists don’t guarantee order, but you can add and remove items easily. Vectors, on the other hand, are sets of contiguous memory, and the order is guaranteed, but adding or removing an item requires allocating new space for a newly created vector.

The challenge is that I still need to be a theme designer. Designing a theme would be fun, but I like the PaperMod theme, but there are certain areas I want to extend beyond it. For example, on zacroyoga, I don’t want posts on the front page. The front page is a landing zone. It will have information about me and acroyoga and places to visit. I will put posts on a separate page.

After doing a bit of testing, I figured out that the index page is a List Kind. This page on Template Lookup Order talks a bit about how this works. This page also explains how to override the behavior because of the way Hugo looks for templates to build files. On this page, you can see how the index page is found:

1. layouts/index.html.html
2. layouts/home.html.html
3. layouts/list.html.html
4. layouts/index.html
5. layouts/home.html
6. layouts/list.html
7. layouts/_default/index.html.html
8. layouts/_default/home.html.html
9. layouts/_default/list.html.html
10. layouts/_default/index.html
11. layouts/_default/home.html
12. layouts/_default/list.html

This is the order Hugo looks for on the index page, which is the site’s root. This lineup implies that Hugo considers the root page a list page.

To solve the problem on my site, I added the layouts/index.html page and modified the content so that the articles section was removed from the list page. You can see the commit here.

I know this content is super technical, but I was looking around online and couldn’t find it. Hopefully, it helps someone else.

There are many compelling storylines in this postseason, but one hasn’t been talked about much: the play of the Minnesota Timberwolves Forward Rudy Gobert.

Rudy Gobert, the Minnesota Timberwolves Forward, has been a part of the league for quite some time, having previously played for the Utah Jazz. His playing style, however, has always left me with mixed feelings. While he’s undeniably tall and a skilled rebounder, it’s his physical and, dare I say, dirty play that often goes unnoticed in discussions.

Earlier this year, Draymond Green was suspended for a technical foul he received on Gobert. The general consensus on the play was that Gobert did nothing wrong and was a victim of Green’s aggression. My perception wasn’t as blameless on Gobert.

As I watch him in the Nuggets series, I’m watching him be very physical. He pushes people (usually down low) on many plays. He ran into a player’s arm and almost hyperextended an elbow. When he clears his space, his elbows are high. Yes, the number of people who have gotten hurt by him is less than some other players, but if you watch the action inside, you will see Gobert playing dirty.

My brain has always been scattered. I always take on more than I can finish, and I’m usually unsure about the next step.

So, I picked up a book called How to ADHD and have been reading it. I initially bought a hardcover copy but switched to the Kindle version because it is easier to read while traveling (then I read it on my iPad instead of my Kindle).

When I’ve told several of my friends about my suspicion of having ADHD, they all seem shocked that I haven’t previously been diagnosed. They feel like it is spot on.

They are probably right, but I don’t see it as a negative. My ability to switch is a superpower. It is how I’ve done so much in my life.

The challenge is with prioritization—or even prioritization paralysis. I have so much to do that it is often unclear what I SHOULD do next. In reading the book mentioned above, they talk about issues with executive function or the CEO of the brain. This is the part of the brain that helps with that prioritization.

What I find most interesting about reading this book is how I share and deviate from the writer’s ADHD experience. Sometimes, I feel like she is talking about me when she describes her life, and then there are many times when I don’t resonate at all. I get that everyone’s journey with ADHD is different, but they seem pretty far apart in certain areas.

While I have issues with prioritization or doing things, I still get a lot done. Even when I’m not sure what the next step is, I’m always trying to take one.

This makes me wonder if EF (Executive Function) deficiencies operate on a spectrum because mine operates, but not flawlessly.

All of this is just academic until I get a diagnosis. This is armchair therapy, and I still don’t know if I have ADHD or exhibit some of the same traits.

I’ve written about this here and a somewhat relative post on comp behavior.

The hardest part of coaching is almost always dealing with the parents (though for me, it is sometimes also at odds with my administrators over what a cheer team should be).

Last night, a parent approached a coach and said she could no longer talk to his child. This parent did this in front of other coaches and staff in a short and argumentative tone, which I overheard. After the initial conversation, the parent continued to throw his weight around, even talking about the money he donated to the Y or something like that.

His behavior was completely unacceptable, and I was incensed about it. I went to the person in charge of the program and said my piece about how the parent was out of line. Full disclosure: I am not a parent.

I understand and respect that the parent was trying to protect his child. Protecting your children is your job as a parent. Disagreeing with how a coach talks to your child is also okay. Having a conversation with a coach about their coaching methodology is also OK. What is not OK is arguing with the coach in public. It is also okay to find a different program if you prefer a different way than how your child is being coached.

I wouldn’t be writing this if the parent asked the coach to speak privately and talk calmly about their concerns. I wouldn’t be on the fence about submitting a bad review for a local business. I wouldn’t have as much reservation as I do about coaching younger age groups.

Note for parents: coaching is hard and often thankless work. Often time the children don’t understand what is going on, even if they are convinced they do. They may have one version of the story, and the coach may have a different perspective. Parents, if you are dealing with a couple of kids, imagine coping with a 10:1 child-to-teacher ratio or worse. Coaching is a challenge; please consider that when deciding how to treat your coaches. Please consider that you and the coach are usually adults while the kids are kids.

I have a problem that as I read through the internet these days, it often needs to be clarified who is an expert and who is pretending to be one. The question is: who do you trust?

It’s funny that my last blog post was about Trust, but it’s real. Trust is the challenge I face with reading and, therefore, the problem I have with writing content. Why should you trust what I’m writing? Why would you listen or read this? Why would you believe it?

The other fear is being judged. When I first created a website, my father questioned why I would do it. Why would you put yourself out there for people to judge you? Once you create and publish something, anyone can read it. There are services out there that archive your thoughts. I can still find the first website I wrote in 1996 on one of these archives.

What if the content I write hurts someone later on? What if the stuff I put out is wrong? What if the stuff I put is harmful?

There are ethics in writing and ethics in creating anything. I briefly studied ethics in one class in college. Was that enough to adequately understand the impact of my choices in creating?

For me, the fear is sometimes crippling. I’ve been writing as much as possible on this blog this year, and I’m still getting only a couple of posts a month. Often, what I will write will be useless. If I write a review, will it be hurtful? I’m critical, a coach, and always looking to improve. Will my nature be hurtful?

As I wrestle with these internal conflicts, I will continue to pursue my goal of writing—if for no other reason than to become a better wordsmith.

The value we are changing is Transparency. We are shifting it to Trust. This post explains why.

Transparency is complicated in the business world. As a company grows, it is hard to be transparent about everything. There are also problems that one group needs to worry about while another may not.

While we are a very small company, we have already practiced some of this compartmentalization. There are parts of the product I don’t fully understand, just as there are parts of the front end that Sean hasn’t invested the time to learn yet. I don’t need to know many parts of the business, and worrying about them would only burden me and hinder my productivity.

What is important is that we trust that each other is working and doing their best. We trust that if there is someone we need to know, we can ask and figure it out. It goes both ways. The company trusts each of us to do our job, and we trust the company to look out for us.

The good news is we are still keeping LTRIT, or literate, as our acronym for our values.

Portland, OR

Newport, RI

Westport, CT

I’m obsessed with Coffee, so I visited several different coffee places while I was in the area. We also visited several different places throughout the trip.

Surprisingly Good

Verb Coffee Roasters in Boulder, Colorado, was my number one find on the trip. This place is awesome. They roast and cup their coffee. I got a One and One (which I didn’t know was on the menu at the time) with natural coffee. It was perfectly light and fruity and served well. It even worked well with the milk. Overall, I give it a 5/5 rating.

Cafe 13 in Golden, Colorado, was also pretty awesome. The space is rustic. The coffee was good, but not at the same level as Verb. Still, their pastry game was at the next level, and the environment made it a place I would like to return to. Overall, I give it a 4/5 rating.

Mango Tree Coffee in Englewood was also very special. The place was clean and hip and very busy at 7 a.m. They had several beans to choose from, and I was able to get a very nice iced pour-over of a super light and fruity blend. Like Verb, this place is both a roaster and a shop, and I was very impressed. Overall, I give it a 5/5 rating.

Good but not Great

Red Silo in Golden was an exciting spot and had several different roasts, but the coffee wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be. I didn’t get any of the flavor notes they mentioned in their descriptions. Overall 2.5/5 rating.

Harbinger Coffee in Fort Collins was also an exciting spot. The shop was very cool. The design was really pretty, and it seemed to have a ton of potential. There were several issues. I tried to order an iced pour-over of the Honduras. I was told that the owners don’t allow iced pour-overs. The coffee is billed as having a citrus flavor note, but I got none of it. The coffee was actually pretty bad, and I poured part of it out. Overall, I give it a 2.5/5 rating.

Conclusion

The Denver area coffee scene is amazing, and I have to visit a bunch of places, but I have some recommendations for other places to try the next time I’m out there.

In this post, I want to introduce you to the product and company and explain why I’m so excited. Maybe, at the end, I’ll even explain the name.

The Product

Gluino is an AI product, like so many other technologies that are being released right now. It uses LLM technology to answer text-based questions. There are a lot of products out there doing this, but Gluino is different. Our goal is to provide better results for your questions than the other products by giving enhanced context to the LLM.

This is a confusing concept. While we have a beta up doing some of the work, we are figuring this out and working on making the best solutions for our customers. As we do more of this fun work, we’ll explain how we are going about doing this.

Our beta uses the concept of memory. This means that Gluino will remember what you are discussing from question to question. This means you can have a conversation with Gluino about your data without writing any prompts. Your question is the prompt!

The Company: Gluino Inc

While the product is still under heavy development, the company is a pretty exciting concept. It was started by my friend Sean, and even before we had any code, we had values. These values target the how of what we are building, the what will come as we continually apply the how.

Our values are L.T.R.I.T., which I pronounce “literate.” I’ll probably write more about these values over time, but here is a summary of them and why they are essential.

Learn - Knowledge is gained through learning. Knowledge is the most crucial asset gained in life.

Teach - Knowledge is more powerful when it is shared. Pass on the knowledge you gain to others.

Recognize - As a company, we will succeed or fail together. It is important to recognize where we are, what we have left to do, when we make mistakes, and when we have victories.

Improve - Nothing is perfect. There is always room for improvement. Trying to be perfect is impossible, but making something better and improving it can be easy. Let’s focus on small improvements that lead to significant results.

Transparency - We believe in working for a company where we are open and honest with each other and clearly explain hard decisions to the team. Transparency shares responsibility and accountability.

We believe that by being true to our values, we will build a company we are proud of, a company that does excellent work, and a company with buy-in from our teammates as we develop the what of the company; at least, we know how we will be building it.

The Name: what is a Gluino

This is a pretty technical explanation, so please feel free to ignore it. It isn’t very relevant to our company, but it is interesting and relates to our product.

Starting with an atom’s most basic building blocks are electrons, protons, and neutrons. You can break these sub-atomic particles down even further to things called Quarks. Quarks combine to form hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons. This combination of quarks is done with Gluons. A Gluino is the theoretical supersymmetric partner of the Gluon.

Gluons are responsible for the strong interaction between quarks that keeps them combined.

If my wording isn’t clear, we have vastly exceeded my knowledge of physics from high school and college, so please forgive me if it isn’t clear.

A Gluino is a super symmetrical partner to a gluon. Supersymmetry is a theoretical framework in physics. It is still just a theory, as no proof has been found. In supersymmetry, all the particles we have discussed have a supersymmetrical partner. Electrons have electrinos. So Gluons have Gluinos.

Okay, so how is this connected to our project? Firstly, like gluons “glue” quarks together to create hadrons, Gluino helps connect LLMs to more relevant information. Just like supersymmetry is theoretical and still being proven, Gluino is in the process of being developed.

Potential is a dangerous word, but society sees it as a positive. This post is about how dangerous that is and why using this word can have unintended consequences.

I just picked up a copy of How to ADHD, and I haven’t even finished the first chapter. The author talks about potential. (As if I needed a clue that I have ADHD, I’ve already put the book aside to write this blog post.) She talks about how people kept on telling her she had so much potential.

I can resonate with this. When I was younger, I was told about my potential—my potential to do this or achieve that. I’m not young (despite what my mother implied this morning), and while I’ve had success, I’m not sure I’ve realized the level of potential that was expected by others and myself.

See, potential is an interesting thing. Potential means there is a possibility of becoming or developing into something in the future. It’s not a guarantee, but often, the implication is that achieving it is an effort dependent on the person or circumstances between now and some future date.

When applied to people, this is a really hard thing to hear. When someone says, “You have potential,” the expectation is that you will do great things. What if you don’t? Who’s fault is it? Usually, the implication is that you failed to reach your potential. The word “failed” in that sentence. That is a rough word to hear.

The truth is, failure is often not you. It can be situational. Your interests are also important. Maybe achieving that potential wasn’t important to you. Maybe you didn’t have the tools needed to reach your full potential, such as coaches, supplies, equipment, access to facilities, or something similar. Yet you are stuck with that word.

As a coach, I think back on the times that I have said this to a team. This might have put additional pressure on people, pressure that may have been unwelcome or unnecessarily stressful.

See, pressure is about expectations. It implies belief but puts too much responsibility on the individual. In my future coaching, I plan to talk more about belief and work on helping people discover their own potential. I can acknowledge potential but want to focus on support instead of calling it out.

Our world would be less stressed if we focused on supporting each other instead of recognizing and discussing potential.

Firstly, Tailwind is pretty powerful. One of the reasons we are using it is because of its plugins like DaisyUI, which should allow us to theme our app more easily. Looking at the documentation, there are classes for everything you need to style your front end. The challenge is that it is not always clear how to go from a known CSS property to a Tailwind style. I find myself constantly referring to the documentation.

What this means is that there is an additional translation layer. There is something to fix in the layout. I know how I want to do it in CSS, but then I have to figure out a suitable tailwind class to add to that element and apply it. There is an additional layer in our project because we are using Clojure. So sometimes my dot notation for my class doesn’t apply, and I have to include a class on the element:

1
2
3

[:div.my-class {:class "p-4"}]
;; vs:
[:div.my-class.p-4]

We are still determining why this is the case, but it is frustrating to keep trying to get my CSS to work the way I hoped.

It’s still early, and I’m still grumbling and getting used to Tailwindcss, so I reserve the right to reverse my current opinion. However, I still miss using Sass or even standard CSS. It is one less layer of translation, and I’m just more familiar with it.

So, on to the subject of this post, tailwindcss. This is a framework for generating CSS in your HTML by using utility classes. These classes you put directly on your HTML elements affect how they appear. The benefit is that you don’t need to jump between content and styling. The styling happens based on the classes you put on elements.

On top of tailwind, we are also using the daisyui plugin. This plugin allows you to style colors and themes, and builds some visual components on top of tailwindcss.

Here’s what I like:

• You don’t need to jump between CSS and HTML.
• Using hiccup-type styling, including multiple classes, is VERY easy.
• There are tons of classes.
• The bundle tool with Tailwind keeps the CSS smaller than if it included everything (it only consists of the classes you use).
• This is a commonly used framework, so there are easily findable examples of how to do many things.

Here’s what I DON’T like:

• It is hard to know which class to use where. Remembering the utility classes is a whole new level of memorization on top of standard CSS values.
• The documentation on the tailwindcss and daisyUI has yet to make sense to me. There is still more to grok before mastery.
• Because things are made of utility classes, I wonder how things will work when we want to have named classes and provide styles for them. This feels like a prototyping language that will be replaced when we get to production.

There is still a lot to read and learn, so don’t consider this a final opinion in any way, shape, or form. More to come as I learn.

I use mostly Tex 70 Thread, which is called size 69. This was the thread used in the course I took at Sterling Continuing Education, and it is still the thread I use most commonly. I use bonded nylon for almost all applications unless the thread will get heavy sun exposure. If that is the case, then I’ll use polyester thread (still size Tex 70). I only have black and white polyester thread, but I have many colors of Nylon. This thread comes from The Thread Exchange.

There are a couple of other threads I use for special functions. When using my Speedy Stitcher, I use the included thread which is called course waxed thread. This thread is bigger and stronger.

There is a last category of thread that I use called Whipping Twine. This is used in the sailing world to whip and secure ropes together. Whipping twine can be made from everything, but my favorite is French Dyneema whipping twine, which is very hard to acquire.

When I first learned about sewing, I vastly underestimated its complexity. This shallow dive into thread and its uses is very interesting to me.

Cover Photo by Patrycja Chociej on Unsplash

You can see her spotlight here.

I’m particularly honored that her cover photo was taken during a shoot I did with Britta. Thank you, Britta, for using the photo.

For those of you who have yet to hear of Athletic Brewing, it is a non-alcoholic beer (it has a very small percentage) that people can consume that is tasty like beer but without the same alcohol level. Having tried several flavors, it wasn’t my favorite, but as far as I can tell, I’m in the minority. Many friends love this brand. Some have switched from drinking beer to this.

In addition to Athletic Brewing, I want to highlight Britta. Britta is a fantastic trainer and a wonderful human. I can’t thank her enough for her guidance as I became an acroyoga teacher. Her guidance shaped the teacher I am today.

What are certifications?

Let’s talk about what a certification is.

All the certifications I’ve taken for cheerleading come with a course or set of courses to teach the knowledge they should have to coach. At the end of the courses, they require participants to take a test on the knowledge they have learned.

In addition to providing the test, these certifying groups offer rules and regulations for each level of cheer. NFHS provides rules for high school teams. USASF provides guidelines for the different levels of All-Star Cheer. USA Cheer has game day and competition rules for College Cheer.

Also, these certifying organizations sometimes perform background checks on coaches, provide look-up services for finding coaches in your area, and generally promote cheerleading. Some provide additional insurance backing for people who have completed their certification process.

What are the safety rules?

I have been working most recently at the Collegiate level, so let’s discuss the USA Cheer rules that govern college.

These rules provide a set of safety standards designed to keep cheerleaders safe while performing cheer stunts and tumbling at college games.

There is an important subtext that might be missed here:

Cheerleaders are not the ones competing in these games. They are attending football, basketball, or some other sport. Cheerleaders are there to provide school support and lead the crowd.

The rules and guidelines set out by USA Cheer are designed to enhance the game’s experience without diminishing it. They are designed to protect the cheerleaders, fans, and athletes.

One of the rules added recently had to do with rigid signs.

C. General Restrictions […] 2. When using props(signs, etc.) that are made of solid material or have sharp edges/corners: a. A top or middle person may not release the props to the ground. b. A person on the ground must gently toss or place the props c. (NEW) A top person may not perform any skills (i.e. toe touch, twist, etc.) to a cradle.

The rule above talks about preventing the top person from throwing a sign down and hitting another cheerleader, fan, or athlete. This rule was not in effect when I was in college, and the signs were always going all over the place, which did seem dangerous to me. Part (c) is new this year, which limits the dismounts to only straight cradles.

Here, USA Cheer is trying to prevent injury.

Why do we care so much about the rules?

There are several apparent reasons we care about the rules.

Firstly, they minimize the risk of severe injury. According to FiveThirtyEight (yes, this is an older article), cheerleading is associated with a significant number of injuries. Some have argued that it is the most dangerous sport for severe injury for high school-aged female athletes.

Creating certifications and rules has made the sport significantly safer, and I’ve seen it in my years of coaching. According to USA Cheer’s Data Research, the trend line of cheerleading injuries has decreased over the years.

There is another reason we care about rules and safety. It is about avoiding injury, but it is also about continuing to do stunts and tumbling at games and events. We want to prevent cheerleaders from getting grounded. A quick search of the web can find articles like:

• Florida vs. Jacksonville State: Why the Gators’ cheerleaders are grounded, and why they should fly
• Nebraska cheerleaders keeping feet on ground.

As a college cheerleader, I vividly remember a cheerleading incident at a nationally televised college basketball game. The stretcher was brought out for her, and she was carted off the floor while doing motions to the fight song while her neck was immobilized. I remember watching the game and thinking there was a chance my team would get grounded because we were in the same league as this team.

Beyond the concern for the cheerleader, which is of obvious first concern, injuries to cheerleaders at games can cause interruptions to gameplay. Seeing someone get hurt can also upset fans. This reason, along with risk of expensive injury and settlements have led many schools consider grounding their cheerleaders. Luckily, most of the considerations deem that having cheerleaders stunt and tumble do add the game-time atmosphere.

Putting rules in place is there to minimize risk, keep people safe, and keep cheerleaders stunting and tumbling.

Why are the rules so strict?

If you are a big D1 program competing in rewind full-ups, why is it illegal for you to do a one-armed lib at a basketball game? If you don’t understand cheerleading, this is a pretty basic skill for someone who is pretty advanced.

The rules are structured in a way that provides a reasonable guideline for most programs. Let’s think of all cheerleading programs on a spectrum. There are programs on the lower level with minimal cheerleading experience, all the way up to programs with elite-level cheerleading experience. Programs that recruit out of high school and offer some form of scholarship.

The goal is to provide a standard that fits most groups and keeps the most people safe. It limits people at the top level of the scale because we don’t want to encourage people in the middle of the scale to try the advanced things.

So what’s the problem?

This all sounds good; why write about it? What’s the problem?

It has taken far too long to get here, but the problem is that while these organizations provide rules, the enforcement and oversight of the regulations still need to be improved. I know of several programs (not just one) that need to follow the safety guidelines, and as far as I can tell, there is never a repercussion.

Taking a test is all good, but some certifications last several years. Staying current and fresh on the rules is something that happens up to every FOUR years. Rules change yearly; if you are only checked on them every four years, you may miss new safety regulations.

Enforcement is up to those who know the current rules and have them report violations to the certification event. Things are different in the All-star world, where there are safety judges at competitions, but for school-level teams, there is very little safety validation at games and events.

If injuries were to rise, we might again see fears of schools grounding their cheerleaders or, worse, increased severe injuries.

What’s a solution?

There are many solutions, but the easiest is continued education for coaches. When I first got AACCA trained, it was an in-person event. You had to physically go and meet with a certified teacher and demonstrate your knowledge. All testing is done online and can be done in a couple of hours or a day. The convenience of the online experience is fantastic, but maybe something is lost in not making those connections with certified instructors. You have someone with more experience than you to use as a resource if you have a safety question.

Camps and competitions often provide an excellent space to build connections, but many cheer programs do not compete. Building coaching resources outside of camps and competitions might be another solution to this issue.

Software is a tricky business, and pricing it is hard.

Model 1: Pay Per Version

Traditionally, this was my favorite way to buy software. This is also a more traditional way of purchasing software. Back in the day, you would buy a license to a software version, e.g., Adobe Creative Cloud 6 (CC6), and you would get updates to that version and continue to get updates. If Adobe created a version of CC7 with new features, you would either have to pay an upgrade fee or buy the new license. This made sense when your software came on a CD, and you needed to buy the latest version on a new CD.

New software versions were usually substantial. The difference between CC6 and CC7 might have been significant and be a real incentive for the consumer to return and spend more money on the next version. If the updated features weren’t significant enough, the public might skip a version. This provided a significant incentive for developers to build really strong versions.

Many programs were released this way that have a very fond place in my heart:

• Transmit by Panic
• OmniGraffle by OmniGroup
• TextMate
• BBEdit by BareBones

To name a few.

The problem with the model is that there is a lot of pressure on the company and the software to build compelling features for you year after year. If a bunch of bug fixes are required (whether it is the developers’ fault or the platform’s fault), it might be hard to get a new compelling release.

Model 2: Subscription Pricing

Adobe switched to this model years ago. In this model, you pay a fee per month or year to use a piece of software. This model originally came around with the SaaS (Software as a Service) model. In the SaaS world, this makes sense. Each month, you must pay for servers, electricity, internet, and other required services. Software manufacturers saw how deterministic the forecasting for SaaS was and started offering subscriptions for their software.

There are benefits for the consumer as well. Instead of spending a thousand dollars for a version of Adobe Creative Cloud, you could spend 50/month and get the same thing, with updates. Adobe could use the subscription numbers to forecast the hiring and maintenance of products. Adobe has funds to pay for their developers to fix bugs, even if major features take a couple of years to develop.

Aside from Adobe, many other desktop products have been added to this model. Notably, Microsoft Office has a subscription payment model. Another piece of design software, Sketch, does the same thing. Even Panic has a model similar to this for one of its pieces of software.

