Mike Zornek

June 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 11:46:11 -0400

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about June 2024 (and some early July things too).

Work

Stress about the future private equity acquisition of my current employer looms. There is a high probability of being laid off in early 2025.

My mindset has reverted to treating the employment more like a contract. I am a professional and give them a professional effort. I do my best to have a positive impact on the team. I have however pulled back on long-term corporate growth/responsibility plans, which is sad. I wanted this switch to full-time employment to be more long-lasting.

Outside of work, I need to find focus and figure out what’s next.

The June work itself has been varied. Individual contributions towards a large product refactor. Specifically, I have been working to recompose some of our LiveView modules so that they are more organized and also posting notes about ideas for authorization using on_mount hooks other members have taken the lead on. During my chore time, I’ve been investigating production exceptions and working with the leadership to see how to edit the schemas/database table to avoid invalid states.

Side Projects

Like last month, a few short coding sessions on Flick, but not as much as I would have liked.

I keep rethinking the schema design I want. In my last coding session, I even pulled back the ballot to include only a single question to simplify the UI layer.

I am feeling a little time pressure to get something working so I can use this for the Elixir Book Club’s next vote.

Tech Education / Books

Reading A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition with the Elixir Book Club. About halfway through. It’s a great book and focused. It does not waste your time with excessive pages and gives you much to think about per each small chapter.

Still working through the Obsidian Field Guide.

Started reading MYST: The Book of Ti’ana (fiction) during my vacation on the beach.

Read another chapter of Radical Candor, which I started in April but kind of forgot about.

Did not do much Postgres reading this month. I want to get back into that one.

Video Games / TV

Lots of Stardew Valley. I’m in Winter, Year 2, on my new 1.6 farm.

I play an occasional game of MLB: The Show, but I’m not doing the week-by-week grind like last year.

Bought and played some of the new Riven remaster.

Finished Dark Matter. I liked it a lot.

Started Better Call Saul. I’m in the middle of season 3.

Baseball

Watching and listening a bunch. They are the best team in baseball!

Walks and Exercise

Some walks but not much. I want to get into a swim schedule in the coming weeks.

Other Notes

I posted last month about some mind fog, lack of focus/drive, and that has continued but is a little better. Need to get into a rhythm towards some new projects. I need purpose.

I did enjoy a week down the shore in June with my sister. Mostly just beach time, but it was great, and we had great weather.

What’s Next?

After some vacation and holiday time, I have some full 5-day work weeks ahead. Need to find a productive rhythm both in and outside those hours.

Later in August I will be headed down to ElixirConf, which will be fun. If you see me, please do say hello.

May 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 13:14:12 -0400

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about May 2024.

Work

Stress and uneasiness.

Code wise, mostly focusing on Highchart implementations as the team works towards finishing up a specific epic story.

Side Projects

Had a few short coding sessions on Flick, but not as much as I would have liked.

Tech Education / Books

Finished reading Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software for Elixir Book Club.

We picked A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition as our next book and I’m four chapters in. I read it a while ago, but recall enjoying it. It is a much easier read than the DDD book. I find some of it’s recommendations a bit surface level, but still a good book to get your brain thinking about your own work.

Started the Obsidian Field Guide. Also made the decision I’m going to use Obsidian but also OmniFocus (for task tracking) and not attempt an all-in-one solution.

Started reading The Art of PostgreSQL and also working through some of these tutorials as I work to skill up my Postgres usage.

Video Games / TV

Continue playing Stardew Valley 1.6. I’m in Winter of my first year.

Small amount of MLB: The Show, but not even coming close to finishing programs or the season XP. Reading online, people who are focused on grinding are having trouble keeping up.

Finished For All Mankind on Apple TV+.

Started Dark Matter on Apple TV+. I read the book a few years ago and enjoyed it. Enjoying the show as well. First time in a long time I find myself anxious for new episodes weekly.

Baseball

Watching and listening a bunch. Phillies are on fire. Reminds me of so much fun during the 1993 season.

I was able to attend the Rhys game and that was awesome.

Walks and Exercise

A few walks, but need to do more. No VR lately. Will likely unsub until next Winter.

Other Notes

Overall, my head is not in a good space. When I’m busy, I generally get through and do the needed work. On those off days, though, I sometimes find myself frozen, without the drive to get through some of these projects I’ve defined for myself.

Some of this is natural—the ebbs and flows of life—but this occurrence is driven explicitly by unease in multiple parts of my life right now. Getting closure on these things would be good, though I don’t expect that to happen fast.

What’s Next?

Headed down the shore for a few days with my sister in June. Also purchased ElixirConf tickets for August. Got some Phillies tickets for August as well.

April 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 04 May 2024 11:42:19 -0400

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.

March 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 19:43:02 -0400

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about March 2024.

Work

Work is ok. Chipping away at our big project. Some things feel like they take forever as I need to unpack our complex domain and/or more advanced LiveView things.

Feel like I continue to improve my impact with the team. Getting well known for in-depth code reviews. Also trying to mind the balance of providing deep feedback without coming off like an asshole.

My big goal for the month is to get my head around PowerSchool’s career ladder and then figure out what I should be doing to advance in rank/compensation.

Side Projects

Nothing to report.

Tech Education / Books

I’m actively reading Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software for Elixir Book Club. I’m enjoying it and hope to start expressing some of what I’m learning at work and elsewhere soon.

Still slowly working through the book version of Productive Field Guide. I filled out my roles and arete. Next up is shaping some projects and wanted outcomes.

Have not yet started the Obsidian Field Guide, but I am using Obsidian a bit at work and on my personal laptop. Still waiting to see if it will stick. Changing some writing habits (and hotkeys) takes time.

Video Games

Enjoying MLB: The Show 24. Been focusing a lot on the BR program, but man the grind is slow. I think it closes in 10 days so if I want to finish will need to give it more of my time.

Started a new farm using Stardew Valley 1.6, but only a few days in.

Baseball

Baseball is back. Took off on Friday to watch opening day (though the Phillies lost). My first game in-person is Friday, April 12th.

Walks and Exercise

No walks, but I’m hoping the weather will welcome that soon.

Keeping up with Supernatural for some exercise about twice a week.

Also, got a nice swimming session in last week at the YMCA. Should try to make that happen more often.

What’s Next?

Nothing too crazy on deck for April. Been keeping up with life management things (taxes, dentist) and expect more of that. I have jury duty mid-month.

Hopefully, these notes are interesting to you (or me in the future). If you have any questions or feedback, let me know.

February 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 20:25:14 -0400

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about February 2024.

Work

As shared last month, the big recent work news was not only my new full-time job (which I started in December 2023) but also the Allovue acquisition by PowerSchool. Based on that, February saw continued adjustments at work, and they will continue in March.

I’ve about wrapped up my first 90 days at Allovue. Those were laid out with lots of mini-goals. Now, I’m kind of anxious to define my growth plans and what I should focus on outside of individual contributions and team support. I’ve started tinkering with improving our AppSignal integration, but I need to firm up the deliverables and timeline – AND make it happen when daily chaos is easy to succumb to.

Side Projects

StudyHall is still inactive. Nothing much changed from the last month’s review. I am considering a smaller voting app to work on in its stead so I can build something (and explore my book club lessons).

Tech Education / Books

I finished watching the Productive Field Guide by MacSparky. I enjoyed the perspectives and approaches shared. I am now working through the book version and am slowly exploring some of the personal journalism exercises. I consider the course open for me.

I purchased a follow-up course, the Obsidian Field Guide. I want to work through it as I contemplate a move from Notion to Obsidian.

Another recent change is a dedicated attempt to focus on my personal stuff for 1 hour before starting job work. I did this for a few days and really enjoyed the morning brain time to dedicate to my own things. A few of these days was for boring tax stuff, but still glad to get it done, and avoid trying to do it in the evening when I’m exhausted.

Video Games

I’m jumping around MLB: The Show 23 (vs. CPU postseason), Civilization 6, and FF7: Remake.

I bought FF7: Rebirth, but I’m going to try to finish my other playthrough before jumping in. No spoilers!

Looking forward to MLB: The Show 24 and Stardew Valley 1.6, which both come out in March.

Baseball

I am watching a few spring training games. I took off work for opening day, though I’m only watching from home and not going to the park.

Walks and Exercise

I haven’t gone on any walks, but I have been keeping up with Supernatural for some exercise. I hope to start going on morning walks as the weather gets warmer.

What’s Next?

I was supposed to use February as a goal-setting month, and while I did not get there as fully as I wanted, I did enjoy the self-exploration of the Productivity Field Guide, which helped me reflect on who I want to be first. I’m getting there.

Hopefully, these notes are interesting to you (or me in the future). If you have any questions or feedback, let me know.

January 2024 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:00:00 -0500

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about January 2024.

Work

In last month’s review, I shared my early notes on my new job at Allovue. Well, the BIG news of January is that PowerSchool acquired Allovue. I have not been laid off (a relief considering my very recent hire date). My employment title, salary, and benefits are mostly a 1:1 carryover at the new company.

In the short term, once we get through the HR and operational changes, I suspect things will return to normal as we continue to focus on specific projects already planned for 2024. In the long term, I don’t know how things will land. We are going from a 50-ish person company crafted with a particular kind of culture to a much larger 3500-person, publicly traded, corporate company.

Actual coding work is getting better. I’m getting more comfortable with the accounting product domains and accelerating my contributions. Most of these have been in the form of Phoenix components, and live component refactors while delivering some new features to our Budget app.

I’m also sprinkling in some tech lead style work, shaping discussions for the team to work through coding styles and patterns. Specifically, this month, we made some headway with localization work, which has already started but continues evolving.

Looking ahead towards February, I’m hopeful to start to better design some personal development on observability and see if we can improve our use of AppSignal.

Side Projects

There has not been any real progress on StudyHall, though I spent a recent Saturday brainstorming ideas for the new year.

I’m debating walking back from Svelte to LiveView for the UI. My general feeling is that considering the limited time I’ll be able to spend on StudyHall with my new job, I cannot expect to carve out enough time to learn and keep current with Svelte. It might be better for me to just double dip into my LiveView knowledge and experience I’m already using and advancing at my job. The decision needs to be driven by whether I view this project as an educational experiment or a legitimate side hustle that I want to be profitable. I don’t know where I land on that currently.

I’ll also share that I’m exhausted once my workday is done. Finding energy for much of anything productive off work hours has been challenging. Some of that will fade as my onboarding phase starts to end, but it will also take more discipline to create stronger boundaries for my time, work hard to avoid mindless YouTube time, etc.

Tech Education / Books

Finished reading Build a Weather Station with Elixir and Nerves for Elixir Book Club. I still have yet to finish all the code work from this, but I hope to wrap it up soon.

Finished reading Myst: Book of Atrus.

Stalled on reading Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence.

Started reading Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software for Elixir Book Club.

Started watching/reading the Productive Field Guide by MacSparky.

Video Games

Some MLB: The Show Battle Royal, a fair amount of Civilization 6, started a replay of FF7 Remake.

Still looking forward to Stardew Valley 1.6, which is coming soon™.

Likely to buy FF7 Rebirth but might delay playing it until I finish my replay of its previous installment.

Very much looking forward to MLB: The Show 24 – though sad to see it is not the system revamp version we wanted.

Baseball

I am thirsty for baseball season. I bought a pair of game tickets for 2024. One is the first Brewers game to show love for Rhys Hoskins.

Walks and Exercise

I’ve been getting back into Supernatural, a VR workout game. I have been playing it regularly over the past month and enjoying it. It’s an excellent substitute for morning walks while I wait for the weather to get warmer.

I have been thinking about the YMCA pool. I want to get back into a habit of a morning swim again.

What’s Next?

Last month, I shared my interest in looking towards January and the new year with a hope for stability, and with the surprise job acquisition, January was anything but stable. Here is hoping February is better at this.

Moreover, the goal is to come out of February with a better plan of attack for the new year. Do some soul-searching to understand my priorities and develop habits to get me there.

Hopefully, these notes are interesting to you (or me in the future). If you have any questions or feedback, let me know.

December 2023 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 16:09:46 -0500

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about December 2023.

Work

This month, I started my new job, putting in about three weeks before the holiday, which the company was fully closed for, which was nice.

The first week was a lot of general onboarding activities and some social/cultural events. After getting the code, I started to make some small technical contributions. However, I avoided any fundamental changes to the domain logic of the app (as I still had/have a lot to learn about education accounting).

In week two, we had two all-hands online company events, which served as a way to share progress, goals, and execution plans. I appreciate the transparency and big picture of these shares. Later, I even had an opportunity to have 1:1 time with the CEO and get more details. I always view myself as a well-rounded developer interested in the business as much as technical details, so all of this felt very good.

In week three, I started to bite into more significant tickets, which included a fair amount of time refactoring Live Components into Functional Components and other page layout cleanup (in prep for future work). I gained more experience with planning, organizing, tracking, reviewing, and merging work through all this. I’m still moving more slowly than I’d like, hoping that will pass soon. This week, I also did a lengthy product tour with one of the product managers (the first of a few meetings), which was very helpful.

Week four was, of course, the Christmas break.

Side Projects

StudyHall continues to be very stagnant, spending my spare time this month on Christmas things and resting (new job info consumption can be very draining day-to-day).

Tech Education / Books

Finished listening to The Martian audio book.

Still reading Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence though slower as of late.

Still reading Build a Weather Station with Elixir and Nerves for Elixir Book Club, which also included some limited hardware acquisition and assembly.

Still reading Myst: Book of Atrus.

Video Games

Jumping around a bit.

Bought and played Mario RPG. Still playing MLB: The Show some. Started Red Dead 1, but not too far in. Reinstalled Civilization 6 on a bit of a whim over the holiday break. Also started a brand new Stardew Valley farm one night (though I’m viewing it as a temp farm and will likely re-roll once the 1.6 update comes out).

Walks and Exercise

Pretty low activity. I am tracking about one good walk a week.

My work schedule is pretty flexible, so I should be able to start getting some regular exercise in before work, BUT like anything – I need to make it happen.

What’s Next?

Looking ahead to January, my big goal is to get into a flow with my new job. Secondary is a goal to determine my priorities in my new limited side project time. Do I want to continue to StudyHall or focus on something more contained? I’m not sure.

I also need to continue to hand off some small client work to new folks.

I also have to get a handle on my new income, budget, and benefit changes aligned (alongside the cancellation of my previous health insurance).

Hopefully these notes are interesting to you (or future me). If you have any questions or feedback. Let me know.

November 2023 Review

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 12:08:16 -0500

A collection of accomplishments, notes, and observations about November 2023.

Work

The big news is the announcement of my new job.

I applied on August 28th and did four interviews, including a two and half hour coding session (a mix of PR review, ticket grooming, and actual coding exercise). Was given the offer letter on November 13th.

To the people who are juggling multiple job applications at the same time. Yikes. That is a lot of work.

Anyways, with the acceptance of the job offer, I’ve been off-boarding my current clients. The one is pretty much done, though I offered to do a handoff meeting with my replacement in the next week or so. The other client will start looking for a replacement in January as they are trying to resolve some other open company issues. My work there is mostly just making sure the lights stay on, so I do not expect much overhead problems while I ramp up on my new gig.

I start on Monday, December 4th.

Side Projects

StudyHall has been very stagnant. I’m just not finding the energy for regular progress in recent weeks.

Not specifically a side project, but it kind of has that vibe: this month, I attended Philly’s Barcamp event. It was a lot of fun, and seeing so many people I hadn’t connected with in a while felt great. The day flew by. I wish that we had a centralized after-party for more hallway-track conversations, but maybe next year.

Tech Education / Books

Finished Wireframing for Everyone.

Finished Genetic Algorithms in Elixir with the Elixir Book Club.

Finished my second reading of Refactoring UI, though, to be honest, I kind of burned through the end to get it off my currently reading list. It’s one of the better UI books and a speedy read. I started a second reading a few months ago when I was focused on wireframe things for StudyHall, and then it just sat there (virtually, on my iPad).

Still reading Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence,

Started Build a Weather Station with Elixir and Nerves for Elixir Book Club.

Started Myst: Book of Atrus on a whim, looking for something light. It was a book I read almost 20 years ago, and recall finishing it in a single weekend.

Phillies

Well, since looking back at my last journal entry, I have the sad responsibility of reporting that the Phillies did not win the National League Championship series and did not return to the World Series.

Baseball playoffs are about staying hot, and the Phillies just got cold. Losing two in a row at home to close it out still seems unthinkable. How did that happen?!

Video Games

Finished my playthrough of Red Dead 2. Anxious to start Red Dead 1, but I’m playing around with a few other games first.

I got both Mario Wonder and Mario RPG. Both are fun. I only played Mario RPG once (I rented it at Blockbuster back in the day), so it’s a pretty fresh playthrough for me.

