As I write this, my podcast queue is sitting at 1,136 episodes. Wowzers! If I listen to every episode in its entirety at normal speed would take almost 40 days. I might have a problem, and I think I need to come up with a way to help tackle this.
I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to tackle things. I’ve come up with two ideas.
<h2>Chronological</h2>
This method is what I’ve generally been doing. With only a few exceptions, I add any new episodes that I add to my queue to the end so I listen to the oldest episodes first.
<h2>By Podcast</h2>
I’ve toyed with this idea in that I choose a podcast, and only listen to that podcast until all the episodes are listened to. At that point, I then choose the next podcast to listen to until I’m caught up.
<h2>Some Policies</h2>
I have a very large number of podcasts I subscribe to. Some release episodes where I want to listen to almost all of them, others where there&#39;s only a handful that might interest me. I&#39;m thinking for tackling this queue, I&#39;m going to set some ground rules or policies so to speak.
<ol>
<li>Don&#39;t Hesitate to Just Archive - I use <a href="https://pocketcasts.com">PocketCasts</a> for podcasts. The archive action marks it as &quot;listened to&quot; and archives it. I&#39;m not going to hesitate to do this for any episodes where I&#39;m like 10 minutes in and am just not &quot;feeling it&quot;, I&#39;m just going to archive it and go to the next episode.</li>
<li>Unsubscribe When It Makes Sense - This applies for the podcasts where I&#39;m only interested in a handful of episodes. If I keep finding the episodes not as interesting as I expected, I&#39;ll give serious considering to unsubscribing from the podcast completely.</li>
<li>Continue Listening at 2x Speed - I generally listen to podcasts at double speed. I&#39;m planning on sticking with that speed to help keep things going.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Hope for the Best</h2>
I&#39;m going to hope for the best and keep at it. Hopefully I can see the queue drop down consistently. I keep adding more episodes, but hopefully I can listen to more than I add.

Tackling My Podcast Queue

Since my plan to start writing more will undoubtedly cause more posts on my blog, I figured I&#39;d write down my general workflow on how I go about writing some of my more in-depth blog posts. It might sound familiar, but thought it might help someone who might be starting out.
<h2>Generating a List of Ideas</h2>
I&#39;ve been using <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> tied to a shared folder on iCloud for my notes and journaling. In there I have a note with a list of ideas for blog posts. Some of them are fleshed out some, others are just off-hand thoughts I&#39;ve had. Whenever I think something might be worth writing about, I add it.
<h2>Creating an Outline of Sorts</h2>
Over time, as it grows more legs, I create a second note for it with various bullet points I want to include in the post. Sometimes that even means creating an outline for the post.
<h2>Time for the First Draft</h2>
Once I have an outline in place, I go and actually start writing the post. Sometimes I&#39;ll write the entire thing in one go. Other times, I&#39;ll edit as I write. But either way, I try to get the guts of what I&#39;m trying to write out so I can easily go back out and edit it.
Any images I might add get thrown into a subfolder and then added to the post. I generally at this point don&#39;t worry about compression or file size, I handle that later.
<h2>Editing Time</h2>
At this point, the post is written and I try to go back through and re-read it to see where I might have missed some words, or rambled on too much. I&#39;m not the greatest writer, so it&#39;s worth the time.
<h2>Image Compression and Creating the Post</h2>
My site runs off <a href="https://nextjs.org/">Next.js</a> and all of my blog posts are mdx files. The first thing I do is create a new branch off my main branch on my site&#39;s repository. I then create the mdx file in the blog directory. I add the front matter indicating tags, post date, title, etc. and then paste in the markdown from Obsidian. If the post has any images, I use <a href="https://squoosh.app/">Squoosh</a> to resize and compress it so that people viewing don&#39;t have to deal with massive downloads. I put them in the images directory in my site&#39;s folder and add them to the mdx file. I have a handy image component that takes advantage of Next.js&#39; image component to help optimize the image even further.
<h2>Running My Site &amp; Final Edits</h2>
My next step is to start up my site locally and view the new post. I go through and make sure that everything looks right, and then I go through and re-read it again to make sure it all makes sense. Sometimes I notice things when I see it live on the web browser that I miss in my notes editor. I make any final edits, also trying to mirror the edits in the notes editor as well, just because.
<h2>Creating the Social Image</h2>
I then use my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/03/building-a-social-image-generator-console-app">social image generator</a> to generate the image for the post. Helpfully, it puts the image exactly where it needs to be in the file system, so there&#39;s nothing more I need to do.
<h2>Creating a Pull Request</h2>
The next step of the process is to commit the code and push the new branch to GitHub. Once there, I open a pull request and Netlify&#39;s integration will automatically build my site and make sure that everything is up to snuff and it builds correctly. Once that is complete, I can then complete the pull request, and Netlify will deploy it.
<h2>It&#39;s Live!</h2>
Once the PR is completed on GitHub, the site will deploy. In a couple minutes I can refresh my site and viola...the post is there!
<hr>
That&#39;s basically it. It&#39;s not a complicated process, I want to keep the friction at a minimum to make it easier to post. The harder it is to get a post up, the less likely I&#39;m going to go about doing it. It&#39;d be kind of nice if I could more easily write a post without the whole PR process, but I find having each post be a file makes it easy to store in a git repository to backup and save. I&#39;ve lost many older (much older) blog posts because they used to be stored in a database that has since been lost to time. My own fault for not backing them up, but still.
There are also plenty of posts I just write on a whim and might forego some of the early steps if I&#39;m just feeling like sending something out there.
Maybe this is more than some want to deal with, but either way, just write. You&#39;ll find your own process and how to best handle your way of doing things.

My Blogging Workflow

I&#39;m sure I&#39;m not the only one, but I seem to be unable to finish a project. I have a handful side projects I&#39;ve been puttering around with, but haven&#39;t been able to see them through to completion.
Here are my current list of side projects I&#39;ve worked on in some manner, shape or form:
<ul>
<li>Digital Family Cookbook - This is a React/.NET recipe management tool. It&#39;s probably about 80-90% complete. The UI could use some improvements and other tweaks.</li>
<li>Card Organizer - This is a Blazor web app to manage and organize my sports card collection. It&#39;s probably sitting around 60-70% complete.</li>
<li>Gamifit - This is a React/.NET app to track my fitness I&#39;ve been working on. I&#39;ve been using a bunch of different apps that all do a good job, but never do what I want, so I&#39;ve started this. It&#39;s had a few different iterations and isn&#39;t that far along.</li>
<li>Leegtastic - This is also a React/.NET app to run small sports leagues. I decided to tinker with building one since the site my hockey league runs is absolutely awful. It&#39;s in the early phases.</li>
<li>Astro rebuild of my site - Never finished this one, and probably won&#39;t. I&#39;ve been considering it, but for the moment I think I&#39;ll be sticking with Next.js.</li>
<li>Personal site work - I&#39;m less inclined to include this as I&#39;m always tinkering and there really is no &quot;final product&quot;.</li>
</ul>
I start working on one thing, and then get the urge to switch to a different project. I start that, and then end up switching to a different one.
At my 9-5, I&#39;ll finish every project or task I&#39;m assigned...at home it&#39;s like the opposite. I mean sure, at work I have to if I want to keep my job, it&#39;s just kinda funny I can&#39;t do the same at home.
I really should just bite the bullet and dedicate myself to something and just push it out the door.

The Strange Inability to Finish a Project

Recently I started reading Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. It’s a collection of short stories he’s written. At the beginning, he went through all the stories and briefly touched on each one of them. On one of them he described an interaction between a friend of his, and Ray Bradbury, author of Farenheit 451 among others. One line stood out to me.
<blockquote>
If you want to be a writer, you have to write. Every day. Whether you feel like it or not. That you can&#39;t just write one book and stop. That it&#39;s work, but the best kind of work.
</blockquote>
I’m not a writer, doubt I’ll ever be, but I have been wanting to write more. I have a few ideas for short stories, I have some blogging ideas, but I never actually dedicate the time to sit down and actually do it.
I think I’m going to try to change that and try to dedicate some time every day to writing something. Maybe a blog post, maybe a couple paragraphs in a short story, who knows, but something.
When I have sat down to write, it’s been peaceful and it’s helped me collect my thoughts in a way. Let’s see if I can stick with it.

Writing Everyday

Summer here in the Northeast USA is winding down and I couldn&#39;t be happier.
I don&#39;t know how people like summer. I mean I get it, warm weather and sun. But the weather is always too warm. Mid-to-high 80s and hotter and it&#39;s unbearable to me. I sit or stand still in the shade and all I do is sweat. It doesn&#39;t even have to be in the 90s or even above 100. It just makes me miserable.
As I&#39;m writing this, it&#39;s in the low 70s with a nice breeze. I&#39;m sitting out on my front porch with a glass of whiskey soaking it all in. It&#39;s been a gorgeous day and I&#39;m looking forward to more of this for the foreseeable future.
To me, this is the perfect weather. Not too hot, comfortable enough to just sit outside in shorts and a tee shirt and enjoy the fresh air. As the temperature dips in the evening, can even enjoy some fires in the fire pit.
Some people love summer. I say phooey...give me a nice autumn day.

Summer is Fading

August was a mostly uneventful month, which seems to be par for the course for me. I&#39;m good with that though, I like being able to take it easy...especially with this heat.
<h2>No Marathon for Me</h2>
I was looking forward to going for the marathon this year. Unfortunately my body had other plans. I can&#39;t say for a fact whether it&#39;s the heat or something else, but I was having a hard time not running out of breath. It is concerning and I&#39;ll see what happens when the heat breaks at some point...hopefully soon.
<h2>Air Conditioner Goes Kaput</h2>
Speaking of heat, we found out the central air system in our house has gone the way of the dodo bird. Not what we wanted to hear, but we were told that a replacement is needed. They could fix it, but given the cost for the part, it&#39;s not worth the money. I have no reason to doubt them, but will be getting a second look at it. With how expensive it is, I want to be sure. Plus it&#39;ll get me another list of quotes. Needless to say, with it being 90º+ out, it&#39;s been roasting in here. Ugh.
<h2>Catching Some Shows</h2>
At the beginning of the month, we saw Seth Myers up in Bethlehem, PA. It was a good show with a lot of great jokes. I&#39;ve always loved his humor and would highly recommend seeing him if you ever get the chance.
At the end of the month, we drove up to Stroudsburg, PA to see The Menzingers.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2023-09-08-august-2023-check-in/menzingers.jpg"
 alt="The Menzingers live at the Sherman Theater"
 width={1344}
 height={1008}
 centered
 shadowed
/>
This was the 5th time I&#39;ve seen them and they&#39;ve been awesome every time. It was also nice because we spent the night up there so we went up early and checked out some breweries and wineries that we otherwise wouldn&#39;t have gone to.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: 27.61 miles</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Started running a modified version of the <a href="https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/phul-workout">PHUL</a> routine.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://leanpub.com/learningpatterns">Learning Patterns</a> by Lydia Hallie &amp; Addy Osmani</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/out-of-office-the-big-problem-and-bigger-promise-of-working-from-home-anne-helen-petersen/16467530?ean=9780593460382">Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home</a> by Charlie Warzel &amp; Anne Helen Petersen</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/shutdown-how-covid-shook-the-world-s-economy-adam-tooze/16278362?ean=9780593297551">Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World&#39;s Economy</a> by Adam Tooze</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/dead-wake-the-last-crossing-of-the-lusitania-erik-larson/7296476?ean=9780307408877">Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania</a> by Erik Larson</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/38">August 4, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/39">August 11, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/40">August 18, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/41">August 28, 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/07/is-typescript-solving-a-problem-or-a-symptom">TypeScript</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/09/integrating-with-notions-api-using-net">integrating with Notion in .NET</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/16/figuring-out-better-sleep-habits">sleep</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/21/digging-into-astro">Astro</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Still playing through <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-forbidden-west/">Horizon Forbidden West</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/">Altered Carbon</a></li>
<li>Started season 4 of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5057054/">Jack Ryan</a></li>
<li>Finished the first 3 seasons of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8879940/">Mythic Quest</a></li>
<li>Finished <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/">American Gods</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268/">Barbie</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/">Bros</a></li>
<li><a href="https://imdb.com/title/tt0078748/">Alien</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094812/">Bull Durham</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/">Oppenheimer</a></li>
</ul>