Another factor was the comfortability of consumers in switching to this model. Paying for software tools was like paying for a utility. As SaaS companies started around 2000, many consumers were already paying for online licenses for software that felt similar.

Put that together, and there are many services charging like this. Some of these, I will argue, don’t fit this model and should be paid once, not as a subscription. The industry is moving this way.

Model 3: Hybrid

There is a third model that some developers use. Here is an example from Panic’s Nova:

In this model, you pay a flat fee for the product and a year of updates. At the end of the year, if you are happy with the software and don’t need updates, you can continue using the latest version of Nova without having to pay.

This is a hybrid of both worlds because the developer can offer new features to incentivize you to renew your purchase at the end of the year, but if you aren’t excited about the roadmap, you can just keep the version you have.

This also solves the problem of buying software at the end of a version. For example, you can buy version 4 of Transmit two weeks before version 5 because you will automatically get the updates.

Challenges with the Subscription Model

The bottom line is that there are some secret problems with the subscription model for non-SaaS software.

1: Some Products don’t get updates

One of the subscriptions I pay for is Headspace. This is a meditation app. They charge about $70/year for their subscription service. I use Headspace daily, or at least I try to. The price per day of use is reasonable. The problem is that I need to start using the same track repeatedly. I’m not using the new features. I don’t care about them. Their new editions of the app have made it HARDER for me to do what I want. One interesting cloud feature they have is that it tracks the number of minutes I’ve spent meditating and day streaks (how many days I’ve meditated). Still, I don’t know if this feature is worth $70/year.

2: Versioning apps is Now Crazy

CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous deployment) has caused an exciting development issue. Instead of one major version of software year, a couple of security patches, many products have countless updates yearly. They may release one new version every week, with several additional rollbacks or spontaneous updates. This means while you might be using Adobe Lightroom 2024, you might be using the most up-to-date sub-version of it. You should update it pretty frequently (thinking of the SmugMug Plugin for Lightroom, which I must update EVERY time I use it). Updating may require you to download and wait to use the software. These downloads can be annoying. It gets even worse if the upgrade requires you to restart your computer.

The other problem is that tutorials you might find on the web might need to be compatible with the current version of your software. This has always been the case, but these tutorials get out of date faster with even more versions.

3: Forgetting about auto-renewal subscriptions

There have been times when I’ve forgotten about a software renewal and paid for a renewal that I didn’t really need or want. Managing subscriptions is a new challenge, hence the need for apps like Rocket Money that try to identify subscriptions you are no longer using.

Some software companies bank on users needing more time to cancel their subscriptions. Some services even make it very challenging to cancel (e.g., requiring you to contact support).

Conclusion

There is a space for all pricing models in this world. It only becomes problematic when one company dominates an area and limits the available models. Adobe did that for a while with the CC licensing, but now there are competitors like a Solo License of Sketch or products released by Affinity.

I have always preferred paying for software that I own instead of subscriptions. That being said, there are certain products, like Adobe CC, that I do pay for.

I guess I lament that we are in this world with constant subscriptions.

Here is my list in order of trying them:

1. Yagi Noodles - Filet-O Ebi
2. 5th Elements - Dr.’s Orders
3. Boru - Umami Burger
4. The Wharf Southern Kitchen - Buffalo BBQ Burger
5. The Boat House - Hawaiian Tuna Burger
6. The Mooring - Gina Marie
7. 41 North - 41 North Burger
8. Tremblay’s - The Patriot
9. La Vencina - Smash Burger
10. Stoneacre - Chef Bender Burger

The following is a longer post on my opinions and thoughts about each burger.

Yagi Noodles - Filet-O Ebi

Disclaimer: Many may note that I post a lot about Yagi. I am friends with the people who own/work here. I met many of them at CrossFit and maintained a friendship. I am biased.

This was my overall winner of the Bender. It’s funny that it was the first one I tried. Last year, I tried their option and thought it was good but nothing special or unique. This year, I felt different.

This was a shrimp patty. Dressed with lettuce and house mayo on a house-made sesame bun.

Official Description:

Panko breaded shrimp patty, yum yum sauce, napa slaw, served on a sesame milk bun with bang bang fries.

This doesn’t do it justice. It was very fresh on the patty’s inside and just popped in your mouth. The fries were cooked perfectly, and the mayo on top was incredible.

As it was my first, I couldn’t give it a 10, but I gave it an 8.8/10.

Fifth Element - Dr.’s Orders

Starting the week strong, I did this for dinner after Yagi for Lunch. These burgers couldn’t be further apart. Yagi’s was light and fresh, and this was HEAVY!

Official Description:

Double decker 8 oz. patties smothered in jalapeño pesto, sriracha bacon aioli, American cheese, topped with fried onion strings, and queso fuego, served on a brioche bun with crispy garlic fries.

As the description explains, a lot was going on here, too much, in my opinion. The flavors made it hard to appreciate the burger. The photo is fantastic, and it came with an injector for cheese. That was about it. I couldn’t finish it. It was too spicy, and the meat patties just weren’t that good.

My rating is 4/10.

Boru - Umami Burger

Description:

Beef burger topped with black garlic aioli, cured egg yolk, kimchi pickles, togarashi bacon, smoked cheddar, and shredded cabbage, served with sesame fries and sriracha ketchup.

Boru is a noodle joint. I would not have expected them to do a burger, and after the last burger of the Dr.’s Order, I was pretty ready to be let down. Surprise, this burger was rather great. My burger-tasting companion wished they had toasted the bun, but honestly, I was happy with it. I thought it was simple and direct. It was tasty. It wasn’t too big. The fries were done well and the sriracha ketchup was just good. I really really liked this burger.

Looking back, this may have been my favorite or close to my favorite beef burger.

My rating is 7/10.

The Wharf Southern Kitchen and Whiskey Bar’s - Buffalo BBQ Burger

Description:

Stacked double patty burger with BBQ beef and Buffalo chicken patties, topped with blue cheese, lettuce and crispy onions, served with a choice of crispy tater tots or fries.

This was my first time at The Wharf Southern Kitchen. I’ve walked by it a bunch but have yet to go in. They are currently under construction, but their inside was still available for dining.

It is tight but nice. The inside is pretty dark but still cute and has lots of wood. Feels pretty darn southern.

First thing first, this post is about the burger, but being as it was my first time in there, here are a couple of observations:

• Prices for drinks are HIGH. I understand it is near Bowen’s Wharf, but when a pour of Bullet costs you 14 dollars, you have to question it. Go to Tavern on Broadway, and you can get Stagg Jr for 13.
• The place was dark, very dark. I didn’t love it. It was hard to read the bottles.
• They are committed to whiskey and have some exciting stuff if you are willing to spend the money. (meaning, they have Pappy)

On to the Burger:

I split the burger with a friend, so I only had half and wished I had a whole one. It was delicious. Blue cheese was used sparingly, and I didn’t get it until the second bite. My friend said he missed it. Despite being a double patty, it was small, and the chicken somehow complimented the burger.

The burger was tasty, and the fries did an excellent job complimenting it. It was even more interesting the Boru burger, so I’m going with 7.3/10

The Boat House: Hawaiian Tuna Burger

Official Description:

Fresh ground tuna, papaya pineapple slaw, poke glaze, sriracha lime aioli, and avocado, served on a toasted King’s Hawaiian roll.

I was surprised at how much I liked the ground Tuna. The poke glaze had the citrus feeling I was looking for, and the slaw was not overwhelming. This is a strong contender for the top, but the choice of a Kings Hawaiian bun put it behind the homemade bun from the Yagi. The sweet potato fries that it came with were excellent!

Overall Rating: 8.3/10

The Mooring: Gina Marie

Official Description:

Short rib and brisket patty, hot Portuguese pepper relish, crispy chourico, fontina, and a sunny side egg, served on a toasted bolo roll.

There are a bunch of words in this description that I didn’t know.

• Chourico - Portuguese sausage similar to Chorizo.
• Fontina - semisoft cheese

The choice of Bolo for a burger concerned me from the beginning.

The burger was VERY MESSY. The Chourico tasted like pepperoni—an interesting choice for a breakfast-type burger. The choice of the Bolo felt wrong. It didn’t contain the egg, which seemed to cause the burger to be so messy. The peppers were quite tasty. The fries, on the other hand, were just wrong. They had a cardboard-like taste, and I had difficulty eating even with ketchup.

This was their attempt for three years, so I was disappointed. Still, it was better than Fifth Element.

Overall Rating: 6/10

41 North Burger

Official description:

8 oz. Pat LaFrieda dry-aged blend, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, Bibb lettuce, and tomato, served on a brioche bun.

We went because it looked simple, and we were in for a simple burger. There was nothing special about the Burger Bender; it was just the standard burger they have on the menu all year. They didn’t even have a Burger Bender Flyer. The presentation of the burger was fundamental, just the burger with onions, lettuce, and tomato.

It was a delicious meat patty, but that was about it. The onions were alright, but they didn’t add anything special. The bun could have done with a toasting. While the fries were better than the Mooring, they could have been more inspiring.

Also, we ordered two medium burgers and one medium rare; I ordered the medium rare. My burger was medium rare, but one of our medium burgers was VERY pink. They either mixed up who got which burger or cooked it incorrectly. Either way, it could be a better showing.

My overall verdict: 5.5/10

Tremblay’s: The Patriot

Official Description:

Sirloin burger with American cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, pickles and Thousand Island dressing, served on a toasted potato roll with French fries and a pickle spear.

This was another burger on the standard menu and not made special for the Burger Bender. When I looked through their menu, they had more outrageous options that they could have nominated. The Patriot seemed like the primary option. Still, to honor the competition, I ordered it.

It tasted juicy, but this was just a traditional burger. I couldn’t get the 1000 Island taste, but this is traditional on animal-style burgers at In-N-Out, so I’m curious if I was just used to it. The burger itself was stacked high and seemed too big for my mouth. This is a standard practice in Portsmouth, where the Localz sandwiches are too big. The fries were good.

Because this was a pretty traditional burger, but done well, overall rating: 6/10.

La Vecina Smash Burger

Official Description:

Two 3 oz. patties, bacon jalapeño jam, chorizo aioli, spicy cabbage, crispy cheese, and queso fresco, served on a potato roll.

This was a delicious burger. Its taste reminded me a bit of the Mooring (both restaurants are NRG), but it held together much better because of the potato bun. The crispy cheese was also a good choice. In addition to the great taste, it was the most reasonable thing on the menu, priced at $14. It was served with chips and queso, but the burger was so good I didn’t miss them.

Simple and excellent, overall rating: 8/10.

Stoneacre: Chef Bender Burger

Official Description:

8 oz. Wagyu beef patty, pimento cheese, butter lettuce, tomato, and malt vinegar aioli, served on a Bavarian pretzel roll.

To be fair to Stoneacre, this was the last of 10 burgers. I was sick of burgers about six burgers in.

I was splitting this with a friend, and Stoneacre was nice enough to split it for us, which was super friendly. It was served with a small garden salad, which I appreciated after all the fries I’d had over the past week. The Wagyu was pretty interesting, and this might be the first time I tried it on a burger. It was very juicy and fatty, and I regret that we ordered it medium; we probably should have ordered it well. I shouldn’t feel this way, but the Bib lettuce was my favorite part of this burger. It was needed for the softness of the meat.

Aside: I might have a problem; I often dream of lettuce and salad.

While this was tasty, it wasn’t anything special or high on my list. This may be because I was packed off my half burger at La Vecina.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10.

My ratings

Based on scores, my rating was:

1. Yagi Noodle 8.8/10
2. The Boat House 8.3/10
3. La Vecina 8/10
4. The Wharf 7.3/10
5. Boru 7/10
6. Stoneacre 6.5/10
7. The Mooring 6/10
8. Tremblay’s 6/10
9. 41 North 5.5/10
10. Fifth Element 4/10

I stand behind these ratings. The only two I wouldn’t do again are 41 North and Fifth Element. They just weren’t that good. Everything else was tasty enough to try if offered again.

Official Ratings

According to Discover Newport, here are the official ratings (including burgers I didn’t try)

Beef Category Winner: 22 Bowen’s - French Onion Burger
Best Non-Beef: The Boat House - The Hawaiian Tuna Burger
Best Plant-Based: Sprout and Lentil - Yo’Spicy Bulgogi Burger

They also offered the following superlatives:

• Best Drip: Birria Patty Melt - Chomp Kitchen and Drinks
• Most Likely To Go To Med School: Dr.’s Order - Fifth Element
• Rookie Of The Year: Boru Umami Burger - Boru Noodle Bar
• Most Likely To Study Abroad: Burger alla Gricia - Guisto
• Best Dupe: Bacon Beer Cheese Hopper - Basil & Bunny
• Most Likely To Tempt A Vegetarian: Pastrami Smash Burger Slider - Gas Lamp Grille

My Feelings on the Ratings

I’m afraid I have to disagree with the choice of the Boathouse over Yagi for the non-beef option. I reached out to Discover Newport and received the following voting statistics:

The Boat House: 134 votes with 339 Burgers Sold
Yagi Noodle: 66 votes with 120 Burgers Sold

Interestingly, 55% of the people who ordered the Yagi Burger voted for it, and about 39% of those who ordered The Boat House burger voted for it. As someone who had both, I can tell you the staff at The Boat House were very aggressive in convincing people to vote for it. I was asked to vote for it as I ordered it, when it showed up, when it was taken away, and when I was given the check. People arguing that the clients at The Boat House are older and, therefore, less likely to vote for it might have a point. The amount of pressure from the staff should be considered an offset. Also, the wait time for a burger at The Boat House was 40ish minutes, so people had plenty of time to vote while waiting for food.

This makes me call to question some of the rules of the contest, the number of tables in a place and location, and all other factors that make it so that larger establishments are more likely to win just by the nature of their already successful business and does not allow some of the smaller places to be as successful.

Here are the rules I wish Discover Newport would use for future Burger Benders:

• Votes should be counted on a percentage basis with a minimum number of burgers sold, like 50.
• I wanted to know how to vote for multiple categories, which should be more apparent.
• While it was interesting to include restaurants in Warren and elsewhere off the island, you should limit it to restaurants on the island. Or have a separate competition for on and off-island.
• You should not be allowed to participate in the Burger Bender with a regular menu like Trembley’s and 41 North. I was disappointed.
• If you are participating, you should be required to serve your Burger the entire week during the event. Bowen’s 22 only served their burger during lunch, and fitting them in was just too hard. I’m pretty disappointed that they won.

Conclusion

While this post contains a lot of complaints, this was an enjoyable week of trying new things. I enjoyed. I got to eat out with many friends and was also grateful for that.

While I wish Discover Newport would make the changes above, I’ll probably partake in it again in future years. I might pick my top 6 burgers instead of trying to do a whole 10.

Update from an anonymous source

A friend read my post and advised that I break down judging for future years into four categories:

1. Buns - which are usually store-bought but need to compliment the burger and fit the style.
2. Meat - should be juicy and seasoned well. Cooked to at least medium.
3. Sauce and Top - this category includes cheese, bacon, sauces, and veggies.
4. Side - pairing the burger with an appropriate side, usually fries.

My notes for this past year could have fit this better. I will make sure to break it down better next time through.

Full details on all the burgers can be found here.

So far, I’ve managed to try five burgers, and when the week ends, I’ll post my review for all of the ones I’ve tried. My current favorite is from Yagi Noodles: Filet-O Ebi, which was my first, but the bun did it. It’s homemade.

This is my second week trying burgers, but my first year taking it seriously and attempting to get through a bunch of burgers and try more than just a few. Only several days are left, so it’s a race to try as many as possible.

Calva

If you like Visual Studio Code, which I do, you should know about Calva, an extension for VS Code. This extension is fantastic. It has a straightforward way to get a REPL up and running and a starter project, making playing around with the language pretty simple.

Another benefit of the extension is that it comes with a starter project with lessons on learning Calva and Clojure.

I like to learn from books, so I bought Programming Clojure and Third Edition from Pragmatic Bookshelf. I’ve been a fan of their books before, but this book could be more beginner-friendly. The Calva “Getting Started REPL” has an excellent tutorial for the language. It feels better tailored to a Clojure language beginner than the book. I’d suggest starting here.

Leiningen

The slogan for Leiningen is:

for automating Clojure projects without setting your hair on fire

And it’s not wrong. As I mentioned in my previous post, because Clojure is run on the JVM, writing simple scripts is challenging because the code must be compiled into a jar. Leiningen solves some of these problems by creating a structure for you.

You can send your project to another person and have them run it with Leiningen or distribute it as a compiled jar (called an uberjar) to run with just a Java runtime.

The project I’m currently working on was not created with Leiningen, but my sample learning projects have been. It’s pretty simple to set up and use.

Path Continues

While I’m progressing with Clojure, I still have much left to learn. Programming without a ton of side effects is exciting. This is particularly hard while I’m also working on learning more about Swift and SwiftUI. The languages are about as different as can be. Still, more to come.

I’m telling everyone out there that I have an affinity for you. Even if we have quarreled and disagreed, you deserve love and affection. You have a purpose, are worthy, and are actually quite amazing in your way. You are different from everyone else, and your individuality makes you special, unique, and extraordinary.

Poem: Valentine’s Day Community

On this Valentine’s Day

May I just say

You are truly amazing

Even if I lack the phrasing

To accurately capture you

I hope these words ring true

You are fantastic

Please be ecstatic

For today is a day of togetherness

Hopefully rolling on to foreverness.

This Instagram DogsOfNpt is about these beautiful doggos and their adventures around Newport, RI. Expect the photography quality to grow as I learn skills or wane as I begin to get overwhelmed with other aspects of life.

What is Clojure

What is Clojure? Clojure is a Lisp-like, functional programming language that compiles jar files to run on the JVM. This means it will run anywhere you can run Java. It also means you can use existing Java libraries in your Clojure code.

Being Lisp-like means you get a ton of parenthesis, and much of the language is written in itself. This implies you can overwrite existing functions to reach your desired behavior. This is both cool and pretty risky. But it also means you can understand how much of the code is written.

As someone who comes from Objective-C and other environments where there is compiled code, you can’t see the source; it is refreshing to know that I can look up what is going on under the hood of a defined function.

What I like so far

As mentioned above, because many of the internal functions are written in Clojure and available, it is possible to see how standard functions are created. Theoretically, it is easy to uncover how anything works. In reality, it is taking more time as there are some interesting patterns in Clojure that I need to get used to, and more on what I don’t like later.

Clojure is primarily a functional programming language, meaning most functions are pure. This implies they returned the changed state instead of modifying the state in place. This makes things like concurrency easier to get right. It makes testing more manageable because you can treat functions like a black box from a testing perspective. If you put the same thing in, you expect the same thing out. Pure functions don’t have side effects on the state.

ClojureScript is another excellent piece of code. It takes Clojure and compiles it to JavaScript instead of a Jar file. This means you can effectively write the same language for both front-end and back-end. Yes, you can do the same with Vanilla JavaScript and other languages. While most languages can be written functionally, it’s not their only or primary way of writing.

Community. Clojure, as a Lisp-like language, has a strong community surrounding it. It takes a particular type of person to love writing the way Lisp inspires you to write. The community around Clojure is generally full of brilliant, capable developers.

What I don’t love

Unlike Lisp, Clojure has many special characters and codes to make writing certain things faster. Weird Characters is a site with many odd characters that can be used in Clojure. I have referred to this page a fair bit when looking through some of the Clojure projects I’m going through.

I was brought up programming C. Something about me loves how C is so linear and straightforward. Learning to loop through items in Clojure differs from a standard for looping in other languages.

Getting code up and running is more complex than some other scripting languages. Despite its simple syntax, Clojure requires compilation to be run, and it can be more complicated. When I started writing this post, I was trying to write a simple Clojure hello world.

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(ns helloworld.core)

(defn -main
  "I can say 'Hello World'."
  []
  (println "Hello, World!"))

This is a simple function. Still running, it requires compilation, and the most simplistic way I could find was through Leiningen.

Summation

I wanted to use a conclusion, but I’m not there. I’m still learning the language and working on this project with it. I’m still deciding whether to make a conclusion about Clojure. I will be writing some more about this as I learn more.

Right now, I’m excited about the project and the teammate I’m working with. I’m willing to put up with the headache of learning something new and get to work on this fun codebase.

More to come soon.

This change is difficult for me to work through.

With the negative feelings, there are also positive ones. I’m free to attack some of the more significant challenges in my life without feeling like I’ve been held back by this commitment that wasn’t good for me. Then I feel guilty for feeling free.

It’s complex, and only time will make it better. I wish there were a fast-forward button on feelings, sometimes.

When I joined the company, they sent me to New York to work with our Pivotal Labs Team (we could only get the team in NY, not the one in California, because they were too busy). The leader of our project, Adam, was one of the maintainers of Cedar, an Objective-C Unit testing framework that Pivotal Labs used to build TDD code. Cabulous had just hired a new leadership and was taking the existing product that had been written in some language that could be ported to both iOS and Android and shifting it to native products to increase the reliability and stability of the project.

TDD, or test-driven design, is one of the significant principles of Pivotal Labs. The notion is that you write a test describing something you want your software to do that it currently doesn’t do, watch it fail, and then write the most straightforward code to make it pass. If there is another condition you need, write that in as well.

At the time, Apple’s unit testing software wasn’t what we needed, so we worked with Cedar. If you look at the project, it hasn’t been updated in a LONG time, and that is because most new software for Apple devices is being written in Swift. Also, Apple has improved its unit testing offerings to the point where a 3rd party option isn’t needed.

Here’s some Cedar code from the website:

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describe(@"Example specs on NSString", ^{
    it(@"lowercaseString returns a new string with everything in lower case", ^{
        [@"FOOBar" lowercaseString] should equal(@"foobar");
    });

    it(@"length returns the number of characters in the string", ^{
        [@"internationalization" length] should equal(20);
    });

    describe(@"isEqualToString:", ^{
        it(@"should return true if the strings are the same", ^{
            [@"someString" isEqualToString:@"someString"] should be_truthy;
        });

        it(@"should return false if the strings are not the same", ^{
            [@"someString" isEqualToString:@"anotherString"] should be_falsy;
        });
    });
});

This should seem very similar if you are familiar with RSpec or other options.

While working on our project at Flywheel, our tests grew very complex. Because a bunch of our code was UI-based, we would end up writing these very long, complicated, nested code chains, and when something needed to change, we would spend a lot of time rewriting the tests under the UI.

Coming in, I was very optimistic about TDD, but after working with the massive amounts of tests we wrote, I’m a little less rigid with my practice. I like tests, especially for things like API calls or business logic that need to happen within an app. As you are initially creating a UI, creating a test for every piece of the UI might be overkill.

Ultimately, my adventure at Flywheel ended because companies like Uber and Lyft were doing what we were doing better than us. I will say that our native clients were incredibly stable, and using the TDD method we employed led to a real turnaround in the app’s reliability.

Sadly, I could not find any of our product after looking around on my computer for some old screenshots. If I find them, I’ll come back and update this.

The Banjo is a different being. I want to practice it daily. I want to hear the single strings being plucked one at a time and practice my finger rolls. I’m practicing the four chords I know (yes, one is entirely open).

If there is something you want to pursue and you find yourself only slightly interested in it. Like me playing the piano. Keep hunting for the tool that makes it what you like doing. This is advice that I need to follow in other areas like fabric cutting and programming.

If you care about music, and the typical instruments haven’t worked for you, consider trying a new one. Good luck. I’m thankful I found my instrument.

So far, I’m tracking four habits:

• Doing 425 active / 500 total calories on the Elliptical
• Writing somewhere public (sharing instead of consuming)
• Reading for at least 10 minutes (not on a computer)
• Practicing the Banjo

I started before the end of the year but haven’t recorded every day in my chart. I have made the Elliptical goal daily, but the rest often get missed. Sometimes just one of them, sometimes all of them. In the twenty-three days I have marked, I have hit all four goals only six times.

In the past, if I saw numbers like this, I would give up on my other habits and say they were done with because I was failing at achieving them. That’s not what I’m doing this year.

Many years ago, while doing a long drive, I listened to the audible version of 10 Percent Happier. To loosely quote what he says about meditation:

When a thought enters your brain and disrupts your meditation, forgive yourself and refocus.

The key word in that sentence for me is “forgive.” It would be best if you learned to forgive yourself for not being perfect always. This is VERY challenging for me. I get mad at myself for not finishing a habit for not completing it.