Curiously, I have gotten back into MLB: The Show. I took off during set 4 (post all-star game) but have been active during set 5 (finishing most programs, including my first BR program). Set 6 starts December 21st, and that will unlock all the set cards, allowing you to build a team with anyone, which should be fun.

I bought Sea of Stars based on some friend’s recommendations but have yet to play it.

Walks and Exercise

It’s pretty low activity. I am tracking about one good walk a week. Sadly, it’s getting colder, so if I want to return to form, I’ll probably have to start walking indoors at the YMCA like last year.

Following up on the Ring Fit, I did it for about two weeks but found the leg strap did not stay in place, which was frustrating. If I want to find an in-house cardio thing, I might have to look at my old Quest VR or some Apple fitness things.

My journal entries averaged about once a month, so perhaps this new monthly recap format might be a better fit. We’ll see.

Journal -- October 20, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 19:07:56 -0400

Monday, October 20, 2023 – It’s been over a month since I did a casual journal – so here we go.

Work

Work has been good. Still in an underemployed amount of client work phase, but working more hours this month than last, so I’ll take that as good news.

For my main client, I’ve been focusing on API consumption-related features, getting our Microsoft features out into production, and getting started on some Slack logic.

I still hope to land more hours and will start promoting again soon.

Side Projects

Course Dreamers blog has been quiet. There was a post on September 22, Your Student Finished the Course; Now What?, but nowhere near the weekly goals I originally was shooting for.

StudyHall has gotten most of my attention in recent weeks. You can check out the completed items on the project board or raw commits for an overview. I also recorded a YouTube review of October progress.

My recorded work through the Exercism JavaScript track has slowed, but did see a few videos recently. I hope to jump back in soon.

While I fell short in some goals, I feel good about my limited progress.

Tech Education / Books

Still reading Wireframing for Everyone (almost done), Genetic Algorithms in Elixir (half-way done, and keeping up with the book club), and have also recently started Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence. Alongside that book, I also worked through some Honeycomb tutorials.

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

Phillies

The Phillies have been doing great in the postseason. Each game is a significant energy investment but well worth it. Tonight is game 4 of the NLCS.

Video Games

Working through a playthrough of Red Dead 2 (mainly focusing on the story, though I did upgrade most of the camp options). I’m also playing Majora’s Mask on the 3DS (which curiously feels like a fall game for me).

Next up: Red Dead 1 PS4 port, Mario Wonder, Mario RPG remake, and Sea of Stars.

Walks and Exercise

Doing a little better. Walking a bit and also playing with Ring Fit Adventure on Switch. Not sure I’ll keep up on that one. I’ve found the leg strap hard to keep in place and very distracting. Still, as the cold weather continues to mount, I will need some kind of indoor cardio.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and your interest.

Journal -- September 11, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 20:24:24 -0400

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:

Wireframing for Everyone - to help me get into a good drawing mindset as I explore some courseware UI ideas.
Genetic Algorithms in Elixir as part of Elixir Book Club.
Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money - an old audiobook I bought a while ago and thought I’d check it out. It’s ok but pretty introductory so far.

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.

Journal -- August 6, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 15:17:32 -0400

Sunday, August 6, 2023 – A quick recap of recent personal things. Nothing earth-shattering, just a regular journal.

Work

Work things have been a little busier since my last update.

My one retainer client (who could be considered a maintenance/fire alarm type of contract) had some curious push notification behavior to look into. It has yet to result in any actionable code changes, but it had me work some hours and document those findings.

For another client, which is relatively new, I’ve been working about 8-10 hours a week, helping them shape some Google OAuth and API consumption. This might expand to more hours or responsibilities, but I’m just part-time helping them move some concepts forward for now.

Those hours are inadequate for my needs, so I need to put more energy into availability promotion this upcoming week. I will also make an extra effort to attend some Elixir meetups this week to socialize more.

In addition to promoting my Elixir skills, I’ll push a little into Svelte work, selling my interest but not specifically my experience. It would be cool to get some more production time in, even if sacrificing the hourly rate a bit.

Speaking of rates, this past week, I changed my published rate from:

My rate is ~~$125-$200~~ $100-$150 per hour, with discounts available for ~~good alignment or~~ open-source initiatives.

I am not happy about that, but it’s just an outcome of the economic realities I see.

Side Projects

I officially have moved on from Franklin and ElixirClub, spending some time in recent weeks to close down website and mark repos as archived.

I also updated my side project index page, promoting my new active side project interests, which for now is represented by my new in-development blog, Course Dreamers. The site is pretty bare-bones at the moment but is described on the about page as:

Course Dreamers is a new blog where I share my research, observations, and links regarding the work of programmers and technically-minded folks building online courses, some for the first time.

I have taught in various forms across my career, including onsite corporate workshops for iOS development (at Amazon, Google, and TripAdvisor) and as an adjust professor at Drexel University teaching modern web design (for the time, back in 2004).

Teaching and building courses can be an extremely rewarding extension of your programming career – but it’s a challenging skill like any other. Course Dreamer aims to help you on that path to producing loved and successful courses for your students.

I hope to get into a groove posting content soon™ and eventually start kicking tires on some courseware ideas.

Tech Education / Books

I paused working through the MVP Elixir course and instead put some time into the Svelte course on Fireship. Overall, I got some good experience from the course and even posted some other observations on Course Dreamers.

I don’t know what course I’ll be working through next. Here are a few on my radar:

VS Code Magic Tricks Course (Fireship)
Modern JavaScript Full Course (Fireship)
Beginner’s TypeScript

The JavaScript/TypeScript courses would be for improving my foundational Svelte understandings. The VS Code one is more of a preparation for possibly offering my own collection of VS Code tips in some fashion.

After a few slow months of book reading, I’ve started getting some good hours in, including:

Wireframing for Everyone - to help me get into a good drawing mindset as I explore some courseware UI ideas.
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software Originally, I read this in August of 2020 and am re-reading to get into a good open source mindset for the courseware project.
The SaaS Playbook: Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital - I’m a casual member of the MicroConf community, and this is a book by the principal organizer there. It’s not explicitly written for my current scenario (since it assumes product-market fit and helps you grow large), but I feel like I get some valuable insights. Nothing crazy new if you are already listening to those podcasts and conference videos, but overall a nice, lean, focused book so far.

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

Phillies

When they are good, they are good. When they are bad, they are really bad.

Still enjoying the season. I went to one of the Orioles games last week and will be headed to a Nationals game on Tuesday.

Video Games

Still grinding MLB: The Show content regularly. Still struggling in ranked play, with fastballs I can’t catch up to.

I played about 28% of Final Fantasy 16. It has been so-so, and while I expect to keep at it, I’m wondering if some other game will take away my attention.

I put a few game sessions into a new character on Red Dead Online. I had the itch to play cowboy and wasn’t sure if I wanted to kick off a whole new story mode. Eventually, the online grind (along with it being a dead game) pushed me to kick off an actual story mode playthrough last night. Not sure if I’ll keep at it or not. I do love putting on the headphones and getting lost in that world.

Aside: Besides being a dead game that no longer gets support from Rockstar, it is infuriating how the quest reward structure of Red Dead Online works. If you are given, say, 15 minutes to do something, you get less money if you do it quickly. The system incentivizes you to sit there, do nothing, and only finish the quest after 12 minutes for a maximum reward. I can’t believe they did not fix that mistake during development. It’s so dumb.

I’m also keeping an eye out for a possible Read Dead 1 remake/remaster that is being rumored. Would love to play that (I never did).

Walks and Exercise

Still only walking about once a week. The loss of stamina, compared to where I was when I was doing four times a week, is very noticeable.

I enjoyed some walks down the shore at the end of June, but the need to get better back at home is apparent.

That’s it for today. Thanks for your interest.

Journal -- June 12, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:16:24 -0400

Monday, June 12, 2023 – Time for the regular check-in to braindump what I’ve been up to and what I’m thinking about. Who reads this stuff?

Work

I continue to look for contract and/or full-time Elixir work. Hire me!

It’s been a quiet and slow spring, but there are small signs of promise. Took a few more calls and emails in the last 4 weeks than the 4 before that.

Not too much else to share. In general, just feels off since normally I turn away work and have people come to me. It’s been strange to have to flip it and do the outreach myself.

Franklin

As posted, I’ve put Franklin on-hold while I consider if I really want to move away from Hugo. I suspect I will stick with Hugo.

One related idea is to stick with Hugo and then maybe create a LiveView (or maybe Svelte?) UI experience to let me stage PRs for the Hugo-powered blog to help overcome the weight of editing stuff in VS Code. There is a project called Keystatic which is playing around with similar ideas. I dunno if the pain is really that large or worth my time but we’ll see.

Tech Education

I finished working through the LiveView course and started the Elixir MVP course. Also started tinkering and reading up on both Ash and Svelte. I even joined Fireship.io to check out some of their content.

ElixirBookClub continues to work through Software Design X-Rays: Fix Technical Debt with Behavioral Code Analysis. We finished Chapter 5 on Sunday.

Next Side Project?

I continue to fiddle with ideas and audiences. Part of this has me revisiting the 30x500 course I worked through before. The audience I am considering is “digital course builders”. I feel like I align with them, have been a member in the past, and would be interested in building some sharp tools to help them out. It’s all research at this phase. I’m planning to start blogging to that audience soon and will share when it’s public. (That content will likely not be posted here, but I dunno – maybe it should be?)

Walks and Exercise

Slacking. Been walking about once a week. Weather is great now, which is no longer an excuse. Next week I’ll be down the shore and planning to walk in the mornings there. Beach and boardwalk should make for a nice new environment.

EMPEX

I did not attend EMPEX as I was planning. I saw the NY smoke issues, and even from what I was experiencing in Philly, it was bad. I have some historic asthma issues and had to make a call mid-day Wednesday, and in that moment, I did not want to put myself in a situation where I’d be traveling in the smoke.

It’s a shame because by Friday (the day of the conference) it had cleared up a lot. Oh wells.

Vacation

Next week I’ll be headed to the Jersey shore with my sister for a week. Should be fun. Looking forward to some quality beach and pool time.

ElixirClub

No big movement on this front, though I did have an issue with fraud credit cards which was fun. I’ll probably make some bigger decisions about this and PhillyElixir when I get back.

Phillies

The up-and-down emotional ride of 2023 continues. Still watching a lot of games day to day, sometimes just listening to the radio broadcast while grinding content in MLB: The Show.

Need to figure out my next game at the park. I have tickets for the Braves series, but I’ll be down the shore.

Video Games

In addition to playing MLB: The Show I’m also finishing up Breath of the Wild. I have like 4 more shrines to get to 120, and then I think I’ll go to the end-game boss and maybe try some of the DLC. Not sure what will be after that.

Really psyched for Cities Skylines 2, FF16, FF7: Rebirth, which have all seen trailers recently.

Journal -- April 2, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 11:07:25 -0400

Sunday, April 2, 2023 – The morning coffee has been consumed, and it’s time for some Sunday journaling.

Work

I am still looking for a new contract gig. I have some very light retainer work on my plate and have also started some paid-for mentoring sessions (though those are highly discounted, so it’s more of generosity than an actual income stream).

I should start planning a path of attack to find a new consulting client. This has always been a sore point for me. I’m not particularly good at knocking on doors to look for work. Most of the work I’ve found in my career has been based on personal relationships from previous work and community events (conferences/meetups). Over the last few years, as I’ve found my footing in the Elixir community, I have yet to be out there as much as I was for Apple platform development. My local Elixir meetup never grew like my Apple one, and for whatever reason, I haven’t put myself out on the conference circuit. All that and a slow economy have just made this more difficult than it used to be.

There is also a nagging feeling that I should be investing time into product development efforts, which I’ve really enjoyed in the past and tell myself I want to get back into – but I have no idea what I want to build.

On that topic, it would be nice to finish and deploy Franklin before I start on anything new.

Franklin

Made some notable progress on image uploads and S3 storage. Took a while but it is working in the editor as I wanted. To capture my thoughts, I recorded a PR demo.

Have since started working on a more significant EPIC ticket to work toward a content importer. Of the two options, I am going a more-code route which will take a little longer, but adding even a basic API will help me down the road, so I’m ok making the coding investment.

Overall, the project seems to drag on and on. I look forward to publishing it so I can move on to new things.

Walks and Exercise

I’m slacking. Walks have been down to one a week. It’s still frigid in the morning, so when I walk, it’s still at the local YMCA indoor track. When the weather improves, I’ll get better about more regular neighborhood walks, but I may be lying to myself.

It is not helpful that I’m pretty down on my audiobooks and podcasts lately. Nothing is grabbing me.

ElixirClub

The club has been really quiet. A few updates were posted (mostly me), and no recent talks. Not sure what I want to do here.

Phillies

Baseball is back, and while the first two regular season games have been embarrassing losses, I’m still enjoying it all. I have been using Twitter during games to trade memes with other fans (the sports people never migrated off Twitter). Not in love with using the bird site, but it’s the only place for this kind of near real-time Phillies banter.

Also, very much into MLB: The Show. Grinding the offline content (The Negro Leagues spotlight is excellent) and playing some competitive games against other humans, though my win percentage is a frustrating 40%.

Reaction time in MLB: The Show is essential, and my lack of twitchy responses and non-ideal TV setup has been challenging. The hope is that much of my failure is due to swinging at stuff outside the zone, so if I can improve that (which does not require massive reaction speed), I should at least get more competitive. That is the hope, anyway.

Video Games

In addition to MLB: The Show, I just picked up Metroid Prime Remastered in physical form. Have not opened it yet, but it looks like a fun release.

TV / Movies

Not a lot going on TV-wise. I have been watching a lot of YouTube content about baseball. Expect I’ll come back for Star Trek Voyager lunches soon™.

The House

I had the maintenance address a few small things and was so happy with the fast turnaround. After my last place, it is such a striking difference in professionalism. Love it.

That’s it for now. Yeah, the work stuff is unfocused, but I’m in good spirits overall. I will check in again soon.

Journal -- March 12, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 19:17:56 -0400

Sunday, March 12, 2023 – Been a few weeks since the last journal. Let’s catch up on things.

Work

No new work details to share. I am still looking for my next gig. I have done a few calls with prospective clients and hope something might turn up soon.

I did sign a small monthly retainer for a previous client. This is a first for me, and I’m curious how it will work out. It mostly covers emergency maintenance though it might expand to other things in the future.

Franklin

I’ve been making good progress on my side project Franklin. If you look at Sprint 5, you’ll see I’ve been cranking out tickets at a much higher velocity of late. Feels good. Feels like I’m pretty close to a test deployment.

Walks

Is it spring yet? Over the winter, I’ve been pretty lax with my morning walks. I still get out 1-2 times a week but have been using the indoor walking path of the local YMCA. It serves its purpose, but I was hoping the morning temperatures would be warm enough to do my local outdoor walking path without bundling up. It seems like this will take a few more weeks.

On the one plus side, I got some new sneakers, and wow, they are much nicer on my feet than my last pair. This a good reminder not to settle on crap shoes when your feet complain.

ElixirClub

I put some new energy into ElixirClub this past week by planning, delivering, and publishing an education event on Creating Your First Elixir/Phoenix CI Check with GitHub Actions. It went okay, though I would have welcomed some more attendees. Perhaps it will find an audience on YouTube.

Otherwise, I’m giving some of the few active members personal 1:1 time to help them progress on their side projects.

Phillies

Very much enjoying watching the occasional spring training games and listening to a few podcasts sharing the same pre-season excitement. I bought some tickets for a few April/May games but have yet to be able to acquire home opener tickets.

Video Games

Related to baseball season, I’m counting the days until I can play MLB: The Show 2023. Finally put in my preorder. It will be playable on March 24th.

Until then, I’m working on my end-game Stardew Valley achievements. I might even record a farm tour when I finish. I have not done anything particularly noteworthy with my farm, but should I ever come back to Stardew after this run, I’m sure I’ll start a fresh new farm, and it would be neat to capture what I built over the last 100+ hours.

I’ve also played 2 hours of the Octopath Traveler 2 demo, though I’m still determining if I’ll buy it. In that 2 hours, the story felt a little slow. After watching a review of the first game, I doubt the sequel will be much better. The gameplay seemed neat, but unfortunately, I only had one character during the demo, so the fights felt very monotonous.

TV / Movies

I finished my re-watch of Quantum Leap. After watching the first two seasons sequentially, I picked a few notable episodes, many during season 5, to finish up. Some episodes held up to my memories (I love the evil leaper ones), while others, like Lee Harvey Oswald episodes, less so.

Still working through Voyager; currently, in the middle of season 2. I also started filling the gaps with random movies, including JFK, The Shawshank Redemption, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost in Translation, and The Terminal. I go in phases where I’ll play movies in the background while I work, though only movies I’ve previously watched as I’m mostly looking for background noise rather than something to own my attention.