August 2023 Check-In

Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been revising how several of my pages get their data. Instead of having to manually edit a JSON file that’s in my code base, I’ve been pulling from Notion’s API. The benefit of this is that it’ll be easier to update the pages. I figure I’ll show how I did it in hopes of helping others.
Since it&#39;s a relatively simple page, let&#39;s work with my movies page. To sum it up, it&#39;s a page that list the movies I&#39;ve watched sorted by date watched descending, grouped by year.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2023-09-08-integrating-notion-into-my-site/movie_page_screenshot.jpg"
 alt="A screenshot of my movies page showing a list of the most recent movies I've watched"
 width={1000}
 height={524}
 centered
 shadowed
/>
Each movie has seven properties that I care about for the page.
<ol>
<li>Title</li>
<li>Status (To Watch, Awaiting Review, &amp; Watched)</li>
<li>Date Watched</li>
<li>Cover URL</li>
<li>IMDb Link</li>
<li>Rating (Numeric 1-5)</li>
<li>Thoughts</li>
</ol>
Fortunately for me, Notion has an <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/@notionhq/client">npm package</a> to make it easy.
<pre><code class="language-bash">npm i @notionhq/client
or
yarn add @notionhq/client
</code></pre>
This provides a nice library to make the calls easy. The issue I did find though was that it doesn&#39;t give me types for the various properties I can work through.
<h2>Building the Types</h2>
To make my job a little easier, I got some calls working and looked at the JSON returned from Notion&#39;s API and built some types. Now these types are not complete. They do have more properties attached to them. I just defined the minimum I needed for my purpose. If and when you make your calls, it would be useful to add the additional properties as you see fit.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">export interface NotionTitle {
 id: string;
 title: { plain_text: string; }[];
}

export interface NotionLink {
 id: string;
 url: string | null;
}

export interface NotionDate {
 id: string;
 date: { start: string | null } | null;
}

export interface NotionNumber {
 id: string;
 number: number | null;
}

export interface NotionPlainText {
 id: string;
 rich_text: { plain_text: string | null }[];
}
</code></pre>
These types are used for me defining the response that I expect back from Notion.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import {
 NotionLink,
 NotionPlainText,
 NotionTitle,
 NotionNumber,
 NotionDate,
} from &#39;./NotionShared&#39;;

export interface NotionMovie {
 id: string;
 properties: {
 Name: NotionTitle;
 CoverUrl: NotionLink;
 Thoughts: NotionPlainText;
 ImdbLink: NotionLink;
 Rating: NotionNumber;
 DateWatched: NotionDate;
 };
}

export interface NotionMovieApiResponse {
 nextCursor: string | null;
 results: NotionMovie[];
}
</code></pre>
As you can see, I define a movie being returned by Notion to have an ID, and then a set of properties each having one of the shared types I created in the <code>NotionShared.ts</code> file.
I also created the type <code>NotionMovieApiResponse</code> which defines the actual response I get back from the Notion API call. It contains two properties. The cursor (<code>nextCursor</code>) that I would need to pass in if there are more records so Notion knows where to start the return for pagination. The other property is an array of the actual movie object.
<h2>Querying the Notion API</h2>
Now for the fun part, making the call to Notion and returning the data I need for the page.
I have a file called <code>notion.ts</code> that contains all my calls to Notion. In there I have an import to bring in the <code>Client</code> object from the <code>@notionhq/client</code> package.
I created a function called <code>fetchMoviesFromNotion</code> that takes the cursor as an optional parameter. Remember above when I talked about the <code>nextCursor</code> property that I need to pass in to handle pagination or multiple calls? That&#39;s what this is.
The return for this function is a <code>NotionMovieApiResponse</code> object.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import { Client } from &#39;@notionhq/client&#39;;

const fetchMoviesFromNotion = async (cursor?: string): Promise&lt;NotionMovieApiResponse&gt; =&gt; {

 const notion = new Client({
 auth: process.env.NOTION_API_KEY,
 });

 const response = await notion.databases.query({
 database_id: process.env.MOVIE_DB_ID,
 start_cursor: cursor,
 filter: {
 property: &#39;Status&#39;,
 select: {
 equals: &#39;Watched&#39;,
 },
 },
 sorts: [
 { property: &#39;DateWatched&#39;, direction: &#39;descending&#39; },
 ],
 });

 let nextCursor: string | null = null;

 if (response.has_more) {
 nextCursor = response.next_cursor;
 }

 const movies = response.results as unknown as NotionMovie[];

 return {
 nextCursor,
 results: movies,
 };
};
</code></pre>
Taking a look at this, you can see that the first thing I do is create the Notion client by passing in my Notion API key.
The next step is for me to create the query.
Now just to provide some clarity, I have a property on each movie called &quot;Status&quot; that I don&#39;t bother with on my site. I have 4 statuses for movies.
<ul>
<li>To Watch</li>
<li>Awaiting Review</li>
<li>Watched</li>
<li>Couldn&#39;t Finish</li>
</ul>
Whenever I come upon a movie I want to watch, I add it to my Notion database with the status &quot;To Watch&quot;. If I start the movie and really just don&#39;t like it, to the point of being unable to finish it, I throw it into the &quot;Couldn&#39;t Finish&quot; status to let me know that I didn&#39;t like it. &quot;Awaiting Review&quot; is where the movie sits after I watch it and stew a bit as to what my thoughts were. &quot;Watched&quot; is when I&#39;ve put in my rating and thoughts. These are the movies that I want returned to the site.
To query a Notion database, I call the <code>notion.databases.query()</code> function. This takes at minimum a database ID.
In my use case, I also pass in the cursor as the <code>start_cursor</code>. If it&#39;s not provided, Notion will start from the beginning.
The next argument is <code>filter</code>. This can either be an array of filters, or a single filter. In my use case, it&#39;s a single filter. I tell it the property I want to filter on, in this case, the &quot;Status&quot; property. The next argument within the filter, <code>select</code>, I tell it I want all database rows where the status equals &quot;Watched&quot;.
The final argument is <code>sorts</code>. Rather than sorting manually after bringing everything back, I let Notion do that for me. This is an array so you can sort by multiple properties if you choose. For me, I just want to sort it by the <code>DateWatched</code> property in a descending order so the most recent are at the start of the results.
The results from Notion&#39;s call are then assigned to the <code>response</code> variable. For me to handle the function&#39;s return.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">let nextCursor: string | null = null;

if (response.has_more) {
 nextCursor = response.next_cursor;
}

const movies = response.results as unknown as NotionMovie[];

return {
 nextCursor,
 results: movies,
};
</code></pre>
The first thing I do is default the <code>nextCursor</code> to <code>null</code>. I then check to see if Notion is telling me there are more rows left in my query. If there are, I assign the cursor from the response; if not, I leave it as <code>null</code>.
The next line I&#39;m not super proud of. Basically to make TypeScript happy, I assign the results from Notion as type <code>unknown</code> and then immediately assign them the type <code>NotionMovie[]</code>. There might be better ways, but this works well enough.
I then send the data back for processing.
<h2>Putting it All Together</h2>
The main function that handles bringing back the movies is called <code>getMovies()</code>. It returns a list of movies defined as:
<pre><code class="language-typescript">interface Movie {
 id: string;
 title: string;
 cover: string;
 link: string;
 dateWatched: string;
 rating: number;
 thoughts: string | null;
 yearWatched: number;
}
</code></pre>
<pre><code class="language-typescript">export const getMovies = async (): Promise&lt;Movie[]&gt; =&gt; {
 const movies: Movie[] = [];

 let nextCursor;

 do {
 const response = await fetchMoviesFromNotion(nextCursor) as NotionMovieApiResponse;

 nextCursor = response.nextCursor;

 response.results.forEach((m) =&gt; {
 movies.push(mapResultToMovie(m));
 });
 } while (nextCursor);

 return movies;
};
</code></pre>
The first thing I do in the function is declare the movie array that I will be returning to the page. Throughout the function I&#39;ll be adding records to it. I also declare the next cursor, but leave it undefined.
I use a <code>do-while</code> loop to retrieve all the records from Notion. I always will be making at least one call to Notion so I want to make sure it always makes that call. Subsequent calls will be determined by whether the cursor returned is either null or if it contains a value.
I have every call to Notion&#39;s API re-assign the cursor returned from Notion assigned to the <code>nextCursor</code> variable and then go through the results, parsing the results to a movie object, and then added to the array.
This is the <code>mapResultToMovie()</code> function to help keep the <code>getMovies()</code> code a little cleaner:
<pre><code class="language-typescript">const mapResultToMovie = (result: NotionMovie): Movie =&gt; ({
 id: result.id,
 title: result.properties.Name.title[0].plain_text,
 cover: result.properties.CoverUrl.url,
 rating: result.properties.Rating.number,
 thoughts: result.properties.Thoughts.rich_text[0]?.plain_text ?? null,
 link: result.properties.ImdbLink.url,
 dateWatched: result.properties.DateWatched.date ? dayjs(result.properties.DateWatched.date.start).format(&#39;MMMM D, YYYY&#39;) : null,
 yearWatched: result.properties.DateWatched.date ? dayjs(result.properties.DateWatched.date.start).year() : null,
});
</code></pre>
This function maps the values returned from Notion to the object I defined to hold the movies. If you look up at the Notion types I defined above, you can see how the various different properties&#39; values are found. For the <code>dateWatched</code> and <code>yearWatched</code> properties, I use the handy <a href="https://day.js.org/">dayjs</a> library to format the date and get the year.
From there, I return the movies array to the page and display the movies grouped by year.
<hr>
You can view the source to my site on it&#39;s <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/kpwags.com">GitHub Page</a>

Integrating Notion into my Site

You might have noticed that I added a new section to my page called “Book Notes”, and RSS subscribers might have noticed the same thing. Inspired by a <a href="https://mastodon.social/@matthiasott/110983854141456413">Mastodon post by Matthias Ott</a>, I decided to add something more than quick notes on the books I read.
For some books, probably not all, I’m hoping to add more notes and details about what I thought of the book. These notes will show up on the book notes page and my general RSS feed. I also added a separate <a href="https://kpwags.com/rss/booknotes_feed.xml">RSS feed</a> specifically for book notes. You can also go right to the book’s book notes page from my full <a href="https://kpwags.com/bookshelf">bookshelf page</a> if you see the link titled “Book Notes”.
<a href="https://kpwags.com/book-notes">View Book Notes</a>

Added Book Notes

Over the last week and a half, I&#39;ve been starting to play around with <a href="https://astro.build">Astro</a> again. I had built a good bit of my site in it a while back, but then decided just to re-jigger my Next.js site. Reading and listening to some podcasts has brought me back to starting over.
One of the things I&#39;ve been wanting to do is to improve the performance of my site. Next.js hasn&#39;t been bad in that aspect, but I&#39;ve been reading about Astro and how it ships 0 bytes of JavaScript to the client by default and that&#39;s impressive.
<h2>What I Like So Far About Astro</h2>
<ol>
<li>It easily handles the content for my blog and reading logs. It has what it calls <a href="https://docs.astro.build/en/guides/content-collections/">Content Collections</a> to handle the different pieces of content and easily allows me to define front matter with support to show me missing data pieces. I can separate out my reading logs and blog posts to have different definitions too.</li>
<li>Modularized CSS built right into the components. Instead of having to use CSS modules or a massive stylesheet, I can just add a <code>&lt;style /&gt;</code> tag to the bottom of the component and it will load it right in, scoped to that component. It&#39;s not difficult to do this with CSS modules, but it&#39;s convenient that it&#39;s built right in by default.</li>
<li>Knowing that I can add React components (or Vue, or Svelt) later should I need to. I’ve been sticking with Astro components so far and it’s been fine. But it’s nice to know that I can add them later should the need arise.</li>
</ol>
I’m not certain if I’ll finish this take on things. My plan is to get an MVP up and see what Lighthouse and other performance tools say about it in comparison.

Digging Into Astro

Something that&#39;s been on my todo list for a while is to improve my sleeping habits.
I was listening to a <a href="http://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-114/">Stronger by Science podcast episode talking about sleep habits</a> and realized that my sleep habits are not exactly great. The biggest thing I have going against me is really the fact that I play hockey with ice times that are often around 10pm or even later sometimes.
There were a few things that the podcast mentioned. The biggest points that I took away from it was:
<ol>
<li>Get yourself on a consistent sleep schedule</li>
<li>Sleep long enough</li>
<li>Avoid caffeine roughly 6 hours before bed (even more time is better)</li>
<li>Avoid too much alcohol before bed</li>
<li>Keep the room dark and no screens</li>
</ol>
Looking at the points, I could definitely improve on just about all of them.
I&#39;m not sure I&#39;ll ever completely get on a consistent sleep schedule. On nights when I don&#39;t have hockey, I try to be in bed between 10 and 10:15pm with a 6:45am alarm. On nights where I play hockey, even if it&#39;s an early game and I get home before 11, I&#39;m still amped up and wouldn&#39;t be able to sleep if I got into bed. I&#39;ve written about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/05/05/calming-down-after-hockey">how I&#39;ve been reading a bit before bed after hockey</a>.
Sleeping long enough generally isn&#39;t a problem on non-hockey nights. I generally aim for a good 7-8 hours which I feel gives me a good energy level. The problem of course is when I&#39;m playing several nights in a row and feel like I&#39;m constantly playing catch-up with my sleep.
Avoiding caffeine I&#39;ve been working at on getting better. I generally don&#39;t have coffee much in the afternoon. I might occasionally have some around the 2-3pm lull, but not on an every day basis. I would however often have an energy drink prior to the late games to give me some extra energy for the games. That I&#39;ve been working on cutting out entirely with decent success.
Alcohol is one that I could be doing better at overall. They call my hockey league a beer league for a reason. And while I don&#39;t drink too much at any point, the consistent couple of beers after games don&#39;t help matters. I could probably do with cutting back more on non-hockey nights as well.
The one thing I&#39;ve actually been doing well is not laying in bed prior to going to sleep looking at my phone. I almost always put it on the charger, crawl under the covers and turn off my light. Light-wise, my bedroom is mostly dark. Only light is a little bit of light from the night light in the hallway and the glow of our alarm clock. We have 2 windows, and both have blackout shades, which is nice when I&#39;m under the weather and need to sleep during the day. Normally though, we only keep one down so that we have the natural light to help wake us in the morning.
I know proper sleep is necessary for us humans to function properly. It&#39;s key for recovery and important for our health. I&#39;m hoping to figure out a better way to get into a better rhythm to make sure the sleep I do get is enoug, and that I don&#39;t always feel tired. I&#39;m just trying to figure out how to best get there.