This year, I will practice forgiveness for missing a day and move on to the next. I will think about what I can do today to improve, not dwelling on how I failed yesterday.

So, if you set yourself up for a habit, and it is 22 days into the new year, you are already missing it. Forgive yourself, and do better today or tomorrow!

Luckily, there are some unofficial dog meetups at some dog-friendly places. Most mornings (especially on weekdays), Coco goes to the local park between 7:15 and 7:45 am to play with her friends. I will take her to Simple Merchant Coffee afterward if I feel like it.

We also get outside the last hour before the sunset. This is currently around 4 pm. During this hour of play, Coco runs around crazy. Getting her energy out is the most crucial part. A tired dog is a well-behaved dog.

Coco loves to play with other dogs. If you are in Newport and need the details on how to get outside and play with Coco, please reach out!

This leads to the question of how one paints rocks. I got together my art supplies and have tried several different approaches. I brought acrylic Posca and Krink Markers, Sharpie oil markers, and one shot paints and brushes.

After testing, I would say that oils and 1 Shot Paints work the best. While I can layer on some acrylics and get something on the rock, it doesn’t look smooth. It will take several layers actually to coat a rock.

While 1 Shot is fantastic, it takes a long time to dry. I’ve base-coated a bunch of rocks and then gone over them with oil markers or a second layer of 1 shot. So far, I’ve done about 5 or 6 rocks, and a few have been placed around the town. I plan to paint more and put more.

If you are looking to try this out, I’d recommend looking at the Sharpie oil based markers as an excellent place to start.

The downside of these markers is that colors are relatively limited, and I must figure out how to combine them. The 1 Shot paints come in more colors and can be mixed to create even more color combinations.

I’m also looking into carving some rocks with my Dremel-like device. The goal is to add more depth to the stones than just color. Good luck finding these rocks.

Since I’m at a loss for important things to write about today or just having a low-energy day, I decided to share my breakfast sandwich.

It starts in a cast iron pan set to medium heat with butter. I let the butter melt and spread out. Then, an egg ring is placed on the surface and moved around to butter up the insides. It is then given a minute to heat the metal of the ring.

Then, an egg is cracked into the egg ring. Using my hands and pressure, I pull apart an English muffin and also place that in the pan. After several minutes, the more substantial half of the English muffin is removed and put on a plate. The egg is flipped, two slices of American cheese are placed on the egg, and the other half of the English muffin is placed on top.

Then, the half already plated is drizzled with a light touch of maple syrup.

Once the cheese is melted, the egg section is removed from the plan and placed on the already-plated English muffin half.

That is it.

As I embark on the challenge of cleaning this year, I decided to start with my desk today. I removed almost everything (only mandatory computer pieces were left), wiped the desk with dish soap and warm water, and coated it with mineral oil.

I am also figuring out where particular objects live during my working day. I’ve got a cable organizer, and command stripped my USB hubs so that they will be static.

The next challenge is figuring out where everything that was on my desk belongs. I’m going to try a new idea for me. Only the things I need RIGHT now are allowed on the desk. The notebook I’m writing in, the pen I’m writing with. What I’m doing right now can live on the desk.

The stuff I want to access quickly can exist in my small organizer draws under my desk. Things I may need less frequently will end up in a bin or toolbox somewhere in the space.

Having a cleaner space will allow me to focus better as someone who is easily distracted.

Forgive the randomness of this post; there will be a bunch of random collections of thoughts about the past year. I’m only in the infancy of this post, but it reminds me of the failed Best Man speech I gave at my middle brother’s wedding, where I tried to tie too many random thoughts together. Forgive me; this is more for me than for you.

The Notebooks

Those who know me will see that I carry a pocket notebook with me everywhere or almost everywhere. I’ve been doing this since 2008 I first discovered Field Notes. I usually fill about four a year, but I always strive to take more notes and, hopefully, relevant thoughts worth remembering or reviewing later.

This year, I went through about four notebooks. One Sings of Spring edition, two Fifty Edition as it was my fiftith notebook and the dog started chewing on it so I started a second one, and one Surplus Green Draplin original notebook.

I also use Hobonichi Techo as a planner. In the past, I’ve used the Moleskine Day planner, but I like the size of the Techo better. I use this to jot a casual note about the day, how I feel, or what I did, so I have a record. Writing in the notebook is almost more important than the material covered.

In reviewing the notes, I’ve found nuggets from the past year. Notes about reading Atomic Habits and the aggregation of marginal gains, to a note about reviving my old podcast. Notes from last year’s cheer team that, when reading, confused me because they talked about people who were no longer on the team. Small drawings of plans. I made sticker sketches, and I still need to do many. Thoughts about my job before it ended. Notes on relationships that I experienced.

Looking forward to next year, I want to do even more sketching and drawing. I’m looking to be more okay with having a failed drawing. The search for perfection instilled in me by my family prevents me from attempting to draw something I know I won’t like. One of my goals is to overcome this fear.

Reviewing Last Year’s Goals

I was looking back at the post 2022 into 2023 for details about my goals going into this past year. I’ve failed at both goals, yet I don’t feel bad about it.

Losing 60 lbs

Not only did I not lose 30 lbs, I yo-yoed down to 270 and then went back up to 290 pounds. So technically, I gained 10 pounds. Why am I not as upset as I could be? I’ve started to understand part of why I put on the weight. Part of it is the medication I’m on for my anxiety. One of the side effects is carb craving, which turns carbs into fats if they aren’t burned. The second major factor was that I was diagnosed with sleep apnea this past year.

Sleep apnea is a condition that makes sleeping VERY challenging. To get diagnosed, you go through a sleep study where they test how many times you wake up in a night. They do this by checking when you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more (I might be wrong; it might be more or less than 10 seconds). A typical night of sleep for a person without sleep apnea may have up to 5 of these events per hour. Severe obstructive sleep apnea happens at greater than 30 events per hour. Based on the information I received from my doctor, I experienced between 66 and 73 events per hour during my sleep study. While it isn’t the highest number my doctor has ever seen, it is beyond severe.

I can describe how I was feeling in reflection how that I’ve gotten a CPAP machine and sleep much better at night before I was tired all day. I would take multiple naps throughout the day, ranging from 20 minutes to several hours. In addition, I would consume sugar ALL THE TIME. My body was hunting for energy any place it could find it.

Now that I have a CPAP machine and sleep better. I’m able to find some energy to go back to the gym. I’m able to feel full and not crave sugar ALL the time.

As I will talk about in my goals for the next year, I’ve recently started a habit of going to the gym daily and doing 425 active calories (500 total) on the elliptical each morning. It takes just about 30 minutes and reminds me of when I used to go to Planet Granite every morning. The cardio kinda sucks in the moment, but feels great afterwards.

I will carry on this goal, but one of the other things I learned last year, is that the plan is just as important. So, math wise, without having to change my diet too much, if I burn 500 calories a day, times seven days a week, that is 3500 calories a week, which is the equivalent of one pound. If I do that, I think it would about 50 puonds this year which seems more reasonable than last years goal.

Traveling 3136 Miles By Foot

This one didn’t last long. The average on this is something like 8.6 miles a day. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, time wise, this would be about 2.5 hours of walking or about 1.5 hours of jogging per day. These turned out to be too aggresive for me. Over time, the lack of being able to get to that level caused me lose interest in running or jogging at all. I gave up about a month or so into it.

Distance feels like the wrong way to motivate me for now. It’s too high a bar. Hence why I’m working on showing up to the gym almost every day. The act of showing up is more important.

2024 Goals

This upcoming year, I am going to do something different. I’m going to have one over-arching theme goal: Clean. And while this goal is just one word, it encompasses so much more. Clean will extend to so many aspects of my life.

• Home - This past year, I downsized. Significantly. While I did store or surrender many things, I still have too much in my space and not a perfect home for all of it. I need to work on that.
• Car - I spend a lot of time traveling and working in my car. My car becomes a catch all for so many different things. I have so much clutter in my car I often don’t even know what is there. Time to resolve this.
• Fitness & Food - Sort of talked about above, but I want to get back to going to the gym daily. This was something I loved back in San Francisco. I miss having the gym time in the morning, and I always feel better after getting in a workout. Cleaning up my diet is also important.
• Coding and Projects - the number of current ongoing projects is too large. It’s time to clean that up. Finish some, or at least get them to a point where I can move them off the front of my brain.

More than just cleaning, the goal is to develop habits that allow to me to be more of a clean and organized person. Creating a habit scorecard is part of it. Since I’ve started one, I’ve only had one perfect day, but I am at least tracking what I’m doing.

The other reason I like this goal, is it is about growth without absolutes. Unlike last year with very concrete goals, this year is about improving the process. This is what I’m all about.

As a former cheerleader and cheerleading coach, one of the subjects I hunt for is cheerleading. When I go to the sports sections, I find books on many different sports, but if there is a cheerleading book, it is often old, out of date, or designed for young children. Cheerleading is a complex, demanding activity or sport (depending on how you do it), and there is a lot of science and thought behind how the team works.

In my years of cheerleading, I’ve had many coaches who have taught me so many different things. I’ve decided to start putting some of the material down in written format. Here is what I’m writing:

Cheer Book

In writing this I want to give a VERY big shout out to Kelvin Lam. Former coach and really got me to think differently and more scientifically about my cheerleading technique. You can sign up to take his online courses: Cheer Moxie.

During this break, I’ve spent a bunch of time with my family for the holidays. The number of times I’ve been surrounded by four kids under ten this week is a new record. While most of my friends consider me a high-energy person, spending this time around the young one saps my energy like no other. I’m coming into the New Year Holiday tired. I don’t regret any minute I spend with the kids, but they are intense. I don’t even feel like I use too much energy with them, yet when they leave, I’m done. I want nothing more than to sit on the couch and nap. It’s an enormous effort to get up and do other personal goals.

The question is if I could take care of the kids independently if I had to. I kept telling my brother I’d rise to the occasion. I want to think that, but I don’t know. I love kids and love the time I spend with them. I love the way they look at the world and the questions they have. When I end up in a swarm of children, I get overwhelmed by the questions. Also, there is part of me that remains a cheerleading spotter. I’m looking for all the ways the kids could hurt themselves, and I try to be there to spot them if something crazy happens.

This is an appreciation post for all my friends with kids I have played with. Thank you for letting me borrow your children. Thank you for having children so that I can play with them. Thank you for being more robust and persistent than me to keep up with your kids. I remain consistently and constantly impressed with you!

Eventually, you run up against a project that is too complex to write from scratch. You will look for libraries and tools to help you solve the problem. Once a library has been located, the questions only grow. Is the library safe? What dependencies does this particular library have? How do I know I can trust it?

One solution is to thoroughly vet the code, line by line, to ensure it is safe. There are many challenges associated with this. First, reading all of someone else’s code is challenging. It could be as complex as writing your own. Also, as you are reading and learning the code, the code may change, and keeping up with the changes might be a full-time job. Especially if you are looking at a community project with multiple contributors, you are just one person. Reading the code may be too big an undertaking. Also, even if the project is small, it might have complex external dependencies. If you are researching the safety of a project, you must also explore the dependencies. A code commit in a dependency might open up a vulnerability in your code.

I mention this issue as I embark on a couple of coding projects. One of them I found was Authorizer. This project is the most important regarding security as it solves the user Authentication and Identification process. Many of my side projects in the past have fallen apart because I want to invest in something other than building this myself. There are other solutions, like Auth0 by Okta, but those are more expensive. Part of what you get in that price is added security and responsibility, but the cost might be prohibitive for a smaller project. The other truth is that we must discover what is happening on the Auth0 side. Without looking through their codebase, there could be security weaknesses. As more people use Auth0, there is a stronger motivation for malicious actors to find an exploit.

I’m not bringing this up because I have some proposed resolution to this complex challenge. I’m bringing it up because it is top of mind. If you have a better solution, please send it to me!

Mostly, I’m afraid I’m not raising her correctly and that I’m passing on my trauma to her.

Dogs are pets, and unlike humans, their existence seems pure. The fact that they are acting with good intentions is impossible to argue. If a dog jumps up on a counter and steals food, it’s not doing it maliciously. They are here for love and support. While cats are similar, the nature of a dog is just different.

I resent the fact that I am unable to understand her. What is she telling me when she whines in the car, even after I lower the windows? What else can I do for her? When I cuddle her, how do I know if she likes it? I can’t afford to put her in daycare at this point. Is that negatively affecting her life because she is stuck with me for so much of her life?

My only saving grace is that I love her wholeheartedly and know that I will do everything I can to facilitate her having the best life I can provide for her. She will see that she is loved.

Merry Christmas to All!

This is a very special holiday many people around the world. It celebrates the birth of their savor. As someone who is jewish, I was taught in herbrew school to accept that there are multiple paths to G-d, and that mine isn’t the only one that matters. So while I don’t believe that Jesus was the messiah, I respect the fact that others do and I wish them a joyous celebration of their of the birth of the chosen one.

May your tree be full of ornaments and you get exactly what you asked for on this Christmas. May you also remember that Jesus message was about loving and kindness to each other. That we are here to be good to the people around us. This message rings of the old jewish belief that we are here to create G-d’s kingdom here on earth. After all, Jesus started out jewish.

And to all a good night!

This lead to a larger question of what freedom of speech means. When does one freedoms begin to infringe upon anothers ability to persue life. There is a legal side of this and an ethical side. I’m not a legal scholar, and while I wish I knew more about the laws here, I am just ignorant. I don’t know from a legal perspective what is right and what isn’t.

From a moral perspective, I don’t think it should be allowed to call for a genocide of people. Where I think the current conversation falls short is that not only should we have calls against “intifada”, I think we should also have calls against islamaphobia. It shouldn’t be okay to call for the death of people based on race, religion or sexual preference in public. I mean, I don’t think death should ever really be the answer.

I’m dissapointed in all of these universities. While the U Penn president was let go, both M.I.T. and Harvard have supported their current presidents. I don’t agree with this approach. My feeling is that higher education should be a place of growth and learning and no one should be permitted to call for the death of other people, regardless if their school is a humanities school or an engineering school.

Small aside relating to my Jewishness in this moment in history. Hanukkah just started and this is the time the year when I got a bunch of “Happy Hanukkah” greetings. While it is nice to have a jewish holiday mentioned, every time I hear this greeting, I’m a little hurt. In terms of relgious Holiday’s Christmas is like the Superbowl of Christian Holidays. Saying Merry Christmas to someone who is christian is acknowledging their most important holiday of the year. In contrast, Hanukkah is a very minor holiday in Judaism. The most important Jewish Holiday is Rosh Ashana. Which is our new year and happens in September. The number of times someonme wishes me Happy New Year around Rosh Ashana is dismal. The number of people who wish me Happy Hannukkah is high. The ratio between the two is disheartening. I don’t necessarily think it is wrong to wish someone who is jewish a Happy Hannukah, but please also consider remembering their religion and holidays in September around the time of Rosh Ashana.

Simple Merchant Coffee has a loyalty program. Each time you get a coffee you end up with a punch in a punch card (usually a playing card). On your seventh coffee they trade in your punch card for a pocker chip they call a Cult Coin. Cult Coins are redemable for any coffee on the simple merchant menu. You can also purchase a cult coin for $7.

At the start the line of ocins was pretty generic. Covering a couple of different coins. Over time SMC has commissioned coins for local businesses and artists. There are many different coins at this point, and I have collected most.

The Collection

As coins are released there is often some signifcance. At this point, I usually get an iced americano when I go in which isn’t worth using a coin on. So I have collected a large amount. There was also that time where I decided that I needed to have all the Local Spots coins and just decided to buy a bunch. I have this large collection, what should I do?

Well, I feel an oncoming project to catelog and photograph my collection and maybe even offer some of the extras I have to for trade. More to come.

• Daring Fireball
• Rolling Stone

and many more, there is a side of Matthew Perry that reasonated with me that isn’t really talked about when mention his most iconic roles. While Friends was iconic, I’ll admit I missed the boat on it when it was out. I watched it casually, but did not really love it.

I know Matthew Perry as recurring actor in Aaron Sorkin Dramas. These dramas shaped my young adulthood. Example number 1: The West Wing. He played a republican lawyer who worked for the Barlet Democratic whitehouse team. As someone who didn’t agree with the exact politics of the house he was serving, he showed how someone of a different party could work with people who didn’t exactly share their beliefs. The belief that we can put aside our difference to try and get work done despite party is definitly something we could work on today. It’s somewhat comical how relevant entire episodes from the seven seasons of that show are today.

The other Sorkin show that Perry played a lead role in is Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. This show was about how there are two sides in show business. The premise of the show is that the standards board on major networks are reducing the diversity and quality of our programming. In a world where news channels pick an allegence to an ideology, either democratic or republican, and stick to it and ignore the other side, these issues are still relevant.

It seems to me like Perry was a foundational part of some of my favorite TV shows. I was sad to hear of passing, and my thoughts and prayers to go out to his direct family and friends.

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas lead a suprise attack on Israel. They launched over 3000 rockets, they sent militants into Israel and committied attrocities. There were many types of violence. In the ensuing conflict, Israel has launched a counter offensive against Gaza and Hamas.

As someone brought up Jewish, but having never been to Israel and experience any of these attrocities, my experience has been sheltered. I do not, to my knowledge, have family in Israel. I do not have a direct connection to anyone being attacked. I’m as distant as could be and still call myself Jewish. The most I’ve seen is an additional security guard at the local Synagouge patroling and keeping the space safe. There has been no direct impact on my life.

My pain comes from those who attack Israel and Judism from afar. There is pain on all sides of this conflict. As I understand it, the land that Israel occupies was at one point in the past home of Palestine. The area was given to the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocost. Palestinians were forced to leave their homes to provide a space for the Jews, and this was in tangible history, circa 1948.

While it is crazy to think about removing a people and giving space to another, my question concern has always been that this land was originally occupied by the Jews. At some point the past they were removed from their homes and it feels like Israel is a return to an older time. Does it hurt to be displaced, yes, but as people, we have been displaced, enslaved and worked to our deaths at least twice in history (Holocaust and Egypt) and deserve a place to exist as well.

My other concern is with Hamas. Hamas is the ruling party in Gaza. Hamas has shown time and again that they are terror organization. They are focused on killing Jews. Not the proliforation of Palestinians, not the creation of a state, but the eradication of the Jewish people. How can Palestinians in Gaza not revolt against this leadership? How can we take the Palestinians seriously if they are ruled by an organization that is so focused on the destruction of the Jewish people?

This isn’t an equal argument about being on the right side of history for me. I am not for the death of Palestinians. I’m not even for the death of all of Hamas. I’m strongly against any people looking to murder others.

It’s a little sophmoric, but I think of a movie I watched with my fraternity brothers in college.

Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.

I’d extrapolate it to people, not just men. I would also add that we must also try and adjust the pain and hurt that has come from previous attrocities as we look towards the future. There have been horrible acts on both sides. It makes it a difficult conflict to resolve. There are no easy solutions or they would have already been proposed and acted upon.

What spurred this writing was listening to these two conversations:

• Uncomfortable Conversations - Noura Erakat
• Uncomfortable Conversations - Noa Tishby

I don’t want to say how many years have past, but that was before Rails reached version 1. They are at Version 7.1.1. A long time has passed.

Cut to over the weekend when I was looking to create an invoice for some sewing work I had done. I was looking for a piece of software that was cheap or free that would do the job of creating an invoice for me to send to the client. I found a couple pieces of software out there and one that looked promising. When I signed up however, I couldn’t figure out how to validate my account to make an invoice. I got to thinking:

This really isn’t that hard. I just want a simple database schema for invoices and way to print them. Surely I can write something.

Having been years since I’ve played with it, I decided to give Rails a go. This was Sunday. Today is Wednesday, and I’m no where near done with it, but I’m chugging along and having fun. Rails is pretty perfect for this. I don’t even care if my service is something a user runs locally and doesn’t even make it to a web server. I’m not worried about security. I just want to create an invoice and mark it as paid when done. It turns out the tuturial for a quick start in rails mirrors a lot of the features I want to put in this project so that has been a great help.

Unlike usual, my project has a lame name: Invoices, and you can find it on Github. Reach out if you have feedback or issues.

My general feeling is that this book would have been great earlier on in my software career. Many of the lessons covered are things that I have learned from other books or by making the mistakes myself. If you are thinking about getting into the field or just graduating college, picking up a copy of this book and reading it (which is quick, because it is less 100 pages), would definitely be worth it. If, on the other hand, you have read other coding practices books or spent years writing code, most of the concepts may seem overly obvious.

If you read more closely, there is more than just 10,000. It’s not that anyone who puts in 10,000 hours will be a success, it’s that talent alone is not enough. You need to put in the work as well. And that is the methology that has been ruling my life more recently. Doing a bunch of things a little bit each day will lead to getting better. Trying to put in at least a piece of code a day (including weekends), has been a goal of mine on my github graph. Not all of it is the same language and not all of it is substantial, but I’m trying to write something everyday.

I’m also taking the meditation approach to this process. If a day is missed, I practice forgiveness and just do better the next day. Always trying to just be a bit better every single day.

This practice is also going to extend to writing and drawing. I’m tired of being mediocre at drawing and writing. I’m tired of producing par or sub-par contributions and being okay with it. I want to write with purpose and draw with purpose.

So here are the areas I’m working on:

• Fitness (I’m still pretty overweight and don’t feel like the athlete I feel like I could be)
• Writing
• Drawing
• Photography
• Coaching / Leadership
• Training my puppy
• Cleaning my life (Cull and Surrender)

There is more to come, stay tuned.

Comments

Function Heading Comments

When I was in college, I used to write three line comments for everything

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    //------------------------------
    // This Function Squares Pi
    //------------------------------
    float square_pi() {
        ...
    }

While this comment isn’t wrong, it is unnecessary. The function name square_pi says what it does. Putting in the comment adds more lines to the file without providing any real use. Yes, the compiler will remove it so it doesn’t hurt the running code, but it is repeating what is written below and the function name should be good enough.

Comments for the sake of writing more lines of code or making your layout look a little cleaner is not a great thing. It actually makes your code harder to read because poeple have to scroll to see to get past it. It means developers can see less on screen. Remove them, they aren’t helping.

To Do Comments

Sometimes you are writing code quickly and want to make sure to come back to something. You will leave a note in the comment like:

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    if (error != null) {
        // Do something here to record an error
    }

I get it. Sometimes there are bigger fish to fry and you need to come back to this comment later and fix it. The problem with the above is that it is easy to miss the fact that you need to come back to it. The trick is to add a common line that is shared across your codebase, something like // TODO: to track what changes need to be made later. I personally use // TODOz: because it has my name so I know that is a thing I wrote and need to come back to, but is still searchable with “// TODO” when someone is looking through the code base.

Commented Out Code

STOP SHIPPING COMMENTED OUT CODE!

If you need to comment out a piece of code for a day or two, make sure it is in a branch. Learn to use your version control system more effectively if you need to go abck and find code that was there before. Most of us can learn to use Git or whichever tool we have been using more effectively, but dead code in a master branch is something poeple need to scroll through and is not worth it. Remove it and then find it in your history if you need it again.

Variable & Function Naming

Unless names are very long and the abbriviation is commonly known, avoid reducing the size of a variable name in code. The clearer the variables are named the easier you code will be to read. Naming somthing intr might save you a couple of keys of typing, but it is unclear what intr means, “internal”? “inter office”? “int for real”? Typing out the extra characters in the world and definin what the variable means will make it much more readable to others. Any good compiler will clean up your code so the name length won’t matter to the code execution, only to the developers reading it. Aim to write clear code.

End

There are ton of other things that drive me nuts as I’m going through others code, and I’ll write about them as I see them. I just wanted to get these off the page before forget them.

I’m really working on learning Swift and trying to master the langauge and libraries around it. I’ve been trying to touch new features instead of just staying in the lane of the features I already know. While things like unwrapping Optionals takes a little bit of getting used to, it’s not that bad. The biggest challenge I’ve had is learning the differences in the langauge version.

Here’s what I’m talking about. I will have a problem and look for a solution on the internet. I will be looking for something like how to use a custom table view cell and I will find a Stack Overflow article on how to do it. I will attempt to impliment it, only to find that won’t work. This is curious, because it is the accepted answer, and clearly it was working for the poeple at the time they submitted the answer. Looking at the date, it is actually a couple of years old. Going back to my serach results, I will parse through a bunch of other answers until I find one that works. After a little bit of cross comparing, it is clear that Swift and Apple have changed the correct way to do something in a newer version of Swift.