That’s it for now. Have a nice week!

Journal -- February 13, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 20:53:09 -0500

Monday, February 13, 2023 – The only consistent thing in this world is change.

Work

Last time I posted a journal entry with news that I had started a new contract gig, but I’m disappointed to share that it did not work out. There was some interesting tech within the project that I was (still am) interested in getting more production time with (GraphQL/Relay), but there was a lot of misalignment for how I prefer to work. It resulted in some stressful days and missed expectations on both sides. After some deep consideration, I decided to give my notice in favor of looking for something else.

I’ll post more details on what kind of Elixir gig I will be looking for, but I wanted to share this first since it is a notable adjustment from my last journal post.

ElixirClub

ElixirClub has been quieter that I would prefer over the last two weeks. With my newly found free time, I plan to invest in some content creation and try to reach out to the current members to see what else I can do to help them move their projects forward. Maybe even some 1:1 pairing time.

Hobbies

Out of the blue I played Stardew Valley on Thursday night. It was a lot of fun. Played my 3+ year farm doing end-game things. I suspect I’ll play some more in the coming weeks.

For TV, I finished my long-running watch of Deep Space Nine, which was great. Soon after I started up season one of Voyager (which is mostly new to me as well). Also started cherry-picking some more notable episodes out of Quantum Leap instead of watching it fully through. Anxious to get to evil leaper and the JFK episodes.

I watched the Super Bowl last night and am bummed for the Eagles and my city. I’m not a huge football fan, but the city is for sure, so a big bummer.

On the flip side, baseball is just around the corner, and I can’t wait. Pitchers and catchers have their first workout this Thursday, and some spring training games start February 25th.

Related, I’m pumped for MLB: The Show 2023. It was greate to see The Negro Leagues feature too – that was something I explicitly asked for last year.

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

Journal -- January 22, 2023

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 22 Jan 2023 12:49:50 -0500

Sunday, January 22, 2023 – First journal of the new year. Sorry, it took so long—lots to cover.

Work

Things are good. I recently picked up a new contract gig, helping to mature the GraphQL API for [REDACTED].

… it feels like a really good fit. I’m anxious to get more production time with GraphQL and Absinthe. This project also uses the Relay pattern, so I’m working on getting more comfortable with that too.

I still have my previous gig going, though its hours will be lessening over the next few months to a more production observation type of role. This project is also the source of my React Native frustrations, and while I’ve made some progress on that front, I’ve started to push harder for the client to bring on someone else with more experience to take ownership of that aspect of the platform.

Given that, I’ve removed the consulting availability banner from the website. I’m fully booked now. 🎉

ElixirClub

ElixirClub officially launched in early January, and while I have aspirations of more members, I’m pretty happy with our initial circle. There are 6 of us in total. Rowland and I regularly meet for coworking sessions, and the rest keep up via the online forum, posting weekly updates.

I need to spend some energy reaching out to the other members and try to spark more activity outside the updates, as well as encourage more people to attend coworking (adjusting hours or adding weekend sessions if that might help). Overall, very excited to get this new group off the ground and anxious to continue to shape and evolve it.

Franklin

Via ElixirClub coworking sessions, I’ve made some small progress on Franklin. I’ve even started to get a bit of a mental nudge to push forward towards an actual release since there are aspects of my current blog deployment that are starting to show some concern.

I mainly speak of the recent CircleCI security breach and the fact that resolving the needed secret rotations was more complex than I would have liked.

DockYard Academy

When I was under-employed over the fall, I used my free time as a teacher assistant for the 12-week Elixir boot camp known as DockYard Academy. Looking ahead through February and March, I’m much less likely to be able to pop in as much. With that change, it was a coincidence that this past Friday represented the completion of their first beta cohort, with the students presenting all their projects. I got to see all the students show what they have learned through the completion of each’s capstone project. It was amazing to see how far they had all come.

I’ll still be on their Discord server and may jump in with an answer or two in chat, but I will likely be on my client project during their standard class times in the future.

There historically has been a lot of overlap in the class with the ElixirNewbie community, which has its own Discord server and Saturday hackathons. I see myself being able to pop in there for mentoring more often.

Hobbies

I’ve been playing Breath of the Wild a bit lately. This is my third time attempting a playthrough, and this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten. I’ve beaten two divine beasts, have the master sword, and continue working around the map. The exploration is fun, though I’ve been watching a Let’s Play alongside my playthrough to help me more quickly understand all the game mechanics. Ingame, they require you to discover a lot of things on your own, and this was one of the historical reasons I gave up because I didn’t know what was going on.

For TV, I’m continuing my watch of Deep Space Nine. Only have a few episodes left and have greatly enjoyed it. I have not kept up with my watching of Quantum Leap (I stopped mid-season two), but might return to it once DS9 is done. I’m also considering working out a list of BIG episodes and just watching those. In particular, I remember enjoying the JFK episodes and the evil leaper plot thread.

The Philadelphia Eagles are doing incredibly well and won their playoff game last night. Next week will be the NFC championship game, and I’ll watch it. I’m WAY more of a baseball fan than football, but it’s hard to avoid the fandom excitement around town during the playoffs.

Exercise

My morning walks have been much less frequent over the past month. Part of that is just the winter. When I have done my walks, I’ve been doing them on the indoor track at the YMCA. It is comfier, though the extra drive time adds up. Ideally, I’ll keep my eye out for the temperature to nudge up and start bundling up and walking closer to my house to save some time and let me finish the morning walks a bit earlier in the morning hours and, thus, better align with the start of my client workday.

Overall, things are busy but good. Now that the overwhelming onboarding weeks are complete and my new schedule is settling down, I can blog a bit more. It is always the hope anyway.

Boston 2022 Trip

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 14:22:17 -0500

After hosting a Christmas Eve party and visiting my Aunt’s house for Christmas Day, my sister and I went to Boston for a few days.

We took the train and stayed three nights. Highlights include a tour of Fenway Park, a visit to the Tea Party Museum, a Christmas light trolly tour, a beer stop at Cheers, a visit to the Boston aquarium, a tour of the Sam Adams R&D brewery, and multiple Italian dinners in Boston’s Northend. It was a full couple of days, but it never felt too rushed.

Our hotel was near the park, Boston Common. The small pond was frozen over, and many people were walking on ice.

Fenway Park will be hosting the Winter Classic hockey game later this week, so you’ll see them getting set up for that. Of the typically non-public areas we saw, the press box was particularly cool.

At the Tea Party Museum, you get a mix of live performances, videos, and interactive displays. They even let you throw tea into the river (though you have to pull it back when you are done with your treason).

Our light show trolly tour came back to the commons at night with a bunch of trees lit up.

The Boston Aquarium has a penguin display and some ice sculptures outside.

We went out from downtown to do a Sam Adams brewery tour. This specific brewery is no longer a production brewery but more of an R&D office. They have lots of non-commercial beers on tap to try out.

In recent history, I’ve been leaning on little magnets and trinkets as keepsakes. Here are some from my Boston 2022 haul.

Journal -- December 17, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 20:27:48 -0500

Saturday, December 17, 2022 – This weekend kicked off with some dedicated time to my office. On Friday, I caught up on a stack of mail/bills/paperwork, and then today got over the hump of cleaning up the office itself. It’s the first time since moving in during October that the office has been fully cleaned and set up. No boxes or random crap in the corner. It’s all tidy and feels great.

On Monday I am scheduled to take delivery of a new bookcase for the office. In the new year I’m also planning to look into some alternative lighting, better cable management, more wall art, and maybe a motorized standing desk.

With luck, the new office vibes will lead to some positive production toward my projects.

As for those, things are good – though I am trying to get a bit more billable work.

My current part-time client has been going fine on the Elixir/Phoenix side, where we continue to update libraries and dependencies, but the React Native stuff has been nothing but headaches. I have a paid consultant peer coming on board for a few hours to help me get over the hump and plan out more extensive updates.

ElixirClub early feedback is good. About ten people signed up for the site/email notifications. Will work over the next few days to schedule those initial events, work out some project update templates, and finish setting up the paywall. On track of an early January launch.

My volunteering with Dockyard Academy continues. I’ve been able to attend teaching sessions about twice a week to help answer student questions and provide some basic curriculum feedback.

Franklin progress is slow, but I might be able to make my Christmas deadline (documented in the README) if I focus better during the week.

Elixir Book Club is going on too. Tomorrow I will lead a discussion through chapter 4 of Testing Elixir.

Off projects, I’m enjoying working through season 6 of DS9, season 2 of Quantum Leap and have started a new playthrough of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’ve never gotten more than 10 hours into that one but trying to take it in with a different perspective this time.

Journal -- November 20, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 19:20:08 -0500

Sunday, November 20, 2022 – It’s another Sunday night journal entry. Let’s go!

Client work is going well, though my hours are capped at 8 hours per week (the other developer is 16 per week). This results in things moving slower than I’d like, but it is what it is—doing a mix of dependency updates, bug fixes, and a few minor features. I hit a wall trying to compile a linux/amd64 OTP 25 Docker image on my M1 Mac (I keep hitting internal emulation errors, likely from the JIT part of modern OTP) and may blog/rant about that soon™.

Personal project Franklin is seeing some small progress. I’ve been working on my second resource / CQRS context, Articles, as I try to get the site in a basic working order. See the active draft PR if you dare. Started making some naming and format changes from what I did in my first context, Posts. Post itself will be later refactored. I’ve decided to have Article be my long Markdown-flavored writing content and then a separate entity, SocialPost for my smaller, plain-text, cross-posted social timeline content.

It’s getting cold in Philadelphia, so I started going to the YMCA for some indoor cardio in place of my outside morning walks. It’s about a ten-minute drive away, adding some time, but it is much more enjoyable. I also enjoyed a swim in the lap pool one day.

For fun, I’ve been playing through the Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster on my Steam Deck. I’m not sure if I would place the remaster over some ROM hack alternatives, but I will mention the new soundtrack. It is very well done.

My eyes have been bothering me a bit over the last few weeks, and I broke down and got some reading glasses (which I’ve probably needed for a while). They do seem to help with books and iPad reading, but the distance/focal point is not right for the computer. I have an appointment next week with the optometrist and may get a prescription for my computer use.

Finally, I decided to turn off my social cross-posting to Twitter. I generally post content first to Micro.blog, and it cross-posts to Twitter and Mastodon on my behalf. Not happy with the direction of Twitter, and while I’m sure to lose connections with some people, it felt like something I had to do.

DNA is Memory

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 19:45:21 -0500

I’ve currently reading/listening to We Are Legion (We Are Bob) on Audible.

I’m still on the fence if I’d recommend it or not but really enjoyed this quote:

At one time, we thought that the way life came together was almost completely random, only needing an energy gradient to get going. But as we’ve moved into the information age, we’ve come to realize that life is more about information than energy.

Fire has most of the characteristics of life. It eats, it grows, it reproduces. But fire retains no information. It doesn’t learn; it doesn’t adapt. The five millionth fire started by lightning will behave just like the first. But the five hundredth bacterial division will not be like the first one, especially if there is environmental pressure. That’s DNA. And RNA. That’s life.

Pretty cool to think of DNA as memory.

2022 Phillies Recap and Thank You!

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 19:38:45 -0500

This weekend the Phillies lost the World Series to the Houston Astros. Of course, this is a disappointing loss, but overall I look back on the 2022 season with immense pride for my team and offer particular thanks for giving me so much enjoyment during a time of personal need.

Zorn at Citizens Bank Park wearing a Phillies cap.

With the loss of my mother in early February, I was greatly looking to the upcoming baseball season as a chance for escape. I’ve always been a baseball fan (my high school years being a notable peak), but this year’s distraction opportunity would be very welcome.

When the lockout prevented the start of spring training, I was discouraged. Eventually, that worked out, and the season kicked off a few games late. I invested much of myself into Phillies, even during those frustrating early months. I watched the games and listened to the local podcasts.

As the season continued, they eventually fired Joe Girardi, promoted Rob Thomson, and started climbing back into the wildcard race. Things were looking up.

I took baseball-themed vacations. I played baseball games on my Playstation 4. It was truely a summer of baseball.

When September hit, the Phillies were looking good for a wildcard spot, but we all started freaking out as signs of repeated September collapses were imminent. Somehow, along with some help from the similarly collapsing Milwaukee Brewers, the Phillies ended the season and were back in the playoffs after an 11-year drought.

While the fans were thirsty for some playoff wins, I suspect most, including myself, were pretty satisfied that they got in at all. Then the playoffs commenced, and game by game, the Phillies continued to find a way to win – all the way to the world series.

This October was so much fun, and I’m so delighted to have been able to enjoy it.

Thank you to the fans, the podcasters, the Twitter accounts full of memes/screencaps, and the entire Phillies organization for providing an unforgettable year.

Journal -- October 30, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 20:15:52 -0400

Sunday, October 30, 2022 – It is Sunday night, and after a chill day, I wanted to catch up on some journal entries.

First off, my new client gig is working out well. The last two weeks were mostly about getting over the onboarding hump, asking many questions, and working through some bug issues to familiarize myself with the code base. Still have a lot to learn, but we are merging PRs, which is a good sign.

I’ll need to start deploying those changes this upcoming week and plan some version upgrades for Elixir, OTP, Phoenix, and more. I’m also sinking my teeth into a more significant project proposal draft. The challenge is hours. This part-time tech lead job is capped at 8 hours per week, which is very tight. I need to be very careful about which tech hole I want to jump into, knowing I have enough time to climb back out. I was allotted some extra hours during the onboarding phase, but that is over.

I’ll probably be shaking trees looking for something else to supplement this, so take this as an early ask: “anyone you know looking for Elixir help?”

Other recent victories include finishing the last of my old apartment cleanup and packing. I got that done last week, handed in my keys, and did a walk-through inspection with my previous landlord. Hopefully, I’ll get back the full security deposit as there were no complaints from her, but these people have been so shady with everything; who knows?

My entertainment time budget continues to be primarily filled with Phillies games, and I’d have it no other way. I was finally able to get a Steam Deck and have been playing a bit of Tunic but not enough to have any significant opinion yet (about the handheld or the game).

I posted this on my social feed but will share again:

📚❤️ I finished Project Hail Mary (via audiobook) and it was really good.

The sci-fi was fun and believable. The protagonist is someone you enjoy rooting for. I particularly enjoyed the voice actor’s performance.

Project Hail Mary on Audible

If you are looking for a fun sci-fi book, check it out!

Also shared on my social feed was news about a new cycle of the Elixir Book Club. If I can I’d like to take the meetings as a prompt to blog some thoughts on testing in general but we’ll see.

That’s it for now. Going to jump on my Steam Deck for about an hour then off to bed.

Have a nice week.

Journal -- October 18, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 21:00:12 -0400

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 – It’s been three weeks since I posted a journal entry, and I have so much to share.

First off, the ever-distracting move is complete. I’m in my new place, and while I still have a bit to do to say I am unpacked and settled, I’m enjoying the new house—lots of space, with a dedicated office and the loft has plenty of storage to keep my various closets organized and not over-packed. There have been a few repair needs, and the new landlord has been great at promptly addressing things. Things are good.

I have a couple of todo items to finish in my old place before I hand back the keys. I’ll likely do some of that next week.

Next up is a new client contract. I landed a part-time gig, inheriting an Elixir/Phoenix/ReactNative project from a previous coworker. The initial period will have me serve as a tech lead, helping to shape and review the work of another part-time individual contributor. We have some general maintenance to do, and then in a separate flow, I’ll be working with the main stakeholders to plan out a more significant project proposal. It’s a good fit for me, a small startup where I’ll have an excellent opportunity to craft the work environment and processes I value.

Most of the new work is in Elixir/Phoenix space, but this project will kick me to sharpen my experience with ReactNative, at least good enough to edit/review our existing project. Not something I’m super enthusiastic about, but other techs, including CircleCI, Docker, and observation improvements, should balance out my excitement levels.

Last night I hosted the monthly PhillyElixir meeting after missing last month. I was able to deliver a work-in-progress version of my Elixir Documentation talk. It went well, and I got some great feedback. I need to figure out how I want to move forward. Ideally, I could propose the talk for a future conference and then work on version 2.

Finally, and most importantly, has been my focus and enjoyment of the Phillies in the playoffs. Since my last journal, they beat the Cardinals in the wild card series and the Braves in the division series. Tonight is game one of the National League Championship Series. It is so much fun watching these games and enjoying the city’s reactions day by day. Go Phillies!

Journal -- September 28, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 18:24:40 -0400

Wednesday, September 28, 2022 – Woke up around 8am and after a some breakfast headed out to run errands.

At Target I picked up a new shower curtain and bathroom mats for the new apartment. Going to try to prepare so that some minimal living conditions are all in place before the apartment move happens on Tuesday. I don’t want to be in a state where I have to hunt for things just to take a nice shower that first night.

