April 2024 Review
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A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about April 2024.
Work
Meh. 🤷♂️
As I was reminded during our annual compliance training, we aren’t allowed to talk much about what we do, which sucks. I have good things I’d like to share; I have bad things I’d like to share. I might even drop this section of the monthly post in the future, depending.
Take me out for a beer if you want more on my personal vibes.
One technical share: I’ve been spending notable time building many frontend components with LiveView. Some use the LiveView JS Commands, and others use LiveView Hooks to feed frontend charting libraries. Before taking this full-time job, I had not been doing much frontend work, so these have been useful learning opportunities.
Overall, I am still in a deep thinking mode to understand my long-term future, what I want to do, and what options are available to me. I am also trying to balance my own growth desires with a humble appreciation that there are many in my industry looking for work. It’s hard out there.
Side Projects
Made some first commits towards a new project called Flick. It will be a small ranked voting app to help with book club voting. There is a bit of time pressure to get it working since we need to vote on our next book soon™.
Tech Education / Books
I’m actively reading Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software for Elixir Book Club. We have three chapters left to go. Overall enjoying it, but bummed I don’t have the space and time to apply it much at work. Might be able to apply these concepts in some personal side project things over time. We’ll see.
Still referencing the book version of Productive Field Guide as I try to better brainstorm and plan my personal projects. Did some quarterly planning last weekend.
Have not yet started the Obsidian Field Guide, but I continue to use Obsidian a bit at work and on my personal laptop. Still not sure if it will stick. Changing some writing habits (and hotkeys) takes time.
Started reading Radical Candor after it came up during a 1:1 chat at work. I was anxious after giving a fairly sharp code review, explaining the proposed solution did not align with the community norms around PubSub. It’s hard to be so direct, but my manager thought I did well and had a good balance, hitting Radical Candor. Over the next day or so, I got some face time with the contributor, and it all worked out. Anyways, I thought I should check out the book for more context.
Video Games / TV
Had a few gaming sessions of Stardew Valley and my newest farm. Still in Spring Year 1.
Playing a bit of MLB: The Show 24 but not nearly as much as I was last year. Disappointed at the increase in packs on the store verses in the programs. Shameless cash grab.
Continued watching For All Mankind on Apple TV+. Almost done with season 4, which is the last one currently available. It’s been good. It’s not must-see tv, but if you like the space environment and drama, it is worth checking out.
As a follow up, I might check out Dark Matter. I read the book a while ago and curious how they shape it as a TV show.
Baseball
Watching / listening to a fair bit of baseball. Phillies were on the west coast last week which lessened my attention but I enjoyed a full game on TV last night. Technically we took first place today which feels glorious.
Walks and Exercise
I did some VR workouts during the month and one good walk last weekend. However, my legs were bothering me afterward, so I’ve been a little slower lately.
Other Notes
I had jury duty this month and ended up in a three-day trial. Everyone jokes about the inconvenience of jury duty, but there was a seriousness to this criminal trial that quickly took hold once I was picked. Probably one of the most constructive outcomes of my time this month was doing my civic duty and helping these people find some form of justice. It was sad and very emotional.
What’s Next?
More morning walks. More focused use of my free time towards some well defined personal projects that came out of quarterly planning.
Hopefully, these notes are interesting to you (or me in the future). If you have any questions or feedback, let me know.