My personal lesson is to make sure I’m looking for stuff written in Swift 5. In the future, as Swift stablizes this issue should be less of a problem, it’s just now as the langauge is being developed.

My two favorite places are: Single Fin Coffee Co (only on Saturdays), and Navad Bakery. Both have finished products, so I don’t have to cook.

Sometimes I will show up and do some acroyoga with friends.

So I joined Flywheel, and was shipped to the east coast because we had a contract with the East Coast Pivitol labs and I learned from them how to build out a test driven iOS experience using Cedar. The previous version of Cabulous had been increadibly buggy and was written in a cross platform library that was hard to use and hard to debug. The choice was made that reliability and speed were more important so we were going native.

So I learned from people who were smarter than me and more familiar than I was with the platform and the technology. I had a bunch of GREAT instructors to learn. I learned the basics of creating table views, I learned about how Obj-C managed memory and ARC (be glad that you don’t really need to know too much about this if you pick it up today).

But Flywheel had a problem, we weren’t expanding fast enough. This would eventually lead to the retirement of the app I was working on after I left, and it was removed from the App Store. I left to join RelateIQ where I learned even more from some also impressive engineers. I went from a pretty junior iOS developer to a tech lead on projects. It was a blast. We built one of the best email clients on iPhone I’ve seen, and it was tied to your RelateIQ data, or really all your contacts with context. It was awesome.

When we got bought by Salesforce, we integrated the Salesforce Objects into our app. We even had a couple fo screeens that were written in React Native, championed by a long time Salesforce Developer and that was also very compelling. As time went on though, the project became stagnent. Salesforce invested in its other native apps and let the product we were on get retired. Salesforce Inbox no longer as a real development team and if it is out there, it isn’t at the same level it was before.

I left Salesforce and took several years away from iOS. I wanted to try something new and a couple of friends propositioned me to try to work with them in a different capacity, using most of my secondary skills, and less of my programming side. During this time I tried to do a couple of side iOS projects, but honestly, I was just too commited to the project I was working on, and it required most of my engineering mind.

During my sabatical from iOS a couple of things happened, firstly, SwiftUI came out. This is Apple’s answer to react. I still have much to undestand about the details here and my next app will be written in this technology if at all possible. Secondly, Swift vastly surpassed Objective-C as the default langauge that iOS apps are written in. All tutorial sites switched pretty immediately and Apple seems to be pushing people hard to move in that direction. While some of the RelateIQ codebase was Swift, the vast majority was Obj-C.

Bottom line, I’ve been working in the field for 6+ years between Flywheel and RelateIQ and I have no app in the app store with my code. I’m sad about that and wanted to change it, so I decided to build and app and get it published. I’m taking a super agile approach of building something, getting it out there and then refining it so it is still a work in progress. Still, I’d like to announce that the Acroyoga Field Guide is now relaeased in the App Store.

Many more featuers are coming down the line and should be released shortly. Thanks!

Just a little note. Went up to Thompson’s Point in Portland ME last night for a super great concert by my favorite band, Dispatch. Their set was great and they even mentioned that it might be the most jammy set they’ve ever played. I loved it. I don’t know how many times its been that I’ve seen Dispatch, but it’s been quite a few.

They played The General, Bang Bang, and many of the old songs while still leaving out some of their biggests hits. I was a little sad not hear to Flying Horses, but honestly I love that they were playing stuff that wasn’t just hits. There were a couple of songs that I hadn’t heard before, one of them was a cover, the other was a Brad song.

This is a bunch of rambling, but let me try and tie it together. I got go out and see this concert with one of my best friends. It’s been a few years since we’ve been to a concert like this together. It was awesome to spend time together like we used to. The concert was part of the fun but going with a good friend was what made it really special. I’m hoping we go more regularly as we are now both on the same coast again.

Thompson’s Point is a pretty rad venue, but just be prepared to hang on the way out. Traffic was real and it took us about 45 minutes to get to the highway from our car.

If you have comments, questions, or concerns, please email me at zachary@zacharyc.com.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 18, 2023

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• By email: Zachary+afg@zacharyc.com

Here’s the deal, notebooks allow some of us to try and take control of this otherwise out of control world. There is a lot going on around us, and cateloging and remembering it for later allows us to put it out of our brain.

One of my favorite lines from the brand of notebooks, Field Notes, has a credo:

I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now

Or for me, I’d say: I’m writing it down so I’m not forced to commit this information to memory. Funnily enough, when I write something down I often remember it and don’t even need to look at the mote later.

I’ve recently started a process of downsizing. I’ve been living in too big a space for me and my dog, and we are in the process of getting used it. One of the conversations I’ve been having with family that has been helping me is around the display of my notebooks. The arguement is that I don’t need them everyday so they should’t have prominent space. I disagree. I love the idea that I can look up to a easily accessable shelf. I’m very interested to read the notes and thoughts I had in the past. Sometimes these notes will spark a new idea or thread for me. Sometimes they will remind of something that I forgot a while ago. Either way, they serve as inspiration for me.

This blog is like a notebook. I’ve been posting on here for years. Most of it personal, but every once in a while I’ll go through and find a technical post about something I’m particullarly proud of learning, even if I forgot about it.

So, what’s the point? I guess the point is that I have found tools that work for me, notebooks. Those tools actually don’t work for the rest of my family and they don’t understand why I do what I do. That’s okay, not everyone works the same way. Find your tools and don’t be afraid to use them the way that works best for you.

The oldest posts on this blog date back to 2006, and as far as I remember they were written with Wordpress. I’ve hosted many sites with Wordpress, so why the change?

In the end, it came down to complexity and control.

Over the years, Wordpress has grown from a simple PHP blogging platform to a very complicated Content management system. People and companies use Wordpress to host many different types of sites. There is a complex and sometimes expensive market for themes. There is a whole ecosystem that supports the development of Wordpress and Plugins for almost anything you might want to do with the software.

But the reason I’m switching comes down to control. With the complications added by the complexities of Wordpress growing, controlling and working through customizations is much more complex. I don’t understand all the steps that are run to generate the page I see in front of me. By using something that generative, I can better control what I put up. The content is static, but comments can be done with plugins.

There are downsides, of course. So far, the biggest one is that it takes me longer to post. While before I could post from pretty much anywhere, now I have to write a markdown post and then publish it through the Hugo tool. Because of this, even, though I switched several weeks ago, I have yet to post something new, this is the first post.

My hope is that by learning how to do the posting process more, that I will hopefully get faster at it and it will cease to be such an impediment.

TL;DR:

Software Engineer who loves working in iOS, backend systems, and front-end frameworks. Passionate about projects that help people live better lives. In addition to writing software, I’m a cheerleading coach, an acroyoga teacher, and sometimes photographer. I live in Newport, RI but will travel from time to time.

Longer Story : Tech & Photo

I grew up on the east coast. Spending years in Westport, CT, Haverford, PA and Lexington, KY, with side trips to Newport, RI and Killington, VT. I consider all of these locations formative to who I am today. My father was in retail and you can read about it in The Kingdom of Prep among other places. I have two younger brothers who both live in CT with wonderful neices and a nephew. My parents still live in CT.

When I was in 7th grade, my family had just moved to Lower Merion, PA and my father was buying a new computer. In his search he brought me to a place called The Computer Store, which funnily enough sold computers. There I met a host of people: Pat, Manny, and Chris who worked there. During my 7th and 8th grade years, these people would foundational in my long term interest, maybe even obsession with Technology. They taught me about the internet and how to use my computer. They helped with my education in the subject and eventually helped land me a job at an ISP. This was back in the day when an ISP was basically just an office, no crazy security or server rooms. The people at the ISP taught me more about computers and even gave me my first tech job.

When I was going into 10th grade, my family moved to Lexington, KY. I went a small school and the computer teacher was also the editor of the newspaper. He also taught a class on photography and photo journalism. That is when I got my first camera and started to learn about photography.

When my family returned to CT in my Junior year of high school, I started working at a friends camera store and learned even more about photography. I took a bunch of computer classes and joined the computer club.

When I went off to college, I picked my school based on a number of factors, but my major wasn’t one of them. I didn’t know if I would be doing computer science or psychology. Because of this I started off Liberal Arts Undecided as both the computer science and the psychology department where in that field. After a semester of classes all over the place from history and many other liberal arts requirements, I decided to switch to computer engineering. The college of Engineering had a pretty tough reputation, but even though the classes were supposedly harder, my GPA went up when I switched to Engineering.

I graduated with a degree in computer engineering with a minor in computer science and went to work for a nifty company doing some work with Ruby On Rails in Greenwich CT. I had a bunch of fun learning my craft, but after a year of working for a smaller company I got poached by Bloomberg in Manhattan. I spent the next twenty months working for a solid company that was secretly a tech company, but was run like a financial company. I even moved to NYC for a year of it, but it wasn’t for me.

I left for California because I believed that if I wanted to learn more about technology and how do things right, that was the best place to be. I was right. I spent twelve years in California working for a number of companies, both small and big. I learned about programming and created a much more solid technical network. I went to big events in San Fran, and smaller meetups. I met some tech people that I was in awe of and most of them were really just down to earth people like me.

I moved back to the east coast during the pandemic, living in beautiful Newport, RI. I’m taking some time to figure out exactly where I belong next.

I’m reading more too. One of the reflections I had this year after my birthday is that I wish I was better read. I’ve seen many movies, watched my fair share of television (especially, Aaron Sorkin shows), but there is so much more in this world that I haven’t dove into. There is so much more that I want to learn and there are many books out there. I own many books. I own many books I’ve meant to read, but haven’t even started.

The thing that I’m going to say is that when I have my projects I tend to get a little more efficient and accomplish more. When I’ve been in the lull, I don’t do as much. I’m excited to be working. I’m excited to be doing. I’m excited to be doing more. Now lets just hope I can follow through.

To celebrate, I’m hosting a coffee shop popup in my home. While I’ll give you all the other details in this post, if you don’t know me, or know someone who really knows me, then you are sort of out of luck, as I’m only giving out the address to friends. So go meet one of my friends or reach out if you want the address.

Details

7:30 am to 1:00 pm, first floor of my house.

Free coffee at the Popup. Everything food related is donation only. I have an espresso machine with tons of different beans. I will be very impressed if I have to go out and buy coffee afterward (I will also be happy because that will mean so many people came that I used up my coffee). I also have milk and non dairy milk as well as some syrups. I’m striving to make a peanut butter cup latte by this weekend, but we shall see if we get there. I might also make some cold brew and potentially even offer pour over.

Pastries will be provided by the Croisant Daddy himself, Mr. Chad Baguette. Unsure of exactly what he is making, but they will be available as well, on a first come first serve basis, so come earlier to gaurentee you get one.

In addition to food and beverage there will also be some wares for sale. There will be several packs from Zack’s Packs as well as some notebooks from a local friend and maybe even some from my personal collection.

Notes

This is just a fun hang out. This is not something where you show up at 7:30 and ride the day until we are done at 1:00. Feel free to pop by grab a coffee and go. I’ve got to go cups in the form of mason jars, so just take it and go.

If you have questions or are looking to order gear or get something repaired, please reach out to me at the event. Business cards will be available.

The premise that each person is 6 degrees away from any other person. That was the premise of Milgrams argument.

I’ve had issues with it from when I first heard about the study. I would argue the number is MUCH, much smaller than six, both when Milgram ran his study and even more so now when we try to connect dots in the digital age. The reason: perceived vs actual degree.

Milgram’s study asked people to send it to a person who they thought would be closest. There was no way to know who is actually closest. You would have to comb the social network of your friends and your friends’ friends until you mapped out the actual closest path. For example, you think someone in CT might be closest to the Boston Banker. Connecticut is closer to Boston than another person in the midwest. What you might not know is that the Banker, while living in Boston, went to school in Pittsburg and the person down the street was his college roommate. YOu send it to a friend in CT, they send it to another friend and by the time you are done, you have hit more stops than the one down the street.

Tools like LinkedIn have partially solved this, by telling you when people are in your extended network, 2nd degree, 3rd degree. The problem is not everyone is on linked in. Not every interaction is joined there. You can’t rely on it.

How many degrees are you away from say, President Biden. Well, I actually don’t know if anyone I’ve ever shaken hands with has shaken hands with Biden, but I have a friend I know has shaken hands with Obama. So that means that I am at most 3 hops from shaking hands with Biden. I could be two, but I don’t know who would be the person. I have some candidates to reach out to, but again, not always sure of the best path.

What I’m getting is the notion of one’s perceived social network vs one’s actual network. You network is much more complex than you realize because as complex as your network is, your friends also have complex networks.

How do we use this information? That is the tricky part. If we could get everyone to register their friendship through a common network and share that information with friends then we could gather a better picture of your network. I don’t see this likely. So the benefit of this information is only knowing that we are more connected than we can possibly imagine. I don’t know about anyone else, but this does bring some small comfort.

There is another interesting concept for another post on types of connections, strengths and types of people in your social network graph. That is a post for another time.

I was often very convinced of my own correctness. I would have conversations about issues with stunts and always have something to add. I’m not saying I wouldn’t listen to other people’s perspectives, but I always had to add my own two cents:

other cheerleader: I think the stunt came down because the feet were too far forward
me: That sounds right, but I’m pretty sure that is because you we weren’t on the right timing.

During my sophomore year in college, I had a coach who explained it to me. The problem with my communication was the word “but”. Using it made it sound like I wasn’t hearing the discussion from the other person. What my teammates had been hearing was “but … you are wrong and I’m right.” Sometimes, I felt this way, but nearly as much as I was communicating.

My coach asked me to try and stop using the word “but”. He suggested I use the word “however”, or pause where I would have said but.

This was 20+ years ago, so my memory may be foggy, but I recall this being pretty hard for me to change. Still, it had a pretty profound effect on my relationships with my teammates, and my ability to communicate and be heard.

It’s still something I’m sensitive to it today and impart the same advice to people when I catch them “but-ting” me.

Here is my attempt to start putting it together. Here are the results from the 2024 UCA College Nationals.

D1A All Girl Results

1. Western Kentucky University
2. The University of Oklahoma
3. University of Alabama
4. UAB
5. University of Mississippi
6. San Diego State University
7. Indiana University

D1A Cheer Finals

1. The University of South Florida
2. The University of Kentucky
3. The Ohio State University
4. The University of Central Florida
5. The University of Oklahoma
6. The University of Alabama
7. Western Kentucky University
8. The University of Tennessee
9. The University of Louisiana Lafayette
10. Liberty University
11. The University of Toledo

Division 1 Cheer Finals

1. Morehead State University
2. University of West Georgia
3. Pittsburgh State University
4. University of Delaware

Open Coed Cheer Finals

1. Iowa Western Community College
2. Shelton State Community College
3. Jones College

Small Coed Division 1A Cheer Finals

1. Florida State University
2. Bowling Green State University
3. The University of Minnesota
4. Purdue University
5. The University of Memphis
6. Troy University
7. Ball State University

Open All Girl Finals

1. Pearl River Community College
2. Widener University
3. Rowan University
4. Webber International University
5. The College of New Jersey
6. University of Pikeville
7. Wallace State College
8. Nassau Community

Small Coed Division 1 Finals

1. Morehead State University
2. Eastern Kentucky University
3. Southeastern Louisiana University
4. Austin Peay State University
5. Belmont University
6. Providence College

All Girl Division 1 Cheer Finals

1. Morehead State University
2. The University of West Georgia
3. Sacred Heart University
4. The University of Delaware
5. The University of Rhode Island
6. Towson University
7. Monmouth University
8. Villanova University

Open Small Coed Cheer Finals

1. Wilmington University
2. Drury University
3. Northwest Mississippi Community College
4. University of Southern Indiana
5. Northwest Missouri State University
6. Itawamba Community College

The first step is recording the data. There are many ways to do this. Databases have traditionally been a great way. NoSQL databases with their loose document format are interesting. The second brain methodology uses documents or notes to contain the same thing. And while these documents can be formatted in things like Markdown and have front matter for categorization, much of the data is contained in the raw text which means a human has to parse and read it.

Before you expect this post to come to some epic realization, tl;dr; I still don’t have one. This post is about the methods out there I’m considering for sorting my life.

Option 1: SQL

I’m not a fan of no SQL databases. From my point of view, if you are going to create data to exist in a place that is typed, loose document formats make comparing and reading things hard. So structured data is better, hence SQL.

Pros:

• The data is structured from the start
• There are many different options for which SQL platform to use and many of them are interchangeable so there are options.
• Things like normalization define best practices for working with something like this, so you don’t have to develop them yourself.

Cons:

• You need to run a server somewhere.
• It is not easily human decodable.
• You need to learn to use SQL to really be successful and joins are fun (and hard).
• Because structure is required you have to define it up front.

Option 2: Markdown

This is honestly what I’m currently using in my second brain with Obsidian. This may be the best of all worlds. It has the notion of storing structured data in front matter, and throughout the document with special tags. Much of the document remains readable in sentences, but it is in loose format and you have to create and maintain your own formatting standards.

Pros:

• Format is loose so you don’t need to stress about it.
• Much of the notes are human-readable.
• There are many tools to convert markdown to the web for sharing.
• Cost of starting is very low.

Cons:

• Because the format is loose, the responsibility lies on the creator to maintain the structure desired.
• The organization of individual documents is also important.
• Search is only as good as you are at searching and remembering.
• It’s easy to end up with a mess of documents.

Option 3: Stricter document format

This category contains things similar to markdown but with more structure. This category fits things like JSON, YAML, and TOML. This is following the Pragramtic Programmer guideline of storing things in the text but putting some structure behind it. Some of these formats are more readable than others.

Pros:

• Easily computer parsable.
• More human-readable than a SQL database

Cons:

• No official typing.
• Need to use a validator to confirm you have a valid document.
• Nothing requires the structure like a SQL Table so searching could be difficult.

Summation

I don’t have a conclusion. I’m still thinking, but these are interesting options of how to start really putting the data together. Our lives are full of data, it’s a shame when it gets lost or mislabeled or put in a place where we can’t find it. Hopefully, I’ll start putting together something more useful.

Disclaimer: my dog is amazing. She will jump up and kiss you, and jump all over you, but she is relatively regular when it comes to going to the restroom, is vocal she needs to be and holds her business like no one else.

Here are some tips and tricks that we have found that are successful for us as we live together in a pretty small space.

Exercise

This is the most important tip. Coco (my dog), requires a fair bit of entertainment and exercise each day. There is no other way around it. If you don’t exercise her, she won’t eat, she won’t be happy. Need to get her moving.

Playing with other dogs is the best form of exercise for Coco, but safari walks where she can stop and smell things are also great. She also enjoys a flirt poll which is like a giant cat toy. Getting her tired makes her a better dog both in the van and when I bring into places.

Noticed how I used the term “safari” walk. This isn’t the same as walking for distance. If you get your dog to move for distance and just train distance, you have to keep on adding more and more distance to keep draining her energy and her stamina gets better. Safari walks require you to cover less distance, but they allow for time to for the dog to smell. These smells trigger all sorts of thoughts and questions, and these questions tire out the dog (at least this is how it was explained to me).

Routine

We have a routine that we try to keep. This allows Coco to know when are good times to go the bathroom and when she might be out of luck. I make sure she gets out every couple of hours during the day if we are driving. If we are stopped I will try to get her to walk every couple of hours. Giving her opportunities to go the bathroom means she doesn’t go to the bathroom in the van.

Door Mat

I have towel or door mat right by the stair in the van. When Coco goes into the van, her paws have to step on the mat and we get some of the dirt and moisture off the feet. Wetness is the enemy in dark van. The goal is try to keep things and dogs dry.

Place Poop Bags Everywhere

I went on a trip without packing poop bags. I had to use things like a Starbucks pastry bag and anything else I could find. I went to Walmart when they opened the next day and bought a big pack. These are things you will run out of, so I have a ton and keep on replacing them when they run out.

Watching the water intake

I stop refilling the water bowl earlier in the day when we are spending much of it in the Van. This means I don’t need to take her out to pee in the middle of the night. She has been able to hold it better than me.

Toys and treats

Coco loves to chew on hard things. The problem is that these hard things either break up and end up all over the bed or get sharp edges and end up pilling and roughing my comforter. This year we kept the hard chews to places that weren’t in the bed. Soft and squeaky toys stay on the bed for her to play with.

Morning Showers

Because the dog owns the bed, I tend to try to shower in the morning. I don’t worry as much about the bed staying super clean and just focus on getting my morning shower to stay clean.

Summation

This is only my second extended trip with the dog in the van. We do about one a year. This means I still have ton to learn, but we are both pretty happy and survived this adventure.

Review of 2022 and Goals

Going through the goals from 2022.

Rent The House

I’m giving myself a check on this. The original goal was to try and rent the home for the summer and live with my parents or in the van or somewhere else over the summer. The problem came in with the dog. While I can easily find a place to stay, it’s not always as easy to find a place to stay with Coco. I originally wanted to go the West Coast for the summer, but decided against that. With all those factors, I decided to find roommates instead of renting the whole house.

I found roommates and have been renting rooms since August. That counts as win here.

Learn to Cook More

This one is not a win. This is a fail. I cooked a bit and I learned a few things here and there, but I’m not cooking nearly enough to be the adult I want to be. Plus cooking is really just applied chemistry. This stuff should be fun.

1000 Miles By Foot

I missed this. But instead of calling at complete loss. I did about 510 miles before my watch stopped syncing with my phone. This is about 50% of goal, which is failing. Still 500+ miles is still an accomplishment. This setting the foundation for what I’m doing next year.

It turns out that I really don’t like running. The problem with a 1000 miles on foot goal is that you are then spending a bunch of time running or walking. There is no way around it. You have to. To address this, next year I’m going to add a goal that adds in biking and I’m pretty excited about that as well.

Dance More

Definitely fail. I did no organized dancing this year. Part of it was that I wasn’t ready to find a community and part of it was a lack of effort from my part.

Get Better at Cleanliness

Cleaning is a constant process. It’s ongoing and every present. I will NEVER be to the level of this that my parents will be happy with. I still have work to go before I’m happy. But did I make progress? I have cleaners coming every other week. I’ve worked on putting some things away. I definitely feel like I’m making progress.

Working with others

This is a vague representation of the actual goal in my notes. I don’t feel comfortable talking about the specifics of the actual goal. I’m better at working with others, I’m not done with this. I’m on a journey here and still have room for growth.

Write the Acroyoga Field Guide

I’ve started this project in many different ways, I’ve got notes for days. I have ideas I have pieces, but the guide isn’t done. Still have more work to do here.

Consolidate and Minimize

Um, completely the opposite of this has happened in my life. I have more hobbies than I did at the beginning of last year. I have more gear than I had in the past. I have more stuff. I have maximized where I could have minimized.

2022 In Review

This has been a year. Here is an outline of some of the details

• Dealt with the ending of the most significant relationship of my adult life.
• Learned to sew on real sewing machines. I finally understand why a Sailrite costs so much.
• Received a boat and begun the work of restoring it.
• Have given my dog some pretty bad habits and am starting the process of fixing them.
• Set a personal CrossFit Scale Record at 795.
• Traveled to the West Coast for the Holidays but was too sick to attend to Christmas Dinner.
• Finally feeling like I own extended hand to hand with some flyers.
• Worked on the Acroyoga community in Newport.

There are many more events in a year than I can capture in these notes, but this is what is top of mind.

Upcoming 2023

Reflecting on the goals in 2022, there were far too many to achieve the success I wanted. I have a couple of specific fitness related targets, but for the most part I want to shift this year to focus on working on my identity over specific goals.

For background, I’m reading the book Atomic Habits as I drive these days. There are a lot of very interesting bits of this book. So far, my favorite story is about the “aggregation of marginal gains” from the British Cycling coach Dave Brailsford. He proposed making many small changes the way the cycling team was working in order to try and get a significant improvement in the results of the team. Small things like teaching the cyclists the most effective way to wash their hands to reduce the amount of time they get sick made a huge deal and eventually lead to some major wins by British Cycling who had been pretty quiet in years past.

I’m going for a year of small gains. Many small gains. This is the year of finding small ways in the hopes that it makes a larger goal.

Fitness goals

The one area where there are concrete measurements are in the fitness category. I have two very specific fitness goals.