I also picked up a few new clear bins. I’ll use then for my desk and monitors when it comes time to break those down, but I’d like to keep them functional as long as possible.

On the way home I stopped by the bank to get some cash for the movers. I got extra to cover any unexpected increases and to make sure I can tip them well. That is such back breaking work, it is the least I can do.

Back home I packed up a fair amount of the kitchen and assembled some new boxes I ordered from Amazon overnight. Should be good now with plenty of extra bubble wrap to encase the larger TV.

I’ve been skipping my walks so far this week after having my upper leg bother me Sunday into Monday. Its doing much better now but will probably give it another day or so of rest before trying any longer hike.

Overall this week I’ve been prioritizing time sensitive packing but finally feel caught up and going to try to focus on some work stuff over the next few days.

On Saturday I get the new apartment keys and will move over a few fragile items (like wine glasses some computer monitors I’d prefer to handle myself.

Journal -- September 18, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 11:10:58 -0400

Sunday, September 18, 2022 – It has been too long since a general journal update so let’s get into it.

The big item since my last journal was the ElixirConf trip, and I did a short recap of that already.

In the two weeks since ElixirConf, I’ve had some extreme swings in mood and focus. Some days I’ve been reasonably productive, and some days totally out of it. This past week I’ve tried to get some extra sleep, which seemed to help. I think the most significant factor is the lack of day-to-day responsibilities and client work. Usually, those bad down days will happen, but if I have responsibilities, like meetings, check-ins, or people expecting some work from me, I typically get over it. Without an active client gig, those flat emotions can sometimes get the better of me.

I did spend a bit of time on Monday shooting out emails to help drum up contract work, though no takers yet.

One way I am trying to fill the void is to help volunteer a bit with the DockYard Academy. They are working on their Elixir curriculum through some beta classes, and I’ve found a few ways to help (some merged PRs)

I’ve also kept up with my Elixir Exercism video series, usually publishing a video once a day. I plan to finish the “learning exercises” and probably change focus to other projects.

My Franklin blog project has seen some work done. I merged a PR that added the ability to update a post, and I have a local in-development branch that gets the LiveView UI working in a basic enough fashion. I’ll add some tests to that before making a new PR.

In apartment moving news, I’ve finally started packing some boxes. The move will be on October 4th, and I’m doing my best to box and label everything with care. Next weekend I’ll kick this into high gear and start living out of a suitcase, using paper plates, and so on as I box all the day-to-day life stuff.

Looking ahead to next week, I’d say my priorities are:

Packing more stuff for the move.
Get unwanted furniture picked up.
Continue posting Exercism videos.
Continue some part-time help with DockYard Academy.
Start investigating short-term income streams while I wait for a consulting gig to land.
Be more active in soliciting a consulting gig.
Enjoy the end of the baseball season. It’ll be gone before I know it.
Go to the Phillies game on Friday.

Journal -- August 23, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 12:49:53 -0400

Tuesday, August 23, 2022 – As the great Barbra Streisand sings: “People; People who need people; Are the luckiest people in the world.” (1)

After a few needed days of rest from my vacation (love how that logic works) I had an enjoyable extended weekend catching up with folks. Saw a friend for lunch on Friday, attended the in-person Philly CocoaHead Side Project Saturday on (you guessed it) Saturday, and then a family kid’s birthday party on Sunday. Otherwise been slowly ordering moving boxes and doing some todos related to my upcoming apartment move. I won’t start packing for another few weeks, but getting everything organized and also having some friends stop by and take a few furniture pieces I won’t be taking with me.

My Elixir Exercism video series continues on a slow but steady pace. Feeling pretty good about that and even started to promote it in a few places.

Also starting to bang the drum on my consulting availability a little louder. I am even considering getting name badges with “Hire me” on them for ElixirConf.

Speaking of, ElixirConf is next week, and I’m looking forward to it. I fly out on Monday, do a training day, and then the official conference. I’ll share more later, but if you happen to read this and will be there, please do say hi.

That’s it for now—time for lunch and some office cleanup.

(1) This is a big inside joke for me. Whenever I’d be with my mother, and we’d observe or otherwise get frustrated with people driving recklessly or doing other shameful things out in public, I would start singing this song, expressing my innate default response to be a recluse.

Journal -- August 12, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 18:57:30 -0400

Friday, August 12, 2022 – The past week started with some enjoyable and relaxing beach days down the shore.

My sister, who has been enjoying some extended time staying at her friend’s house, welcomed me down for a visit. I arrived Sunday morning and stayed through Wednesday afternoon. Most of our time was spent at the beach with a few food excursions, including some well-enjoyed breakfast outings.

My sister and her friend like to go to the beach later and stay late. We had some great weather, and they took some fantastic photos.

We had a very bright moon, and the colors that came out at the end of the day were notably pretty.

To be clear, this is the moon, not the sun. The day is over–we are headed home.

When I returned to the city Wednesday night, I caught up on random emails and hosted the Philly Elixir meetup.

Thursday saw me finish setting up my new laptop. I got Elixir and related tooling installed and configured. It took a little extra tweaking to account for M1-friendly BEAM versions, but nothing too crazy.

I was able to mostly recreate my VS Code setup via the text-based user settings, keybindings, and snippet files. I reinstalled my extensions one by one, but I suspect I could have done a better job at exporting the list.

By today, Friday, I got back into my Exercism Elixir track progress. I solved, recorded, and published the Log Level exercise. I also solved and recorded the Guessing Game exercise, which I’ll post tomorrow.

Journal -- August 5, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 17:42:14 -0400

Friday, August 5, 2022 – Hello world, from my new laptop. I ordered this two months ago after an uncomfortable feeling that I was reliant on Mac hardware for my consulting income but the higher end model laptops of which I would want were becoming harder to order on short notice. Sure enough it took two months to get here but I am glad it has arrived.

I’m still getting it setup and might post some longer notes in the future. Early on I’m enjoying the hardware but rolling my eyes at the OS software. I was sticking to the older macOS 10.15 for a while since I did not have much interest in the UI changes of macOS 11 and then 12. I knew I’d have to update eventually but the new laptop kind of forces my hand.

The other big news of the week was my commitment to do the Elixir Exercism cohort. It technically starts on Monday, August 8th) but I’ve been busy working through some of the early exercises, recording myself on video as I go. My hope is that the routine spurs me to some more educational stuff in the future.

Otherwise it has been a quite week. Did some more work towards my apartment move, locking down my new place, notifying my current landlord, hiring movers, etc. Going to be moving first week of October. It is a big chore but I’m hoping the new place will be less stressful.

I had plans to go to the shore today (Friday) but my aunt whose house I would have been staying at got sick. Instead I’ll be going down on Sunday and staying a few days at the friend of my sister (whom is already down there). Should be fun, mostly just the beach time and book reading.

I took a step back from MLB: The Show this week after a few frustrating games where I just could not hit the ball. Took up Chrono Trigger on my DS as a substitue. I may take it down the shore with me.

Journal -- July 30, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 11:26:37 -0400

Saturday, July 30, 2022 – It has been a calm week, and I am happy to have it.

On Wednesday met up with my Aunt for dinner at one of our local pub/pizza place. Then on Thursday my sister and I headed up to PARX Casino for a nicer dinner and a few quick sessions of misplaced hopes with the slot machines. I was particularly bummed I did not get one BIG spin on the Wheel of Fortune game. It is all I was looking for. At least the steak dinner was good, very good actually.

On Friday, I headed into town for a day at IndyHall. I have not been down as much during my vacation time, and it was good to catch up with some folks. While at the hall, I made some noteworthy progress on my blog project. Feeling pretty confident I’ll have something to demo at the next Philly Elixir meetup.

As much as I enjoy catching up with people at IndyHall, I can’t say I look forward to city visits much anymore. It feels sad to see the continued growth of homelessness and the continued neglect of the streets, with trash piled up all over. I don’t feel as safe as I used to. Even with my intentionally limited attention, I am well aware of gun violence in the city.

Plans for today and the rest of the weekend are light and include some more packing of mom’s things and other apartment cleanup efforts. I skipped my morning walk today due to some soreness in my feet but plan a longer walk and maybe some swim time tomorrow.

Journal -- July 26, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 13:38:46 -0400

Tuesday, July 26, 2022 – Attended the Phillies game last night. They came back to defeat the Braves with a 3-run home run by Bryson Stott in the bottom of the eighth inning! It was glorious.

Before the game, I started working on some notes for my fall consulting search. As a consultant, it is always a bit challenging as I need to demo my Elixir skills, but the client code is obviously not available to show. I think I have some good notes as well as some projects and blog posts from my ElixirFocus site.

I’m doing some coding work today, trying to finish my first pass at my Commanded CQRS/Event Source blog project. In short, it’s a basic first pass at commands, events, and other systems to help me figure out the patterns I want to use. Today I’m specifically trying to get my head around validation and how I want to do that, knowing I’ll want Ecto.Changeset structs available for the web layer.

Journal -- July 24, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 12:51:34 -0400

Sunday, July 24, 2022 – I’m back from my mid-week Baseball Hall of Fame trip. A recap with photos has been posted if you are curious how it went. Other updates below.

On Friday, I checked out another apartment that I think might work for me. It is a two-floor / two-bedroom rental in a townhome-style layout. I like how it is in a quiet area with a walking trail and park nearby. It is a 30-minute drive from my current place, the edge of the radius I am targeting, as I don’t want to be too far from my sister and other family. Need to talk with the leasing agent some more, but I have good hopes.

As for my current place, they continue to be no-show, no-work at removing the remaining moldy drywall and addressing other issues. It is embarrassing.

Yesterday, Saturday, I enjoyed a morning swim at the YMCA and then attended the Philly CocoaHeads Side Project Saturday. It was our first in-person meetup in two years. There were 5 of us, and we took over a little loft area at a bar in Jenkintown. Worked on that Cooperstown recap and enjoyed some friendly conversations.

Today, Sunday, I set my alarm for 6:30am and, after breakfast, was out the door for my morning walk by 7:15am. Another scorcher today, so I wanted to do my walk as early as possible. While I was walking, it was around 85°, but the high is predicted to hit 100° later today. I adjusted my walking path to take advantage of as much shade as possible. Might have to avoid the sun and stay indoors tomorrow. Perhaps another YMCA trip or do my VR workout.

No other notable plans for the day outside of some laundry. I have the Phillies on the radio and may work on the event-sourced blog project a bit. I also have some apartment-related paperwork to review.

One feeling that is gnawing at me as the new week approaches is that vacation time is over, and I need to be more work-productive with my time in the coming days. I’ve loosely started talking with people about possible Elixir projects but not sure what I want to do just yet. I need to get heads-down and do something to find the momentum.

Baseball Hall of Fame Trip Recap

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 12:05:18 -0400

I just returned from my trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, and I thought I’d share some notes and photos.

I knew I would be off work in June and July, and while some shore trips are sprinkled across my summer calendar, I wanted to fill in the weeks with some trips and get out of the apartment. I’ve been saturating myself in baseball this summer, so Cooperstown seemed a good fit. From Philadelphia to Cooperstown by car is about five hours, give or take. The drive was uneventful and relaxed, with lots of pretty forest-filled mountain views. I also got lucky with some audiobooks that filled the air nicely.

While my sister offered to come with me, I took the trip by myself. I encouraged her to stay with her friends during her extended shore house vacation. She is not into baseball and while I think she enjoys the occasional in-person game with me, that drive to and back, plus the entire day in town, seemed like a bit much.

I drove up Tuesday afternoon and checked into my room at The Railroad Inn. Great little place. It was one of the more pricey options but very well done and a short walk into town and the hall of fame.

After unpacking, I put on my walking sneakers and explored the town. Saw Doubleday Field, the nearby lakefront, and lots of other nooks. It was a hot day but not overbearing. Benches under tree shade were very welcome when found for short breaks.

After my walk, I cleaned up and headed to Upstate Bar and Grill for dinner and to watch the All Star game. Had some good hot wings and french fries. The fries came with a sriracha aioli, which I would never have asked for but surprisingly enjoyed. Had a few extra Cooperstown Lagers and then headed home. I fell asleep watching the last innings of the All Star game from bed with plans to wake early for the hall of fame in the morning.

Woke up around 7am on Wednesday. Strolled into town around 8:15am and got a breakfast sandwich and coffee at the local Stagecoach Coffee. Was at the Hall of Fame by 9am and walked through the gates just as they opened. There were 20 other early birds like me.

The Hall of Fame is spread across three floors. You start with exhibits on the second floor, move up to more exhibits on the third, and then back down to the ground floor for the actual inductee placks. I started at 9am, watched the 15-minute “Generations” movie, and then took my time working through the exhibits.

I took a few photos, mostly of Phillies stuff that caught my eye or other players I am fond of. My goal with photos of museums like this is not high quality per se but to capture a few visuals to help me recall the trip and the feeling of the place. The goal here is NOT to fully document the place; how can one even try.

The Hall of Fame was very enjoyable. Visiting it alongside my rewatching of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary (which I’ve been working through over the past few weeks) put me in an excellent mindset to appreciate everything I was looking at. Lots of cool memorabilia and some great pull quotes/stories shared. I like those more than the raw statistics, still appreciating how numbers help one compare the play style and successes of one player vs. another.

After the hall, I got a late lunch at Mell’s at 22 and then took back to Main Street for some souvenir window shopping. There are lots of stores. They sell all kinds of baseball nicknacks and baseball cards. At the hall itself, I had already picked up a t-shirt gift for my sister, a new baseball book Remembering Harry Kalas, and a “who’s on first” baseball (which has special relevance for me as I love the movie Rain Man).

I wanted a little mini bat souvenir, and there are a few bat store options in town. Many offer full custom bats, but I wanted something a little smaller. I ended up with a mini bat half the size between my current little mini bat and a full-sized bat. For many of my peers who will see my toying with my current mini bat over Zoom, which I tell them is my thinking bat, I now consider this new bat a second thinking bat, for when the problem is just a little bigger.

See all the sides of the ball in this short movie.

Also, let us have some empathy for the poor souls running the Hall of Fame gift shop.

I ended the afternoon with a small scoop of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and then headed back to the inn. There I relaxed a bit. I enjoyed some hard iced tea drinks and read a Phillies book I brought with me on the inn’s patio. Around dinner time, I walked over to a nearby pizza place. The pizza was “NY style” with a thinker crust. Not my preference, but it was pretty good. Back at the inn, I rested in my air-conditioned room. Was happy to discover Moneyball playing on TV and watched it.

The next day, Thursday, I got up around 8am and packed up. The inn provides a nice little kitchen of breakfast supplies. Before heading home, I enjoyed a coffee, english muffin, and strawberry granola bar. The home drive was, once again, pleasant and uneventful. I almost finished my one audiobook. I think there is an hour or so left of it, and I’m curious to hear how it ends. Will have to resume it during my next walk.

Overall a fun and successful trip. If you are a baseball fan, I think you’d enjoy it. Otherwise, it is a pretty small town, so not too much to see but a nice relaxing spot if you want to unwind.

Journal -- July 16, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 13:49:27 -0400

Saturday, July 16, 2022 – Yesterday I did some more apartment hunting and scheduled even more tours next week. Starting to get my head around what I want and what I will compromise on. Have high hopes for the scheduled tour next Friday as it is a more isolated place near a park and walking trail, which looks nice. We’ll see.

Today is a light day. Took a morning walk and then got some pretzels. Finished watching “Inning 7” of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary. I watched it in 2020 in lieu of the missing early baseball season that year and am enjoying it just as much the second time through.

Need to get some laundry done in prep for my mid-week trip to Cooperstown. Going to be a lot of fun. Also need to download some audiobooks to try out for the car ride.

Other fun news, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday, I finally got an invite to buy a PS5 from Amazon, and with a bit of help from some birthday gift cards, put the order in. Should be here tomorrow. Planning to play through the Final Fantasy 7 Remake and its DLC as well as update my copy of MLB: The Show (assuming my account / cards just transfer over). I had to get the bundle, so I’ll give Horizon a spin too. Honestly, the purchase is as much about upcoming games as those out right now.

Journal -- July 14, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 11:11:17 -0400

Thursday, July 14, 2022 – Birthday recap from Monday is pretty basic. Had an excellent breakfast at a local diner with my sister. Got pancakes which were great though I can never finish them all. Played some games and then took a nap before dinner with my aunts and uncles at my favorite brick oven pizza place. A fine relaxing day. Got lots of goodies and chocolate gifts. Michelle made the family chocolate cake which was delicious. I have a slice in the freezer for later.

On Tuesday, we worked through some of my mom’s old things, getting as much suitable stuff ready for donations. It’s still very hard packing up her things.