Figuring Out Better Sleep Habits

Integrating with Notion's API Using .NET

I was listening to <a href="https://shoptalkshow.com/553/">ShopTalk Episode 553</a> and Dave asked a question that made me pause and think, hmmm…
<blockquote>
 Is TypeScript Solving a Problem or a Symptom? Is the problem “I don’t know what the data is”, or the symptom, “I have too much f*cking JavaScript and that’s the problem.”
</blockquote>
I’ve been using TypeScript almost exclusively for 3+ years now. I find it to make my development work easier and myself more productive. For big applications, it’s an absolute godsend. Visual Studio Code lets me know what properties the various objects have and what methods are available to me.
The downside of course is that if I need that help, it probably means there’s a lot of JavaScript and remembering or knowing quickly the properties and definitions of an object becomes more and more troublesome.
If the JavaScript is part of your build tooling, that’s one thing. But if all of the JavaScript is being sent to the client, performance is likely to take a hit.
I don’t really know what the right answer for all of this is, apps are getting bigger and more complex, thus requiring more JavaScript to support them. I just thought it was an interesting thought since TypeScript has become as big as it has.

Is TypeScript Solving a Problem or a Symptom

July was a scorcher. I know we had it lucky compared to other areas of the world, but I don’t do well in the heat so the constant 90º weather was not pleasant for me.
Other than the heat, it wasn’t a bad month. Not much really happened this month. It was nice and relaxing. I went down to Maryland to hang out with a good friend from college. We caught an Orioles’ game in Baltimore and just hung out with his wife and daughter.
<h2>Running Again</h2>
Towards the end of the month I started getting back into running since I’m going to attempt the Philadelphia Marathon this year. My hip flexor is still giving me issues so I’m hoping it doesn’t get so bad I can’t run. Thankfully the distances right now are on the shorter side to help me ramp up to the longer distances. Waking up at the crack of dawn so I can run to beat the heat won’t be much fun though.
<h2>Guitar</h2>
I’ve also picked back up the guitar. I got one in high school, took a few lessons but then stopped playing since I didn’t really take to it. One of my goals this year was to pick it back up. I’ve gotten my hands on an acoustic guitar and am taking online practice lessons in hopes that I’ll take to it better this time. The tips of my fingers are hurting though 😭.
<h2>More Sleeve Work</h2>
I had my second session for my sleeve and so far it looks amazing. The detail is phenomenal despite it not having any color yet. I have two sessions scheduled in August to get some color on the upper arm and then start on the forearm. I’m looking forward to more progress and its eventual completion.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Back up to 32.77 miles. Marathon training has begun.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Switched over to a twice a week program to give me time for marathon training.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/twilight-of-the-gods-war-in-the-western-pacific-1944-1945-ian-w-toll/13150893?ean=9780393868302">Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-terraformers-annalee-newitz/19537833?ean=9781250228017">The Terraformers</a> by Annalee Newitz</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-david-graeber/6692761?ean=9781501143335">Bullshit Jobs</a> by David Graeber</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://leanpub.com/learningpatterns">Learning Patterns</a> by Lydia Hallie &amp; Addy Osmani</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/35">July 7, 2023 (#35)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/36">July 21, 2023 (#36)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/37">July 28, 2023 (#37)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/07/12/random-thoughts-on-owning-things">owning things</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/07/24/reading-and-watching-notes">keeping notes on what I read and watch</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/07/31/blazor-custom-authentication">implementing custom authentication in Blazor</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-forbidden-west/">Horizon Forbidden West</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Started, and finished <a href="https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-roosevelts/">The Roosevelts</a></li>
<li>Continued season 2 of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/">Star Trek: Strange New Worlds</a></li>
<li>Got up to date on <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
<li>Started season 3 of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5057054/">Jack Ryan</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8879940/">Mythic Quest</a></li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/">American Gods</a></li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/">Altered Carbon</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2906216/">Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Among Thieves</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274492/">The Out-Laws</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4572820/">For the Love of Spock</a></li>
<li><a href="https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/">Star Trek</a></li>
<li><a href="https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/">Star Trek: Into Darkness</a></li>
<li><a href="https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2660888/">Star Trek: Beyond</a></li>
</ul>

July 2023 Check-In

One of the things I wanted to integrate with this project was user accounts. I am not sure that I really need it since I’m not really intending to release my card collection app as a full fledged website for the masses. But I still wanted to add it in if for no other reason than to learn.
This is another installment in my series. If you haven’t read the others you can read about my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/03/19/digging-into-blazor-first-impressions">first impressions</a> and then <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/04/04/digging-into-blazor-entity-framework">integrating Entity Framework</a>.
The first thing I realized is that the architecture of Blazor doesn’t handle user authentication in quite the same way that ASP.NET web applications do.
Blazor uses <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/signalr/overview/getting-started/introduction-to-signalr">SignalR</a> extensively, and it uses it for authentication and session management as well.
I figured I’d go through what I had to do to get it working in hopes that it will help someone else.
<hr>
To start, I’m using the <a href="https://github.com/Blazored/SessionStorage">Blazored SessionStorage</a> library so install that.
<pre><code class="language-bash">&gt; dotnet add package Blazored.SessionStorage
</code></pre>
Like many of my projects, I use Microsoft’s Identity libraries to handle users. No sense in rolling your own. And fortunately, Microsoft’s package works with Blazor as well.
To set this up, I need to add Microsoft Identity. This is how it’s done in other apps as well. In <code>Program.cs</code> file, (or <code>Startup.cs</code> in older project templates).
<pre><code class="language-csharp">builder.Services.AddIdentity&lt;UserAccountDto, IdentityRole&lt;int&gt;&gt;()
 .AddEntityFrameworkStores&lt;ApplicationDbContext&gt;()
 .AddDefaultTokenProviders();
</code></pre>
By declaring <code>IdentityRole</code> with <code>&lt;int&gt;</code>, I’m telling EntityFramework (EF) to build the Role table using an integer as the ID column type.
The UserAccount table is much the same, but since I need to add values to it, I have it defined in its own class. Again, having it inherit the <code>IdentityUser</code> type with <code>&lt;int&gt;</code> will have EF use an integer for the ID column type.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity;

namespace CardOrganizer.Domain.Dtos;

public class UserAccountDto : IdentityUser&lt;int&gt;
{
 [PersonalData] public string Name { get; set; } = string.Empty;
}
</code></pre>
This in itself doesn’t vary much from other project types so the familiarity helped.
The next thing I needed to do was add the Blazored SessionStorage library. It’s able to be done by adding it to the <code>Program.cs</code> file.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">builder.Services.AddBlazoredSessionStorage();
</code></pre>
<h2>Building our Custom Auth Provider</h2>
The next step was to build a custom authentication provider. Let’s call it <code>CustomAuthenticationStateProvider</code>.
It will need to implement the abstract class <code>AuthenticationStateProvider</code>.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public class CustomAuthenticationStateProvider : AuthenticationStateProvider
{

}
</code></pre>
I’m going to need access to both Blazor’s session storage and our <code>UserManager</code>, so I’ll add them through dependency injection.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public class CustomAuthenticationStateProvider : AuthenticationStateProvider
{
 private readonly UserManager&lt;UserAccountDto&gt; _userManager;
 private readonly ISessionStorageService _sessionStorageService;

 public CustomAuthenticationStateProvider(
 UserManager&lt;UserAccountDto&gt; userManager,
 ISessionStorageService sessionStorageService
 )
 {
 _userManager = userManager;
 _sessionStorageService = sessionStorageService;
 }
}
</code></pre>
The first thing I needed to do was to override the <code>GetAuthenticationStateAync</code> method. This is the key method needed for method returns the current authentication state. This method is responsible for returning the authentication state to whatever is asking for it.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public override async Task&lt;AuthenticationState&gt; GetAuthenticationStateAsync()
{
 var identity = new ClaimsIdentity();;

 var userId = await _sessionStorageService
 .GetItemAsync&lt;int&gt;(&quot;userId&quot;);

 if (userId &gt; 0)
 {
 var user = await _userManager
 .FindByIdAsync(userId.ToString());

 if (user is not null)
 {
 identity = new ClaimsIdentity(new[]
 {
 new Claim(&quot;UserAccountId&quot;, user.Id.ToString()),
 new Claim(ClaimTypes.Email, user.Email ?? &quot;&quot;),
 new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, user.Name)
 }, &quot;CardOrgAuth&quot;);
 }
 else
 {
 // can&#39;t find the user, kill the session
 await _sessionStorageService.RemoveItemAsync(&quot;userId&quot;);
 }
 }

 return await Task.FromResult(new AuthenticationState(new ClaimsPrincipal(identity)));
}
</code></pre>
The first thing this function does is pull the user ID from the session storage. We then use the ID to find the user from the database. If the user is found, we build the identity with the user information. And return it as the authentication state.
If the user isn’t found or there is no user ID in the session state then a blank identity is returned.
<h2>Applying Authentication States</h2>
Now that that’s been implemented, we can use the <code>&lt;AuthorizeView&gt;</code> elements in our components.
To start, I needed to modify my <code>App.razor</code> file to allow for handling the authentication state.
<pre><code class="language-razor">&lt;CascadingAuthenticationState&gt;
 &lt;Router AppAssembly=&quot;@typeof(App).Assembly&quot;&gt;
 &lt;Found Context=&quot;routeData&quot;&gt;
 &lt;AuthorizeRouteView RouteData=&quot;@routeData&quot; DefaultLayout=&quot;@typeof(MainLayout)&quot; /&gt;
 &lt;FocusOnNavigate RouteData=&quot;@routeData&quot; Selector=&quot;h1&quot; /&gt;
 &lt;/Found&gt;
 &lt;NotFound&gt;...&lt;/NotFound&gt;
 &lt;/Router&gt;
&lt;/CascadingAuthenticationState&gt;
</code></pre>
I had to encompass the entire page with the <code>&lt;CascadingAuthenticationState&gt;</code> tag and I had to change the <code>&lt;RouteView&gt;</code> tag in with the <code>&lt;AuthorizeRouteView&gt;</code> tag. This will allow for the AuthenticationState to cascade down into my components.
Here’s a good example of it in use in an actual component. In the site’s nav bar, I have links to login and to register when there is no user logged in, and the user’s name and a logout button when there is an active session.
<pre><code class="language-razor">@inject AuthenticationStateProvider AuthStateProvider
@inject NavigationManager NavigationManager

...

&lt;AuthorizeView&gt;
 &lt;Authorized&gt;
 &lt;li class=&quot;inline-block mx-4&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;#&quot; class=&quot;text-white&quot;&gt;@context?.User?.Identity?.Name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li class=&quot;inline-block mx-4&quot;&gt;
 &lt;button type=&quot;button&quot; class=&quot;btn-link&quot; @onclick=&quot;async () =&gt; await HandleLogout()&quot;&gt;Logout&lt;/button&gt;
 &lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/Authorized&gt;
 &lt;NotAuthorized&gt;
 &lt;li class=&quot;inline-block mx-4&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/login&quot; class=&quot;text-white&quot;&gt;Login&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li class=&quot;inline-block mx-4&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/register&quot; class=&quot;text-white&quot;&gt;Register&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/NotAuthorized&gt;
&lt;/AuthorizeView&gt;

...