• Lose 60 lbs. I started at 262 last week. This is the heaviest I’ve been. There are plenty of reasons I’m at this weight, but I don’t like it. Being this heavy has a lot of negative side effects. I’m changing this. I’m going live the healthy lifestyle I want.
• Travel 3,136 miles by foot and bike. This is the distance from Portland, ME to San Diego, CA. A long term dream of mine is to bike across the country. This is a step in that direction. If I can’t do the distance in a year, how am I going to be able to do it in a row? Building on top of last year, this goal I’m adding in biking to try and focus on a cardio source I really do love.

Conclusion

There are a lot of other things I want to accomplish this year, this is just a hint of where I’d like to go. From my projects with zacroyga and zacks_packs, to personal reading and writing goals, to social and economic goals, to working on the house. Still this is a pretty strong starting point and I’m excited to see what 2023 brings.

The problem. I’m looking at my address book and I want to iterate through my contacts. I started by looking at ABAddressBook, but it turns out that technology has been depricated. Then I started looking at CNContactStore which is the new hotness. There are several fun methods on that object including unifiedMeContactWithKeys which is pretty cool. It only returns my contact, not all contacts, but at least I was able to get it work. There is a similar function called

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func unifiedContacts(matching predicate: NSPredicate, keysToFetch keys: [CNKeyDescriptor]) throws -> [CNContact]

You try to pass in the truthy predicate and it rejects it. You need to actually use the

enumerateContacts() method. Some examples mix strings and other types with keys and that causes problems. Just using a list of Keys worked. Here is the final code that worked:

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//
//  main.swift
//  contactsexport
//
//  Created by Zachary Cohen on 12/23/22.
//

import Foundation
import AddressBook
import Contacts

print("Hello, welcome to the AddressBook Scraper")


var store = CNContactStore()

store.requestAccess(for: .contacts, completionHandler: { (access, accessError) -> Void in
    if access {
        print("access granted")
        print(access)
    }
    else {
        print("access denied")
    }
})


let nameKeys = [
    CNContactNamePrefixKey,
    CNContactGivenNameKey,
    CNContactMiddleNameKey,
    CNContactFamilyNameKey,
    CNContactNameSuffixKey,
    ] as [CNKeyDescriptor]

let allContactKeys = [
    CNContactNamePrefixKey,
    CNContactGivenNameKey,
    CNContactMiddleNameKey,
    CNContactFamilyNameKey,
    CNContactNameSuffixKey,
    CNContactOrganizationNameKey,
    CNContactDepartmentNameKey,
    CNContactJobTitleKey,
    CNContactBirthdayKey,
    CNContactNicknameKey,
    CNContactNoteKey,
    CNContactNonGregorianBirthdayKey,
    CNContactPreviousFamilyNameKey,
    CNContactPhoneticGivenNameKey,
    CNContactPhoneticMiddleNameKey,
    CNContactPhoneticFamilyNameKey,
    CNContactImageDataKey,
    CNContactThumbnailImageDataKey,
    CNContactImageDataAvailableKey,
    CNContactTypeKey,
    CNContactPhoneNumbersKey,
    CNContactEmailAddressesKey,
    CNContactPostalAddressesKey,
    CNContactDatesKey,
    CNContactUrlAddressesKey,
    CNContactRelationsKey,
    CNContactSocialProfilesKey,
    CNContactInstantMessageAddressesKey,
    ] as [CNKeyDescriptor]

do {
    let contactStore = CNContactStore()
    let me = try contactStore.unifiedMeContactWithKeys(toFetch: nameKeys)
} catch let error {
    print("Failed to retreive Me contact: \(error)")
}

do {
    let contactStore = CNContactStore()
    let fetchRequest = CNContactFetchRequest(keysToFetch: allContactKeys)
    try contactStore.enumerateContacts(with: fetchRequest) { con, response in
        print(con);
    }
} catch let error {
    print("Failed to retreive Me contact: \(error)")
}

I’m still working on the project and there is bunch more to do this, but this is a start and figured it was worth putting out there.

To that end I’m current Reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. Before picking up the book, after seeing a bunch of online material and finding out about his online course, I’ve had a somewhat negative opinion of Tiago. I thought he was charging a bunch of money for stuff that could be summarized and put together in a pretty quick pamphlet but Tiago is charging thousands of dollars for his online course. When I started the book, I was biased by these preconceived notions about him and his methods.

I’m willing to admit I was wrong. Tiago has some interesting pieces in this book and while there is a LOT of fluff and story around the basics of the method, they are pretty interesting and many notes are entertaining and worth reading. Still, some of the concept are buried under a lot of explanation. One of them is the P.A.R.A. method of organizing information. I had heard about it before reading the book, but I had too many questions to understand how to use it. I’ve started to use it and will continue to. I’m excited to see if changes the way I organize and find information.

What does P.A.R.A. stand for?

It stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. Information can be organized into any of these categories and these are only the top level of the organization tree.

Here are some key things that I didn’t understand when reading about this method before picking up the book.

1. P.A.R.A. is in a defined order

Translating this to pseudo code:

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if (note.type == project) {
    // It goes in the Project folder
} else if (note.type == Area) {
    // The note does in the area
} else if (note.type == Resource) {
    // It goes in a resource
} else {
    // it goes in archive
}

Projects are the most relevant folders. If something you are writing a note about can be related to a current project it goes in that folder. If not, but is related to a current Area it goes in that folder. If it is something you can see yourself reference as resource it goes in Resources folder. If you doesn’t belong in any of the above it goes to Archive. Archive is the hardest to search through, probably the least organized, but it is still in your system to be found someday.

2. Content can move between folders

When you are done with a project, you can move the entire folder to the Archives folder. Stuff that is in resources can go to a project. Your system is fluid. Notes don’t just “belong” somewhere. They are where they can of the most use.

3. The difference between a Project and Area

This was a big one for me. A Project is has a definite start and specific end goal. The end goal is relatively timely and not too far out in the future. Areas are longer distance projects. Things that might not ever be finished.

Simple example, a project might be Getting the house Painted while an area might be something like Maintain the House. Painting the house might be a note in the House project, but there are timelines, color swatches, and quotes. That’s why it is more like a Project.

The House area might contain information like list of future projects to do someday. Information about the house. Important notes about the house and information on billing contacts and whatnot.

4. Not just for your notes App

P.A.R.A. works not just for your notes app, but it can also work anywhere you need to organize content, like your documents folder on computer. This allows for correlation between the notes and folders. Thinking in this method is more than just how you create notes.

5. The system is yours to mold

P.A.R.A. is a mandate, it is a rough framework. You can add other folders. I do. I have an Inbox folder where notes go before I know where they belong. Also, I haven’t fully implemented it yet, but I’m debating putting sections for Projects, Areas, and Resources in my Archive folder to organize the mess in there. The freedom is there.

Conclusion

I’m probably going to put together an infographic about the second brain after I’m done with the book. My note on the book is getting pretty long at this point. Still P.A.R.A. is an interesting method and I’m excited to see if it will help me with my work.

The problem: WordPress is heavy handed. It has morphed from a blogging platform to a full Content Management System (CMS). It has pluggins and extensions for pretty much everything. You can do so much with a wordpress site, but there in lies the problem. WordPress does everything, which means it is complicateed. Modifying and extending wordpress takes a bit of knowledge and as the system grows so does knowledge required to modify and work with it.

This site is hosted on a custom template version that I have modified without really understanding how all of it works. I get bits and pieces. I have added my own fonts and put in some of my own styles here and there. When it comes to big customizations there are pieces of this site that I don’t like. One of them is the person icon at the top of the page. When you hover over it, shows a white background and messes with page. I’m honestly afraid to spend the time to figure out how to fix it.

The technology behind wordpress is also getting a bit dated. It still works, but wordpress is built on PHP. PHP was great back in the day. In college I was part of a team that built an entire database project in PHP. But the technology is old and there are some newer technologies that are a little more fun to learn. So instead of investing in learning an older technology. I’m looking at some newer.

I would not be surprised if this site moves in the next year. I’m currently playing with Hugo, and I’ve looked at 11ty, and of course the standard Jekyll. The truth is that all of these are pretty similar. It just about which one you want to invest the time in learning and building. Hugo is written in Go. 11ty is Javascript, and Jekyll is Ruby.

Why choose Hugo? Why Move. I want more control. I don’t want my system to have the control. I want to be in the driver seat. The reason behind Hugo is a little bit silly. I want to learn to Go. There is this technology called Bubble Tea which is like NCurses on steriods for the Go programming language and I’d like to do some stuff there.

So here is learning go. Learning Hugo. Making better, more customizable sites, and getting my thoguhts out there with a technology that I enjoy.

One of the things I feel about being back in California, the beer is different. There is such a thing as New England IPA, but that isn’t really the difference. Beer just feels different out here. We have some specific breweries like Seirra Nevada, Firestone Walker, 21st Ammendment, Anchor, Lagunitas, Russian River, Modern Times, Fort Point, and Anderson Valley just to name a few. But beyond just the breweries is the availability of the beer. You can get it anywhere. Convience store, Grocery Store, Package Store, you name it. Some bars even let you buy beer to go.

And when you get to the store, you end up trying to have to pick between many different choices. So, here is some of the beer I’m looking to find while I’m out here this year, and maybe bring some back to the other coast.

Modern Times Dark Beers

Modern Times brewery make some of my favorite dark stouts. They also do some sours and IPAs, but I’m going for the coffee beer. It’s worth finding them. While I have seen some of their beer on the east coast (last time was at the Mooring in Newport), it is hard to find and they don’t always have the dark stuff you can get here. Modern Times also does their own coffee so their coffee stouts are particularly great.

Fort Point Kolsch and Westfalia

Fort Point is another great local brewery. They are based up in San Fran and make some beers taht I’m a pretty big fan of. The Kolsch (AKA KSA) is pretty consistent and tasty. I’m a fan. My favorite is the Westfalia. I started drinking it because I had a pass through van named beer, but honestly, the Red Ale is just tasty.

Two Pitchers Pop Top and Radler

Two Pitchers is my favorite. I’ve saved the best for last. They are based out of Oakland and somewhat hard ot find. Their beer is not particularly alcoholic, so I’m not sure it gets as much fan fair as it might otherwise. They have a great Radler which is found pretty easily. It’s a fruity light beer that tastes sweet and citrusy. The other beer that they do is called Pop Top. I also got into this beer because of the reference to a van in the beer name, but the beer is a wheat ale with pomegranite lemonade and is sweet, citrus and tasty. Huge fan and worth looking out for.

The answer is simple, there is a ton I want to learn about illustration and design. There is artwork I want to make. Ideas that I’d like to realize. The rub is that I don’t have to go to school to learn to make these things. I can start with the knowledge and abilities I currently have. I can learn the skills along the way.

This leads me to an area where I’ve been curious but never invested time, Color Theory. The goal for my learning here is to understand how to use color to convey emotion with my color choice in my designs. I think of one of my favorite illustrators, William Jennings, and how his art always has such contrasting vibrant colors. How does one pick colors for designs? This is the question I’m out to answer.

I’ve started by collecting a handful of books and starting to read them to learn about colors. I started painting earlier in the year and I’m hoping to come back to that and bring it forward as I create more art and explore the colors available to me.

So far, all I’ve really learned is about the color wheel. It’s funny, while I knew that blue and yellow made green, I hadn’t put together that blue and red made violet and red and yellow make orange. This is simple, obvious stuff I probably learned in college, but haven’t thought about it in years. The journey continues and I will tell you more about it as I learn.

I live in my dream town. I was worried about living here. Would I eventually become tired of the world around me? Would the amazing feelings become mundane? Would the romance of the space be replaced by the monotony of living here every day.

The truth of the matter is that some of it has. Some of the romance has faded. Some of the wonderful moments of each and every day are issued. I don’t walk the streets the way I did. I don’t hang on every photograph I can take. I see moments and live in them and let them pass without capture or hunger for remembering them forever.

But there is beauty in this too. There is beauty in seeing the world around me become regular. Regular enough that I’m not troubled by experiencing EVERY, LITTLE, MOMENT. I can let this moment pass because there will be an equally amazing moment tomorrow, or the next day.

I still love Newport. I love the fact that I don’t drive nearly as much as I used to. I love the fact that I work remotely from a home in a town that I love. I miss my friends. I miss some of the amenities of living in places with more people. I miss some of the amenities of living in a space where driving is normal and there is more variability of what one can reach without crossing a body of water.

I still love this town. I don’t know enough about this town. I’m hoping to learn and put together more information on it, and to that point to share it with whomever wants to read it.

Fast forward to last year when my parents purchased a sailboat in Newport, with plans of keeping it Florida in the winter and Newport in the summer. I asked if I could join the trip south, and my father acquiesced and got the Captain to say it was it was okay.

Last years trip was my first long, out in the water trip. I bought true fowl weather gear. It was a 12 day trip with stops in Cape May and Charlotte on our way to Aventura. The boat was new to the family and through the journey we had countless problems with the engine and systems on the boat. It was a very trying, yet fun experience.

The boat made it north in April or May and for various reasons I wasn’t on the journey up. But when my father asked if I wanted to go south again this year, I said yes and the quest for Florida was born anew. The captain was new to the family, but had been on the boat before. We honestly didn’t talk much before the trip. I figured we would get to hang out on the trip so why spend so much time on land chatting when we have a week+ on the boat to chat. Even with my level of loquaciousness, a week is a long time to be stuck in a small place with people. No reason to exhaust chat topics beforehand.

Many insurance companies have rules for larger boats about not heading south before November 1st for weather reasons. To this end, the trip was planned for November 1 departure. There were three official crew and myself for total of four sets of active hands. I hesitate to call myself crew because these guys were serious and I was just having the time of my life.

This years trip could not have been more different from last years trip in so many ways. For one, Brandon, this years captain, does not like stopping. Brandon likes to move when he’s on the water, no waiting. Stopping adds time, so Brandon intended to do as much of the trip as possible without stopping. Stopping for Brandon is when you need fuel and that is it.

Also to this end we used the motor almost the entire trip. We motor-sailed to reduce the overall pull on the fuel tanks and the engine. We had pretty favorable wind almost the whole way. Towards the end we had to cheat the wind a bit because we being driven close to the Florida shore, but the for the most part we had beam or broad reach wind almost ever day.

With the favorable weather and the intent and focus of the Captain we made incredible time. The only challenge was really our Auto Pilot that stopped working about a day and we had to the remaining six days by hand steering. Watches were 2 hour solo affairs, but because you were hand steering, it was very hard to fall asleep during your watch. Making about 200 miles a day we made it to Miami just over 6 days of sailing.

We made it in just in time too. Nicole, an incoming hurricane is supposed to make landfall on Thursday and we are heading home on Tuesday. Pretty darn perfect.

—-

So we are done for this year and it is time for my parents to move down to Florida. There is a chance I’ll visit, but not super likely. So with sailing done for the year it is time to work on my own boat and get it ready for next year when I might be able to take some more fun adventures.

Thanks Airkit.

The pilot episode of the West Wing is one of my favorite TV episodes of all time. I love the writing of the show, and I really resonate with some of the characters on the show. In the episode, Josh’s job is in jeopardy and he might get fired by the president. There is a ton more in the plot of the episode including one of my favorite lines of the entire show “… a sudden arboreal stop.”

While all of this is captivating the last scene of the show talks about how they seem to all have been taking a break and it is time to get back to work. The president says, “breaks are good”, and then generally goes on to say it is always good to take a break once in a while to clear one’s head before resuming work. He goes on to say that the break is over and the time for action is now.

This parallels where I feel like I’ve been for a while. Some of it by choice some of it by force. Covid caused me to slow down a lot. I was in the gym every morning and doing acro or something fun every evening before covid started. I was living in California, biking a lot, swimming a little, and climbing and adventuring a ton. Taking photographs with my friends, and traveling to fun spots to take photos. With the pandemic that all ground to a halt. I moved from California back to the east coast and found some fun new hobbies, including coffee, sewing, my dog, taking care of my house, and repairing a boat (which I’ll admit, I’m not good at yet, but I will get good, and my boat will be awesome someday).

Still while finding these hobbies it was hard for me to really grow the way I wanted to grow. I have gained more projects without finishing them. I need to finish. I need to do. I need to MOVE, and I’ve started doing that. The dog makes me get up at 6 in the morning, we go to the beach and I walk a mile (yes, I haven’t posted an update on goals recently, and I’ll admit, I’m not doing great on my 1000-mile goal for the year, but I guarantee I will get more than half of that, which is still a pretty freaking big improvement from last year).

I have started a couple of businesses, one around sewing and one around technology support, both of which are just getting off the ground. It’s not like I’m not doing things, but I have felt clouded. I have felt blocked by something external. Something intrinsic to my life, but something I can’t place a finger on. Finally, I feel like it is lifting and I’m doing things. It might be connected to movement. I’ve gone from not doing much movement to doing a fair bunch. We are acroyoga-ing several times a week and it is fun. I’m walking every day. I’m going back to Crossfit.

So in short, breaks are good, and I don’t lament, resent, or discount my break, but it’s time to put my head down and get back to work!

On the top of my mind recently has been the idea of my Purple Owl Theme. It comes from the “Night Owl” theme on MonoLisa’s website.

Blue background with a big purple highlight. Light gray as a text color. I love the theme, and I’ve tried to make a version of it for Obsidian. In doing so, I realized that actually figuring out what colors goes where is confusing. Colors that make sense on the MonoLisa site don’t make sense in my Obsidian theme. There are also a bunch of additional color and syntax settings for something like my Obsidian notes that aren’t really matched to any of the theme values from the MonoLisa site.

I look at some other themes like Monokia Pro and see that they are using mostly 6 colors and backgrounds.

There has to be a better solution to theming. Having to write themes for everything, customizing for each individual application. As we do themes at Airkit, the same thing applies. We have things like “Brand-Primary” and “Brand-Tint1” and various other colors defined within our apps.

After talking to a VERY smart coworker he turned me on to Design Tokens. Design tokens are the elements of style that Salesforce uses in their Lightning Design System (LDS). They define a set of tokens that are then used throughout their various different products. They use tools to take these defined tokens and send them out to SASS out for web products and p-lists for iOS, etc.

After looking at LDS Design Tokens, there are a bunch of things on there that aren’t exactly what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a way to define a few select attributes and have a tool interpret it into a full theme that is usable in many different applications. Looking at Solarized they only have 16 defined colors.

Anyway, I’m not done with anything yet. I’m just starting to think through this project.

Start with the UI

My first big tip is to start by creating the UI. One of the greatest things about Airkit is its ability to rapidly prototype interaction with your end users. Create the app quickly and show it to users. Often there are use cases that are missed when initially thinking about a project and this rapid prototyping brings them out.

Variables and Types

Create types for your complex object. If the data is going to be stored in AirData, then I create an AirData object, but Custom Types are good to explain what you expect the data to look like. Knowing the format of your data is helpful when using it to fill in form details data ops.

Naming is also important. Tables are capitalized where as instance variables are lower snake case. Profile constants can be capitalized snake case. Following this convention will make things clearer to read, but is not enforced by the platform. It is useful for understanding how variables are used across the app.

Scoping of variables is also important. In general, the goal is to minimize the scope of variables as low as possible to allow for more reuse of your components. That means if it is possible keep your variable on a web page then do, because it will come when you copy and paste the page. If you move it up to the flow level you will need to copy the entire flow together to have access to the variable. The downside of keeping everything at the page level is that you might end up passing it in to a bunch of pages, which is also not good. That is the trade off.

Also of note, because of some legacy notions, variable scopes are a little confusing:

Variants and Themes

While each individual element has its style properties in the web builders inspector, the best practice is to store things on variants for each type. Even if the variant is only used once. This gives clear intention to the way you are styling each component and all styles can be managed directly through Theme Builder. It allows them to be reused as well.

Getting Help

There are plenty of ways to get help with Airkit. Start with the support site and if you can’t find the answer there you can always post a question on the community board. If that doesn’t work you can send an email to support@airkit.com.

My 99 1/2 year old neighbor passed on July 4th. He had been in the house the entire time my family had been in the area and he was always super nice and cool to me. He was super sharp until the end and was still working as an attorney. There is no service for him. He outlasted his family and pets, so doesn’t have a huge amount of community, but he was an awesome man.

The economy in general is starting to get pretty rough and that is not helping with work.

I’ve run into some interpersonal drama in my social circles.

My family is in town which is both awesome and stressful. I don’t really feel myself with my family. Can’t really explain.

The point is this week has been heading down. We could keep it going down or I can turn the frown upside down and start making things better. Remember there are positives in this week too. My family is in town so I’ve had lots of laughs. We got to sail a bit which was also nice. It’s a shorter week because of the holiday.

This post is rambling, but so often we see positivity in this world. It’s hard to remember that moments aren’t always positive. Sometimes they are sad, negative, hurtful, but our lives are a collection of moments. The variation in moments allow us to fully feel the positive ones. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with feeling a different emotion in a moment. Sometimes the moment ahead is the exciting one.

This is not a replacement for my day job, and I’m probably not going to take on any project that is too significantly large. The goal is to provide guidance to those who need it and help people avoid investing in the wrong solution.

What has happened in this country with the overturning of Roe V. Wade is crazy. It’s crazy for a bunch of reasons. Not the least of which is stare decisis in which a decision was made a long time ago but the current make of the court isn’t standing on precedent and just overruling the existing world. While that isn’t my moral feeling on this, and morally I think we need to allow people to have freedoms, the issue of consistency of law is a big one. The law was set, and now the judges have unset the law.

Beyond all of that, the thing that gets to me is that everyone thinks of this as a 3 / 6 decision. It’s not, it’s actually a 3 / 1 / 5 decision. Also, I don’t even really know each of the justices on the court. I’d really like to change that. I’d like to understand who is an ally and who is against personal freedoms in a way that makes sense.

Judges

John G. Roberts

Chose to not agree fully with the removal of Roe V. Wade, but did think that the Dobbs law should be overturned. While I’m not a conservative, this seems to strike a middle position. Believing that the law should be overturned in Mississippi is not the same as meaning that Roe was just wrong. So while I don’t share Robert’s view on this case, his view of Roe continuing to exist is something I agree with. Nomimated as Chief Justice by George W. Bush (jr) and took his seat in 2005.

Clarence Thomas

Sided with the majority in ruling to overturn Roe V. Wade and remove the constitutional right to an abortion. Conservative judge and definitely someone whose views I’m personally afraid of. Nominated by President Bush (sr) and began serving in 1991.

Stephen Breyer

Part of the minority voted against the decision. He was nominated by President Clinton and took his seat in 1994.

Samuel A. Alito

Wrote the opinion for the majority, and in my mind has a very closed mind. Nominated by George W. Bush (jr) and took his seat in 2006.

Sonia Sotomayor

Part of the minority descent against the decision. Was nominated by Obama and took her seat in 2009.

Elena Kegan

Part of the minority descent against the decision. Was nominated by President Obama and took her seat in 2010.

Niel M. Gorsuch

Joined the majority opinion. Was nominated by Trump and took his seat in 2017.

Brett M. Kavanaugh

Joined the majority opinion. Was nominated by Trump and took his seat in 2018.

Amy Coney Barrett

Joined the majority opinion. Was nominated by Trump and took her seat in 2020.

Understanding this all

I was listening to What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law, and they made a very interesting point that is clear from the nominations and seats from above. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. This was going to happen based on the liberal judges that were put in place. This has been coming for a very long time.

This makes me think about some very big questions:

• Should we put a term limit on judges now that the human life expectancy is so much longer than in the past?
• Should there be more means to remove judges that don’t reflect the belief structure of the American people?
• Was there really anything the democrats could have done to prevent the appointment of Amy Coney Barret?

There are questions about what should have happened in the past and what we can do in the future. I wish the path forward to really making a change was clear, but it isn’t. Do we need to move to red states where our voices will be more valuable?

I’m hunting for answers in this, and don’t have any. If you have a way to organize and do something, please share. I feel very powerless at this moment.

This business is an exploration work of sorts, and as such I’m doing something fun with the logo. I’m talking to a bunch of artists, preferably local people, to attempt to discover the right logo mark. I’m going to talk a bit about the company and the project.

The Assignment

Spend a minimal amount of time, preferably in the hour to two hour range to come up with a design for the project. It can be hand drawn, high res photo of a hand drawn image, or a digital asset.

Terms

You must agree to price and payment before completing a prototype of a project. I will not pay for projects not commissioned. I’m doing a bunch of these designs and reserve the right to use all work in any manner I wish including, but not limited to: stickers, website, patches, shirts, hoodies, coasters, and anything else I can get printed.