On Wednesday, I hoped to see the apartment repair man return, but no dice, no call, no nothing. Spent a few hours continuing my new apartment search. In the evening, I hosted a small social gathering for Philly Elixir. The outdoor beer garden was way more packed than we expected, but most of us (sorry Quinn) found each other and enjoyed each other’s company. I think we’ll do an online meeting next month and then maybe try another in-person social in September.

Today is going to be pretty quiet. Might run those donations to the drop-off but otherwise just catching up on email and little things. Tomorrow I have plans to tour an apartment and might drive by some others.

Journal -- July 10, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 13:27:22 -0400

Sunday, July 10, 2022 – A week of distractions, some pleasant and others not so much. Let’s catch up.

On Tuesday, my eye caught a curious stain next to the laundry washer and discovered a significant wall of mold upon moving it aside. In short order, I wrote a letter and went in person to the leasing office to request someone to come out.

Maintenance at my apartment has been extremely frustrating since moving in April 2021, with many tickets/issues left open and unresolved for months. I can’t let them slack on this. I will have to keep on them.

A repair man came by for a quick evaluation and attempted to fix some other open issues but not the mold. The next day after another letter and meeting, a second repair man came by and did some drywall removal. Best I can tell, he still needs to remove more drywall on the other side of the wall. He’ll also need to address the leaky faucet causing the issue. Unfortunately, he does not work here full time. I don’t think this will happen until next week. He’ll also need to reinstall the water heater as it was not installed properly (has an unsafe vent) in March by a since-fired maintenance repair man with whom I had many negative experiences.

I took the week’s events to reignite my plans to consider moving to a new place and spent a fair amount of time cataloging some options over the next few days. On Friday, I drove around to visit some apartments in person. While part of me is considering buying a house, I’m not sure if I am willing to commit to a specific location right now. Things feel fluid for me, so I’d be more comfortable thinking about this in terms of a 1-2 year apartment plan.

Otherwise, to all that, I did have a nice night at the Phillies game on Tuesday and a fun BBQ / pool day at a friend of my sister’s yesterday. My sister is over her COVID infection and testing negative again, which is fantastic.

Today was the weekly food order (done!), and I have plans for some apartment chores in the afternoon alongside having the Phillies game on in the background.

Tomorrow is my birthday! Planning breakfast with my sister in the morning and dinner with my aunts/uncles in the evening. Nothing too crazy, but I am a simple old man, and I’ll have it no other way.

Journal -- July 4, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 12:25:04 -0400

Monday, July 4, 2022 – Yesterday, after a morning walk and post-lunch nap, I took to the pool of my apartment complex. It was my first time there as it was closed last summer. It’s a much smaller pool than my previous apartment complex but was nice enough. At 4 pm, they cleared out the crowd for an hour-long lifeguard break and pool chemical check. I wish I could have stayed in place but ended up taking my beach chair and setting up shop in the shade of a tree by the river—a nice place to continue reading my book and enjoying the day. At 5 pm, I returned for one more swim before drying out in the sun.

In the evening, I made some fresh pasta and watched the Phillies on ESPN. The fresh pasta hit the spot, and while I had aspirations of leftovers for later in the week, I went back for seconds and exhausted the bowl I made.

Today I got fresh pretzels. Second time in three days but was in the mood. Rest of day is still undecided. Will likely read some books and do some laundry. I hear there will be some fireworks at night by the river. Might check that out if I am in the mood.

Tomorrow I got tickets for the Phillies game and am planning on heading down early to watch batting practice and make a fuller day of it all. With July here, I figured I should make the best of it and enjoy my summer break while it lasts.

Journal -- July 1, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 11:27:42 -0400

Friday, July 1, 2022 – Good news, I tested negative this morning and best I can tell have recovered from COVID. I’ll be on the look out for a rebound infection as it is a possibility with the antivirals I was taking but overall very happy and excited.

Bad news, my sister who I spent a ton of time with at the shore tested positive. Really bummed for her as she was looking forward to getting back to the shore. She was all packed ready to go before the test came back positive after almost a full week of negative results. I’ll do my best and make her comfortable with some food store trips and other errands. The isolation is much harder on her than me. She is an extrovert for sure. Whole thing sucks.

While I can’t point at much productivity this past week, yesterday I was a successful at cleaning up my room, desk and bathroom. I saw a small bug in the bathroom in the morning and was all like – NOPE! Finally some inspiration to get things cleaned up.

Otherwise been watching baseball and playing baseball on the PS4. New program came out last night so lots of new missions to do.

With July here I should probably put some more focused energy on programming/work. Vacation can’t last forever. We’ll see how that goes.

Journal -- June 27, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 17:56:04 -0400

Monday, June 27, 2022 – I had goals of waking up early and getting back to work today. Failed and ended up sleeping in most of the morning. After lunch was able to get some focus and be a little productive on the laptop from the recliner.

Got some bills and banking dome. Caught up archiving a week’s worth of email. Read through some unread Slack messages but aggressively marked whole groups as read without concern. Also watched some videos from a Domain Driven Design course, though sadly it did not gel with me as much as the author’s testing book did. I think I’ll give it some more time but am also eyeing up some book marked conference talks and a testing LiveView video course I bought a bit ago.

COVID recovery is coming along. Still coughing a tiny bit but at the point where I have stopped the mucinex pills. My anti-viral pills will go through tomorrow morning but I am anxious to finish up the prescription and get that metal taste out of my mouth. Planning on a walk tomorrow morning and see how it feels.

Journal -- June 26, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 10:36:03 -0400

Sunday, June 26, 2022 – Day 5 of COVID. Doing ok. Symptoms are mild and fluctuate throughout the day. Still taking my flu-type medications and the antivirals. Nowhere near 100% of my normal self but not bed ridden either. I’m up most of the day, usually playing PS4 or watching the Ken Burn’s Baseball documentary. Feel like I should try to do something more productive than laundry soon™ but we will see.

Been isolating as one would expect. My sister was nice enough to drop off some fresh pretzels and deli rolls yesterday which was much appreciated. She also got me some mints and gum to help with the metallic taste in my mouth I have from the antivirals.

Stopped in to the Side Project Saturday Zoom call for Philly CocoaHeads for a little socialization. Sounds like they might do an in person Saturday meetup next month in Jenkintown.

I was well asleep when the Phillies played the Padres last night but woke to hear Bryce broke his thumb during the game. A real shame, particularly considering the season he was having. Hope the other bats step up to fill the void.

In other related baseball news I was bummed to cancel my own planned trip to see a Phillies game next week. I’ll still be in a COVID window of sorts by then and would not want to risk it on others.

Journal -- June 24, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 10:27:24 -0400

June 24, 2022 – I’m back from vacation early after getting COVID. 😭

So on Sunday I headed to the shore with my sister. For a few days we enjoyed ourselves with typical shore actives like the beach and some favorite eats. By Wednesday afternoon however I started to get a bit of a sore throat. Tested negative but decided to stay in the hotel room and rest up. In the morning on Thursday I was feeling worse and tested positive. We packed up and headed home early.

My general symptoms includes, headache, light body aches, light sore throat and cough. No high temperature and blood oxygen is fine. No significant breathing issues or exhaustion.

Because of my diabetes my doctor put me on the antiviral medications. The most notable side effect is a metallic taste in my mouth but I’ll take that with the hope of a quicker recovery timeline.

So for now, I’m hunkered down in my apartment, resting and trying to sleep as much as I can. Props to my sister who continues to feel fine and test negative for getting me a food order and my supplies.

Journal -- June 17, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 16:15:46 -0400

June 17, 2022 – I have been slacking on my journal entries so let’s catch up.

On Wednesday I watched the afternoon baseball game and then went to play Quizzo with my cousin at the local pub. We lost; it was not close. A bunch of teachers fresh out on vacation schooled us. Overall a nice day.

On Thursday I had a down day. Just no energy or motivation. Maybe it was the morning rain breaking my spirits. Spend most of the day grinding my baseball video game and eating junky food. These kind of days aren’t the end of the world but I’d feel better getting something productive done.

Today, Friday, was better. Slept in a bit; my CPAP mask said 9.5 hours. After cleaning up and doing my morning chores I went outside to clean out my car. Got rid of some trash and cleaned out the glove box. Took the car to the local car wash and then when I was back home did a more proper interior cleaning and window wash. Also took the opportunity to install some new windshield wipers.

Looking ahead I suspect I’ll have to drive a bit at night over the next few weeks. Having lousy wipers really makes a night drive in the rain extremely troublesome for me so I’m hoping they (and the wash) help out.

Tonight, no big plans. Phillies have a double header today and I’m watching the end of game one as I type this. I’ll probably sneak a peak at game two along side some video gaming in the evening. Might start some shore packing but feel like that won’t happen until tomorrow.

Journal -- June 14, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 14:19:27 -0400

June 14, 2022 – Got a small coding session in yesterday though it ended early when some family errands came up. Got the basics of Commanded installed and some starter events made. Not a notable amount of work for a normal day but for a vacation day it will do.

This morning had to skip my usual first thing breakfast and sleep in a bit. Was required to fast for some blood work. I’ve been known to get light headed when giving blood and brought some juice and granola bars. Luckily they were not needed and it went on without any issue.

In the afternoon I wrote out my June tax estimate payments and dropped them off at the post office. Also took out some cash for the shore at the ATM. Will have to start packing my bags soon enough. Finally, posted some details about the planned Philly Elixir Social for July which we talked about at the end of last meeting.

With my laptop in hand and some Yo-Yo Ma on in the background I think I’ll get back to my coding project for a bit and then maybe some book reading.

Journal -- June 13, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 13:13:36 -0400

June 13, 2022 – Had a nice weekend. On Saturday ran some errands and got my usual weekend pretzels. In the afternoon I did some cleaning around the apartment, organizing the hallway linen closet and a mix of drawers. Around 4pm I watched the Phillies. Sunday saw the weekly food pickup. Made a point to get some snacks for my week at shore, which is coming up next week. I watched the early part of the Phillies game at 1pm but when the game got out of reach I took to my own distractions in some books and games.

This morning I was at the doctor for a previously scheduled checkup. We talked about a few things but the actionable item for me is to regain some lost ground in my weight lose targets. Need to double down on being active and cut some of the post-dinner cookies. I’ve stared tracking my food in a journal again and hope it will help me keep focus. I also have to get my blood work done at a lab. Normally they’d do it right there in their office but they are short staffed.

After the doctors, I took action and went for a long walk. Was a little hotter than my usual early morning walks but not too bad. No big plans for the afternoon. Michelle will stop by after work to look through some of these things I’m going to throw away from my weekend cleaning.

Standup for Saturday, June 11, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:50:01 -0400

Normally I wouldn’t journal over the weekend but since I missed yesterday.

❤️ Feeling: Continuing to enjoy the Phillies win streak. We are 8 in a row now. Had a bit of a shock at the scale after my shower this morning and need to curb my cookie intake.

✅ Accomplishments(Thursday+Friday): On Thursday I opted for some trip planning over side project work. Booked a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in July and my hotel for ElixirConf. Also ordered some baseball books I can read on the beach. On Friday got some errands done (car oil changes, fixed broken headlight) and then in the evening went to my aunt’s place for some pizza and to celebrate her birthday.

🥅 Goals: Bank errand with my sister and pretzel pickup in the morning (done!). There is a cool air today so I think I’ll open the windows and do some apartment cleanup this afternoon. Need to clean out my hallway linen closet. Phillies play at 4pm and I’ll watch that and maybe do some coding on my laptop.

Standup for Thursday, June 9, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 10:57:43 -0400

❤️ Feeling: The Phillies have won six in a row and I don’t know what planet I am on anymore.

✅ Accomplishments(Wednesday): Some afternoon errands and a light work day. Ran the Philly Elixir meetup, which was a light social affair. Lost two ranked MLB: The Show games, but the second one was at least close. Starting to doubt I’ll get enough total innings in this season for the Greg Maddux card, but at least its stub costs is coming down.

🥅 Goals: Do laundry. (How do I, as a single bachelor household generate so much dirty laundry?) Going to watch the Phillies afternoon game and hack on Franklin in the background. Would like to at least get commanded installed in my project and some basic events working. For MLB: The Show, starting to get my head around how to how to grind player XP points (which I need to do better at to finish up these missions).

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Standup for Wednesday, June 8, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 13:35:42 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Another low energy coding day day. Just not feeling it.

✅ Accomplishments(Tuesday): Bought my conference ticket and plane ticket for ElixirConf 2022. Going for the training day as well. Opted for the Instrumenting Elixir Applications class. Finished reading my testing book, it was really good. Also bookmarked the Domain-Driven Design in Practice course of the same author. Seems relevant to my interests. Watched the Phillies come back (again) in the ninth to win it. They are on fire.

🥅 Goals: Feeling kind of low energy so don’t have too much planned for the day. Need to go back out as I forgot to pickup my prescription refill while doing other morning errands. Will be hosting the Philly Elixir meetup later tonight which I expect to be a mostly social catchup with people. I have nothing formal to present. Maybe some book reading during the day but as I type this I expect to grind some video game baseball after publishing.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Standup for Tuesday, June 7, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 17:18:44 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Not very motivated to get deep into my coding side project and instead have been binging on video games and extra sleep. I guess that is what vacation is for though. 🤷‍♂️ Posting this as the day is almost over.

✅ Accomplishments(Monday): Enjoyed watching the WWDC keynote with my Philly CocoaHead friends. I did not win our bingo game. I had some extremely unlikely squares. Most of Apple’s announcements are not very relevant to me but I might try to catch up on the Passkey stuff and see what that is all about. Had a nice dinner with my sister.

🥅 Goals: Slept in after a staying up later that usual playing my baseball game. Got my walk in for the day, though did it later in the afternoon (~3pm) since my water was shut off in the morning for some kind of emergency maintenance. Some more book reading before dinner is planned, and then some code hacking with the Phillies on in the background.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Standup for Monday, June 6, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:35:49 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Feeling very lazy and unmotivated this morning but trying to get some things moving.

✅ Accomplishments(Friday+Weekend): Published my Side Project Idea Audit. Started a new repo for the blog project (called Franklin) though it is still very bare. Finished chapters 9 and 10 of my testing book. Attended Phillies game on Friday night and a family picnic on Saturday. Sunday was lazy around the apartment reading and watching Phillies. Played a little MLB: The Show and started grinding through the new prospect program.

🥅 Goals: Going to watch the WWDC keynote with my Philly CocoaHead friends. I’m not doing Apple platform development anymore but still fun to catch up with what they are up to. Hoping to hack on Franklin a little in the afternoon and then go to my sister’s place for dinner (fresh pasta!). At night will continue working through my mini season playoffs in MLB: The Show.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Standup for Friday, June 3, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 09:27:44 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Good but a little guilty. I skipped my walk/workout this morning in favor of getting to my desk sooner. I have plans tonight so want to get some stuff done.

✅ Accomplishments(Thursday): Worked on some financial todos, sending out invoices, paying bills, depositing checks. Spent some time pontificating and evaluating my side project idea list. Feel like I’m close to locking down my choice. I even have a draft blog post sharing some of the ideas I passed on (at least for now) along with what I’m going to do any why. At night played some MLB: The Show and did eventually give up on that Jimmy Rollins event in favor of some more tunned CPU difficulty / rewards I am looking to capture. Bought the cards outright with my stash of stubs.

🥅 Goals: Finish and publish Side Project Idea Audit post. Kick off side project by writing up some overall goals and values. Make a repo, GitHub Project, etc and start drafting some tasks. Book reading after lunch. Around 2:30pm (eastern) there will be a content show for some new stuff in MLB: The Show I’d like to watch. This evening, attending the Phillies game with my sister.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Standup for Thursday, June 2, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 10:14:02 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Pretty good. I have to be careful not to over-medicate on the coffee with my extra reading time. I could have quickly gone over my three-cup limit yesterday. It is something I gravitate to while in my reading chair.

✅ Accomplishments(Wednesday): Did some more laundry and am caught up. Blogged a bit about my vacation plans. Read chapter 8 of Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns. Pulled the trigger on a new laptop purchase. Attended a Test Double internal hangout where someone presented their Elixir / Phoenix app that ran a Schulze method voting system. The presentation also included some hot takes on hosting on Fly.io, which is a hosting platform I am considering for future projects. At night played an event in MLB: The Show to earn a Jimmy Rollins card. It will take 15 wins to get, I played 9 3-inning games and only won 3 of them. Depending on how that goes next play session, I might just buy the card using the in-game currency as it is pretty cheap. We’ll see. Watched Phillies beat the Giants 6 to 5.

🥅 Goals: Morning VR workout (done!). Read chapter 9 in my Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns book. Do some project idea auditing to see if I can work out what I’d like to work on over the break.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Extended Vacation (Again)

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 16:51:29 -0400

Repeating my choice from last year, I have decided to take an extended vacation from consulting this summer to catch up on some learning plans and otherwise invest in personal projects.