@code {
 [CascadingParameter] private Task&lt;AuthenticationState&gt;? AuthenticationState { get; set; }

 private async Task HandleLogout()
 {
 await ((CustomAuthenticationStateProvider)AuthStateProvider).EndUserSession();
 }
}
</code></pre>
Within the <code>&lt;AuthorizeView&gt;</code> tags, we have two tags. Anything within the <code>&lt;Authorized&gt;</code> tags will appear when the user is logged in, anything within the <code>&lt;NotAuthorized&gt;</code> tags will appear when the user is not logged in.
The other key is defining the Cascading Parameter in the <code>@code</code> section of the component.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">[CascadingParameter] private Task&lt;AuthenticationState&gt;? AuthenticationState { get; set; }
</code></pre>
This is needed so the <code>AuthorizeView</code> knows the current authentication state of the user.
<h2>Implementing Logging In and Logging Out</h2>
The final step I needed to do was to allow the user to log in and then log out.
<h3>Processing on the Form</h3>
The Custom Authentication State Provider I built above doesn’t actually verify the user’s credentials are complete. It just handles maintaining the session. What I needed to do was validate the user’s email and password elsewhere first.
I created a service to handle this.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public async Task&lt;UserAccount&gt; LoginUser(string email, string password)
{
 var user = await _userManager.FindByEmailAsync(email);

 if (user is null)
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Invalid username or password.&quot;);
 }

 var result = await _signInManager.CheckPasswordSignInAsync(user, password, false);

 if (result.Succeeded)
 {
 return UserAccount.FromDto(user);
 }

 throw new Exception(&quot;Invalid username or password.&quot;);
}
</code></pre>
This function takes an email and a password and uses the <code>UserManager</code> and <code>SignInManager</code> to find the user, and then verify that the password is the correct password. If the email and password match, then the <code>UserAccount</code> object is returned. If the user is not found or the password is incorrect, an exception is thrown.
Let’s take a look at my login page.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">@code {
 ...
 try
 {
 var user = await AccountService.LoginUser(_model.Email, _model.Password);

 await ((CustomAuthenticationStateProvider)AuthStateProvider).StartUserSession(user);

 _isLoading = false;

 NavigationManager.NavigateTo(
 string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(RedirectUrl)
 ? &quot;/&quot;
 : RedirectUrl, true
 );
 }
 catch (Exception e)
 {
 _pageError = e.Message;
 _isLoading = false;
 StateHasChanged();
 }
}
</code></pre>
The first thing I do is pass the email and password to the <code>LoginUser</code> function. If the email or password is incorrect, the exception is thrown and the error message is displayed to the user. If the email and password are correct, it passes the <code>UserAccount</code> object to the <code>AuthenticateUser</code> function and redirects the user to the page they came from or to the homepage.
You might have noticed the <code>EndUserSession()</code> function call in the nav bar, and the <code>StartUserSession</code> call in the code above. These are the last two pieces in the <code>CustomAuthenticationStateProvider</code> class.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public async Task StartUserSession(UserAccount user)
{
 await _sessionStorageService.SetItemAsync(&quot;userId&quot;, user.UserAccountId);

 var identity = new ClaimsIdentity(new[]
 {
 new Claim(&quot;UserAccountId&quot;, user.UserAccountId.ToString()),
 new Claim(ClaimTypes.Email, user.Email),
 new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, user.Name)
 });

 var userAccount = new ClaimsPrincipal(identity);

 NotifyAuthenticationStateChanged(Task.FromResult(new AuthenticationState(userAccount)));
}

public async Task EndUserSession()
{
 await _sessionStorageService.RemoveItemAsync(&quot;userId&quot;);

 var identity = new ClaimsIdentity();

 NotifyAuthenticationStateChanged(Task.FromResult(new AuthenticationState(new ClaimsPrincipal(identity))));
}
</code></pre>
Starting with the <code>StartUserSession</code>, this function first puts the user’s ID in the session, then it takes the <code>UserAccount</code> object and builds the <code>ClaimsPrincipal</code> to be returned, notifying the site that the authentication state has changed.
The <code>EndUserSession</code> function does the opposite. It removes the user’s ID from the session, returns a blank principal, and notifies the site the authentication state has changed.
<hr>
That’s basically it. It’s a little more complicated than what I’m used to, but it’s also not horribly difficult to work with.
You can view the code base for my card organizer on <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/card-organizer">GitHub</a>. It’s still a work in progress, but this is currently in place and working.

Digging Into Blazor - Setting Up Custom Authentication

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction and have been watching some documentaries like The Roosevelts. I’ve found them to be incredibly interesting, but also very much in depth with a lot of information to digest. Sometimes it feels like I’m back in middle school, but I’ve started to take notes on what I’ve been reading and watching.
With reading, I’ve just been making notes about what I’m reading and capturing quotes that stand out. My iPhone makes the quotes easy as I can use the OCR functionality of the camera to copy the text off the page or off my Kindle to copy into my note.
With documentaries, it’s much the same, just capturing various different notes and factoids that I see and find interesting.
I’m not sure I’ll ever come back and dig into them, but I’m always trying to learn and it often feels like writing down some of what I read and watch helps my grasp things better.

Reading and Watching Notes

With the latest news with <a href="https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-prodigy-cancelled-no-season-2-paramount-plus-1850571256">Paramount+</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/19/23729642/disney-plus-hulu-remove-pull-shows-willow-streaming-bob-iger">Disney/Hulu</a> pulling their own content from their own services, it&#39;s gotten me thinking quite a bit about ownership of what you purchase.
It used to be you wanted the latest movie, book, music album, you went to the store and bought them. They were yours, no one could take them away from you. You could lend them to your friends and family, or let them collect dust on a shelf somewhere until you wanted to consume them again.
Then along came digital downloads, first of music. The original downloads often came with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which basically meant that you could only listen to your purchases the way whoever you bought it from said you could. And you had to hope that the store you bought them from, didn&#39;t just <a href="https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/09/wal-mart-latest-to-shut-down-drm-key-servers/">up and shut down, preventing your music from being played</a>.
Eventually for music, the stores went DRM-free which made owning your purchases feasible again. But then came the Kindle with most if not all of its books locked down with more DRM. Eventually, Amazon started allowing some eBooks to be sold DRM-free...but don&#39;t expect the same for audio books purchased from Audible.
Oh, and did I mention it&#39;s against the law to break DRM? Bought a Kindle and hundreds of eBooks from the Kindle store and decided you want to switch to Kobo? Hope you don&#39;t want to read (most) of the books on your brand new Kobo reader!
The list goes on and on, and has now reached the streaming age. The content we watch on Netflix, Hulu, and the other video streaming sources can be added and pulled at their whim. Really like that Netflix series, enough that you enjoy watching it regularly? Better hope they don&#39;t pull it!
Now I&#39;m not trying to be a curmudgeon. I use music and video streaming services plenty, and enjoy them. But looking at the Star Trek: Prodigy case, it shows how much they can suck too. There&#39;s no easy way for me to go out and actually own it. CBS/Paramount don&#39;t offer the entire series on DVD or Blu-Ray. I can get the first 10 episodes on disc, but not the last 10. And that&#39;s the part that sucks.
There are plenty of shows and movies where streaming makes plenty of sense. If I want to watch what might be a stupid movie (in all the good ways) and it&#39;s on a streaming service I have access to, I can watch it without having to shell out $20 for a DVD. And if I do like it, I can buy a physical copy.
Streaming is perfect for those &quot;like, but not enough to buy&quot; movies, TV and books. But what do you do for the media you really like, are willing to shell out the money for, but the rights holders pull from streaming without offering an alternative? The cynic in me points to the last thing media companies want...
<PostImage
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Moving to the gaming world, there was a recent study, <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/07/87-of-classic-games-are-out-of-print-thats-a-problem-for-gaming-history/">87% of classic games are out of print</a>. Even games that are 15 years old can be hard to come by. Hope you didn&#39;t want to play that PlayStation 2 game!
After the whole Star Trek: Prodigy fiasco, I went out and bought the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Blu-Ray because the show has been absolutely amazing so far (seriously, watch it). And I pre-ordered the entire series of Star Trek: Picard.
Paramount+ can take their shows off their streaming services, but they can&#39;t come into my home and take my Blu-Ray player! Nor can Warner Music come in and take my record player! Mwahaha!
I guess the whole point of this rambling is that over the last several months, I&#39;ve been focused on buying more physical media, and DRM-free digital media so that I can watch, read, and listen to it without having to worry about it going away.
You should consider that too.

Random Thoughts on Owning Things

Half the year is over. This month also had me surviving another trip around the sun.
<h2>Site Updates</h2>
The one thing I&#39;ve spent doing this month is moving my various lists (<a href="https://kpwags.com/tv">TV</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/movies">Movies</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/now">Now</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/video-games">Video Games</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/bookshelf">Bookshelf</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/listening">Podcasts</a>, &amp; my new <a href="https://kpwags.com/music">Music</a> page) is to put the data into Notion and use it&#39;s API to load the data. This will save me the hassle of updating the JSON that currently populates it. I started with my new music page and now I&#39;ve gotten TV, books, video games and the now pages all updated. Last ones are movies and podcasts.
<h2>New York City</h2>
It&#39;s become somewhat of a tradition, but Lauren and I spent a long weekend in New York City for my birthday. We seldomly go there with a plan, we just see what&#39;s going on and go from there.
This year we went to MoMA to see a Georgia O&#39;Keeffe exhibit Lauren had been wanting to see. It was interesting but I feel sadly that some of it is just lost on me.
A lot of the rest of the trip was spent wandering around, checking out different restaurants, whiskey bars, and even a new brewery. Time was also spent at various parks people watching and reading. The weather was mostly good too. It wasn&#39;t too hot, it only really rained for a little bit and we were inside MoMA for the storm.
Next year&#39;s birthday will be a little weird as I&#39;ll be hitting the big 4-0.
<h2>Back at it as a Goalie</h2>
The league I play goalie in has started back up, so I&#39;m now spending more nights at the rink, this time guarding the net. I&#39;m glad to have given my hip flexor a month and a half break, but am looking forward to getting better in net.
I ended up playing a game towards the end of the month in a higher league as an emergency sub. We ended up winning the game too. The defense in front of me was a huge help and deserves most of the credit, but I felt like I played relatively well given the advanced skill level. Only helps me get better too!
<h2>Finally Starting My Sleeve</h2>
For the last 5+ years, I have been wanting to get a space-themed sleeve on my right arm. I finally found an artist to work on getting it started. My first session was last week and the work so far looks amazing. There&#39;s still plenty to go, but I can&#39;t wait for the final result.
<h1>Monthly Round Up</h1>
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I only ended up running 9.3 miles. Weather hasn&#39;t been great and I&#39;ve been busier with hockey.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Started back up with my 5/3/1 program. It&#39;s going well.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-conquering-tide-war-in-the-pacific-islands-1942-1944-ian-w-toll/8758811?ean=9780393353204">The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/twilight-of-the-gods-war-in-the-western-pacific-1944-1945-ian-w-toll/13150893?ean=9780393868302">Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/31">June 2</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/32">June 9</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/33">June 23</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/34">June 30</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about:<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/06/07/further-thoughts-on-reddits-api-changes">Reddit&#39;s API changes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/06/12/goodbye-reddit">Deleting my Reddit accounts</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/06/21/its-easy-to-fall-off-the-train">Adversity with sticking to my fitness goals</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/06/24/gary-bettman-and-the-nhl-are-cowards">Gary Bettman and the NHL making a very bad decision</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/06/27/star-trek-prodigy-what-a-bummer">The sad end to Star Trek: Prodigy</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Beat <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-forbidden-west/">Horizon Forbidden West</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Finished rewatching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2191671/">Elementary</a></li>
<li>Finished rewatching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek: Voyager</a></li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">American Gods</a></li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
<li>Started Season 2 of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/">Star Trek: Strange New Worlds</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/">Altered Carbon</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li>None this month</li>
</ul>

June 2023 Check-In

This past week Paramount announced the <a href="https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-prodigy-cancelled-no-season-2-paramount-plus-1850571256">cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy</a>. And to make matters even worse, they have since pulled the series off of its Paramount+ service.
HEY! I was watching that!
Prodigy had been on my backlog for a while, but since Paramount had given a green light to season 2, I didn&#39;t rush to watch it figuring I had time. Then the news came out last week about them cancelling it and also pulling it from the service. Saturday and Sunday Lauren and I started binging it. We got 14 episodes into its 20 episode run before time ran out. Now I&#39;m stuck not knowing how it ended.
Currently, Prodigy isn&#39;t on any of the streaming services, including the aforementioned Paramount+ (the service all the other Star Trek series are on mind you). I can buy the first 10 episodes on DVD or Blu Ray, but not the last 10. I could buy the entire series digitally on Amazon, but I don&#39;t trust Amazon to not pull the rug out from under me and remove access to my purchases. So for now, my options are to buy the first 10 episodes on a disc and hope that 11-20 comes out later, or wait and hope I can get the entire series on disc.
I&#39;m pretty much out of luck right now.
Star Trek: Prodigy was a fun show. It was targeted for kids, but still enjoyable as a Star Trek fan. I was bummed to hear it was cancelled after only a single season. I was pissed though, that it was pulled from the service.
You know why people pirate media? This is why.
It&#39;s also why I&#39;ve been much more focused lately about buying the physical media for music, TV, &amp; movies. They can pull the media off of streaming services, but I&#39;ll still be able to stick the DVD or Blu Ray into my player.
CBS Studios will be shopping Star Trek: Prodigy to other studios so hopefully someone will pick it up soon.

Star Trek Prodigy...What a Bummer

Last year, the hubbub started when Flyers (my team sadly) defenseman Ivan Provorov decided to not skate warmups wearing the Flyers pride night jersey. Of the 20 active skaters and goalies, he was the only person to not be out there on the ice, and in the pride jersey. This week, the NHL &amp; Gary Bettman gave into the anti-LGBT hate and said that teams will not wear specialty jerseys for warmups in the 2023-24 season.
It fucking sucks on a number of levels. Hockey should be for everyone. The LGBTQ community should feel welcome to come cheer their team on. They should feel welcome to lace up skates and play. They shouldn&#39;t feel marginalized nor should they feel like they don&#39;t belong.
What I think many fail to understand is that the jerseys aren’t about the players. They’re about showing the fans in the building that they are all welcome. That it doesn’t matter what your gender or sexual identity is, you are welcome to come cheer your team on.
Brian Burke, most recently the president of hockey operations for the Pittsburgh Penguins said it best.
<blockquote>
I repeat that I am extremely disappointed. I wish players would understand that the pride sweaters are about inclusion and welcoming everybody. A player wearing pride colors or tape isn’t endorsing a set of values or enlisting in a cause! He is saying you are welcome here. And you are. In ever single NHL building.
</blockquote>
This is sadly another step back and Gary Bettman and the NHL are cowards. They should be ashamed of themselves and it makes me incredibly sad and angry to be a fan of this sport.