If you are interested in submitting an entry please send a note to zachary@zacharyc.com to agree on terms and timeline.

Brief notes about the company

This company will create backpacks, other bags and repair broken gear. This is designed specifically for technical gear like back packs, tents, rain jackets, etc. Several of the reasons for the business are reducing carbon footprint by fixing things closer to home. Some of the major Patagonia repairs are done in Reno so from the east coast goods end up doing a double cross country trip to get fixed. Goal being to Reduce, Reuse, and Repair.

Sample Logo

If you want to see an example of one logo already received, please see below. This design was submitted by @eliahpelletier. Here for inspiration, but nothing is required.

One of the biggest challenges is that there are not a ton of local people who are super into doing acroyoga. On the west coast I could just ask people and most people would have experienced it. Finding people is going to be a challenge.

I did not get all the miles I needed last week. This is the final week of the month and I’m at 70 miles as of this morning. I did a 5K with run / walk method in under 42 minutes so that time is improving and I’m hoping to get over 80 by April 1.

While I might not be at my goal of getting back up over 90 miles this month, I do have a chance of actually improving month over month. I’m moving in the right direction in terms of miles. Each month is more than the last. Anyway, hoping for at least 10 miles this week!

Cooking For Myself

Not winning here, but not completely losing. I’ve eaten out too much, but I did go to the grocery store again last week so I’m moving in the right direction. I just need to plan for and cook more dinners.

Cleaning the House

There was a day last week when most of the downstairs was put away. I’ve brought in more things from the van, and I”ve moved some stuff around, but the house is actually getting there. I was also surprised about how little time this actually required when I committed myself to do it. This might be a big thanks from the R&R day at work.

Getting My Life In Order

I’ll call it a win. Today at the Finance time at the coffee shop I went through a bunch of my unknown expenses in YNAB and started to label them. Thinking of budget in this way is healthy and I’m pretty excited to be doing this. I’m not sure how long it will take me to be fully successful here, but progress is good!

Clubs

Last week I started clubs at the coffee shop. No one joined me, sadly. Still, it is good to have that time set aside for me to do each of the weekly projects. Today during finance I got through all my uncategorized expenses on YNAB. I did some fun art last week and I’m excited about doing that again tomorrow. I took my camera out for the first time in a while last week and took a few frames. Progress in all these areas is fun.

I’m still behind. Both in the course of this year and in the course of the month, but there were some circumstances last week that made it a little more challenging. With my birthday and hack day being on the same week there were a couple of days that I didn’t get any real miles. I tried to make it up over the weekend, but fell a couple of miles short. I’m at about 58 for the month, and about 220 miles or so for the year which is not nothing, but isn’t where I need to be.

Walking with the dog can range anywhere from 19 minutes a mile to 32 minutes depending on how she is behaving. Going to the gym and running on the treadmill means I get more than 4 miles an hour so the plan is to start shifting more of mile activity to the gym and try to get ahead in the last couple weeks of the month.

Cooking for myself

Not super great on this front. I ate out a bunch, but often keep on saving left overs so that I have more food for multiple days which is good. The real challenge is that I don’t go the grocery store to pick up food on a regular basis and I need to change that. I looked at signing up for a local milk delivery service that might also bring in produce that could start changing this habit.

Cleaning the House

The more I think about this, the more it is a matter of figuring what I want MY house to look like. It has been the family house for so long that I’m not entirely sure what a house of mine would look like. What is the art? What is the furniture? What stays and what goes? It doesn’t help that there are still things from my mom everywhere that need to be moved out.

I’m making a conscious effort to spend more time on Sunday cleaning which is good, but won’t be enough for the initial effort of getting this place the way I want. Still I’m moving along at it and at least making some real progress.

Renting the house

Cleaning the house has to come first. I have som plans for what I want to do there, but the house needs to be in better shape before this happens. I’m still waffling between getting a permanent roommate, or just renting for the summer.

New Project Alert:

I’m going to start clubs at Simple Merchant Coffee. A different club for each day of the week. This is the current plan:

Step next will be to create a google form for sign up and interest in the clubs. Hopefully start a mailing list of some sort to remind people.

I’m still trying to figure out how long I want the meetings to be. A quick 15 minute gathering? A full hour seems like too much. We will figure it out.

1000 Mile year

Despite having a VERY strong start to the month, I fell off at the end. This was mostly due to the fact that there was a BUNCH of traveling in the month. I got to about 71 miles when my target was 77. Combine that with my 49 or so miles from January and I’m at about 120 miles so far for the year.

While it is disappointing that I did not hit my target, the trajectory is definitely going in the right direction. If my pattern continues I should be over 90 miles this month? We’ll see. I did sign up for Planet Fitness (which is the cheapest gym with a treadmill near me). I’m two days into the month and only at 3 miles, but hoping to go to the gym tonight to catch up a little.

Acroyoga Field Guide

I started and stop and started again. I’m stuck with how I want this book to look. Do I want it to be a small book with a bunch of references that I carry around or do I want it to have a lot more information with a bunch more instruction? I’m leaning towards the latter. Either way, I’m not sure Pandoc is actually the tool I want. I’ve switched to 11ty and I’m making some progress there. I’m mostly just learning the platform.

I’m pretty convinced the content will be free on the website and the purchased book will cost money. I’m not 100% sure how it will all work, but I’m operating on that framework.

Renting the House

Starting to clean a bunch. I have lots of unpacking and a bunch of cleaning to do before I’m at the stage to rent the house. I’m trying to recruit my brothers to come and help with a weekend of home repair as we get stuff ready.

I’m also considering doing something crazy and getting a roommate instead of renting the house for the summer. This would allow me to be here on a more year-round basis.

Other Goals

Still hunting for local dance lessons, haven’t found any I’m excited about.

I’m working on learning to cook, but my family took some of my pots when they went to the boat so I still need to buy a couple of things to be very self-sufficient. I also really need to go grocery shopping. That being said, I have been making most of my meals at home, even if they are from limited stuff I’ve found around the house (lots of PB+J).

1,000 Miles on Foot

There were a couple of days last week where I didn’t get the full miles I needed so my total for the month of February has lost some of its overall level of dominance. I’m still ahead of my goal for the month, but the trajectory does not have me hitting the goal of 100 miles this month alone to make up for some of the lost miles in January.

Renting The House

I’m not in Newport right now so I’m not ready to start working on this, but I have started looking at the steps for this project. The repairs and the pieces required to get to that step. I’m excited about getting there.

Acroyoga Field Guide

I’ve started working on this. You can visit it here: Acroyoga Field Guide. It is a big work in progress and I have bunch of things that I want to do for this, but I’m starting to get somewhere. I started with Pandoc, but really I think this is a full website. Currently leaning towards doing it with Eleventy.

After much thought, I’m going to start with a website and then try to convert to a book. My goal is to release the content on the website for free and try and print the book at the highest quality to make it worth it. That way it will be free for people if they want it and if they find value they can purchase the book.

Other Things

Before the pandemic started, I started a podcast called “Zack’s Quacks.” By start, I mean I recorded the first episode. I never published it. I did purchase a website, but that is about all. Anyway, I’m in the process of trying to get that together as well. You can find it on iTunes soon, more details to be forthcoming at Zack’s Quacks (website under massive construction).

This is my last week traveling before getting home. I’ve got a bunch of driving to do, but I’m pretty darn excited about heading back to the ocean. I’ve got stops on the way, though.

• Rent house for the summer
• Learn to cook more and eat healthier
• Do 1,000 miles on foot
• Dance lessons
• Get better at cleanliness
• Learn to share attention with others more
• Write Acroyoga Field Guide
• Consolidate (website, notebook collection, clean up office)

Let’s go through each of them.

Rent house for the summer

I live in a great town, Newport RI. It’s so great that the population of the town balloons from 40k in the year to 250k in the summer. Because of the disability of the area, rents are high for the summer. But it also super busy and crowded. Some people love all the energy this provides, for the most part, I do not.

The plan is to rent the house so others can enjoy the season they want to enjoy and I can be anywhere else. Preferably somewhere cooler, but we’ll see.

This is no small task. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on the house, from painting to various other tasks like organization and figuring out where some of my stuff is going. I still haven’t fully moved from my room to the upstairs. No small task, but good for my financial future.

Learn to Cook and Eat Healthier

My mom recently said that I’ve never really needed to diet because I’ve always been so active. It’s true. I do so many sports that it is actually impressive that I’m in the shape that I’m in. Now, I haven’t been able to do all of my activities over the Pandemic and some of my eating has taken a turn for the worse, but beyond that, I just enjoy food. I enjoy eating good food. I want to create the things I enjoy. I want to invest in creating better meals.

Last year I did Hello Fresh, which was a great, but their prep times were WAY off. I needed to spend much more time than each meal was supposed to take. I’d like to learn to go off script a bit and make some good things. I can do this with simple foods like steak or burgers or whatever, but I’d like to expand beyond the basics I can already do.

I’m excited for this challenge. I’ve done some while living in the Van, but honestly, kind of waiting until I have a full kitchen with an Oven to really kick this into gear.

Do 1000 Miles on Foot!

This one has been the one that I can’t put off. If I don’t start early, catching up to 1000 miles is a real challenge. Despite being pretty concerned from the beginning, I only got about 49 miles in January. My current pace in February has me passing that by the middle of the month.

I did 100 miles in a month, and I’ve done other challenges when it comes to movement, but this is by far the biggest I’ve attempted. It’s a much longer commitment than I’m used to. Still, I’m excited. I can do this and will do this.

Dance Lessons

One of the things that I’ve gotten away from during the pandemic was social dance. There are a couple of reasons, like moving to a new community, but they are all excuses. This is the year I dust off the dancing shoes and find some community among this arena. I’m excited to find some west coast swing not he east coast!

Get Better At Cleanliness

Before you talk about my BO, it is not that type of cleanliness. When possible I shower daily, sometimes multiple times in a day. This is not about my person, but more about my space. It is tied to some of the other resolutions that are mentioned (like renting the house, and consolidation).

Learn to share attention with others more

It’s how I was raised. I often go into a conversation and feel like I need to be a major factor in the conversation. This inhibits some of my relationships from growing the way I want them to and often times makes it hard for me to fully understand other peoples perspectives. I want to make time for others, to hear and learn from them, to allow them to share and grow.

This one is a character flaw of mine and will be a hard one to really work on for me, but that is my goal.

Write Acroyoga Field Guide

This is a big one too. I want to create a field guide for acroyoga. I want to write a book, and I want it to be the book that a bunch of people want to have in their hands when they go to a jam as somewhat of a players guide. There is going to be a lot to come here, and this is a big project.

I want to self publish this book too. I want to control all the aspects from the paper used to the binding. I don’t think it will be a giant first run, but it should be fun to have. Again, more to come soon, and I hope to put a bunch of the pieces of the writing online for other people to give feedback on as I write it.

Consolidate (website, notebook collection, clean up office)

As I grow up I accumulate a ton of different things. Some things I collect, some things I just have. A bunch of things I use, a bunch of things I don’t. I need to get rid of the stuff that I don’t use. Sometimes I need to just get rid of something I use so that I can force myself to use another thing.

The things we own end up owning us. THE THINGS WE OWN END UP OWNING US. There is cognitive load for the cost of ownership for things. I want to unburden my from this load. This will likely be a multi-year project, but the goal is to start this year.

Conclusion

Okay, so I may be biting off more than I can chew this year. My mom was giving me a hard time about setting such lofty goals. She gets upset if she doesn’t complete all her goals. She’d rather finish her goals and then go above and beyond. Personally, I’m the other way around. I’d rather have a pretty crazy goal and be happy with accomplishing 75% of it. Honestly, if I get 75% of these goals done, I’ll be super excited.

So this is me saying onward to these goals. Maybe I’ll try to post monthly updates.

Also note: this doesn’t even include any of my professional work goals! Those exist, they just exist somewhere other than where the public can read them!

Here’s the task. Find a livable way in the van that doesn’t mean moving everything all day long. I’m working on it. I need to learn to cook in the van. The additional challenge of the trip is work on losing weight. I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. It is time to change that. This means cooking and not eating out every night.

I’ve spent weeks in the Van before. Several of them. They are usually spent touring around from place to place and using the van as a more of a permanent structure tent. This approach leads to a lot of moving things around in the van and organizing for each individual activity, leaving stuff out on the counters and just general in van chaos. While I may have been calling this Van Life. It’s not really like living. It’s like Van-cationing (or vacationing in a van).

The goal with this trip is different. I am spending about 8 weeks living out the van as my primary residence. I won’t turn down a free place to stay, and I’m currently staying in one those, but the van is my home. This means organizing the van in a way to LIVE out of it. Organizing in a way that doesn’t require moving everything from day to day to find clean clothes or brush my teeth. If I catch covid, I’m going to quarantine in the van. The additional challenge, I’m bringing my puppy. Coco is getting used to this as well. So I need to be happy and I need to keep my puppy friend happy as well.

Here are some observations from week 1:

• Organize my stuff based on what I need daily, weekly, or on special occasion. The special occasion stuff can be much harder to get to.
• Find a good place to sleep that is flat. Flatness is worth it.
• I always know where the closest available restroom is.
• Luckily, my dog can survive in the van without creating chaos for several hours if needed.
• I am watching much less sports and TV. I’m still happy.
• I can be happy with much less stuff than I thought I needed.
• Better items are better than more items.
• CLEAN everyday. The van will never be fully clean, but do a little every day to keep it clean. It’s a war, don’t give up.

I’m sure there are many more lessons to learn. I still haven’t achieved what I consider ultimate van living: do through meals and coffee out of the van for an entire day without anything purchased externally. Don’t know if I’ll get there this week, but the time is coming when I will achieve this goal.

• Fieldnotes – makers of my favorite notebooks that I’ve been carrying for many, MANY years.
• Draplin – The designer of field notes and many other super cool projects.
• Daring Fireball – great news site from John Gruber. Great Mac fan.

This year is about less.

I do too much, I stress too much and I work myself in too many different directions. This makes it hard for me to fully realize success in any one direction. That’s why the next year’s goal: determine what is important and more forward with less, will be a real challenge for me.

Looking back at last year accomplishments

• Officially move the East Coast as my permanent residence.
• Really invest in my relationship with my girlfriend (who is really rather special).
• Road trip across the country to attend my best friend’s wedding in California.
• Do a less than 48 hour trip to the west coast to be a part of a great company party.
• Attend the Newport Folk Festival.
• Start a more regular group of Newport Acroyogis.
• Start frequenting an amazing coffee shop and proceed to tell everyone about it.
• Adopt a wonderful Puppy.
• Do a sail delivery for the first time and get some real experience on the open waters.
• Pack and leave for a couple months of Van Life.

This year has been chock full of wonderful events and wonderful experiences. There is a bunch more that I’m forgetting, but it has been a full year.

There are many great challenges coming up for me, so I won’t dwell on the past. Expect more exciting news upcoming.

I miss thinking about code. I miss thinking in a way to give back to people. I’m hoping to change that slowly over time. The thing I’m talking about today is one example in that direction.

A little while ago a coworker of mine asked me about my thoughts on the second brain. I have to admit, I had NO clue what he was talking about. So I did some research. I found this course about creating a second brain. The course is $3000 or so.

I don’t want to speak directly about the value of the course, because I haven’t taken it. The notion behind the concepts is particularly interesting, and it turns out Forte Labs aren’t the only ones capitalizing on this idea. There are a bunch of other resources out there about creating this collection of information.

The premise: collect thoughts so they are easy to find; organize them in a way so that you can connect related concepts; spend time organizing them when needed.

While some people’s goal is to create something for them, my goal is beyond that. I would like to put together a library of thoughts and learnings that I can then pass on to friends, family, and others to share the information I have learned throughout my life.

Enter the program I use: Obsidian.md. The more I think about this, the more I have been living some version of this idea for years. Before Obsidian, I was using a program called Day One. I have also spent some time working in Bear Writer. Each of these programs has interesting parts for me, but Obsidian has recently won out because:

• It is available everywhere I need it: Desktop, Phone, & Tablet
• Has a good methodoly for inter-note linking.
• Fundamentally uses Markdown as a way to edit notes, meaning I can include more complex HTML elements if I really want to.
• Because it is an electron app and there is a lot of documentation on it, I can customize it as needed. I have even created my own theme.
• It exports notes to markdown. This means I can still view the notes outside of the app if I ever need to.

Honestly, Day One started out more like this, but over time moved to a less Markdown version to make more people happy. Markdown is not for all, but as someone who is relatively technically inclined, it works pretty well for me.

It doesn’t matter what program you use. What matters is that there is a way to link related content and it makes sense to you. Many people use Coda.io, some use Notion, and others use Roam.

I’m still at the relative beginning of this process. I’ve started reading some about Zettlekasten and taking smarter notes. I’ve got a bunch of work to do on growing this knowledge base, but I’ve started. The idea is that our brains are not great at remembering specific details, but are good at ideas. How can we help ourselves be more thoughtful and offload the responsibility of memorization?

More to come on this as I figure it out.

The cat’s name was Eilonwy, pronounced Eye-Lynn-Wee!, and she was a joy to be around. I put a lot of effort into getting her approval. I would put my hand in front of her face, and if she moved forward, I would pet her. If she stayed still, I would pull my hand away. Many times, I would wander behind her as she traversed the apartment. She would occasionally glance behind to confirm that I was following her. I was there ready to be of service if she performed the move I called the “burritto.” In this move, the cat would sit down and roll on her side exposing the side of her body for long pets. The rule was, if she burrito-ed, then I petted her, no matter what.

Over time we formed, what I deduced, was a pretty strong friendship. We were each others’ pals. My girlfriend was clearly her person, but I was second. Not a close second, but still second. While it took a significant amount of time for me to use the L-word with my girlfriend, that was not the case with the cat. The love bond for me was quick and there was a running joke about how quick I was to fall in love with a four-legged friend.

I started calling her “my queen” and that ran into some issues with the girlfriend. We settled on calling her my princess and I would end most phone calls with “Tell my princess I love her.”

She is also the primary reason I adopted Coco. The girlfriend looked at me one day and said, “You need a dog, she loves you, but not the way you want her to love you. You NEED a dog!” So she is responsible for my pet ownership as well.

In October of this year, my princess started getting a bit lethargic. She was peeing in weird places. While there were a lot of additional factors going on, we were concerned. We found out that she had a degenerative kidney condition which meant her time with us was limited. Despite being put on everything we could put her on, she eventually just stopped eating because it was too painful. She lost nearly half of her weight by the time the girlfriend made the decision to let her go. It was a very tough decision. We were both there as they put her down. She left this world knowing she was loved.

I will be forever grateful to the girlfriend and cat for entering my life and changing it in so many positive ways. I am now a partial cat person. While dogs will always be my first love, I can’t imagine my life without feline companionship.

Here are just a few of the things I will remember about the cat:

• She loved warm blankets and would only really sit on us when we had warm blankets.
• She was incredibly vocal and would meow when upset. I loved the sound of her meow.
• She was a hunter, and despite the fact it would hurt the girlfriend, she would bring in her prey. I was proud.
• She loved string, better than almost any present one could buy her.
• She liked physical contact and especially belly rubs.
• She loved being outdoors.
• Even when she would get upset, she was very slow to bite or paw at people, she would usually just walk away.
• She loved cheese and fish.
• She hated traveling by car!
• She enjoyed being held by her person and sometimes by me.
• Boxes were her kingdom.

Long story short, as I did the drive up, there were landmarks that I remembered, like the Ben and Jerry’s building. So, I’ve been there before, but probably not when I have been able to drive.

Places Visited and Reviewable:

While I didn’t have a ton of time there (I was only there like 36 hours or so), I did visit a bunch of places for food and shopping.

Ranch Camp

The first thing Forest took me to was a place called Ranch Camp for lunch. This place is awesome. I got the Local salad and it was just great. While I think they are more known for their burrito’s this salad was on point. They also had some beer from Anderson Valley (from California), which is one of my favorite breweries.

5 / 5 Stars! Would recommend.

Woodland Baking & Coffee

Wasn’t overly impressed with the espresso machine from first glance, not a brand that I recognized. This led me to choose a cold brew, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. They use Carrier Coffee which apparently is relatively local.

The real win was the molasses buckwheat sugar cookie which was spectacular. I would definitely go back here again for more coffee and pastries.

4 / 5 Starts because I’m still somewhat on the fence about the quality of the coffee.

Black Cap Coffee + Beer

Super huge line for this place in the morning. Didn’t recognize their machine brand or the coffee. Also got a cold brew and chocolate croissant. The line was out the door to get the coffee and I probably waited 30 minutes for coffee that was just okay. Its location is great, it’s right in front of the big Stowe Church. I don’t know if I would return.

2.5 / 5 Stars

Stowe Sandwich Company

Got very high reviews on Yelp and I would confirm. Tasty place. I wanted one of the signature options, but they were sold out so I settled for the Thanksgiving meal. It was epic. Very tasty and the perfect amount of each. The one downside is that their hours were posted to 4 pm, but they closed early at 3:30 pm. Luckily we were there at 3:25 pm. Of note, the meal was pretty darn expensive. Two sandwiches, drinks, chips, and coleslaw for 41 dollars.

5 / 5 Stars, will return for more sandwiches.

Salon Salon Photo Spot

Woke up early on the one morning in Stowe and went here for photos. Was pretty and because it was sunrise and a little past peak leaf-peeping season, it was pretty empty. It was also cloudy, but I wasn’t terribly upset with the photos I ended up with here.

5 / 5 Stars, will return.

To Catch Next Time

Tiny House Hosted By AJ

This cute Tiny home is available on Airbnb and the view is amazing. You have your own private view of the water. Need to rent it for a night.

Sunset Rock

Another photo location to check out! Upset I missed it, but honestly, both days I was up there were super cloudy and rainy.

Vermont Artisan Coffee

Saw this driving up need to stop and check it out. Didn’t get to do it during their hours this trip, but high on my list for the next trip.

Thanks

Big thanks to KitLender for letting me check out their space and to my friend Forrest for hosting me around the town. His mom cooked amazing meals for us both nights and they were kind of enough to welcome me into their house.

But winter is coming and the weather is getting wetter and colder. This means that in order to really grow we are going to have start looking for an indoor space. There are increased risks with indoor spaces and I’m concerned about bringing in new classes. The area I’m teaching has a high vaccination rate, and there seems to be a lowering of cases. The concern is, though, starting Acroyoga is challenge. It’s a challenge in times where Covid isn’t a concern. Is starting a class now just too much? What if I start it and have to cancel it due to covid concerns? This is stuff I’m worrying about and I’m just not sure. Anyone have any good ideas here?

What you may not understand is that the world of email is rather confusing. Basically, the email that comes over the wire is presented to you by your email client and where email gets very confusing is that there are a million different email clients. You probably use more than one. If you look at your email on a mobile device and on a computer that is two different clients. Then when you think about 3rd party clients and even GMail which renders in a browser, you have a client which is actually a client within a browser.

Because of the various numbers of email clients and security concerns, while the web has advanced, email was still written and styled like the early 2000s web. This means table layouts, no real stylesheets, and things like the center tag from way back in the day.

When I left Salesforce, I was hoping that my email wondering days were behind me. Well, for the most part, they are, but one common thing our clients need is to send emails to their clients. Bringing me back to writing stylized email HTML like the 2000s in table layouts.

Despite being very forward-thinking when it was first created, Gmail is usually the hardest client to style for. It’s not really their fault. They are presenting your email in a web browser and they have to be secure on their side of things. I don’t begrudge them thinking about branding and security. Still, things are starting to change and Gmail is now supporting some new things:

• CSS Support
• Schema.org Proposals

Gmail isn’t the only client, though. Because of this, much of the email stuff is still being done with tables. This is pretty challenging for those of us who have spent a bunch of time learning to do things right in CSS (though, to be fair, I’m not the best at CSS).

The association for me feels a bit like the Cobal programmers who were needed to fix all the old code used before the year 2000. Granted, we have better tools for conversion, but this does feel a little archaic.

A Good resource is:

https://www.udemy.com/course/html-email/ – a good course on how to work through HTML email.

I’m learning more things as I go through this process. So far, I’ve learned that not all divs are respected and also that you have to use a capital M in margin for outlook. You also cannot use SVGs in email, you must use PNGs. More lessons to come as I dig through this project.