Funny enough, as I reread that post and those around it, it feels very similar. I’ll be “off work” for June and July. Basic plans include book reading, blog posting, and some technical experiments at a relaxed pace. I’ll be headed to the New Jersey shore for a week of beach time in late June. I am also considering a road trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame sometime in July.

I’ll start looking for contract work around the end of July, but I also hope to zero in on a personal product development path. One goal of the break is to define an audience I want to serve. I started down that road with [ElixirFocus], but I have notable reservations about building educational materials for that audience that can be financially sustainable. I still think I’ll write for that audience, but not with the end goal of notable profits – more as an enjoyable hobby.

ElixirFocus

For notable profits and a chance at lessening my need to do contracting, I’ll be on the lookout via research and interviews for new audiences and problems to solve. It will be challenging because, in many ways, I feel like the world needs less software more than ever. Who am I to put more digital distractions out into the world?! The key will be to find a way to add value by helping people reduce the technical weight on their shoulders. Find a way to solve problems and NOT give them one more button to press every day.

Standup for Wednesday, June 1, 2022

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 11:53:49 -0400

❤️ Feeling: Feeling great. Excited to be on vacation again and have an opportunity to work on some personal projects.

✅ Accomplishments(Tuesday): Closed out some open pull requests with my client and otherwise wrapped up my contract. Did some laundry (towels). Won a 12-inning overtime game in MLB: The Show with my Diamond Dynasty team, the Philadelphia Frogs. After a night of piss poor batting and 22 strikeouts, with 2 out, 2 strikes, and a man on third, I ran a squeeze play where Rickey Henderson (99 speed) bunted in the winning run. It was glorious. Sadly this also aligned with a 5-hour overtime loss by the Phillies, which I had on in the background.

🥅 Goals: Sleep in (done!). Morning walk (done!). More laundry. Blog about my overall vacation plans. Read the next chapter in my Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns book, which I am really enjoying. Do some project idea auditing to see if I can work out what I’d like to work on over the break.

🆘 Help: I’ll be headed to the shore soon™ and welcome book recommendations, work or play.

Quantum JIRA

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 20:00:41 -0500

Random crossover that occurred to me during a morning walk.

Theorizing that one could be productive within his own lifetime, Doctor Mike Zornek stepped into the Quantum JIRA accelerator - and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in tech of the past, facing repos origins that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change commit history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an overworked product manager, who appears in the form of a Slack avatar only Mike can see and hear.

And so Doctor Zornek finds himself leaping from ticket to ticket, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next ticket… will be the ticket home.

Original Theme Narration

Mom's Passing

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 11:52:07 -0500

Over the last few months, I have had to increasingly step back from friends and work to help take care of my mother. She passed away on Friday, February 4th. Her obituary is shared below, and the memorial service will be this Saturday.

In lieu of flowers we ask for donations be made in her name, Maureen Carney, to Fox Chase Cancer Center who treated her and all of our family extremely well.

I look forward to connecting with everyone again after I take some time to get things settled.

Maureen L. Carney (nee Heffernan)

December 28, 1951 - February 4, 2022

Maureen L. Carney (nee Heffernan) passed away February 4, 2022. Devoted mother of Michelle Zornek and Michael Zornek. Loving sister of Joanne Moy (George), Mary Rose Brill (Jack), Betty Leonardo (Bryan). Dear aunt of many nieces, nephews, great nieces, and great nephews. Maureen will also be sadly missed by her loving friends.

Relatives and friends are invited to gather Saturday, February 12, 2022 9:00 AM to 10:45 AM, Burns Funeral Home, 9708 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, followed by her Service 11:00 AM. In lieu of flowers, contributions to Fox Chase Cancer Center, 333 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19111 in her memory would be appreciated. Due to COVID, a celebration of Maureen’s life will be held later in the spring.

Vacation is Good, I Recommend It

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 16:43:23 -0400

Figured I’d do a short check in with how my vacation is going.

Book reading is a primary activity. Check out my Goodreads profile for more info. I like reading with Bob Ross or Rick Steve’s Europe playing on the TV in the background. I like the background noise and something interesting to look at when I need to rest my eyes.

I’ve also caught up on some games and even finished 100% completion for Red Dead Redemption 2.

I’m doing a fair job keeping up with my morning walks but have not yet renewed my YMCA membership for swimming I was originally planning to do. Still want to do this but will likely wait until I get back from the shore.

Yes, on Sunday I head down to the New Jersey shore for a week at the beach. It’s going to be a little more limited since I plan to avoid the crowds and focus more time on the beach than the bars. Still, it will be good to get away from the apartment for the first time in a long time.

Coding has been intentionally limited. About 10 hours or so in July so far. I suspect I will start to code more in August, hopefully moving some ElixirFocus projects forward, but am enjoying the break while I have it.

I’ve been doing some reflecting on what I will be looking for in my next client project and also debating what I want to do with Guildflow. I paused development/marketing of Guildflow in January with the idea I needed to observe a return to in-person events before investing more time and effort. I can’t say we are there yet but there are other constraints that have me questioning what I want to do.

Anyways, vacation is going great. I highly recommend it.

Life Updates, Moving, Work, Side Projects and Learning Plans

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 10:00:39 -0400

It’s been a while since I posted here on the blog so figured I’d do a short life update.

COVID / Health Check

First, my immediate family and I are still healthy. We continue to stay quarantined and limit our interactions with people outside our bubble. My retired mother has gotten her two shots of vaccine per her age/health group and my sister was able to get vaccinated through her job, a public school teacher. I was able to get my first shot two weeks ago and scheduled for my second shot at the end of April.

I’ve definitely had moments of mental stress and very much am looking forward to a few things as hopefully people can start getting together again but willing to self regulate as needed to.

General health check is, good. I do need to continue to up my walking now that the cold weather excuse is gone. I’ve been doing some walking but my daily step average is still low from what I was doing last year. My sleep is awesome. The CPAP machine is working well for me a year in now. Allergies have been a slight issue the last month but overall my medications are holding. I did start a light blood pressure medication which is my real goal now – to continue the weight lose so I can hopefully stop taking that pill but this might be in vain since high blood pressure is a family thing too.

Moving

Me and my mother have were at the old apartment for many years but sadly over the course of the last few years a number of issues have popped up and caused notable stress for us. We didn’t really want to move but eventually had to make it happen. We now are at a new place and are just moved in a week now as I post this. It has been a lot of work packing (and throwing stuff out) but hopefully will result in a more relaxing location. So good so far. I’m not sure if this new place is for the long term but we’ll see.

Work

Work has been good. I’m still doing Elixir / Phoenix work for the same client I started with back in October. The latest extension goes up to June 1st but they will likely offer an extension, at least for a little bit of time as I know they would like our help through a big progressive release, that is starting end of April and should hit 100% around June 1st.

I did negotiate a 4-day work week with my client, which started in mid-March. This extra day lets me have some focus time for my side projects – at least that is the goal. I got to be honest that the apartment move has taken ownership of much of this free time recently but at least this prevents me from burnout and still have some downtime per-weekend. Hopefully once I am settled at the new place I’ll get better use of of this personal project time.

Side Projects

Guildflow has been put on the back burner since January. I made the decision that I can’t invest any more serious time into the project until I can observe in-person meetups happening again. I still use the platform to run Philly Elixir but Guildflow is mostly dormant as far as marketing / new code efforts go.

Phoenix by Example is my current main side project. It has seen some slowed momentum with my apartment move but on the whole has been a fun way to organize my Elixir education endeavors. The next big sample project, RetroTaxi is underway. I hope to finish that project with a big push in May and hopefully come up with a small educational product in June and July time frame.

Learning Plans

While I am over the hump in learning Elixir I still feel like there is lots of opportunity for continued experience gains. PragProg has been pumping out even more Elixir books and I’m enjoying consuming them alongside my Phoenix by Example projects and work code.

All that said, like last summer with my Kotlin / Android Book Club, I would like to do some alternative language learning over the summer. I suspect this will be Rust / WebAssembly. I might do another book club but not sure yet. If you are interested in let me know and we’ll see.

Let’s Do Coffee

One of the things I miss is the happenstance catchups with people at IndyHall. If you want to have a virtual coffee with me, please grab a slot on the calendar and let me know how things are going with you.

A Look Back: Week Ending December 27th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 17:41:34 -0500

Once again I missed my weekly updates so today notes include all items since the last check-in, December 13th. Additionally, I’ve been taking it easy during vacation so this list is lighter than usual.

Guildflow

Got some meaningful work done on group messaging, though still in-progress.
Spent a good while brainstorming goals for 2021. Will share when they are more concrete.

Phoenix by Example

Ran two weeks of daily videos / tweets before going on vacation. Really proud of this effort.
Planning to resume content on January 4th.
Made a new Twitter avatar/icon.

Work

Working with client on plans for 2021, their launch goals and my contract, which atm ends in late February.

Personal

Updated the server that runs this site and posted my Terraform on Linode Notes
Saw the first snow of the year in Philly.
Started a pretty normal playthrough of Pokemon Soulsilver. Got my first 7 gym badges over break.
Watched Fiddler on the Roof.

A Look Back: Week Ending December 13th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 15:48:20 -0500

Once again I missed my weekly updates so today notes include all items since the last check-in, November 22nd.

Guildflow

Finished the marketing campaign on Ethical Ads: Privacy-focused advertising for developers and while I didn’t get the business results I was looking for I have nothing bad to say about the network. They were incredibly helpful. I may write up something more detailed soon™. Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Made some progress with my goal to better automate the deployment of Guildflow by getting more familiar with Terraform. Worked through a few tutorials and have started reading the The Terraform Book.

Phoenix by Example

Launched the second example project: GetShorty, an open source link shortener.
Got more serious about the Twitter account and even made a new YouTube channel.
Posted daily content Monday through Friday. When possible I embedded the videos right in Twitter but it was hard to keep them under two minutes so had to link to YouTube for the rest, which is the conical repository for now.
Hope to keep the momentum in the coming weeks.

Work

Lots of REDACTED client work in Elixir / Phoenix.
- Without getting too deep, we are currently drafting some larger work and refactoring plans. Feels good to be shaping work ahead of execution. It’s a very large system with a lot of business stakeholders and third party integrations; much more complex than the historic iOS projects I’ve worked on.
Finished reading of Real-Time Phoenix.
Continued reading Domain-Driven Design.
Finished reading Practical Pair Programming
- Related, did a lot of pairing at work which is something I find beneficial, though very exhausting. Like exercise I feel like I need to keep pushing to get better at so it’s not as draining.
Attended Philly Elixir.
Attended Philly CocoaHeads.
Attended BarCamp Philly.
Setup a mesh of two new Eero 6 Pro wireless routers to replace the previous Apple Airport in the apartment. May have to update my Comcast internet to 1000MB down as a way to avoid the upcoming data cap and this would help me get the most of said additional bandwidth. This mesh should also help with some wifi connection issues I’ve seen in my bedroom. Finally, I am also using the service trial to block ads at the router level; will see how it works out.

Personal

Watched The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. It was good, but not a must see recommendation.
Started playing Dragon Quest Builders 2.

A Look Back: Week Ending November 22nd

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 19:50:10 -0500

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

I missed last week’s update so consider this one a twofer.

Guildflow

Wrote up pitch to define Messaging behaviors and started coding out some things.
Met with mastermind group. Reviewed recent marketing efforts. Between client work and the US holidays Guildflow is going to be pretty quite through the end of the year.

Work

Lots of REDACTED client work in Elixir / Phoenix.
More reading of Real-Time Phoenix.
Started reading Domain-Driven Design. I started reading this one years ago, but never finished it. It’s come up again as we are trying to work out some code growth issues. This talk (Building beautiful systems with Phoenix contexts… by Andrew Hao) also came up and was interesting.
Attended the Philly CocoaHead Side Project Saturday meeting. Talked about lots of stuff.

Personal

Car inspection and oil change.
Added new Follow page to this website.
Did some looking for a new apartment.
Jumped by into my re-watch of Firefly.

A Look Back: Week Ending November 8th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 21:18:28 -0500

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Updated the site with new Add to Calendar feature.
Updated the SSL certs for the app and supporting website.
Met with mastermind group.

Work

Lots of REDACTED client work in Elixir / Phoenix.
More reading of Real-Time Phoenix.
Ran the last Android Book Club meeting of the year.
Got a new 16-inch MacBook Pro, as my old Late-2016 model was having battery concerns.
Experienced a Goat-to-Meeting.

Personal

Cleaned out my car and installed some new wiper blades.

A Look Back: Week Ending November 1st

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:17:25 -0500

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Launched multi-episode sponsorship of the Release Notes podcast.
Updated marketing site with gallery presentation of screenshots.
Did some development work towards group broadcast messaging.
Took a research meeting with a meetup organizer.
Did a demo for the Philly GDG (Google Developer Group).

Work

Lots of REDACTED client work in Elixir / Phoenix.
Finished reading Shape Up which is a project process from the folks at Basecamp.
Started reading Real-Time Phoenix.
For the Android Book Club I read chapter 29: Browsing the Web and WebView, 30: Custom Views and Touch Events, and 31: Property Animation – the last chapters.
Chatted with Kotaro about side project progress and goals.

Personal

The beaver races in Majora’s Mask 3DS broke me.
Got my ticket for BarCamp Philly 13!

A Look Back: Week Ending October 25th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:12:02 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Worked on some limited podcast marketing experiments.
Started work on website update that would offer the screenshots in a gallery UI.
Took a meeting with a community manager of a technology company and learned a ton about the needs of a person who helps lots of meetups promote that tech.
Finished reading Get Together.

Work

Started a new full time client project, where I get to help out with a large Elixir / Phoenix project.
During the onboarding for said client project, got to learn about asdf a tool to manage multiple runtime versions with a single CLI tool. I have mixed feeling about it vs a Docker setup but trying to give it a fair shake.
For the Android Book Club I read chapter 27 WorkManager and chapter 28 Broadcast Intents.
Started reading Shape Up which is a project process from the folks at Basecamp.
Caught up with my two mastermind groups.
Promoted my first Phoenix by Example stuff on Twitter.

Personal

I voted!
More progress on my Majora’s Mask 3DS playthrough.

A Look Back: Week Ending October 18th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 10:21:06 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Got my pull request that adds Postmark broadcast email support to the Elixir swoosh library was merged in! More info.
Worked on a per-event Add to Calendar feature that lets you download an .ics file or create a new event in Google Calendar via a customize link. This was a feature request of a beta user so happy to see user needs starting to dictate feature development!
Started my official campaign with EthicalAds, which is a privacy-focused advertising network for developers from the folks at Read the Docs. I ended up tweaking the ad copy to hopefully improve the click through rate. I’ll share result in a few weeks.
Did a demo of Guildflow for IndyHall Show and Tell.
Improved the loading time of the new home page by optimizing lots of images.

Work

For the Android Book Club I read chapters: 24 HTTP and Background Tasks, 25 Loopers, Handlers, and HandlerThread, and 26 SearchView and SharedPreferences. I normally code these in too but did not do it this week as I had some other higher priorities.
Met with Kotaro to review progress on his iPad drawing app and share my own progress with Guildflow.
Finalized details for a new client project. Will be helping a team using Elixir and Phoenix for a large website relaunch.
Finished up my hello world greeter example Phoenix project and tutorial. Need to promote it this week.
Did a Remote User Testing Session for a customer. They loved it.

Personal

Finished my play through of Final Fantasy 4j (rom hack version).
SOCKPOCOLYPSE
Started a playthrough of Majora’s Mask on 3DS. Was Majora’s Mask 3D a Bad Remake?

A Look Back: Week Ending October 11th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 09:53:50 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Launched the big marketing landing page update with lots of new screenshots to tempt people to join the beta and upgrade their own meetups.
Worked on a fork of swoosh (an Elixir email library). Specifically my fork updates the Postmark adaptor so I can batch and send broadcast email with a custom message stream. Hope to post an official pull request and demo video soon™. Eventually Guildflow will use this adaptor to help group admins send broadcast messages (with email notifications) to the memberships at large.
Started some experiments with EthicalAds, which is a privacy-focused advertising network for developers from the folks at Read the Docs. The admin team there is very helpful and I hope this works out.

Work

For the Android Book Club I read and coded chapters: 21 (Styles and Theme), 22 (XML Drawables), 23 (More About Intents and Tasks).
Met with Kotaro to review progress on his iPad drawing app and share my own progress with Guildflow.
Cleaned up a lot of loose end todos and digital trash.
Started work on some Elixir tutorials. Will share more when they are ready.
Took delivery of a new Intel NUC which for now is running Pop_os!.