Gary Bettman and the NHL are Cowards

I’ve been pretty good with my fitness to start the year. For the first 3 months of the year I worked out in some fashion just about every day. Then I tweaked my hip flexor and it came crashing down.
I know it’s the age-old trope about having a hard time sticking to fitness and diet goals, but it’s amazing how even with months of doing well, it’s easy to get tripped up. The hip flexor issue prevented me from running and some of lifting routines, so I slowed to give it time to heal. Now that it’s back to normal and I’m pain-free, I haven’t been able to quite get back into my previous routine.
It takes a lot of determination and self-control to keep to fitness routines so props to those who can do it. Off days and days to let loose are of course never a bad thing, just gotta be careful that the off days don’t become the new routine.
I’ll get there.

It's Easy to Fall Off the Train

Well, it’s official...I deleted my two Reddit accounts.
Given the responses from /u/spez (Steve Huffman) in the AMA, it’s obvious the site’s ownership doesn’t care. Even if they do revert their API pricing changes, I’m done. I don’t trust them and I have better things I can spend my time doing.

Goodbye Reddit!

I mentioned in my last <a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/31">reading log</a> that Reddit looked to be making changes to its API pricing and wanted to put down some more thoughts on the matter.
Reddit recently announced that they were going to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23743993/reddit-apollo-client-api-cost">significantly increase their pricing for use of the API</a>. This came out after Christian Selig had a meeting with Reddit. Selig is the developer behind my preferred way to browse Reddit, <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575">Apollo</a> for iOS. The changes mean that he will be facing a potential $20 million yearly bill. Him and other Reddit app developers will be facing some hard decisions.
The issue there is that Reddit is alienating many of its users. I’ve tried their mobile app. To say that it’s a subpar experience probably gives it too much credit. Their website redesign is even worse. It’s slow and often lags for me. I still use old.reddit.com when I browse on the web. Because of this, I use Apollo as my primary Reddit experience.
And while I don’t run or moderate any subreddits, I’ve been reading that the moderation tools Reddit provides on their mobile apps makes moderating difficult. Many mods rely on the 3rd party apps to help them moderate their subreddits. <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_recently_announced_api_changes_and_the/">/r/blind also needs 3rd party apps since the official app is awful with regards to accessibility</a>.
Now look, Reddit is free to charge whatever they like for use of their API, it’s their platform, they make the rules. I also wouldn’t expect them to make it free. It also doesn’t sound like Selig is unwilling to pay. The price is just extraordinarily high and unsustainable for the 3rd party app ecosystem. If that is the way that Reddit wants to go about doing things, then I guess there’s not much that we can do.
They’re going public with an IPO later this year and they’re probably figuring they need to squeeze every last cent out of its users through ads and tracking. 3rd party apps eat into this, so the easiest thing to do is to get rid of them. There already seems to be some <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312">funny business</a> going on with some of the <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/reddits-plan-to-kill-third-party-apps-sparks-widespread-protests/">subreddit protsests</a>.
At the end of the day, I don’t know how much of Reddit’s user base is like me and consumes Reddit through apps like Apollo. But I know I’m not alone, and I know there are plenty that might NEED accessible apps to even make use of the platform. If this does indeed go through and apps like Apollo go the way of the dodo bird, I’ll likely be leaving Reddit as well.
With that said, like with the loss of Twitter, I’ll need more interesting RSS feeds!

Further Thoughts on Reddit's API Changes

May was a bit of a frustrating month, but I can’t fully point my finger at why exactly. I ended up tweaking a muscle early in the month that limited my physical activities, but not much else really jumps out at me as to why the month felt off.
<h2>Injury Issues</h2>
My left hip flexor tends to be relatively tight. I need to stretch it more, but keep forgetting, and never really get around to it. It’s led to some painful days following hockey games, particularly games where I play as the goalie. Normally, the pain goes away after a day or two and I go back to normal. Early in the month I was in a battle for the puck in the corner and ended up falling awkwardly. Queue a 3-4 week healing process. It’s now June and it finally seems to be back to normal.
Just stunk since I couldn’t run or lift like I normally like to. Funny thing is that hockey didn’t bother me too much, though I haven’t been playing in net since we’re between seasons in that league.
I just need to remember to stretch, but if it keeps happening, a visit to an ortho might be in order.
<h2>It’s No Wonder I Never Finish a Side Project</h2>
It’s no wonder I never finish a side project, I currently started playing around with a new side project.
I’ve been frustrated with the website my hockey league uses to manage my teams and what not. The site is absolutely awful and I know teammates and other team captains and players hate the system.
I’ve been playing around with how I might go about building a similar system that has a much better UI and is much more user-friendly. I have no idea where I’m going to go with it, but why not I guess.
<h2>Everything Else</h2>
Not much else has been going on, it’s been mostly quiet. My wife and I went to a nice whiskey pairing dinner, a Gaslight Anthem concert, and even a Kentucky Derby party. But other than that, it’s generally been nice quiet evenings at home. I’ve been spending a lot of evenings out on my porch since it’s been so nice out. Not looking forward to the hot and humid weather that’s going to mess that all up.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Given the hip flexor, I only managed 10.26 miles.</li>
<li>Biking: I took a 25 mile bike ride early in the month...so progress?</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Still doing the 5/3/1 program, but because of the hip flexor, I’ve slowed some.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Continuing
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-conquering-tide-war-in-the-pacific-islands-1942-1944-ian-w-toll/8758811?ean=9780393353204">The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/27">May 5 (#27)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/28">May 12 (#28)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/29">May 19 (#29)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/30">May 26 (#30)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/05/05/calming-down-after-hockey">calming down after hockey games</a></li>
<li>Wrote about the <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/05/21/ian-w-tolls-pacific-war-trilogy">Pacific War trilogy I’m reading</a></li>
<li>Wrote about having now been <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/05/26/10-years-of-playing-hockey">playing hockey for 10 years</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a> - Really jumped back into this. I’m now at 29 hours played and have been having a lot of fun.</li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek Voyager</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2191671/">Elementary</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">American Gods</a></li>
<li>2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs</li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/">Charlie Wilson’s War</a></li>
</ul>

May Check-In

It was 10 years ago when I ended up starting to play ice hockey. I had tried playing baseball again but ended up hurting my shoulder so I opted for trying something new.
For 2 years after college I tried getting back into playing baseball. I played for an adult league in Philly for 2 seasons and had some fun. In the process I ended up hurting my shoulder which led me to physical therapy.
I had been getting into watching and following hockey more at that point, and had considered trying it, but nothing ever came of it. My physical therapist had different ideas. He mentioned a local rink had an instructional league where they have 6 weeks of instruction followed by 10 weeks of games (playing once a week every Monday). He happened to mention it the Monday before the next season started. I thought about it and decided I was in.
I filled out the form, wrote a check and asked my fiancé (now wife) to drop the form and check off at the rink since she worked nearby. Then Thursday after work I went over to TotalHockey and bought all the gear, and Monday I was on the ice for the very first time having never played hockey or even really skated before.
10 years later, I’m playing on 3 teams, playing every position, getting some exercise in, and having a lot of fun. I captain a team in one men’s league, play on another, and am still in the instructional league, though now as a goalie rather than a skater.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying playing and if I hadn’t had the physical therapist I had, who knows if I would have ever started playing.
There are so many hockey players who have been playing since they could barely walk and there I was, lacing up my skates for the first time approaching my 29th birthday. It just goes to show that it’s never too late to start or learn something new!

10 Years of Playing Hockey

Over the course of the last month, I’ve been reading a three book series written by Ian W. Toll on the history of World War II in the Pacific. I’m currently on the second book and I can’t recommend it enough.
I heard about this series on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cE5-Ze6EcU">Hardcore History Addendum Episode</a> and it dawned on me that while I knew quite a bit about the war in Europe against Nazi Germany, I didn’t know a great deal about the war in the Pacific Ocean against Japan. The interview was interesting and it inspired me to buy the three books and add them to my reading list.
<PostImage
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If you’re interested in history, they’ve been a great read so far. Toll does a great job talking and explaining what happened and who the characters involved were. He does it in such a way that is not dull, but informative and interesting. Some books on history can be dull and sometimes dry, these books are not one of them.
Here are the links to buy the books on bookshop.org.
<ul>
<li>Book 1: <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/pacific-crucible-war-at-sea-in-the-pacific-1941-1942-ian-w-toll/8754662?ean=9780393343410">Pacific Crucible</a></li>
<li>Book 2: <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-conquering-tide-war-in-the-pacific-islands-1942-1944-ian-w-toll/8758811?ean=9780393353204">The Conquering Tide</a></li>
<li>Book 3: <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/twilight-of-the-gods-war-in-the-western-pacific-1944-1945-ian-w-toll/13150893?ean=9780393868302">Twilight of the Gods</a></li>
</ul>

Ian W. Toll's Pacific War Trilogy

I enjoy playing hockey and will often play as much as 3 nights a week. Being an adult, I’m stuck with the late ice times so the kiddos can be home and in bed. This means that I’m often not starting games until 10:00 to 10:30pm some nights. This means that I’m not home until midnight some nights. Add in the rush of adrenaline from playing and it’s not a fun combo. I’ve started to settle into a good habit though.
Getting home at midnight after a beer league hockey game on a work night is no fun. What makes it worse is that you’re still amped up, so even if you get into bed, you’re still too “awake” to sleep.
A little before the new year, I tried a new strategy of coming home and reading for 30 minutes to an hour before crawling into bed. It’s a quiet activity that helps calm me down and lower the adrenaline. I’ll sometimes read with one last beer too (which may or may not be for the best, but oh well).
It’s nice to be able to be “productive” and to get something out of the post-game buzz rather than twisting and turning in bed possibly keeping my wife awake. It’s become somewhat of a ritual and in a weird way I kind of look forward to getting comfortable on the couch in a quiet house with my cat and a good book.

Calming Down After Hockey

April wasn’t a bad month. I was productive and was able to finish the month with a well deserved long weekend vacation.
<h2>Reworking My Site</h2>
Early on in the month I decided to put Astro on hold and instead focus on cleaning up what I already had for my site with Next.js. I took some of the designing I was doing with Astro and applied it to my current platform. The work was fun and in the end my site is now running the latest version of Next.js (for now) and looks a tad bit better. The downside is that I had to remove my photography section and photo blog temporarily while I find a CDN to store the images.
<h2>A Nice Long Weekend</h2>
At the end of the month, my wife and I went to Cape May, New Jersey to celebrate her birthday. The weather was gorgeous and we were able to check out the local wineries and just sit out on our hotel’s veranda with a drink and read. It wasn’t a full week, but the long weekend was the perfect way to unwind.
<h2>Hey, We’re League Champions!</h2>
The latest I-League season at my rink ended this month and my team was able to win the upper bracket championship. We started the season out rough at 0 - 3, but finished with 7 straight wins to capture the trophy. I managed to get a 1 - 0 shutout to seal the win.
<PostImage
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<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I only ended up running 22.9 miles this month.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>After hitting the 1,000 lbs. mark, I’ve deloaded and am working my way back up. It’s going well, might not be doing the same weight, but am doing more volume.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/anansi-boys-neil-gaiman/6438691?ean=9780063070738">Anansi Boys</a> by Neil Gaiman</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/heart-is-a-lonely-hunter-carson-mccullers/266374">The Heart is a Lonely Hunter</a> by Carson McCullers</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/pacific-crucible-war-at-sea-in-the-pacific-1941-1942-ian-w-toll/8754662?ean=9780393343410">Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-conquering-tide-war-in-the-pacific-islands-1942-1944-ian-w-toll/8758811?ean=9780393353204">The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944</a> by Ian W. Toll</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/25">April 7 (#25)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/26">April 14 (#26)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Continued my Blazor Series with <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/04/04/digging-into-blazor-entity-framework">Integrating with Entity Framework</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/04/18/libby-and-libraries">Libby &amp; Libraries</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/04/28/some-site-and-design-updates">My Site Updates</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Not much of any gaming</li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Finished <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8806524/">Star Trek Picard</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek Voyager</a></li>
<li>Started re-watching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2191671/">Elementary</a></li>
<li>2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs</li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/">The Great Gatsby</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/">The Shawshank Redemption</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1649418/">The Gray Man</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454848/">Inside Man</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
Update 5.2.2023 : Fixed Duplicate Header

April Check-In

Over the course of the last month or so, I’ve been tweaking the design of my site. You might have noticed the changes to the look and the feel.
Playing around with Astro I realized that I wanted to give my site a bit of a refresh. And given that I’ve put Astro on hold for the time being, I figured I’d take a break and apply some of the refreshes I was developing with Astro to my Next.js implementation.
Some of the changes that I made:
<ul>
<li>Removed the font options. I know it kind of feels like removing functionality, but I thought more about it and it will be easier for me to handle typography. I chose the monospaced font because I like the way it looks and feels.</li>
<li>Better handled my <a href="https://kpwags.com/bookshelf">bookshelf</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/tv">TV</a>, <a href="https://kpwags.com/movies">movies</a>, &amp; <a href="https://kpwags.com/video-games">video game</a> pages. I didn’t like the way I was handling the wider widths so I laid out the HTML elements better to allow for a wider width for the pages.</li>
<li>Changed the look and feel of blog headers both on the entry page and on the listing pages.</li>
<li>Improved the header to allow for search and theme picking from mobile.</li>
<li>Added a proper 404 page.</li>
<li>Cleaned up all the front matter in my blog posts since they were all over the place depending on when I wrote the post.</li>
<li>Added <a href="https://sandpack.codesandbox.io/">Sandpack</a> support for future posts where I want to include a code sandbox.</li>
<li>Switched from Prism to <a href="https://codehike.org/">Code Hike</a> for my code blocks.</li>
<li>Upgraded Next.js to v13.</li>
</ul>
The one downside that I came across was upgrading to Next.js 13 caused some issues with deploying my site to Netlify. I’ve had to remove my photography pages until I can move the images into a CDN. I had been including them in the project (probably foolishly) and with the upgrade to Next.js and Netlify’s Next.js plugin, it made my deploy way too large. I’ll probably look into S3 or something similar so I can re-add the photographs back. So a bummer, but hopefully only temporary.
I might be making some tweaks here and there, but if you notice anything weird, please let me know.