• Learn Version Control Software – This was something that was mentioned in college, but not really harped on. In the real software world, everything is done with version control. It allows you to track changes and see how the software is made. Learn it! Git is the most common, but there are plenty of alternatives.
• Read Books Often – It actually doesn’t have to be books, it can be blogs and various other things. Find stuff to read and stay up to date as best you can. Software is continually evolving. As people are writing software, they are evolving the practice of software engineering. New stuff will make your life better and easier.
• Understand Computer Architecture – At some point in your career, understanding how a computer works will help you. I have a story about a buffer overflow in Swift that wasn’t pushed back to ObjC that took me days to debug, and I was only able to solve by realizing the one device we were working on was a 32 bit device. Understanding architecture will help you with understanding performance trade-offs.
• Everything boils down to text – Everything is text, somehow. Packets going over the internet are really just text in disguise. Websites are mde in text. Everything is text. Even images are really bytes, which is text for computers. If you spend enough time, you can understand pretty much anything. It’s all a matter of time, usually not a technical limitation of understanding a problem.
• Have a website – This is advice from Being Geek from Michael Lopp. Create a website. It’s not super hard to do and will look good on your resume. It’s a great way to show potential employers what you have done.
• Do side projects – They don’t need to production level projects, but doing side projects is a great way to play with technology and learn about various different things. Notice a trend here, keep learning if you want to be successful.
• Learn as many langauges as possible – You don’t need to be an expert in all of them, but understanding the basics in many different langauges will help you. Being able to understand the advantages of one language over another is super helpful. Picking up a second langague can be hard, but if you have many languages under your belt, picking up a new one isn’t super hard.
• Learn people skills and start networking – Even though writing software is a skill, most projects are too complicated for any one person to do. You will need to work with others. Learning to do this effectively will help your career. It might also allow you to find different opportunites that might peak your interest.
• Learn the command line – I don’t care what system you are on, there is a command line under it. Learning the command line will help you be efficient and work on many different environments. Remember, everything is text.
• Keep notes and records – You will forget what you wrote in less than 3 months. Notes and records will be your best resource for remembering what you are thinking. Plus you remember more of what you write down. So write things down in a way you will be able to look back on them in the future.
• Become a power user of your software – You will spend your days using development software. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and all the tricks you can to be more effective in your software. It will help you save time, and that time will add up. It will allow you to spend more time thinking about the “what” of software.
• Learn about testing – saving one of the best for last. Testing can be your best friend. It can help you from breaking something you already had working and ensuring your objects behave the way you expect them to. I’ve worked for companies that have done too much testing (way too much UI testing can slow down development), but if you have a question, you probably don’t have enough.

Seriously, while I lament the lack of sleep she really is an amazing puppy. She is kind to and friendly to strangers (we take a daily trip to the coffee shop where she needs to stay on her towel (she is not fully vaccinated yet) and greets everyone with a lick. She will then move over to biting. Hopefully, if I give her more chew toys she will learn what to chew.

Getting a puppy was not something I took lightly. I have been thinking about getting a dog forever. One of my roommates in CA had g/f with a dog that would spend time over our house. That was an indication of how much I wanted a dog. Once I came back to the east coast, I wanted a dog to keep me company and help with the space. When I started dating my girlfriend, even she suggested I get a dog because her cat was never going to love me the way that I loved the cat. This has been a long time coming.

Lastly, just want to mention Save-A-Lab Rescue. Their application process is a little more involved than most and the process to get approved is slow, but they are a great organization and helped me land a pretty perfect puppy. They rescue labs and lab mixes from the southern kill shelters and transport them to the northeast where they can be adopted. As someone who has seen dogs elsewhere who I wish I could have adopted but these other agencies wouldn’t allow me to adopt out of state, it is really great to have found an organization that is taking labs from an area where they are in excess to an area where they are in demand. E$veryone I met was really kind and in the end, the process to adoption, once approved, was very fast!

So, I’m sure there will be more tales of Coco coming up, but for now, we are both just adjusting to each other’s personalities and finding a way to live together. I’m so excited to have this bundle of joy in my life.

Now, I’m famous for saying, “I’m a Zack of all trades, master of some (really few).” The truth is, when it comes to software, I’m not a super-strong master of many. I get the conceptual idea of a bunch of it, and I’m really just an expert at seeing a problem and understanding the solution. What I’m good at is finding resources to help me and understanding what the resources tell me and translating that into solutions.

Still, when I was starting, I wish there were a bunch of things people had told me. I wish I had known that literally, anything is possible in the world of computer programming if you are willing to dig deep enough to figure out what is going on. I wish I had been told some good places to start learning. I wish I had been told that it’s okay to ask any question once, but it’s really bad to ask the same question over and over again. That it is disrespectful to go to someone with more knowledge than you without even doing a google search and bringing something to the discussion.

Anyway, these are some of the things I learned. I’m curious what the knowledge gap is between those of us in the industry and those just finishing college. To that end, I’m hosting a zoom call on Thursday, August 19th at 8 PM eastern. I’ll probably have some slides prepared, but I’m hoping that most of the session is about Q&A with questions people bring. All you need to do is join the zoom.

The link above is for a specific methodology of coming to a second brain. The truth is there is more than one way to do it, and the person who is teaching that class’s big claim to fame is that class. Is organizing how to teach others to organize really success? I’m skeptical. The class that he is offering is in the multiple thousand dollar range and fills up, but I’m not willing to spend that much to learn to figure out my life.

Instead I’ve decided to start reading and figuring out things for myself. I’ve started with a book called The Extended Mind. I’m still working my way through it, but already I’m enraptured with the ideas in it. The notion that our brain does not end at the organ in our heads. The fact that our brain is an organ and a muscle like we’ve all been taught. These are all compelling notions. Taking this further than the book has so far, the mind extends to all of the knowledge that is available to us. This includes all the people we know. Our knowledge then is a shared knowledge. It makes me wonder if by the definition of the book, are humans really just one brain working together? I’m not yet finished with the book (really just starting), so these are all unfinished thoughts. I don’t have a full answer to what I think about the book and this notion yet.

What I do have a thought on is the new program that I found with a little bit of searching. It’s called Obsidian. Basically it’s what I’ve been looking for but without knowing I was looking for. It is a visual representation of the notes on your computer formed in markdown. It can sync between multiple devices (though you do have to remember to save, which is annoying). You can easily link between notes and jump to other notes. You can see the notes in a graph view and see the ones that are connected. It was created as a way to foster connection between thoughts and allow for more of this second brain stuff to exist. It stores all the data in Markdown files on disk so it is accessible at any time.

I’m definitely not using it as efficiently as I could be and there definitely is a lot of work for me to do get the organization the way I need it to be, but I’m loving it so far. Unlike Bear, it allows for complete stylesheet customization. This allows you to shoot yourself in the foot or create some cool additional features if you want. There are a whole list of external plugins as well, because it is just javascript under the hood. This is my tool. Now I just need to figure out how to get all of my old notes from Day One over and start making things better.

Also of note, because it lets me override styles, I am using my favorite MonoLisa, which allows me to do very cool arrows and various other ligatures that I really like.

Unknown how the use of this program will help me in the long run, but maybe this will allow me to create more than just my own thoughts. Maybe someday I will be able to pass on my second brain to my family and anyone else who wants it. Pretty excited about figuring all of this out.

I once read about a project, but have been unable to find it online, where a group of people mailed out a bunch of notebooks, asked people to hold on to them for a couple days and fill out some pages and then send them to another users. When the project was done the group had some amazing works of art.

I’ve always wanted to recreate it. I wanted a collection of art and inspiration created by a connected community. My most recent concept involved me starting a coffee shop to solve it and hiring a bunch of artists to create notebooks.

I was sharing my idea with the owner of Simple Merchant Coffee and he wanted me to maybe create an expo at his space. I told him I didn’t have the notebooks yet and so he proposed something interesting: Let’s set up a couple of notebook stands at his location and let people fill out some pages. He proposed that this morning. This afternoon it happened.

I put two notebooks out there and two mason jars of pens. Hopefully it works out well. Hopefully they both don’t get pilfered from the store. I mean, even if they do I will learn something.

I’m still interested in working with artists to create more notebooks and build out some additional notebooks. If you are interested, please let me know.

So for various reasons, sometimes I will watch a Peter video and often times I’ll skip it. The same with his instagram, until I discovered Pete’s Pirate Life. This one collection of photos and products fits into what I love about Peter while keeping me away from some of the stuff I don’t. Through this instagram, Peter shows dark little corners of his life in striking photography. He also does these things called “Drops” whereby he sells fun products. Many of them are overpriced, but the limited nature of the drop makes me pretty excited to collect items. It works on me. To the best of my knowledge, no one has really put together a list of the products he releases with information on what they are and how to make your own or do something like it. I’m going to attempt to do that. Check out my product page on Pete’s Pirate Life.

Photos are from Pete’s Instagram. Not my own work.

On the site he releases drops of products. This is my database of products that I have seen on the site, a review of each of them and other random thoughts on what is released.

Notebooks

Pocket Log Books ($35)

These pocket sized notebooks are identical in size to the Field Notes notebooks I’m obsessed with. The covers are a bit shinny, though, and they paper feels rigid and not at the same caliber of as a Field Notes book. I have not used them for writing, but I do like the design. They are very much overpriced at $35 for a pack of 3. Field Notes, by contrast, are 10 bucks for 3 of the normal packs and up to 14 more expensive types.

Hardback Log Books Pocket ($20)

Dimensions: 3 11/16 ” x 5″, so it is a little wider than Field Notes and a little shorter than field notes. Interesting size. While the size does feel similar to pocket Baron Fig, the band inside is not at the same level of quality. The pages are also perforated throughout, unlike the Baron Fig which only has the last couple of pages perforated.

The pages are pure white with a light dot grid. Again, no indication of who makes this product. Came sealed in plastic. Not worth the price in my opinion, but still cool.

Hardback Log Books Standard Notebook ($30)

Interested to see what the standard size of these are. Not sure who makes this, but assuming it is the same manufacturer as the pocket ones. Excited to see what these turn out to be.

Still not sure who makes it. I haven’t compared it in size yet to moleskine or baron fig, but it seems about the same size. Like the Baron Fig, it does not come with an elastic which at this point feels weird for me on a book that size.

Stickers and Patches

Sticker Pack ($30)

30 dollars for about 12 stickers means that each sticker is costing you more than 2 dollars a sticker. Still some of the colors of the stickers are quite bright. They do not have duplicates in the pack so that is also awesome.

Pirate Velcro Patch ($20)

This is a small, roughly 2 inch by 2 inch PVC patch with black backing and a white Pirate logo on the top. Actually, pretty darn happy with this purchase. These patches probably cost around 2 bucks to make, so there is a large mark up. I’ve made something similar with brewery outfitters. Still, love the style and not mad at this purchase.

There are two version of this patch, one with a black background and white pirate and one with a white background and black pirate. I have both. Like the black background better, but both are pretty darn cool.

I Love Knives Velcro Patch ($20)

Waiting on mine to arrive. Will provide feedback when it gets here.

Keys and Coins

Coin V3 ($125)

Okay, this is a solid brass challenge coin with the Pirate on one side and “Fly the Flag” on the other. It is expensive for what it is, but beyond the coin, the box comes with some awesome extras. It comes in a vault case that is really well designed and sealed with pirate shaped screw heads. It comes with the bit to open the box. The coin comes with a leather carry case. All in all, I was surprised at the value for the cost of this one. The rest of the pirate stuff I’ve gotten has felt grossly overpriced and this felt almost reasonable.

Food

Captain Kirk’s Hot Sauce ($25)

I’ll admit that I haven’t used it yet, but the bottle is pretty freaking cool. I’m excited to see how it tastes. Will report when there are more details.

Random

Pirate Shop Rag ($15)

This is exactly what it sounds like, a shop rag with a pirate logo on it. Nothing special, way overpriced. Too expensive for me to actually use in the shop.

Bandage Kit ($30)

Comes with about 32 bandages and a couple of packs of anticipant in a small tin. It’s cool and all, but way overpriced. Also, I’m not sure if this is a mistake, but while they come in packs of 8 with one design, I believe my kit came with two packs of the same image on them. Not the best bandages either.

Since 2008, I’ve been carrying around a pocket notebook and writing instrument almost everywhere I travel. Constantly in my pocket. It’s funny because I also have a smartphone, and I take notes digitally and on paper. Why? I don’t know, and I guess there is something romantic about the paper discovery process of going through old notebooks and finding ideas. I recently went to a friend’s wedding and went through my old notes to find the initial guest list they had proposed back in 2016, just because I happened to write it down in my memo pad. The guest list turned out to be pretty close to who actually came, and it was a fun moment to have the notebook, take a picture of it, and share it with my friend. Also, at the wedding, I pulled out my notebook and had some guests write Haikus that we sent to the couple on their honeymoon (this tends to be a regular occurrence for me at weddings).

My branch of choice is Field Notes. I’ve been collecting unique editions of these notebooks pretty much since the beginning. In moving my stuff back across the country, we unpacked my boxes to find a plethora of notebooks. I didn’t know what I had open and not open. I did not know what I was missing in my collection. I suppose for any collection to count as a collection, you really need a record of what you have. I’ve solved that: here. This is a link to all the available unopened packs I have in my collection. If you are obsessed with field notes and need to trade or collect, many of these are available for purchase or barter. You need to reach out to me. Let me know what you want, and we can discuss a fair trade/purchase price.

This collection has brought me immense joy and happiness through collecting. I can’t really explain it, but hoarding it now feels wrong. It feels like it is time to start parting with editions I don’t feel particularly attached to.

Our last meal on the left coast before starting the 3000 mile journey back to Rhode Island was at the famous fast food chain In-N-Out. This is chain that until recently was entirely a west coast thing. They’ve slowely been creeping across the country and are as far as Denver as of this year. They are known for their unique fast food style burgers. I once read somewhere, that their burgers are almost 40% fat. They are super thin patties and allow for a bunch of customization.

Because of the unique ways you can customize a burger, everyone has their own special order. I’m no exception. My order is a two by one with whole grilled. This means, two meat patties, one piece of cheese and a slice of onion kept whole and grilled. Sometimes I will even do a protien style version of this meal which means wrap the burger in lettuce instead of a bun.

I’ve tried fries light, fries well, and fries animal style (with grilled cheese, diced carmelized onions, and thousand island dressing), but the standard fries turns out to be good enough for me.

Anyway, hope you get a chance to try In-N-Out if you haven’t. It’s worth the wait in line (though maybe not in Denver, yet).
Image Credit:

Blake Guidry

@blakeguidry

It started out with a Evergoods MPL 30L V1. Which is a great pack, but doesn’t have the side water bottle holders which is a requirement for me on a backpack. Fast forward a bit and I’m a huge Evergoods fan. I have a pack from most of their lines, so when the announced the MHP, I resisted for a day or two (don’t really use hip packs that much), but finally bought one, and the TL;DR is: I love it.

I decided on a black pack over the signal blue. While the blue is cool, a hip pack is usually something I’m going to carry while hoping it isn’t noticed. I have a signal blue pack and it is loud and easily seen. Call it fear from living in the Bay Area for too long, but I don’t want things to be noticed and pilfered. There is still a patch location and sometimes I’ll throw on one of my cool patches for unique identity when I need it.

Both compartments are pretty awesome. I’ve only taken the pack out for a couple of adventures at this point, but usually, the back section is where I put my notebook, pen, pocket knife, and phone. The front pouch is where I put in a first aid kit, headlamp and anything else I need.

One downside, even though there is a passthrough pocket upfront, if I put something large, like an R1 through it, it will eat up space in the front pouch and make it harder to fit things in there. Still, this pouch would be good for a thin waterproof layer.

The MHP can be worn in two ways, as the standard hip pack or as shoulder sling. I’ve worn it as both. As a hip pack it is perfect. Functions exactly as expected and I can’t say anything bad about it. One practical thing I’ll say about wearing it as a sling, the arm that makes contact with the pack might have some rubbing. While there is a guard against the buckle, the excess webbing, while tucked up might hit your arm as you swing through it. You can adjust the pack on your back, but if it is at all loose it will be near the bottom. This isn’t a super big deal, but it is definitely noticeable if you are hiking with the pack for a couple of hours.

I’m sure my opinion will continue to evolve as I continue to use the pack (I’ve had it for a couple of weeks), but so far I’m a fan. A friend asked me if it would fit a iPad mini, so I checked and conformed that both the front and back pockets are big enough to hold an iPad mini.

If your interested, head over and pick one up at Evergoods MHP 3.5L.

For additional reviews, I found this pretty helpful:

The dream has grown over the years. I still write some crappy poetry from time to time (see some previous posts on this blog for pest poetry), but I haven’t really started anything super seriously. I want to change that. I want to write a book. The question is, what do I write about?

They say write about what you know, but I’m actually a little excited about learning as I write. I’m hoping the experience of crafting a piece helps me grow as well. This means my topic is still open for discussion. Some of my ideas include:

• Acroyoga Field Guide – a guide to the practice of Acroyoga.
• Moving to and from California – a software person who went to the west coast to learn his craft and survived to make it back.
• Field Notes – a story from a fan of the wonderful product made in the USA by a designer and small firm that has blown up to a major product.
• What I learned from 20 years in cheerleading – a memoir of my hears in the cheerleading world and what I learned. How the sport is different now and thoughts for the future.

What I do know is general size. I want to write books in a size and format that I enjoy. I don’t want to do big books unless they are picture books. I want my books to be smaller. I’m thinking of A Drive into the Gap Size or Wildsam Field Guides. Something pocket size. I’m unsure why this is so important, but it is.

My ask here is that if there is something you think I should write, please reach out and let me know as I begin to figure out what this project will look like.

Whether to speak up loud
Or hide in the crowd

To share my ideas abound
Or take them to the ground

I choose to share
Not entirely sure where

But quiet is not me
I’ll shout with glee

There are things to say
So I start this day.

A year has past, and I have done very little Acroyoga. I’m super rusty. I want to dust off my practice and start with the part of the practice that I was really getting into last year, the Lunar side. Thus I’ll bring to you my plans for my birthday this year.

Doing three sessions on Saturday, March 20th! At different times throughout the day so it should probably work with you no matter what.

The proposed format is something like the following, but I reserve the right to revise it as we get closer to the session. I suggest switching partner, but if you can somehow convince your partner that you are the only one to receive you can get the massage sequence twice.

Zack’s Thai Massage Birthday Shindig

It’s a Thai massage class on Zoom run twice on Saturday,March 20th. There will be one in the morning and one in the afternoon/evening. Times still to be determined. Through Zoom, I’ll be guiding you through a Thai massage sequence.

For Thai massage, you bring a partner and each learn how to give and receive a Thai massage. Yes, you will need to provide your own partner. This will be run in groups of two. While Thai massage does involve touch, this does not mean you need to use a romantic partner. Your partner can be a friend or even one of your kids.

The general format is 15 minutes for the first person to give the massage, and then you switch. I’m planning on two three rounds of switching, so the entire class will be an 1.5 hours. The way I’m scheduling it, the first section will be least invasive and easiest, and the last session will be the most difficult. The goal is to give you a taste of the experience, and if you enjoy it you can stay on. If you decide it’s not for you, there are really great opportunities to drop off throughout the class.

You will need just a little bit of floor space. You will want to lay down some sort of mat like a yoga mat. The more space you have around the mat the better, but I’m going to be doing this in my living room with about 2 feet on each side of the mat. I recommend a computer or an iPad to see the moves if you’ve never done Thai massage. Phones are great for seeing faces, but I’m going to be doing a little more involved movement. Also, if you have a small pillow for your knees, that would be helpful but not required.

Clothing wise, those sweatpants you wear to work are a great option. You might also want to bring layers and socks. When you are receiving Thai massage, it helps to dress warm because you will be very passive. When you are the one giving the massage, you tend to generate some heat, and so taking off a layer or two might be helpful.

There are several reasons, but one of them is that Thai massage is about communication. It’s about contact and touch, it’s about talking to others and being present. In this space where we have been stuck in space with a limited number of people, sometimes we don’t take the time to really listen to those we interact with. Let’s reconnect with those around us and do so with some Thai massage.

IT’S FREE!!! There is no cost to coming to the class at all. My goal is to get people into this practice. You have no excuse not to attend.

After the class, if you feel like you would like to tip me, you can do so by sending money to 826 National, which is a nonprofit that helps kids with writing, both creative and otherwise. For those of you who don’t know, I was diagnosed with a reading and writing disability in 3rd grade and was given excellent help to be where I am today. Not everyone has that opportunity, and 826 National is trying to help those with less resources. You can find out more about them and donate here.

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84284311664?pwd=U1BRcWNxYTJLUGRXUC9lSHhOdUE3dz09

I had the idea for writing this post a couple of weeks ago, but then I picked up Twenty Bits from Dan Cedarholm, and his first tip is about making a T-shirt. That solidified that I needed to write this post.

I’m a computer person. I spend 95% of my days in a simple T-Shirt. I do have some plain shirts, but most of mine have sort of graphic on them. I guess my obsession with them started in college when I would get about 12 a year in college for my cheerleading team. Each shirt would have a different design on it.

Once I got out of college and started running my own high school team, I was in charge of making the shirts for those team. I started to learn about brands, as well as printing and designing the shirts. The more I did that, the more I learned about how different cuts and fabrics feel. As with most things in my life, once intrigued, I dove into the research of what was best.

I had once found it in American Apparel Tri-Blend shirts, but then the company (for good reasons) went out of business. I’ve had to do some research to stay up on what works best in my opinion. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned over my decades of making shirts. Hopefully, it might help some people.

About shirts, fabrics, and cuts

First thing to talk about when it comes to a shirt is the weight. T-shirts come in many different weights. Some are light weight and some are heavy weight. Light weight shirts are great for working out and summer days, but some say they aren’t warm enough for winter months. Heavy weight shirts wear on the body and sometimes feel stiff and hard to move in. Which shirt weight you want will depend on what you are looking for. My preference usually tends towards the lighter shirts, as I use these mostly as a base layer and will put stuff over top.

Fabric is another factor of how a shirt fits. There are shirts that are 100% cotton and various blends. There is also a thing called ring spun cotton. Different blends will have different textures and different stretch patterns. Depending on the shirt, my preference is either a 60 / 40 cotton poly blend or a ring spun cotton option.

The last little piece to talk about is the cut. Some shirts have longer arms, some are longer in the torso. There is also the whole notion of unisex vs men’s and women’s shirts. All of this is a factor. As someone who made cheerleading shirts for mostly women, the female cut shirts were a big deal.

Shirts and brands I trust

Whenever I go to print a shirt I start with a design idea, but I’ll talk about that later. Once the design is determined, the next step is to find the shirt. There are several go to brands that are great places to start. Next Level is one of the brands that I use a bunch of the time. There Tri-Blend shirts tend to be my favorite on the market. These shirts are light and very flexible. They fit naturally over the body and are super comfortable to wear. These shirts are also in the relatively affordable price range for making a bunch.

Another shirt that I love—but have not been able to get a big enough quantity to do some screen printing on—is The Blanks from Cotton Bureau. I enjoy the fit of their shirts so much. They are probably the most comfortable shirts I own. I usually get them with one the designs, but I do have a couple of blanks I’ve gotten throughout the years. These shirts are breathable, a pretty great weight (not too light, not too heavy), and seem to wear really well. The downside, they are expensive and hard to get a hold of.

Other brands that I have a passing familiarity with in terms of shirt include: Bella, Guildan, and Fruit of the Loom. None of these shirts have really impressed me enough to point where I look for them when I first start creating a shirt.

If none of these options really match what you’re doing, work with a representative of the printing shop to figure out what they would recommend. These people spend much more time than you building out shirts. They know the brands they have in stock, and if you are able to answer the weight and style questions, they are usually pretty good at helping you find your options.

Ink, Colors, and Locations

Another factor in the cost of a T-shirt is the number of colors and locations. I’m not a screen printer, but as I understand it, colors are layered on. Each layer requires its own screen. Creating a screen has a cost. Changing which screen is on the machine has a cost. If you want to print more than just on the front—for example putting a logo mark on the back of the neck—you have to pay for another screen and another print. All of these costs go into your final shirt design. For this reason, most of my shirts are single color, single location prints.

One T-shirt is light. 100 T-shirts starts to get heavier. When trying to make an economical T-shirt, shipping can really add up. For this reason, if I’m making a smaller number of shirts, it might make more sense to find a local screen printer than pay for shipping, even if the cost per shirt is higher. You can just search for “Screen Printing Near Me” and find some good results. Most shops will give you a quote if you know the shirt, colors, and locations of prints.