Personal

Continued my play through of Final Fantasy 4j (rom hack version). Deep into the final dungeon. Probably only one more gaming session left.
Played a mix of Mario 64 Switch, Hades and Red Dead 2.
Hit a wall trying to get my AirPods fixed.

Casual Updates (Video 7m)

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 10:42:58 -0400

Your browser does not seem to support the video format. You can download the MP4 file directly.

Download MP4 Watch on YouTube

A short video where I catch you all up on my various project: Guildflow, Android Book Club, consulting work search, ideas in my head.

A Look Back: Week Ending September 27th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 19:32:06 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Finally finished the new page and editable navigation feature.
Deployed version 0.11, which includes the above features and some minor fixes.
Updated the Changelog on the marketing site.
Posted a pair of short feature demos. One on How to Create a New Group and the other How to Add Members via Membership Applications.
Posted a new blog post: Goal-oriented Side Event Ideas for Technical Meetups.
Started work on a bigger marketing site update. Not sure when it will launch, but I want to feature those feature demos above.

Work

For the Android Book Club I read chapter 18 (Accessibility). I have not yet coded this weeks chapters (16, 17 and 18) but hope to do so on Monday before the meeting.
I did however get deep into some Jetpack Compose tutorials and experiments.
Attended the Philly CocoaHeads Side Project Saturday event.
Did a two hour pairing session using Elixir for a prospective subcontractor role.
Did a pair of mastermind related meetings.
Met with Kotaro to review progress on his iPad drawing app and share my own progress with Guildflow.
Attended an IndyHall show and tell which included member onboarding improvements and voting info.
Hosted the rescheduled September meeting of Philly Elixir and talked a lot about LiveView use in Guildflow.

Personal

Continued my play through of Final Fantasy 4j (rom hack version). About to go to the moon for those who know that game.
Had to request a return of Mario 3D All Stars from Amazon (it never showed) and instead ordered a copy from Target.
Had a social coffee with a friend. Trying to set these up with people I’d normally run into downtown but have not seen in months due to lock down.

A Look Back: Week Ending September 20th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 11:36:54 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Posted a draft of the terms of service for feedback.
Made and shared progress on the editable navigation but ran into some UI / Framework issues that are going to cause me to rethink how I design the UI.
Posted a video story about why I built Guildflow.
Updated the website to use Fathom Analytics, which does not use cookies, and thus helps me avoid obnoxious cookie agreement banners.
Posted a 2 minute demo of how Group Export works.

Work

Did an adhoc unit testing Q&A with fellow CocoaHead Kenny. Probably going to do some more at the upcoming Side Project Saturday.
Did my main Android Book Club homework, chapters 14 and 15 coded, and through chapter 17 read.
Did some extra Android Book Club homework, learning about Kotlin Coroutines.
Watch the Apple Event. Not a watch user myself and not in the market for a new iPad, but some interesting things.
Did a first call with a client prospect.
Submitted a client proposal document that was mostly done last week.
Met with Kotaro and reviewed each other’s project progress.

Personal

Saw my doctor for my annual physical. Making good progress on my weight loss, still have a lot to go.
Continued my play through of Final Fantasy 4j (rom hack version). Discovered the developer’s room after 29 years!
My Mario 3D All Stars hasn’t shipped yet but hope to play it soon.
Got a new keyboard! Old one had a broken left arrow key.
Got some new sweatpants! My morning walks were getting very cold these past few weeks.

A Look Back: Week Ending September 13th

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 16:20:17 -0400

Lots of times it’s easy to feel bad about missing deadlines but when you add it all up, it turns out a lot of things happened last week.

Guildflow

Pushed out a new build (see the CHANGELOG). Mostly bug fixes and security updates. Also re-added the ability to grant the admin role to other members. One big feature was close but not ready. Maybe next week.
Made some good progress on a new feature allowing custom pages and an editable navigation. Didn’t make this week’s deployment but looking good locally.
Started documenting the new focus on technical meetups.

Work

Recorded a Remote User Testing Session for an iOS to Mac remote app. Client was very happy with how it turned out.
Took two meetings to discuss new work opportunities, one iOS and the other Elixir.
Worked on a project proposal for the iOS lead.
Attended two separate Mastermind meetings.
Had to postpone my Elixir meetup due to a family emergency. Have rescheduled it for 2 weeks later.
Attended Philly CocoaHeads social hour.
Got in a second writing session for the meetup book. Need to do better about making time for this.
Prepared September Tax Estimate payments. Will mail out tomorrow.
Attended weekly Android Book Club and reviewed ConstraintLayout and the Room database library.
Started a monthly donation to the Mozilla Foundation.

Personal

Helped a friend with some project research.
Ended up sadly canceling my YMCA membership since I could never get a lap swim reservation under the new rules. Hope to revisit this when it is too cold to walk in the morning.
Attended IndyHall Town Hall.
Attended IndyHall Show and Tell.

Personal Lockdown Update

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:57:51 -0400

Thought it was time for another personal update. The last one was about a month ago.

First, me and my family are safe, healthy and relatively sane.

My client project did end on April 1st and I am officially looking for new projects.

I try to be grateful for what I do have and acknowledge there are many people who have it much rougher than I do right now. I can comfortably live off my savings for a little while while many others were paycheck to paycheck and are now scrambling for basic supplies.

It was as good as time as any to revisit my budget. I’ve blogged about this before but the basic idea is to break down personal and business expenses by monthly and yearly costs. Also started categorizing things into hard costs (rent, health insurance) which are difficult to cut and soft cost (Hulu, Netflix) which can be cut. Then I created a burn down chart based on savings, expected invoice payments, and (hopefully) some expected government assistance.

Normally as a gig worker I can not collect unemployment compensation but as part of the CARES act, these benefits have been expanded. The benefit is through the states, which for me is Pennsylvania, and the program is called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. This program is not being ran through the normal state unemployment system and instead PA decided to stand up a new website. The website opened around April 17th (I believe?). Looking at my records I was able to file on April 19th and I recall there being massive technical issues on day one.

In fact there are technical issues as recently as yesterday. Every time I log in, I have to pick a new password. The password rules are bogus by the way, no more that 18 characters and very specific about what is and is not a special character.

Worse though is the process. You need to fill out a ton of forms and upload a lot of tax and financial documents to verify your income so they can calculate your benefit, but there seems to be no trust. Best I can tell someone is going to have to manually go through these applications and check all the PDFs uploaded.

In short, no money has been distributed. It’s been 10 days since I filed and I have not heard anything. The online “certification” form that we are are suppose to fill out weekly is not there; it shows an alert prompt saying it will “be ready to accept claims in a few weeks.” They may say benefits are retroactive but I know states have finite monies and with tax income going to shit and state expenses going through the roof, something is going to break down.

Again, I’m thankful for my privilege. I have savings to live off for a while. But let’s not forget, there are people out there starving and this program right now is bringing no relief.

In related money things, I was once told by a TD Bank associate that I should consider their business loan to help with breaks in consulting income. Well when the wind was turning I applied (March 23rd). To be clear, this would be a commercial, high interest loan, not a PPP loan (this was before PPP was even announced). I’d want to avoid dipping into this loan, but I figured it would be a helpful safety net to have. A few days later I got a phone call saying I would be approved for a $20,000 business loan and to expect a call from a local rep in the future. The second call never came but am email did (April 15th). It was a broadcast email seemingly sent to anyone asking for a recent loan.

Thank you for applying to TD Bank, N.A … Given this challenging environment, are you able to represent that your business is currently open and operating? If you respond “No” to this Question, then your loan will not be scheduled for closing at this time.

Well fuck.

Speaking of PPP loans, my take is that they are not a good fit for me. If I were to take a PPP loan through my business and pay myself, I would not be considered unemployed. Technically the law says they are forgiven if used for payroll, but I have no trust that forgiveness will be honored. I feel much easier looking towards the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (even with its shit implementation) since those monies are never considered a business loan. I know some say “apply for everything and give the money back if you don’t need it” but I had to make a decision weeks ago about how I wanted to handle this and at the time, everything I saw said PPP was only if you were paying yourself through a payroll system. Maybe that’s false or the restrictions have been relaxed but thats what I understood from reading the reports out there.

Other personal notes: I was sad to have missed MicroConf this month. It would have been my first time in attendance. I did appreciate the ticket refund they provided; legally they did not have to do that.

I’m also trying to make the most of things and enjoy some regular video chats with IndyHall and Philly CocoaHead folks. I was even able to hold our monthly Elixir meeting online a few weeks back. It was not the same, but it was good to see the regulars.

Day to day, I try to take walks with my sister to get some fresh air and exercise. I’m still doing well with my diet overall, though there have been a few more cheat days than I’d like.

For work, I’ve been putting productive time into Clubhouse while also helping host a few office hours to help others.

At night, I’m playing through Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Animal Crossing and MLB: The Show.

That’s it for now. Stay safe and do good works. 👋

Things Change Fast

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 10:54:14 -0400

It was only March 1st when I last did a rather normal personal update and man did things change fast for us all.

I think it would be bizarre to look back at my blog and not find any writings about the Coronavirus, so here we go. My recollection of personal events so far.

Shortly after my March 1st post I saw the news and was taking the threat more seriously. I canceled my trip to MicroConf (originally planned for April) and helped convince some family to cancel their own trips during St. Patrick’s weekend.

By March 8th I decided I was not going to work on site anymore with my consulting client. This had only been a one day a week thing but still it was not an easy decision since I was building iOS software to interface with Bluetooth devices and I didn’t have all the devices at my home so this put some strain on my teammates as they had to do more testing on my behalf. The client did not complain and in fact a week later they issued a work from home edict to their own staff.

I also made the call on March 8th to cancel the in-person Elixir Group monthly event. Since we are not a large group this was a bit easier but also kind of sad. I said this then, and will follow through with some kind of online option should the need be there in April (and it looks like it will).

From this point on I pretty much stayed at home outside of a few appointments to take my Mom to the doctor, pick up a new sleep apnea mask and get a prescription refilled. I canceled my strength training class and did not visit the gym. I did not attend a family birthday party (which they frustratingly did not cancel themselves).

Still shut-in, my family did try to make the best of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th, which my Mom calls the “High Holy Day”. The three of us, Me and my Mom, who live together, and my Sister, who lives a few apartments away, did enjoy a few drinks and FaceTime’d a some other family members. We’ve continued to do some similar FaceTimes and a few movie nights (comedies only) to help keep us positive.

To be clear the three of us are a closed circle, we are not interacting with others. I’m more of an introvert and so the “social distancing” doesn’t bother me as much but I do feel for people like my Sister who are extroverts and need that group connection to feel at ease.

By this point many other business were closing down and it was clear things were going to get rough. I also got the word around this time that my client would not be extending my contract. I think they wanted to originally but were now, like many others, constrained by cash flow and expected loss in sales. This is unfortunate, but not really unexpected. I have posted my Consulting Availability but I suspect I’ll be out of work for a while again, living out of my savings.

One small positive I’ve enjoyed while being shut-in is a new TV. Since February I had been considering a new TV for gaming and once I played the FF7 Remake demo I pulled the trigger. I got a 55" LG OLED, C9 on March 4th, right before the lockdown. It’s really nice. I’ve been playing a few new games on the PS4 Pro: Red Dead Redemption 2, MLB The Show and Ni no Kuni, as well as a some Luigi’s Mansion 3 and now Animal Crossing on the Switch.

I’m not playing games all day or anything. I still am working for my client (at least until April 1st when my contract ends), but it’s a nice distraction at night after dinner.

I am keeping up with my diet and doing some walking. I go out about 4-5 times a week so far. It too is a good distraction and helps me get some fresh air.

I’d be lying if I didn’t share that I do have moments of depression and dread like I think we all do. I try to find a balance between watching the news and staying informed while not watching too much and feeling depressed.

If the statistics are anything to follow, if feels like the real event is about to happen, so to all who read this, stay safe and be careful. I will continue to post technical and geeky blog updates that could be considered non-relevant to the issues of the day. I do it for some semblance of normalcy in otherwise chaotic times and to keep my own self distracted. Please respect the seriousness of this situation and do your part. We are all in this together. ❤️

Spinning Plates

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 22:06:55 -0500

I don’t do a ton of writing here but I do like to post updates at least once a month. Sadly I missed February. 😢 Truth be told, things are just really busy right now.

First, I did land a new contracting gig which has me busy for many hours a week (hoping to fit in even more billable hours in the coming weeks). It’s iOS work, and specifically for an SDK. Part of my job is to evaluate architecture things and where I can I’ll try to carry over some wisdom to some future blog posts (like I did with my Networking talk).

Second, per my goals for year I did find a new general practitioner doctor, had a checkup with blood work and have done some of my related followups, including a sleep study. Turns out my sleep apnea was even worse than I feared. The good news is, I’ve been using my new APAP machine for a few days and it seems to help a lot, though I’m still getting used to the mask while I sleep. As for the blood work, suffice to say, I have room for improvement. I did rejoin my local YMCA and have been pretty good going twice a week so far. I’ve been mixing up swimming, basketball and cardio. I even started a strength training class. It’s a large new time commitment, but it has to be a priority.

As for general things, I was able to finish my taxes this past week and it feels good to be ahead of that deadline. I made out better with my estimated taxes than I had planned so I took the extra money and paid off my car, which feels great.

I’m also doing my well with my ‘Attend more social events outside the tech zone’ goal by hosting a bi-weekly poker game at IndyHall. It’s a low stakes cash game ($20 buy-in) but a fun distraction.

The big thing that has fallen through the cracks is Club House Hosting. I’ve only been able to dedicate limit hours to it, though did a have a nice coding session this past Saturday. I need to find time to get this project over the hump. It’s not far from a beta launch and I really want to get it there.

So those are my updates. Thanks for sticking around. Hope to have something more technical / helpful in the next few posts.

A Smorgasbord of Updates, July 2019

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 15:12:22 -0400

That feeling when you realize you have not posted and the month is almost over. 😳

Overall July has been pretty lax and it was kind of planned that way.

The last week of June I was on a shore vacation with the family and when I got back to work many of my coworkers were off on a July 4th break so things were quiet as I killed some bugs and built some more Admin UI in Phoenix.

July 11th was my 40th birthday and so I took a little time off around it. Nothing too big (I did not want a party) but instead had a nice quiet dinner with my Mom and Sister.

Over the next two weeks was normal work, nothing too crazy.

On July 23rd we kick-started our new Book Club for the Philly Elixir group. We’ll be reading Elixir in Action (2nd edition) which seems to be a quick review of the language basics then a deep dive into the OTP concurrency features that utilize the Erlang VM. Should be a fun read and I am anxious to share it with my local Elixir friends.

For the last week of July, I’m attending An Event Apart DC.

An Event Apart DC is a three-day conference with 17 sessions and an intense focus on digital design, UX, content, code, and more, giving you deep insights into where we are now and where things are going next.

On the hustle front, I’ve been making small steps with my side project (not very public yet). Most of the time has been spent on learning infrastructure things rather than actual features but that’s ok since a big goal of the side project is learning new things.

July Gaming Update

While we are here, let’s talk about games too!

In the spring I binged hard on MLB: The Show. I played a lot of games as the Phillies in mock postseasons and even enjoyed some online play (during a free Playstation Plus trial).

I also recently played a bit of Final Fantasy 14. I like many parts of the game but I’ll admit to getting overwhelmed with the Main Story Quest grind. I wish their was more voice acting in these quests and I also wish there was less tedious travel (so many quests would send you our to have a quick conversations with someone and then back super quick with no real game play outside travel). I don’t mind some of this, as it can help with world emersion but I found it to happen a bit too much. I’ve since paused my subscription but will probably be back in time.

In recent weeks my focus has been Pokemon, specifically Pokemon Red via the Virtual Console on my 3DS. There is community outrage that the new games in the series will lack the National Dex and I couldn’t help but get inspired to fill out the original dex, in Pokemon Red. I’ll post more once I finish but you can peek at my Micro.Blog for a few action photos.

Up next? I did pick up Dragon Quest Builders 2. I really enjoyed the first one, though did not finish it. September will also bring us The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and WoW Classic. Lots to play.

Video: Blog Update, April 2019

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 09:00:00 -0500

No big announcements, just a quick update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_lymjYzUI

Rainy Monday

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 19:09:29 +0000

Rain washes out my way to work, It’s a Riker flashback lunchtime episode, and WoW Patch Day!

Happy Patch Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lmsMSQDVPM

On Using and Not Using Twitter (video 8m)

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 18:27:14 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Dwcpa21JM

A quick and dirty video journal reviewing my past and future use of Twitter. My issues with the platform and my upcoming interest in marketing some new education content that’s been in the works.

Links:

Neck Surgery Recovery Update

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 19:53:35 +0000

My neck surgery on Friday was a success.