Some Site & Design Updates

As a kid, I loved it when my parents took me to the library. I read often and loved checking out books to read. As an adult it’s no different.
One of the apps on my iPhone is <a href="https://libbyapp.com/interview/welcome#doYouHaveACard">Libby</a> which allows me to borrow eBooks from my local library. I discovered it during the pandemic and it gives me access to books on my Kindle with the press of a button.
Like physical books, libraries only have so many digital copies available to lend as well. The nice part is that if they have the book you want to read but it’s checked out, you can easily add yourself to the waiting list to get it as soon as it becomes available. Another nice (or maybe not so nice thing from some points of view) is that because it’s digital, once the two weeks the reader has are up, it gets “returned” to the library for the next person. You don’t have to worry about the person before you losing it or returning it a month late.
They haven’t had every book on my reading list, but it’s a nice way to take advantage of what my local library offers.
I’d highly recommend seeing what your local libraries offer digitally, and any other of their services. The Wall Street Journal had a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-money-saving-power-of-your-library-card-8f490455">good article</a> about it a week or so ago.

Libby and Libraries

Now that I was getting my feet wet, it was time for me to start laying out the framework for my first real Blazor project. Step one was to get the database setup.
This is the second post in a multi-part series. If you haven&#39;t read part one, you can <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/03/19/digging-into-blazor-first-impressions">read about my first impressions</a>.
I had already decided to use Entity Framework to interact with my SQL server. I have used Entity Framework plenty in the past so I was familiar with the basics. If you haven&#39;t used Entity Framework, I would highly recommend reading about it and going through some tutorials. Microsoft provides some <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/">great documentation</a>.
The first thing I did was look into how to use <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/blazor/blazor-server-ef-core?view=aspnetcore-7.0">Entity Framework with Blazor</a>.
<blockquote>
In Blazor Server apps, scoped service registrations can be problematic because the instance is shared across components within the user&#39;s circuit.
</blockquote>
Well that&#39;s different.
I quickly realized that things were a little different, but following their setup, I worked to make sure that each interaction would operate in its own context. Reading more I found out that Microsoft recommended I use a factory to help. I added the DB Factory to my <code>Program.cs</code> file. The nice part is that it&#39;s very similar to how I configure it in my other projects.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">// Program.cs

builder.Services.AddDbContextFactory&lt;ApplicationDbContext&gt;(opt =&gt;
 opt.UseSqlServer(configuration.GetConnectionString(&quot;Main&quot;)));
</code></pre>
Setting up my models worked the same way as <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/digital-family-cookbook">Digital Family Cookbook</a>.
Let&#39;s create my first database table and model. Each of my baseball cards are going to need a brand (think Topps, Donruss, or Upper Deck).
<pre><code class="language-csharp">// BrandDto.cs

namespace CardOrganizer.Domain.Dtos;

public class BrandDto
{
 public int BrandId { get; set; }

 public string Name { get; set; } = string.Empty;

 public int CardTypeId { get; set; }

 public bool IsActive { get; set; } = true;

 public List&lt;BaseballCardDto&gt; BaseballCards { get; set; } = new List&lt;BaseballCardDto&gt;();
}
</code></pre>
Now let&#39;s actually create the app&#39;s database context.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">// ApplicationDbContext.cs

namespace CardOrganizer.Infrastructure.Database;

public class Role : IdentityRole&lt;int&gt; {}

public class ApplicationDbContext : IdentityDbContext&lt;UserAccountDto, IdentityRole&lt;int&gt;, int&gt;
{
 public DbSet&lt;BrandDto&gt; Brands { get; set; }

 public DbSet&lt;BaseballCardDto&gt; BaseballCards { get; set; }

 public ApplicationDbContext(DbContextOptions&lt;ApplicationDbContext&gt; options) : base(options)
 {

 }

 protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder builder)
 {
 base.OnModelCreating(builder);

 builder.HasDefaultSchema(&quot;application&quot;);

 #region &quot;Brand&quot;
 builder.Entity&lt;BrandDto&gt;()
 .ToTable(&quot;Brand&quot;, schema: &quot;card&quot;);

 builder.Entity&lt;BrandDto&gt;()
 .HasKey(b =&gt; b.BrandId)
 .HasName(&quot;PK_Card_Brand&quot;);

 builder.Entity&lt;BrandDto&gt;()
 .Property(b =&gt; b.CardTypeId)
 .IsRequired();

 builder.Entity&lt;BrandDto&gt;()
 .Property(b =&gt; b.Name)
 .HasMaxLength(150)
 .IsRequired();
 #endregion &quot;Brand&quot;
 }
}
</code></pre>
You can ignore the <code>Role</code> and <code>Identity</code> declarations as I&#39;ll get into those in the next post, but it was familiar to me to use the <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/ef6/modeling/code-first/fluent/types-and-properties">Fluent API</a> to build the model that Entity Framework will use to build the tables in the database.
To build the database, I used the standard EF terminal commands
<pre><code class="language-bash">$ dotnet ef migrations add AddBrandModels
</code></pre>
And then once that succeeded:
<pre><code class="language-bash">$ dotnet ef database update
</code></pre>
Now that the database was built, I can interact with the database using the <code>IDbContextFactory</code> I added to my <code>Program.cs</code> file above.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">// BrandRepository.cs

namespace CardOrganizer.Infrastructure.Repositories;

public class BrandRepository : IBrandRespository
{
 private readonly IDbContextFactory&lt;ApplicationDbContext&gt; _contextFactory;

 public BrandRepository(IDbContextFactory&lt;ApplicationDbContext&gt; contextFactory)
 {
 _contextFactory = contextFactory;
 }

 public Brand GetById(int brandId)
 {
 var dbContext = _contextFactory.CreateDbContext();

 var brand = dbContext.Brands.FirstOrDefault(b =&gt; b.BrandId == brandId);

 if (brand is null)
 {
 throw new ObjectNotFoundException(&quot;Unable to find the specified brand&quot;);
 }

 return Brand.FromDto(brand);
 }
}
</code></pre>
You can see in the constructor, I use dependency injection to inject the DbContextFactory to use in the repo, so that in any method I need access to the DB, I can easily create a new DB context by:
<pre><code class="language-csharp">var dbContext = await _contextFactory.CreateDbContextAsync();
</code></pre>
From there on, there&#39;s no real difference between using Entity Framework in a Blazor app or a .NET Web API.
The one thing you might also notice is that I don&#39;t have the repository return the DTO (Data Transfer Object) from the repository. Instead I have it return the domain model. My reasoning for that is that I want any extra logic I might need in the model separate from the model that gets saved and retrieved from the database. For the <code>Brand</code> domain model, the <code>FromDto</code> function is pretty simple.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">public static Brand FromDto(BrandDto dto) =&gt; new Brand
{
 BrandId = dto.BrandId,
 Name = dto.Name,
 CardType = (Constants.CardType)dto.CardTypeId,
 IsActive = dto.IsActive,
};
</code></pre>
In the next post, my plan is to dig into dealing with authentication in Blazor. It was probably the biggest stumbling block I faced so far.

Digging Into Blazor - Integrating with Entity Framework

March wasn&#39;t a particularly bad month, had a wedding a whiskey dinner.
<h2>Getting My Camera Out Again</h2>
At the beginning of March, my Sister-in-Law got married and as a wedding gift, I offered to take some photos of her special day. It gave me the chance to get my camera out and enjoy my hobby. I still need to go through the photos, and I&#39;m thinking it will be a good chance to give <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/darkroom-photo-video-editor/id953286746">Darkroom</a> a try.
<h2>Whiskey Dinner</h2>
Later in the month, Lauren and I went to Bloom Southern Kitchen again for another food and drink pairing. This time it was what they called a “Single Malt Showcase” where we tasted some single malt whiskeys from India, Japan and more. It was another good time and we&#39;re planning on going to another in May and then again in June.
<h2>Digging into Astro</h2>
You know the saying that developers can&#39;t finish a side project? Yeah, that trend continues as I&#39;ve been splitting my time between Blazor and re-writing my blog using Astro 2.0. I&#39;m actually pretty impressed with how easy it is to implement. I miss bits and pieces of React &amp; Next.js, but man is Astro fast. I&#39;m not sure if I&#39;ll end up switching platforms, but I&#39;m liking the ease of developer experience.
<h2>Continuing Blazor</h2>
I&#39;ve been making good progress with my card organizer in Blazor. I&#39;m amazed at how fast it is to build an app with Blazor. It&#39;s taken a slight back seat with my blog rewrite in Astro, but I&#39;m getting it into a good place.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I ended up running 35 miles in March. Still trying to do longer runs in the hopes of making the transition to marathon training in August.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Was able to finally hit the 1,000 lbs. club. I hit new PRs on both deadlifts (400 lbs.) &amp; Bench Press (240 lbs.). I&#39;ve since dropped weight a bit to focus more on reps than sheer weight.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-gods-neil-gaiman/6438874?ean=9780063081918">American Gods</a> by Neil Gaiman</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/anansi-boys-neil-gaiman/6438691?ean=9780063070738">Anansi Boys</a> by Neil Gaiman</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/20">March 3 (#20)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/21">March 10 (#21)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/22">March 17 (#22)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/23">March 24 (#23)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/24">March 31 (#24)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/03/01/separating-reading-logs">separating my reading logs</a>.</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/03/19/digging-into-blazor-first-impressions">my first impressions of Blazor</a>.</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/03/28/handling-an-unruly-podcast-queue">my unruly podcast queue</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a> - Continuing with this</li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8806524/">Star Trek Picard</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek Voyager</a></li>
<li>Started re-watching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2191671/">Elementary</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371150">This is Where I Leave You</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/">Raiders of the Lost Ark</a></li>
</ul>

March Check-In

Right now, I am currently subscribed to 170 podcasts. And while I don&#39;t necessarily listen to every episode of every podcast I subscribe to, it does lead to my podcast queue to become rather unruly.
Right now, my queue stands at 283 episodes totaling over 250 hours worth of content. The funny thing is that it was over 900 episodes before I got a new iPhone and ended up clearing out a lot of my queue due to a sync issue with PocketCasts. I probably could have recovered most of it, but given the large number and how old some of the episodes were, I took it as a chance to trim the queue.
I don&#39;t really know what a good solution is. I go through my “new” filter and archive the episodes I know I don&#39;t have an interest in, queue the ones I do and see the queue count grow.
I try to keep up with it, but I don&#39;t always get the chance to listen on a regular basis. If I&#39;m deep in thought trying to solve a difficult task at work, music ends up being a better option as I don&#39;t have to keep track of the story or discussion. Nothing is more frustrating than missing several minutes worth of discussion because you&#39;re focused on something else, then are trying to catch up with what you missed. This is a case where me listening at podcasts at 2x speed might not be the most helpful.
It&#39;s a shame really because many of the podcasts I listen to are interesting and I WANT to listen to them all, but might just be resigned to having a queue that dates back 6+ months. The best “process” I have going at the moment is to just archive the episode I&#39;m listening to if it doesn&#39;t grab my attention after 5-10 minutes.
Are there any tools or apps that you can think of that might help keep my queue a little more organized? I currently use PocketCasts to listen to podcasts with a filter for all new podcasts. I generally add most episodes to the end of the queue so I listen to the oldest episodes first.

Handling an Unruly Podcast Queue

I&#39;ve been hearing a lot of good things about Blazor for a while now and as a .NET developer I figured it was time for me to see what the fuss was about.
This post will be the first in a multi-part series.
To get started, I went through <a href="https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/aspnet/blazor-tutorial/intro">Microsoft&#39;s tutorials</a>. Playing around with it, my first thought was this felt kind of similar to my time years ago working with ASP.NET MVC sites. It was different, and it looked different in a good way, but the little bit of familiarity was definitely beneficial as it gave me a good jumping off point.
After going through the tutorials, I realized I needed something to build. The best way I&#39;ve found for myself to learn new languages and tools is to build something. Tutorials only go so far. The project I decided to build is an app to inventory my baseball and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Customizable_Card_Game">Star Wars Customizable Card Game</a> cards. I recently found a bunch of cards from when I was a kid, so I figured it&#39;d be a fun way to learn a new framework.
The first thing I did was to figure out the technology I was going to use. To make things simple, I was just going to stick with Microsoft technologies for the core of the app. I was going to store the data with Entity Framework and use Microsoft Identity for user authentication. I&#39;m not sure I really need user authentication for a little side project, but figured “why not?”.
I&#39;ll go into more details in later posts, but suffice it to say, it was both familiar and alien at the same time. The libraries used have been the same ones I&#39;ve used in both Digital Family Cookbook and my fitness tracker which helped smooth out the differences in usage. But the ways I needed to use them posed some challenges and made my learning curve a tad bit steeper.
I&#39;ve also decided to use Tailwind to help with the styling for this project. This is one of the things I kind of miss from working with React, TypeScript &amp; Vite. The build system made it pretty easy to adjust to changes. I&#39;m currently having some issues in bundling my CSS. Part of this is because I&#39;m trying to trim down the Tailwind bundle size by limiting what Tailwind classes are included. I&#39;m sure there&#39;s a way to make this easier, but I often find myself having to manually run a <code>yarn</code> command to build the latest CSS based on the classes included. This is probably a little more on me though as I probably need to familiarize myself with some of the internal tooling.
I&#39;ve been making a lot of progress over the last few weeks. So much so that I&#39;m actually a little surprised at how easy it is to build things. In my case it helps that I&#39;m familiar with .NET, but I think that bodes well for Blazor. The easier it is to get a minimal viable product (MVP) out the door, the better.
I&#39;m excited by how nice it is to work in Blazor and am hoping by sharing my experiences starting up, I can help others get off the ground.