Print Shops

The shop that I’ve used the most recently is the Golden Road Ink. I worked with a sales rep named Kyle, but he has since moved on. They had good connections to get the shirts I wanted, had pretty quick turn around (even doing a couple of super fast jobs for me), and reasonable pricing. They are a Bay Area local place. Currently, I’m not in the Bay Area, and I don’t have a new printer where I am now, yet.

I have in the past used Threadbird. This is the shop that Dan Cederholm uses. Depending on the number of shirts you are doing and the features you want, I’ve found that with the shipping they aren’t always at the same cost level of getting it done locally, but they do VERY good work.

Designs

Some places will take a rough sketch and turn it into a design for you. I’m a little more controlling than that. My designs are usually illustrator vector files. This allows me to really have control over what I’m doing. I will shrink it down the actual size of the print to make sure details still match what I want. Remember, you need to have a design that works on all the sizes of the shirts you are making. If you are making an XXS and an XXXL you might want to have two different sizes of the same print (though this will add cost). The chest area is different on each of these sizes. What might take up the whole shirt on the XXS will be a patch in the center of the XXXL.

Another point worth making, CONVERT all TEXT to OUTLINES. If you are using a special font, your printers may not have it. They may choose one that is recommended, and it may look close enough for you or it may not.

The End

Hopefully, this article will be helpful to others, but even if it isn’t, maybe it will remind me not to make the same mistakes I’ve made when making shirts in the past. It’s not exactly a how-to do this; it’s more of a how-to think about making shirts.

This is one of the last photos I have of Crazy Nick.

This photo was taken on August 28th while we were zooming around the east coast in his airplane. Several days later Nick died flying the plane in the background in Shenandoah National Park. (https://www.nps.gov/shen/learn/news/plane-crash.htm). I’ve been afraid to talk about it, because I’m afraid of my mom finding out. If she did, she would go crazy that I was in a plane several days before it crashed. I’m scared. I’m wondering if I did something super irresponsible, but I’m very grateful I took the day off to fly with him and spend one last day with him.

You see, we were working on this big project at work. It was consuming most of my hours and even though Nick arrived on Wednesday and we had planned on going out Thursday, he needed a new alternator in the plane, so we had to put our plans on hold for a day. When the project leader found out I would be out one day he was okay with it. When it got shifted from Thursday to Friday and a deadline was looming, there was some pressure to not take the day. I stood my ground and had a wonderful day with Nick. We made it Bar Harbor, ME. We stopped in New Hampshire, and an interesting time trying to find fuel on our way back in VT, and stopped by in Worcester, which is where this picture was taken. We made it home at like 11 pm. It was an awesome crazy amount of flying, and a great adventure.

That was Nick. Mr. Adventure. I met him at Philly Phlight several years before. It’s an intermediate Acro festival and he and his partner were in my house. We connected and had a grand old time together. I even went down and visited his place in San Luis Obispo (SLO) and was part of putting together an Acro festival with him before covid made us cancel our plans. Nick had a go grab the life by the horns and try the crazy thing mentality, and I ate it up.

He passed flying his plane, and it is sad that I won’t get to play with him again (term we use for doing Acro with others), or fly with him, or just talk about the challenges of life. He will be in my memory and he will inspire me to try to see the joy in the adventure and look for new ones.

I will miss my friend Nick.

This is about a story, and I’m fine sharing it, because I don’t think anyone really reads my posts. A couple of years ago, some of my friends moved to California and for their move in, I brought over a bottle of Bourbon. I didn’t know which one to get, so I bought one called Blanton’s. It turned out that we really enjoyed the bottle. I’ve ordered it since, but haven’t really bought another bottle. That is, until the same friend said that she was having trouble finding a bottle for sale anywhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked past a bottle for sale at about $60.

That is why when my friend asked me to get her a bottle if I found it, I thought it was going to be an easy request to honor. Turns out not. I’ve been looking and haven’t seen a bottle. So I started to call around and see what I could find here in Rhode Island. I called 4 liquor stores that I thought might carry it, and none of them had it.

It turns out that over the past couple of years, bourbon has been becoming harder to get a hold of. Bottles that were in the fifty dollar price range have shot up a ton. I know this is my liquor of choice, not scotch, or rum. So I am committed to learning more about this drink. Yes, I kill it with ice. Yes, at this point I don’t really know what I’m talking about when it comes the drink. But there was a time when I didn’t know a thing about coffee either and now all my friends describe me as a coffee snob.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, is here to diving into yet another area to learn enough become a whiskey snob.

While I have fonts that I go to, and I enjoy the Macklemore song where he calls out “Gold Fonts”, I don’t really know as much about them as I feel I should. Fonts are so powerful. They help words take shape. They can help you easily identify words or make text incredibly hard to read. As someone with a reading disability, pattern recognizing a signature of word is a trick I use to read a little bit faster. Good fonts can help that, bad fonts can hurt that.

I had a realization the other day (I think the shower), that I want to change my lack of real understanding around fonts. I want to study and understand them. I want to know Font Families by name and style.

Lets start with one font that I’ve discovered and now paid for a professional license for. MonoLisa is a mono spaced font that I’ve set up as the default in all my editors. It is cleaner and easier to read. It is not free, but it’s worth paying for good things, even digital things. Hopefully soon I’ll find a way to tie it into the code boxes that I have on this site, but in the mean time. This font is helping my day to day in my various editors. It’s a mono spaced font, meaning that each character takes up the same amount of space on the x axis. This makes columns as you line up you type. Not all fonts have the same spacing for all letters.

Here is another reason why this is important to me. I have had a reading a writing disability that was diagnosed around the 3rd grade. I’m not sure, but it feels like one of my tactics for getting around this is memorizing word shapes. Fonts do affect the shapes of words, so some fonts are more readable for me and others are not.

So next up, becoming a type master. I have a lot of learning to do. What is the difference between a font and typeface? How does one pick the perfect kerning for a set of lettering? I have a bunch of typefaces to learn about.

Let me know if you have any tips, suggestions, or favorite fonts!

A poem by Zachary Cohen, written in the voice of Lily Van Schaak, photo provided by Leslie Van Schaak.

I see you there.
I’m sitting here
In my metal throne with arm rest
I suspect you are up to no good
I will find out what you are keeping from me
And when I know I will administer the required sentence
For I am the queen of this space I allow you to inhabit with me
Do not test me…

Details: Cat’s name is Case, and he belongs to a friend of mine.

To that end here is a list of my current projects and some notes about them.

Unpack + Settle In

I’ve relocated due to covid to the east coast. I have a bunch of stuff to unpack. Currently all the stuff is just thrown around the house. I need to find the permanent home for the stuff. I also need to update billing addresses and various other pieces of work here.

Van Cleaning

Clean out Claire and get her ready for the winter season and future adventures.

Taxes 2019

I’m very behind on getting my taxes for 2019 done. I have an extension, but I need to put together a full working document on them and figure out where I can deduct.

Dog Rescue

I have come to the conclusion that I’m ready for a dog. Now the challenge is to find one to rescue and bring them into my home. This may be done through fostering first.

The Newport Book

Working on putting together a photo book for Newport, RI. Still figuring out what this means, but is something I really want to get done. I love this town, want others to appreciate how special it is.

Covid Card

I’ve been very distant from my friends during the covid times. I’m looking to make a little gift card to send out to friends to let them know I’m thinking of them.

Journal Most Days

This is something I enjoy. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back and read the stuff I write, but I love having the notes and thoughts from younger me to refer to if I find stuff I need to think about.

Super Secret Work Project

Can’t really talk about what this is right now, but I have grand plans and hopefully will be able to share with you before the end of the month.

Also, please note that throughout the entire time I was leaving these cards I had a relationship with the management at Planet Granite and it was very clear that I was leaving most of these comments with nothing but humor in mind. The people who read them are working really hard and have to deal with very tough customers day in and day out and this was an attempt to leave some humor for them throughout the week.

More than the amount of time it is the quality of time. Newport is one of my favorite towns. It’s on the east coast, so it has some speed to it, but it has enough sailing and leisure to have some laid-back qualities as well.

Amount of time spent: Way too much over the years. New home.

Simple Merchant Coffee

This is it, this is the place I’ve been hunting for too long. The coffee is magical. The customer service is great. The food and pastries are on point and the cost is reasonable. The catch, they are located outside of the downtown area. Though not by too far. Worth the drive! Check it out!

I wrote up the menu here.

Empire Tea and Coffee

There are several locations of this group downtown. The managers are great about trying to improve. I had several experiences where I asked for stuff there and got it to go. I even once saw a barista take grounds right from the grinder without tamping and put them into the espresso machine. I commented to the management and they have been super responsive about getting back to me. For the most part, their coffee is pretty good. Their tea selection looks great, but I don’t really drink tea. Their food is also pretty awesome. I tend to get the Caprese sandwich, but it is really rather fantastic.

Update: in the later parts of the week they carry donuts from Knead in Providence. I really love the chocolate chip donut. It’s pretty awesome and definitely worth trying. When ordering a breakfast sandwich, I highly recommend changing the bread to ciabatta, it is much better than their standard bread and totally worth the expense.

The Coffee Guy

They only do drip and cold brew, and they don’t have their own space, but they are my favorite cold coffee. They are also at the downtown farmers market on Wednesday afternoons in the summer.

Kaffology

Custom House

Mocha

Coffee Grinder

Cute little spot at the end of Banister’s wharf. You have to walk all the way down the end and it is on the right. The coffee is good and the baristas seem to mostly know what they are doing. Definitely one of my favorite places to just grab a coffee. Parking is hard, I either bike or scooter my way down there.

Update: closed!

Update: MOVED!

Coffee Grinder has moved down to the building across from the Red Parrot. I haven’t been but I’m excited to check it out this summer.

Lorusso’s Newport Cafe

Update: Closed (so sad, loved the muffins)

Probably my favorite cafe in the entire town. They have a decent approach to their coffee while being mostly a breakfast stop. Their food is pretty good but they always seem to understaffed in the kitchen so it sometimes takes a while. It’s worth the wait if you can stomach it. On top of that, they have phenomenal muffins, best in town. I love the coffee cake muffin.

Stuff To Do

Sail Newport

This is the public sailing center in Newport. This town has long been famous for the amount of sailing that goes on here. This is the best place to learn sailing. They have a fleet of J22’s that you can learn on and then rent after to go out whenever you want. Becoming a member is about 100 dollars a year and totally worth it if you go more than three times in a summer.

The Cliff Walk

This is a walk around the Cliffs around Newport. It starts just north of Eastons (first) Beach, and walks along the coast for about 7 miles. The first part is a paved path and pretty easy to walk. Dogs welcome. Part of it is currently under repair, but still worth doing. You get to see many different mansions. It ends at Rejects Beach, a gorgeous spot.

It is not a loop so you need to figure out if you are going out and back or walking back on Bellview.

Beaches

There are many cool beaches in the Newport Area. I spend most of my beach time at second beach, but first is super close to where we stay.

Mansion Tours

Back before the Hamptons became the Hamptons, wealthy New Yorkers used to build massive homes out in Newport, RI for the summer. These houses have become too expensive to be owned by a single owner so now they are owned by a historic organization that keeps the houses up and provides tours. They are so worth the visit.

Bike The Loop

We have a standard loop to bike around Newport (specifically through Ocean Drive). To make the loop not specific to our house, lets say the starting and ending point is the Newport Visitor Center (or former, because it is closing). The Path involves biking down America’s Cup, Turing right on Thames. take the right for Wellington Ave, past kings park. Make a right at the top of the New York Yacht Club hill on Harrison. Follow that around until you make a right on Ridge Road. Ridge Road will turn into Ocean drive. Take a right on Coggeshell Ave, and then when you come around the turn to your left you will be on Belleview. Take a right at Memorial and come all the way back down to America’s cup and the Marriott.

12 Meter Charters

You can book a sail on a 12 meter for about $100 for two hours and if you want to also do a 15-minute tour of the harbor in a helicopter it ups it to about $170. These boats are great, fast and beautiful. It is a pretty fun experience and in my opinion, totally worth the cost.

What To Eat

Pour Judgement

This is a gastropub that doesn’t call itself a Gastropub. It’s a pub with great beer and good fare. Worth the stop. I particularly like the fish Burrito.

Fluke

This is my favorite upscale restaurant. My mom took me here and every time I’ve gone I have had a great meal. They have interesting hours offseason so if you aren’t there in the summer check to make sure they are open before heading over.

Update: Closed.

Scratch

A small Sandwich shop that is worth the stop. They have some great items and are a place where I used to get lunch a fair bit when I was living in Newport for a summer.

Boru

Asian Noodle place that is really rather special. I don’t really know how to explain it other than a super special place that is worth checking out.

Yagi Noodle

Another good Ramen Noodle Place. They are currently down Thames a bit but are moving very shortly to be even closer to Boru. The noodles are great and it is pretty different from a traditional ramen place but they do have a Katsudon bowl that is pretty amazing.

Mountain Moose

Another ramen spot that opened this winter in Newport. It is down on Thames and I’ve never seen anything go into this location that has stuck. I’m hoping Mountain Moose is different. They have some very tasty options, both noodles and rice options. Their prices are incredibly reasonable for the town (with a ramen dish costing under 20 USD). I can’t say enough good things about this place. The Mountain Moose Original Ramen Bowl is fantastic.

Winner Winner

The BEST fried chicken in town, maybe in the whole country. Definitely my favorite spot for fried chicken. The chicken sandwich is unique and a must-try. They brine the meat for 24 hours and then double fry it. It’s spectacular. In addition, I would highly recommend the biscuits. They come with maple butter which is pretty special.

Update: Closed (though sometimes you can get the chicken at Winner Winner on Mondays not during summertime).

Mission Burger

This one is talked about by all the locals or even friends who have gone away and come back to visit. Everyone talks about their Micky D’s Burger which is an old school McDonnald’s burger with amazing sweet pickles, but the real great part of that is the pickles which you can put on any burger.

I’ve gotten my order down to the science that I like. I get the Bacon Cheeseburger and add a fried egg. It is just magical. Their fries are pretty good too. My parents really love to ask for extra fried on the fries, but I’m fine with them how they come.

Scarpeta (Update: Closed)

This is a fine dining option in Newport. It is part of Gurney’s hotel on goat island and has some pretty fantastic food. They have good scallops. It’s pretty decent Italian fair and worth the try if you are into fine food.

Brick Ally Pub

This is a local staple. It has been here since I was a kid and while the food is standard pub food, it is good for standard pub food. I’ve had many GREAT memories here.

Where to Work Out

Newport County YMCA

The Newport County YMCA is actually located in Middletown. Their gym just went through a new refresh so the equipment is brand new, but because of this it is also a little more packed than some of the other gyms in the area. There are many great programs here.

Fitness 500

Located behind A Market off Bellevue Ave, this gym is also new. It isn’t as full serviced as the Y, as it doesn not have a pool, but the equpiment is new and it is very nice. The prices are right.

Pulse Gym

This is another cool gym in the area, they have pulse specific classes but it is also a cool and unique space.

DTBG is an abbreviation for Dare To Be Great.

I was first introduced to the acronym when I joined RelateIQ in 2014. It was our official company motto. We had signs up in the office to remind us to D.T.B.G. and the number of times I’ve uttered either the phrase or acronym is probably incalculable.

It was probably years after I started using the term that I began to understand the phrases origin story. It stems from a speech from President Theodore Roosevelt titled Citizenship in a Republic delivered at Sorbonne in Paris, August 23, 1910. The speech is long, and there is a key section that is called The Man in the Arena speech. Here is that section:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This quote is at the start of Bernée Brown’s book Daring Greatly. Throughout the several hundred pages of her text (which I have listened to once and am in the process of re-reading), Bernée talks about the work that we as humans need to go through to actually dare greatly. She talks about shame and vulnerability and many stories and asides along the way. There is more to the book and more that I will write about once my thoughts have fully been collected, but using this quote caused me to look at it again.

Here’s the thing, I’ve been misunderstanding DTBG from the beginning. My understanding was that I shouldn’t just strive to do okay, but should strive for the highest honors and the greatest achievement. Going all out for everything at all times. Leave nothing behind.

After reading more of the speech and dissecting the the paragraph above I’ve come to a very different conclusion about this passage and the meaning of Daring To Be Great. Yes, Roosevelt was talking about achieving greatness, but the way to get there isn’t what I thought. There are going to be moments where swinging for the fences is the right thing to do, but more than taking a big swing, getting off the bench and swinging at all is the important thing. We have to try. It’s about the trying, win or lose. It doesn’t need to be about winning but playing the game.

In the present time with so much going on, I’ve been stuck on how to contribute, how to stand up and play. Between the Black Lives Matter and Covid 19 crisis, I’ve felt extremely powerless. I don’t know what to do. Not knowing what to do has kept me in a place of sitting on the bench. A place of thought and criticism. I’m afraid to DTBG because I’m afraid of hurting or offending others. I’m afraid of standing up and taking time and space away from other voices that need to be heard.

But greatness isn’t achieved by those who sit by and read. By those who criticize others. Who judge one thing as the wrong thing to do be done and another as the right thing. The act of doing is the art of learning. I’m hoping to follow this motto that has been in life for over six years now, and I’m finally just beginning to understand.

Cover Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

I lost a friend last week. She was amazing and I want everyone to know about Linda.

I met Linda six years ago in the Planet Granite Masters Class. She always climbed levels above me, but was never too busy to encourage me as I worked on my projects. She was a magnificent climber.

Linda shaped my life with our friendship. One such example was the following exchange (to the best of my memory):

Zack: “I really want to get better at climbing so I can climb with you”
Linda: “You are a coach, how would you coach yourself to get better”
Zack: “I would hire a coach, it’s really hard to coach oneself.”
Zack goes out and gets a climbing coach and gets better at climbing and life.

There were adventure trips with her to Yosemite (multiple) and Bowman Lake up in Tahoe. I remember a boulder adventure to Castle Rock. There were an appearances at my birthday parties and just general tons of fun and laughs.

The collection of stories that runs between our lives is complex and this is just a taste. What I’m failing to convey is the caring emotion she brought with her. The kindness and compassion that moved me and inspired me. The connections between me and others that are stronger because of her compassion and involvement in my life.

I’m going to miss her terribly. To all of those who had the pleasure of knowing Linda like I did, I’m sorry for your loss. To those of you who didn’t know Linda, I’m sorry that you didn’t get to meet her.

I reserve the right to update this post as more pertinent details about this amazing human come to me.

People I Want to Meet Someday

• Rose Marcario – CEO of Patagonia
• Tommy Caldwell – Professional Climber
• Aaron James Draplin – Huge fan of his design.

I am worried on so many levels. I’m worried about what this means to our human relationships. I’m worried about what this means to my career as an acroyoga instructor. I’m worried about how this is affecting my roommate dynamics.

In years we may forget what happened, so here is my interpretation of what happened. This is from my perspective, and not to supersede any truly researched document. This is from the middle of the pandemic, it is not over yet.

In late 2019 a virus emerged in China. This virus was in the same family as the common cold and flu. As we moved into 2020 it was suggested that this virus might be something more deadly than the flu, and it might be spreading, but it was still happening in China and not in the US. The news was reporting on it, but all the reports were on the spread and not very many were on the effects of the virus. I remember trying to google what the symptoms and duration of the virus were. There was no information on that. It was all about the spread. It made me feel like the news was playing into the hysterical nature of the spread and missing the actual effects of the virus. I’ll admit I did not take it seriously, my perspective was that it was a new version of the flu, and that death rate was not as severe.

Then the virus jumped from China to the US.

I went from not understanding the virus to being ordered to keep distance from people. All the Acro groups that I was involved in were looking at suspending classes and events. My work was issuing statements about working from home if we experienced any symptoms.

At this point I remember believing that this virus was only really deadly to a small subset of people: the elderly and people with conditions that already weakened their immune systems. To everyone else it was just a regular flu. It wouldn’t be bad if it I got the virus. I would get over it in a couple of days, maybe a week, and then have the antibodies in my system.

My company officially started working entirely remotely (closed down the office) on Friday March 13th (last day in the office), and there were only five of us in the office on that date. The official Shelter In Place order went out the next week. That first week I remember checking the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the Santa Clara Country Department of public health for information the number of cases and deaths in both areas. None of the numbers seemed to make sense for how much we were isolating ourselves. The stock market began to feel the effects of the economy being shut down. One of my roommates kept talking about how unprecedented this was. Things became more and more surreal.

I leave my house for the necessities like grocery shopping and exercise. I don’t have close interpersonal contact with anyone other than those living in my house. Connection and communication is done through phone calls, Google Hangouts, FaceTimes, and Zoom meetings. Fitness has been small in house workouts or bikes or runs. Everyone has had to find ways to cope with the situation. Personally I have invented a bunch of projects and tackled them vigorously. Everything from cleaning my room to scanning old photos. The only way I can stay sane is by finding something to do around the house.

Generally, for the most part I have felt hopeless. The Shelter In Place is now extended through the month of April. More and more people are being laid off from work. This creates an interesting space where there are some really great people out there looking for work, but there are less and less jobs out there for them.

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the Shelter In Place is the right thing for us as a society to be doing. I’m disappointed that it took me so long to agree with the order. I still have concerns about our future, but I’m surviving in this plan. I have found what I need to do in order to keep myself together. Wish I had gotten here quicker than I did, but at least I’m here now.

Cover Photo: Vincent Ghilione

Leslie Is The Best

For various reasons, the rules of my household have prevented me from being the type of friend I want to be to one of my greatest friends, Leslie. In a moment of weakness I decided to make her a quick website: LeslieIsTheBest.xyz.

The Room Project

If you’ve read my blog you might have seen this post: https://zacharyc.com/2019/09/18/deciding-to/ about things I want to do. One of them was cleaning my room. I’ve been working slowly on it, but this at home time has come and I’m using my at home time to get through all the projects like this.

Quarantined Photos

I’ve been working on taking some photos of the world during this super weird time. Here are some quarantine photos: https://zacharyc.smugmug.com/Personal/n-L8Q6d2/Photography/Quarantine-Photos/

Old RelateIQ Photos

In the process of doing some of the cleaning that I’ve been doing during the quarantine I found the old RelateIQ photos that used to be on the wall walking down to the basement. Many of them are from before my time. I scanned them, (sometimes adding tape to sticky surfaces) and uploaded them to Smugmug. You can see them here.

Kyle Keep Paice

One of my coworkers name is Kyle Paice. During a demo he mentioned that he owed kylepaice.com, and he called me out. Big mistake. Bought the domain KyleKeepPaice.com and now he has a site up there. Don’t start nothing…

South Beta Podcast Updates

During this quarantine I have spent some time updating the South Beta Podcast website. I have also published an episode that we recorded before the beginning of the quarantine. More updates to come while we are out.

Evan Fanboy

We played a game of hanabi and someone mis-understood how to log in and created the most amazing user name ever. That’s how the website EvanFanBoy.com was born!

Folding @ Home

I learned about this one from my roommates. This is a project, akin to SETI, that uses distributed networks to better understand portion folding. I don’t know a ton about what exactly this means or how this helps scientists, but it seems like a small way I can use my computer(s) to help with the work being done to understand this novel corona virus. Here is my personal page. You join the fight at folding@home.

• Eat Club, but with reusable Tiffen boxes like you hear about in in South East Asia.

“V” for Villanova, “V” for Victory
“B” for Blue and “W” for White

For the Blue and the White we will fight!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight for Villanova, Fight for Victory

For we’re out to win the fray;
Villanova leads the way,
With a capital “V” for Victory.

Vill-a-no-va, V-I-L-L-A-N-O-V-A
“V” for Vic-tor-y, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
It’s a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye,
and a “V” for a V-I-C-T-O-R-Y

“V” for Villanova, “V” for Victory
“B” for Blue and “W” for White

For the Blue and the White we will fight!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight for Villanova, Fight for Victory

For we’re out to beat the foe
Show the en-e-my we know
how to win with a “V” for Victory.

This isn’t included in the 538 study because it wasn’t part of the schools they selected. Regardless, I’ve decided to post the values for the CSV that they are using:

A couple of additional notes:

• BPM is a guess by someone who knows better than me.
• Information obtained for this was sourced from several places and may not be completely accurate. Information is provided to the best of my abilities.