It was more complicated than expected (2.5 hours under instead of the planned 45-60 minutes). The cyst had grown much larger than anticipated and was interwoven between lots of muscle and attached itself all over, including my spine. It was removed, unruptured, and the muscles rebuilt to hopefully fill in the void without too much of an indentation.

I have a large line of stitches but the hope is it should heal without too much of a scar. I’ll see the doctor in two weeks for a checkup and have been taking it easy with a lot of bed rest. Overall, the pain has been pretty manageable, the area is mostly just tight feeling.

Cabin fever is totally setting in and I’m looking forward to getting out of the apartment later this week. Plan to do IndyHall one day and then Side Project Saturday with the CocoaHeads.

I know I owe a bunch of people lunch and or happy hour drinks. If you want to get together let me know.

Fever Dreams

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 02:11:31 +0000

While I had hopes of doing more productive things, I ended up spending the last few days in bed fighting off a pretty lousy sinus / chest cold.

Between the medicines and the fever, I don’t think I had more than 90 consecutive minutes of sleep. The dreams were awful too. Not like vivid/scary but it was as if I’m trying to solve an algebra problem and the rules don’t make sense. Sometimes I had these really long dreams and then I’d wake up only to find I was asleep for an hour or so.

Nothing like being sick to help remind you to appreciate the importance of your health.

Anyways, I’m on the mend and taking some antibiotics to help make sure my system is clean for Friday’s neck surgery. I’m hopeful the recovery of that will be easier than this past weekend. I think it should be.

On Thursday we’ve got CocoaHeads! I’ll be there to MC but will probably take it easy at the bar afterwords for obvious reasons.

Finally, I want to take a quick moment to say thanks to everyone who reached out to me regarding my unemployment news from last week. I really appreciate the well wishes and leads. Getting that kind of response really helps put my stress at ease. Thanks so much.

Dongle Emotions

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:08:18 +0000

After letting my bedroom / office get out of hand, I took some time today to clean up and get organized. I wrapped and grouped up my wires and even opened up some of the new USB3/Thunderbolt3 dongles I had ordered to go along with my new MacBook Pro order.

Now I don’t want to get into the current dongle drama surrounding the new MacBook Pro — but I do have a funny story.

A few years ago I worked as a self-employed contractor doing iOS work. I was at a meeting with a new prospective client. Overall the meeting went well and it looked like we’d be working together. At the end I was packing up all my gear and there was an accusation that I had taken their projector dongle. I was fairly certain I was in the right and this was a dongle from my laptop bag but did I really want to risk this multi-month contract for a $30 dongle? It was something out of a Seinfeld episode. Suffice to say, I left the dongle with the client that day to ease tensions.

Don’t mess with another man’s dongle.

These days I mark all my dongles (and I need a ton of them as a traveling instructor not knowing what a room will have) with “ZORN” to alleviate confusion.

A Few Dental Stories Amongst Subscribers

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 21:39:22 +0000

One of my guilty (and time consuming) pleasures is YouTube.

I watch a lot of YouTube. Mostly video game and movie stuff, lots of WoW channels (even though I’m not playing much right now), a few Let’s Players and of course all of the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Moon hype.

Well overtime, you really come to connect with these hosts, many of which have stories of historically working hard service jobs to now, finally being able to do something they love for a living. You root for these people. Sometimes a life event happens to them, and since they are already sharing so much they share that too.

Yesterday I watched a video from a wise cracking WoW player by the name of Asmongold. In it he shared his ongoing trouble with his teeth, his early inability to treat it, his shame of the problem, the trouble it’s caused and how he is on the path to get things fixed. It hit home for me as I’m in the same boat.

My Own Dental Story

When I was working for myself, I was making money but not tons of money. I had emergency medical insurance when I first started but no dental. In fact growing up we didn’t have enough money for dental so I didn’t see a dentist much past early high school. While my teeth were out of alignment there was no major debilitation. For a while, outside of some embarrassment from the alignment problems it wasn’t that a big deal.

One day while attending a Phillies game we went out for a pre-game dinner. That night was the first fallen domino for me. I bit down on something and cracked my back right molar. I did not see a dentist as I didn’t really have a lot of extra money and in all honesty at this point there was a bit of fear in me about doctor’s in general. I let the problem grow and over time other teeth started to break down.

Fast forward to this year. Once again I had another event, a newly cracked tooth and this time a very painful result. Unfortunately when the pain really started to kick in I was on the road. There wasn’t much I could do outside of Advil and trying to keep the tooth clean with salt water. On the one Thursday I was in so much pain I almost didn’t show up to teach my class. It was a wake up call. I did not want to let this problem which I had procrastinated about for so long interfere with my new teaching job.

When I got home I looked through my employee dental coverage and made arrangements to see a dentist. It took even more time to really start to feel better. The first session was a general consultation, a full mouth set of x-rays to see where I stood. Unsurprisingly, I needed a lot of work. At least a few root canals and at least one extraction/implant (that first cracked molar from years ago, which by this point was ruined). On the second trip we did the first root canal and while the time in the dentist chair was not pleasant it (and a set of antibiotics to help with the infection) did come to quell my pain and I was really happy.

Since then I’ve had a second root canal, build up of the two teeth, and a surgery of the gum to prepare for one of crowns that needs more room. Today, I’m kind of in an awkward state where I have one temporary crown and one tooth “open” to let the gum surgery heal. I have to eat on one side of my mouth (which takes a ton of mental energy btw) and I can’t brush the top left set of teeth (only rinse with a prescription liquid). I’m set to do the two crown molds in another week from now. After that, they’ll take about two weeks to come back in the mail and finally have them installed.

It’s a long process, of which I’m really only just beginning — and yeah, very expensive. I am happy though to be finally on the road to improvement.

Why post this? For one, I’d like to share the story with Asmongold just to say, I’m with ya man — keep up the recovery.

For anyone else who might be in a similar situation, I’ll say this, do try to get your teeth cleaned and/or fixed as soon as possible. It really sucks that it’s so expensive but it’s something that time will only make worse. I do wish I had reached out to my family about the problem and been more proactive about it in the past. I’m sure I would have gotten some support from them to make it happen sooner. If you have people to lean on, don’t be stubborn like me, let them help you. Good luck and feel better soon.

Mid-week Checkin

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 01:34:06 +0000

It’s Wednesday night and as expected it’s been both an exhausting and rewarding week so far here at the Front End Web class. Here is the table of contents we’ve been working through:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Setting Up Your Development Environment
Chapter 2: Setting Up Your First Project
Chapter 3: Styles
Chapter 4: Responsive Layouts with Flexbox
Chapter 5: Adaptive Layouts with Media Queries
Chapter 6: Handling Events with JavaScript
Chapter 7: Visual Effects with CSS
Chapter 8: Modules, Objects and Methods
Chapter 9: Introduction to Bootstrap
Chapter 10: Processing Forms with JavaScript
Chapter 11: From Data to DOM
Chapter 12: Validating Forms
Chapter 13: Ajax
Chapter 14: Deferred and Promises
Chapter 15: Introduction to Node.js
Chapter 16: Real-Time Communication with WebSockets

And what’s up next:

Chapter 17: Using ES6 with Babel
Chapter 18: ES6, the Adventure Continues
Chapter 19: Introduction to MVC and Ember
Chapter 20: Routing, Routes and Models
Chapter 21: Models and Data Binding
Chapter 22: Data: Adapters, Serializers and Transforms
Chapter 23: Views and Templates
Chapter 24: Controllers
Chapter 25: Components
Chapter 26: Afterword

Entering the class I was a little worried that my past web development experience would have made the early chapters moot, but to my enjoyment there is a lot of new web features and tools available since I did Rails full time back in 2012. Flexbox is particularly interesting and has me excited to do some testing to see if it will help me solve some layout concerns I have in my side project.

I also enjoyed the time we’ve spent working in pure JavaScript. We built out a very modularized system that would react to a simple coffee order page. I appreciate how we’ve taken the time to learn JavaScript from the bottom up. It makes you better understand and appreciate what more advanced tools like Babel and Ember are doing.

Tonight we closed with web sockets which is something I’m really hoping to embrace on future projects. Live content, no reload and real-time collaboration is where it’s at.

And then of course comes the “ranch” venue itself. Being able to get away and focus on the learning is priceless. Afternoon walks help clear your head. Here are some photos. Wish you were here. 🙂

Memorable Songs from Pivotal Indy Moments of Your Life

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 20:44:04 +0000

While attending the Release Notes Conference this past week I saw a talk by Mike Hurley of RelayFM fame. A lot of the talk was pulling wisdoms from Mike’s own story, the history of his past projects up to working on RelayFM. One tidbit included an attachment to a song when he quit his job. For him the song was Another One Bites the Dust, Queen.

For me when I quit my full time job with ASMP to focus on my Mac development work the song was Maggie’s Farm, Bob Dylan. I was really into Dylan at the time and the lyrics just fit. I remember blasting it from my office and hearing it play throughout the apartment those first few indy days working at home.

I’d love to hear what songs match up to your own big indy life moments. Shoot me an email or tweet me your story.

Summer Hiatus Update

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:44:59 +0000

Hello internets. So sorry for the summer hiatus here on the blog. So what have you been up to? (Email me and say hi!)

I’ve been doing good. WWDC was a fun time in June and shortly after that I had 6 days down the shore with my family. At work, I’ve been on a Swift iOS project. It’s my first time using Swift in production and working along side John and Zac has been incredibly educational. I also was able to get on the road and do my first solo teaching gig for Big Nerd Ranch. I really do enjoy teaching and hope to get the opportunity to do more of it in the coming year.

In my off time I’ve been zoning out with video games, movies and the like. I bought a PS4 and have been mixing it in amongst my WoW and FF14 time. I do feel guilty as I keep meaning to start some productive side projects but I struggle to focus on programming after working a full day doing programming. We’ll see how the fall works out. Hoping to get some project inspiration from CocoaLove and Release Notes in October.

I also just (like a week ago) got a new car. Ended up buying a new 2015 Hyundai Sonata Sport. It replaces my old 98 Ford Taurus workhorse. The Sonata is nice; very spacious and a nice mix of value and features. I’m really enjoying the iOS integration (used to use an external bluetooth speaker for podcasts and the like). With a little more confidence in my car now I’m actually hoping to hit to road a bit and do some visits to regional CocoaHead events and the like. If there is an event coming up you’d like to recommend let me know.

Well that’s it for now. Bring on the fall!

Phone Names

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:26:27 +0000

I love coming up with fun names for my computer hardware. My computers typically are named after video game characters, for example my Mac mini CI server is called GLaDOS. She loves to test. My phones have similar names.

For my first iPhone, an iPhone 4, I named it Dex after the device Ash uses in Pokemon to look up information. (Not to be confused with the app of the same name I made months later to do just that.)

For my next phone, an iPhone 5, I choose “Navi”, named after the sometimes helpful yet interruption loving fairy side kick of Link in Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

For my new iPhone 6 I went with Ziggy, as in the device / computer AI from Quantum Leap. Feels appropriate for a device where I put in data and ask for advice.

As for the iPhone 6 itself, I think it’s pretty cool (really like the Touch ID and can’t wait to test Apple Pay) — though I am worried about dropping this phone. Not the easiest device to grip. Feels very smooth, too smooth.

July Recap

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 03:08:13 +0000

I’d hate to go a month without posting so here’s some random updates!

Philly CocoaHeads is going as strong as ever. Our WWDC June meeting filled the Apple Store Briefing Room to capacity (~50 people!) with lots of excited geeks. Our Side Project Saturday events continue to see some steady growth (15 people at the July event) and generate lots of interesting conversation and shared ideas. (Funny enough we were talking app bubbles right along side Edge Cases this week even though I didn’t know their topic at the time.) Finally our workshops are finally kicking back into gear with an Intermediate Objective-C course coming in August and a more beginner friendly Introduction to iOS Development course via the Girl Develop It group in September. Philly CocoaHeads is becoming so formal in fact I think we’re going to take the plunge and make it a legit non-profit group to help clean up the financial side of things.

In addition to CocoaHeads, there is also CocoaLove — our upcoming Fall conference. I’ll be doing the main talk Friday night and I’m doing my best to keep the topic upbeat despite my pessimistic tendencies. Big props to Curtis Herbert for really spearheading this event. It looks to be a really interesting and fun weekend. Buy your ticket while you can!

Through my job at Tonic Design things are busy. I have two projects right now, One is for a startup while another an internal app for a large corporation. Sadly these are not public right now so details will have to wait. That said, I’ve been spending a ton of time with iOS animations and I have two things to say. One, the Facebook Pop system is pretty cool and worthy of your time to play with. Two, I’m working on an abstraction system that should help apps with large amounts of animation stay organized. More to come soon on that.

At home, side projects have been back burnered, mostly for CocoaHeads stuff. I am spending time reading up on Swift and playing a little with Go but I’m also trying to keep plenty of time for playing games and relaxing. Can’t be focused on code all the time.

So thats it for July. Hope the summer is treating you all well. Hope to share more soon.

Checking In: April Flu, New Desk, Taxes

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:17:48 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates. I kind of fell into a work drought over last few weeks with a mixture of a bad stomach bug, a new desk which required lots of teardown of my office and now a few days of tax paperwork. Oh how I loath the tax paperwork.

On the fun side of things, I got to play through the campaign of Starcraft 2 and have been practicing my Protoss skills in some vs AI and ladder. I also picked up a 3DS XL (previously had a normal-sized 3DS) and have been revisiting some older games, playing Super Mario Land 3D and a few others. I also picked up Bioshock: Infinite but sadly due to the state of my room haven’t hooked back up the Xbox 360. Finally I’m playing Link to the Past on YouTube as a new Let’s Play. Been pretty good about posting new episodes daily. Feel free to check it out.

Will be back soon with some updates to my CB Reader project and others. Until then… 🙂

November 12, 1955

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:31:25 +0000

Unbelievable that Old Biff could’ve chosen that particular date. It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance, almost as if it were the temporal junction point of the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.

For those not in the loop (and shame on you!), that is a quote from Back to the Future 2.

For me, the last few weeks sure do feel like a “temporal junction point” of sorts. Lots of stuff is going on and I feel like I’ll look back at January/February 2013 and see dozens of paths that my life could have taken. I’ve already posted about my general return to work after a bit of burnout and now I can share something else.

I have sold my first commercial product, ProfitTrain to another developer. Official info can be found on my company blog. While I am sad to let ProfitTrain go, I am also happy because, over the last year or so, I haven’t been able to give the product the attention it warrants. The ProfitTrain users deserve better.

Other developments are, well, still developing. I’ll share more when the time is right. I can say that, while I won’t be out of the woods for a few more weeks, I’m feeling very positive about the upcoming year and am doing a good job of maintaining work/life balance despite the recent stress.

Catching Up: How Have You Been?

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:21:24 +0000

Publishing to this blog is something I enjoy, but sadly not something I’m naturally good at doing on a regular basis. Forgive me Internets, it has been three months since my last confession, err blog post.

So what’s been going on? Well, October and early November were a mix of client work and Shindig development, a continuation of a year’s worth of very long, hard development hours for me. This sadly led to a bit of burnout. I felt it coming, so I was honest with my Shindig co-founders and arranged to take some leave.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve worked to excess and gotten burned out. Unfortunately, I’m someone who often lives in extremes, working super hard for a period of time and then not working at all for a period of time. It’s no good and I’m trying to mend my ways.

With my time off after Thanksgiving and into December, I got to catch up with my family, including my mom, who had recently retired. (She was even good enough to re-watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy with me in preparation for the Hobbit release). During this time, I also got sick and then got better. I caught up on some fun movies (Wreck-It Ralph, Sykfall, Hobbit, etc.), and got to check out the latest Warcraft expansion.

Alas, one can not stay cooped up forever, and now I’m working again at IndyHall. I’m trying to balance things better this time, going to hall 2-3 days a week and not overcommitting to projects. It’s been a slow start, but things are picking up a bit. I have a small contract that is under NDA but that is giving me the opportunity to learn some new and interesting tech (Ember.js, PostgreSQL, CoffeScript). I’m also doing a mix of marketing and product development with Shindig. Finally, I’m working to take care of some old personal projects and plan a few new ones.

All in all, things are good and I hope to be posting more soon. As always, thanks for your interest, and best of luck to all in 2013! 🙂

A New Beginning

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 02:20:46 +0000

I miss blogging. For a while it was a major way I interacted with the community, shared my thoughts, and met new people.

I vaguely remember shutting down this site down in favor of putting my full attention behind Clickable Bliss and its own blog. For a while this worked fine. I limited my blogging to tech things and was legitimately spending most of my time on Clickable Bliss. These days, I find myself splitting my time between Shindig and consulting. I still play video games and would love to work on a real RPG to call my own someday. I want to blog about these things but find the Clickable Bliss focus limiting or inappropriate.

This is a fresh start. A new beginning.