Digging Into Blazor - First Impressions

Two months in and the year has been going relatively well. Bummed the Eagles couldn&#39;t pull off a Super Bowl win, but no complaints otherwise.
<h2>Sad Super Bowl</h2>
I knew facing Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs was going to be difficult, but the Eagles defense played an awful game and in the end, they couldn&#39;t maintain their lead. It was certainly a bummer, but alas.
<h2>Fitness Goals Coming Along Nicely</h2>
With regards to my strength training, my switch to nSuns is going well. I&#39;ve been getting back up to my previous highs and have broken my deadlifts PR by 5 lbs. hitting 1 rep at 390. Currently sitting at 965 lbs. towards the 1,000 lbs. club. Maybe March will be the lucky month. I might drop weights afterwards a tad to focus on getting higher reps, but I&#39;ll decide that later.
With running, the weather has been crazy warm and I&#39;ve taken advantage of that to run some longer distances. I&#39;d been focusing on running 3 miles per run, this month I was targeting 4+ miles. Managed that on all but one run, and even hit 5 and then 6 miles too. Getting some longer runs in earlier will hopefully help a bit when I go to start training for the marathon later in the year.
<h2>Traveling to Hershey</h2>
At the end of the month, Lauren and I drove out to Hershey, Pennsylvania to explore some of their distilleries and breweries, and to see a Lehigh Valley Phantoms hockey game against the local Bears team.
The hotel we stayed up was awesomely enough within walking distance of some great restaurants and distilleries. We ended up stopping by <a href="https://www.midstatedistillery.com/">Midstate Distillery</a>, <a href="https://www.hiddenstillspirits.com/">Hidden Still Spirits</a>, <a href="https://www.tatteredflagsupplydrop.com">Tattered Flag</a> &amp; <a href="https://troegs.com">Troegs</a>. It was a fun trip, and there were more places we would like to see next time we meander out that way.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2023-03-06-february-check-in/phantomsgame.jpg"
 alt="The Lehigh Valley Phantoms playing the Hershey Bears in a hockey game at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania"
 width={1920}
 height={1440}
 centered
 shadowed
 priority
/>
<h2>Continuing My Blazor Journey</h2>
I&#39;ve continued to work with Blazor in building my card organizer app. I&#39;ve been really impressed with the ease of which I can build out forms. I&#39;m making good progress and hope to have an MVP out in the next month or so.
<h2>Work</h2>
Work has been going well so far this year. I&#39;ve been working on getting several pages rewritten into React to make it a little easier for my team and the design team to work on them.
I&#39;ve also been immersing myself in the database project to help set it up for true integration tests. We&#39;ve been using mock data which is less than ideal. I&#39;ve been working with our engineering team to get a docker container set up to allow our integration tests to run as part of our CI/CD process. I&#39;m learning a lot and it&#39;s actually a pretty neat process.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I ended up running a little over 31 miles. The upside is that I took advantage of the nicer weather to run longer distances.</li>
<li>Biking: Still nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Switched to running a program based off <a href="https://liftvault.com/programs/powerlifting/n-suns-lifting-spreadsheets/">nSuns</a> and ended up setting a new PR of 390 lbs. on deadlifts as well as some 2 and 3 rep PRS on Bench Press &amp; Squats.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-nations-a-history-of-the-eleven-rival-regional-cultures-of-north-america-colin-woodard/16638225?ean=9780143122029">American Nations</a> by Colin Woodard</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/liar-s-poker-michael-lewis/8855267?ean=9780393338690">Liar&#39;s Poker</a> by Michael Lewis</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-gods-neil-gaiman/6438874?ean=9780063081918">American Gods</a> by Neil Gaiman</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/17">Reading Log - February 3 (#17)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/18">Reading Log - February 10 (#18)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/19">Reading Log - February 17 (#19)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/02/16/luck">Luck</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a> - Didn&#39;t game much, but still playing through</li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13991232/">1883</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8806524/">Star Trek: Picard Season 3</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek: Voyager</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118298/">Daria</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10696784/">The Harder They Fall</a></li>
<li><a href="https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7657566/">Death on the Nile</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615147/">Margin Call</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5688932/">Sorry to Bother You</a></li>
</ul>

February Check-In

I just moved my reading logs into their own page and unfortunately I&#39;m dealing with a few side effects caused by it.
I&#39;m hoping to fix them over the next couple days. The biggest issue is the redirects. Moving the reading logs, I have redirects in place that work locally, but aren&#39;t working in production. It&#39;s an annoying bug that I&#39;m gonna have to experiment with to fix.
The other thing I added was additional RSS feeds. The default feed before includes both blog posts and reading logs. I also added feeds for the reading logs and blog posts separately. You can click the RSS feed icon in the site header to choose your feed.

Separating Reading Logs

I forget what I was reading, but there was a line in it about luck that stuck with me.
The exact quote eludes me, but it was about how we so often attribute our successes purely to our hard work, grit, and determination, leaving out the role of luck.
I think about where I am in life, and while I certainly have worked hard, I can&#39;t attribute everything I&#39;ve earned to that hard work. Luck has played a role in me getting to where I am now as well.
I think about how lucky I am that:
<ul>
<li>I was born in a solidly middle class family</li>
<li>I was born in a country that allowed me to explore a multitude of opportunities</li>
<li>Both my parents were always there to help and support me</li>
<li>My Dad was an engineer who was always able to help me with any math and science classes all the way through college.</li>
<li>My Mom was a teacher who could help me with English and literature classes.</li>
<li>I grew up never having to worry about food on my plate or a roof over my head.</li>
</ul>
And this is just a subset of it all. None of this I had any control over. It just was.
This is not to say that those who didn&#39;t have what I had growing up couldn&#39;t achieve what I have, it just made my journey all that much easier. It also makes it all that much more impressive for those that have had more barriers to break through.
It really makes me count my blessings and be ever more thankful for everything I have.

Luck

It seems like a new year just started and already we&#39;re one month in...
<h2>Getting Back into Fitness</h2>
Not that I really stopped last year, but I started a bigger emphasis on it this year. I&#39;ve made a concerted effort to drink less alcohol and try to limit my snacking. So far it&#39;s been working. I didn&#39;t do Dry January but I did a better job of not overindulging on the weekends.
With the nice weather, I&#39;ve also been getting more runs in. I managed 48 miles in January, somehow running in the high 40s and low 50s some days.
With regards to lifting, I switched back to running an nSuns based routine. I&#39;m putting in more sets and reps and have been getting back to my personal bests. I&#39;m 100 pounds away from my goal of joining the 1,000 pound club!
<h2>Picking Up Blazor</h2>
As a .NET developer, Blazor has been on my radar for a little while now. I decided to play around with it and learn by building a web app to go through and organize my baseball card collection (because why not?). I haven&#39;t gotten that far and I&#39;m actually toying with the idea of streaming a little bit of it on Twitch or something.
<h2>Go Birds</h2>
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2023-02-04-january-check-in/gobirds.gif"
 alt="Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia shouting 'Go Birds'"
 width={600}
 height={300}
 centered
/>
The Philadelphia Eagles are back in the Super Bowl facing off against the Kansas City Chiefs. Grease those light posts!
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
<h3>🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking</h3>
<ul>
<li>Running: I ended up running 48 miles this month</li>
<li>Biking: Need to get on this</li>
</ul>
<h3>🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting</h3>
<ul>
<li>Switch programs and have quickly started to get my lifts back to my all-time highs.</li>
</ul>
<h3>📚 Reading</h3>
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/snow-crash-neal-stephenson/7327954?ean=9780553380958">Snow Crash</a> by Neal Stephenson</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bond-king-how-one-man-made-a-market-built-an-empire-and-lost-it-all-mary-childs/15873505?ean=9781250120847">The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All</a> by Mary Childs</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bomb-presidents-generals-and-the-secret-history-of-nuclear-war-fred-kaplan/7774644?ean=9781982107307">The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War</a> by Fred Kaplan</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bomber-mafia-a-dream-a-temptation-and-the-longest-night-of-the-second-world-war-malcolm-gladwell/17377135?ean=9780316296816">The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War</a> by Malcolm Gladwell</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-nations-a-history-of-the-eleven-rival-regional-cultures-of-north-america-colin-woodard/16638225?ean=9780143122029">American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America</a> by Colin Woodard</li>
</ul>
<h3>✍🏻 Writing</h3>
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/06/reading-log-january-6-13">January 6 (#13)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/13/reading-log-january-13-14">January 13 (#14)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/20/reading-log-january-20-15">January 20 (#15)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/27/reading-log-january-27-16">January 27 (#16)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/02/2022-retrospective">2022 and Looking onto 2023</a></li>
<li>Wrote about the <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/01/07/books-i-read-in-2022">books I read in 2022</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>🎮 Gaming</h3>
<ul>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a></li>
<li>Played a bit of <a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/goldeneye-007/9n6639h7vgh4">GoldenEye 007</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>📺 Watched</h2>
<ul>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118298/">Daria</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek: Voyager</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>🎬 Movies</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11564570/">Glass Onion</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8041270/">Jurassic World: Dominion</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10304142/">Amsterdam</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302006/">The Irishman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109445/">Clerks</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14826022/">You People</a></li>
</ul>

