Mike Zornek

Journal -- September 11, 2023

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Monday, September 11, 2023 – A regular check-in of personal things.

Work

Work has been relatively busy.

My one client, who is in a maintenance-type contract, had multiple downtime issues recently. I was able to deal with the Elixir incident personally but was more on the sidelines for an Android build issue.

For my other part-time client, I continue to hack on API consumption tasks (about 10 hours a week), with a recent focus on Microsoft Graph and Slack. One nugget of good news is that I am now working in the main parent repo instead of an isolated one, making some things more manageable. In addition to my active API work, I’d like to spend a little time helping them evolve their CI/CD and production observability, but we’ll see.

I still need more hours. I spent some time reaching out to some prospects but still waiting for solid leads.

Side Projects

Posted two new blog posts on Course Dreamers since my last journal entry, How to Keep Student Attention During an Online Course and Your Course Needs Regular, Interactive Feedback Loops To Keep Students Out of Tutorial Hell, but not hitting the content goals I have for myself. I should post one article a week and a few other links.

I finished up my experiment projects with Ash and Svelte. I also posted a few YouTube videos talking about them: Early thoughts on using Ash Framework to produce a GraphQL API and Reviewing my decision to try Svelte/SvelteKit over LiveView for StudyHall.

With those experiments done, I kicked off my new project, StudyHall. I describe StudyHall with:

Goal: To create open-source software and an accessible platform that allows people to teach the art of programming.

It’s all vague as I’m still in the research phase. You can check out the main project repo and project board. I am working on some tech things, but I plan to spend most of my upcoming time on wireframing and brainstorming ideas.

I also bought a new microphone, hoping to do some podcasting for Course Dreamers.

Tech Education / Books

To help my currently soft JavaScript skills, I finished working through the Fireship Modern JavaScript Course and am working through the Exercism JavaScript track and recording myself doing it. I also want to do something with TypeScript, but I don’t know what resources I’ll use.

I started the VS Code Magic Tricks Course on Fireship a few weeks ago but have yet to make much progress recently. I want to give it some more of my time and finish soon.

I finished reading Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software and posted a new review.

I finished reading The SaaS Playbook: Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital and posted a review.

I finished listening to the audiobook Upgrade by Blake Crouch and posted a review.

Currently reading:

You can follow me on GoodReads for more book progress (though I am considering other options).

Phillies

I’m excited for the last few weeks and the start of the playoffs. The wild card feels solid, but we need to finish strong. I have been going to a bunch of games. I will be at tomorrow’s Braves game with my sister and maybe the Mets next week.

Video Games

I’m not playing MLB: The Show as much. Maybe I just needed a break.

Casually playing Read Dead 2, and Stardew Valley on some nights, but nothing too crazy. I ordered the Red Dead 1 PS4 port and will likely play it after my current playthrough of Red Dead 2.

Walks and Exercise

I am doing better and have been walking a few days a week. I hope to start to mix in some other activities like swimming and basketball soon. I also need to follow up with better eating, but happy to make some progress.

That was a lot of stuff. Once again, I am reminded I should do this more often.