January Check-In

While I didn&#39;t quite hit my 2022 goal of 30 books, I did manage to read 20 books.
<h2>Books I Loved</h2>
These were my top books I read this year, in no particular order.
&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;What If? 2&quot;
 author=&quot;Randall Munroe&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/KY9FWxyG/whatif2.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/KY9FWxyG/whatif2.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={233}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-2-additional-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions-randall-munroe/18153615">https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-2-additional-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions-randall-munroe/18153615</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 Randall Munroe does it again. He brings his scientific curiosity to answer some pretty absurd questions. He does it with a good sense of humor and easy to understand language.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Chokepoint Capitalism&quot;
 author=&quot;Rebecca Giblin &amp; Cory Doctorow&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/VLZr4fLG/chokepoint-capitalism.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/VLZr4fLG/chokepoint-capitalism.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/chokepoint-capitalism-how-big-tech-and-big-content-captured-creative-labor-markets-and-how-we-ll-win-them-back/9780807007068">https://bookshop.org/books/chokepoint-capitalism-how-big-tech-and-big-content-captured-creative-labor-markets-and-how-we-ll-win-them-back/9780807007068</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This was a fantastic read looking at how some of the tech and media giants have used the lack of competition to squeeze musicians, writers, developers and the rest of the creative industry. While this book only focuses on the creative industries, there are a lot of similarities all over. Cory and Rebecca do a good job explaining the problems, how we arrived at them, and what we can potentially do to even the playing field. I even wrote a <a href="/posts/2022/12/07/chokepoint-capitalism-a-review">post about it</a>.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns&quot;
 author=&quot;Vladimir Khorikov&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/FRnqyKXS/unittesting.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/FRnqyKXS/unittesting.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={239}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-2-additional-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions-randall-munroe/18153615">https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-2-additional-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions-randall-munroe/18153615</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;ve been doing a lot more unit tests over the last year or two. This book did a good job going over how to write better tests and ways to improve the code to make tests better and easier to write. A good read for developers. The code examples are in C#, but the principals could be applied to other languages.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)&quot;
 author=&quot;Katie Mack&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/NF2SZZHy/endofeverything.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/NF2SZZHy/endofeverything.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={195}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-end-of-everything-astrophysically-speaking/9781982103552">https://bookshop.org/books/the-end-of-everything-astrophysically-speaking/9781982103552</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 Being a space nut, this was a fun read learning about the various different ways the universe might end. Katie Mack did a fantastic job describing it with a good mix of humor and not-too-complicated language.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<h2>Books I Would Recommend</h2>
While not my top books, these were all good and I enjoyed them.
&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age&quot;
 author=&quot;Annalee Newitz&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/RCfzsnQg/fourlostcities.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/RCfzsnQg/fourlostcities.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={198}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/four-lost-cities-a-secret-history-of-the-urban-age-annalee-newitz/16712885">https://bookshop.org/p/books/four-lost-cities-a-secret-history-of-the-urban-age-annalee-newitz/16712885</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This was an interesting read on ancient cities. I had never even heard of two of the cities prior to reading this. It was an interesting look into the history of urban living, how it began and developed, and how these cities faded into history.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy&quot;
 author=&quot;Cathy O&#39;Neil&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/XvN4xXm1/weapons-of-math-destruction.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/XvN4xXm1/weapons-of-math-destruction.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/weapons-of-math-destruction-how-big-data-increases-inequality-and-threatens-democracy-cathy-o-neil/11438502">https://bookshop.org/p/books/weapons-of-math-destruction-how-big-data-increases-inequality-and-threatens-democracy-cathy-o-neil/11438502</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 Most of what I read I was already aware of. Still, Cathy did a good job talking about what the issues with algorithms are, and why they can be problematic.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics&quot;
 author=&quot;Tim Harford&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/T3nGK5hy/datadetective.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/T3nGK5hy/datadetective.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-data-detective-ten-easy-rules-to-make-sense-of-statistics/9780593084663">https://bookshop.org/books/the-data-detective-ten-easy-rules-to-make-sense-of-statistics/9780593084663</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;ve been a fan of Tim&#39;s writing. This book is no different. It&#39;s an interesting read helping give you some rules of thumb when reading about statistics and data. I know I&#39;ve been guilty from time to time of some of the things one should avoid when being presented with data.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Responsible Javascript&quot;
 author=&quot;Jeremy Wagner&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/x86dyMTR/responsible-javascript.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/x86dyMTR/responsible-javascript.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={204}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://abookapart.com/products/responsible-javascript">https://abookapart.com/products/responsible-javascript</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I know that I&#39;m a little weak on making my websites more performant. This book did a good job talking about how to improve both JavaScript performance and examples of some things you can do to make your sites more user-friendly.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Night the Lights Went Out&quot;
 author=&quot;Drew Magary&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/brPdgmR1/nightthelightswentout.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/brPdgmR1/nightthelightswentout.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={200}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-night-the-lights-went-out-a-memoir-of-life-after-brain-damage/9780593232712">https://bookshop.org/books/the-night-the-lights-went-out-a-memoir-of-life-after-brain-damage/9780593232712</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;ve always enjoyed Drew Magary&#39;s writing on Defector and heard about his brush with death. This was an interesting memoir talking about his road back. Would recommend.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Walkaway&quot;
 author=&quot;Cory Doctorow&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/kgmn6Tcm/walkaway.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/kgmn6Tcm/walkaway.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={190}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/walkaway/9780765392770">https://bookshop.org/books/walkaway/9780765392770</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;ve generally enjoyed Cory Doctorow&#39;s writing style. The story had an interesting premise even going so far as to touch on some of today&#39;s economic issues. Without giving too much away, some of the jumps in time were a little rough, but easy enough to follow. I enjoyed it, but it was not my favorite Doctorow novel.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Born a Crime&quot;
 author=&quot;Trevor Noah&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/nLDDCyxd/bornacrime.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/nLDDCyxd/bornacrime.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/born-a-crime-stories-from-a-south-african-childhood/9780399588198">https://bookshop.org/books/born-a-crime-stories-from-a-south-african-childhood/9780399588198</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I appreciate Trevor&#39;s comedy and the way he hosts The Daily Show. It was interesting reading about all he and his family had to deal with growing up in South Africa.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Project Hail Mary&quot;
 author=&quot;Andy Weir&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/HsZs8YFw/projecthailmary.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/HsZs8YFw/projecthailmary.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204">https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I enjoyed this. It definitely had the same style as The Martian. The story had a good pace and was interesting.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century&quot;
 author=&quot;Adam Davidson&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/XvyJ0RHw/passioneconomy.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/XvyJ0RHw/passioneconomy.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={194}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-passion-economy-the-new-rules-for-thriving-in-the-twenty-first-century/9780804172776">https://bookshop.org/books/the-passion-economy-the-new-rules-for-thriving-in-the-twenty-first-century/9780804172776</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This book wasn&#39;t quite what I expected it to be, though looking back at it, I&#39;m not entirely sure what I was expecting. It was still an interesting take on succeeding as a smaller business in the present day economy.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market&quot;
 author=&quot;Scott Patterson&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/Kv6xcDcS/darkpools.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/Kv6xcDcS/darkpools.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={195}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/dark-pools-the-rise-of-the-machine-traders-and-the-rigging-of-the-u-s-stock-market/9780307887184">https://bookshop.org/books/dark-pools-the-rise-of-the-machine-traders-and-the-rigging-of-the-u-s-stock-market/9780307887184</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 The stock market &amp; computerized trading has become a fascination to me. This book does a great job talking about the rise of high-frequency trading and how it has caused some of the problems we see in the stock market today.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;It&#39;s Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness&quot;
 author=&quot;Seth Wickersham&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/fWjY7Q9p/bettertobefeared.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/fWjY7Q9p/bettertobefeared.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={200}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/it-s-better-to-be-feared-the-new-england-patriots-dynasty-and-the-pursuit-of-greatness/9781631498237">https://bookshop.org/books/it-s-better-to-be-feared-the-new-england-patriots-dynasty-and-the-pursuit-of-greatness/9781631498237</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;m by no means a Patriots fan, but I found this to be an interesting look into the 2 decades long dynasty of Brady-Belichick and the Patriots.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music&quot;
 author=&quot;Dave Grohl&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/L55SS72t/storyteller.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/L55SS72t/storyteller.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-storyteller-tales-of-life-and-music/9780063076099">https://bookshop.org/books/the-storyteller-tales-of-life-and-music/9780063076099</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 Dave Grohl has always seemed to be an interesting and unique person. This was an interesting memoir talking about his growth from High School punk musician, through Nirvana and eventually Foo Fighters. If you&#39;re a fan of any of his work, I&#39;d highly recommend this.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Nudge: The Final Edition&quot;
 author=&quot;Richard Thaler &amp; Cass Sunstein&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/1XKXjDW2/nudge.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/1XKXjDW2/nudge.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/nudge-the-final-edition/9780143137009">https://bookshop.org/books/nudge-the-final-edition/9780143137009</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This was a fantastic read into how we as humans can be persuaded into doing things in ways we don&#39;t always recognize. The authors do a good job going into the good and bad of it.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Apollo Murders&quot;
 author=&quot;Chris Hadfield&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/mgr32phq/apollomurders.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/mgr32phq/apollomurders.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={193}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-apollo-murders-9781668601075/9780316264532">https://bookshop.org/books/the-apollo-murders-9781668601075/9780316264532</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I enjoyed this book. It had a good story that pulled you in. As a space fan, I definitely enjoyed the tie-ins with the Apollo program. The ending wasn&#39;t my favorite part, but it did tidy up the story arcs. Would still recommend it to anyone.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Leviathan Falls&quot;
 author=&quot;James S. A. Corey&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/3wwXCxw3/leviathanfalls.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/3wwXCxw3/leviathanfalls.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={195}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/leviathan-falls-9781705024997/9780316332910">https://bookshop.org/books/leviathan-falls-9781705024997/9780316332910</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I did enjoy this as the final book in the series. Given that this is the end of a long series, I still haven&#39;t come to a complete decision on how I feel about how the story was ended.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<h2>Books I Was More &quot;Meh&quot; On</h2>
This doesn&#39;t mean that you won&#39;t like them, I just was only luke-warm on them.
&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Moonshot: Inside Pfizer&#39;s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible&quot;
 author=&quot;Albert Bourla&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/QNcT7Tqp/moonshot.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/QNcT7Tqp/moonshot.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/moonshot-inside-pfizer-s-nine-month-race-to-make-the-impossible-possible-9798200746163/9780063210790">https://bookshop.org/books/moonshot-inside-pfizer-s-nine-month-race-to-make-the-impossible-possible-9798200746163/9780063210790</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 The book had a little too much of a “Rah Rah” feel to me which I guess isn&#39;t surprising since it was written by Pfizer&#39;s CEO. When I picked it up at the library I was hoping there&#39;d be a little more meat to it.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;

Books I Read in 2022

Well, 2022 is now over and done with, and I don&#39;t feel like much has changed.
<h2>Looking Back at 2022</h2>
Not much of anything of note really happened in 2022. It&#39;s not a bad thing, boring can be good. It&#39;s just that there&#39;s really not all that much to say about it.
Since Lauren and I were both vaccinated and boosted, we cautiously re-entered the world a little more. We ended up spending a week at the end of March in Cape May for Lauren&#39;s birthday. Spent a long weekend in New York City in June for my birthday, and then our week-long vacation in Cape May again in September.
<h3>Side Projects</h3>
Digital Family Cookbook - Brought this to near completion. I have a few loose ends to tie up, and I&#39;m probably going to really clean up the UI design. I only spent so much time during the creation on its rough edges. It was also the first project I got real, working integration tests going. Since it uses Entity Framework, I was able to use an In-Memory database to handle the tests. I even caught a bug or two I would&#39;ve introduced to the code from running the tests.
I have the domain for it and I&#39;m considering trying out <a href="https://www.11ty.dev/">Eleventy</a> to build the homepage.
Fitness Tracker (Name TBD) - I ended up restarting this from scratch after working through some of the challenges I had building Digital Family Cookbook. I had chosen <a href="https://mui.com/">MUI</a> for my first version and while it was fine, I decided to switch over to <a href="https://ant.design/">Ant Design</a> like I&#39;ve been using at work and for Digital Family Cookbook. I&#39;ve become more familiar with it and figure it would help improve my ability to meet the challenges I face at work.
<h3>Fitness</h3>
Hockey - I played a lot of hockey in 2022. I&#39;m currently on 3 teams. Goalie in the lower league, and a skater in the more competitive leagues. I&#39;m hoping that as I play more in net, I can start to become a decent option between the pipes in the upper leagues.
Running - I unfortunately was unable to run the marathon this year as my legs weren&#39;t cooperating. I deferred my registration for 2023, so I&#39;m hoping to get some long(ish) runs in during the spring and early summer months to get myself ready to start training again. I did end up running 375 miles in 2022, so not shabby.
Biking - I never ended up doing much biking. Stationary setup I have can get boring and when I wanted to do something outside, I just ended up going for a run.
Lifting - I got soooo close to the 1,000 lbs. club this year. I maxed out at 985 lbs. (235 on bench, 365 on squats, &amp; 385 on deadlifts). Either way, I felt like I was able to get stronger. My marathon training sort of reset my progress, but I started working my way back up.
<h3>PC Gaming</h3>
In July I ended up rebuilding my PC. The old desktop just wasn&#39;t cutting it anymore for gaming so I ended up building a new one. I still had a semi-decent graphics card (GTX 1060) in it, so I kept that. But I now have a brand new PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core 3.8GHz CPU with 32GB of RAM. I&#39;ve ended up playing a lot of World of Warcraft Classic on it, but am planning on hitting up my massive backlog of games over the next year.
<h2>Visiting my 2022 Goals</h2>
I didn&#39;t do a fantastic job of reaching <a href="https://kpwags.com/progress/2022">my goals</a> this past year. And while I wish I had hit all of them, I&#39;m actually not that upset about missing them as I got pretty close to a lot of them.
<h3>Goal #1: Run More &amp; Start Biking More</h3>
My goal to start biking more never got off the ground. I have the stationary bike converter kit for my actual road bike, but it&#39;s kind of annoying to set up and it&#39;s boring to ride. I often just ended up skipping it in favor of either a run or lifting.
In terms of running, didn&#39;t quite hit my goal of 400 miles. I topped off at 375 miles so I missed it by 25. Did increase my yearly miles from 2021 by 50.
<h3>Goal #2: Bench Press, Squat &amp; Deadlift PRs</h3>
I managed to surpass my squats goal by 15 lbs. maxing out at 365. Deadlifts and bench press I missed by 15 lbs. Still a new PR for deadlifts. Getting COVID at the end of May messed my rhythm up and then having to lessen my strength training in favor of marathon training was the final nail in the coffin.
<h3>Goal #3: Max Out My Retirement Accounts</h3>
I got so darned close to this one. I had my IRA maxed out in June, but was just under $1,000 left on my 401k.
<h3>Goal #4: Read 30 Books</h3>
I got 2/3 of the way through my reading goal having read 20 books, 16 of them being non-fiction. For the last few months of the year I&#39;ve been spending late nights after hockey reading. My adrenaline levels after hockey games are too high to go to sleep, so I&#39;ve been sitting out on the couch for 30 minutes to an hour reading to be in a better place for sleep. It&#39;s allowed me to read more and solves the tossing and turning problem after hockey games.
<h3>Goal #5: Write 10 Technical Blog Posts</h3>
I&#39;m always worried about sounding stupid with my writing as I don&#39;t want to say something that ends up being completely wrong. I was able to put the fear aside a little bit more this year and managed to write 7 posts of a technical nature. Not quite the 10 I was aiming for though.
<h2>2023 Goals</h2>
<h3>Goal #1 - Learn (Re-Learn?) Guitar</h3>
Back in high school I got an electric guitar and took some lessons but didn&#39;t have the fortitude to stick with it. I&#39;m hoping to find some YouTube videos or lessons from somewhere else to get back into playing. I&#39;m not quite sure how to quantify this as a goal, but would love to start playing more.
<h3>Goal #2 - Read 30 Books</h3>
Same as last year. I&#39;m hoping to use the post-hockey-pre-sleep time to read more of my reading list. My reading list is currently sitting at 74 and is always growing.
<h3>Goal #3 - Write 12 Technical Posts</h3>
I know I didn&#39;t hit my goal of 10 last year, but I&#39;m hoping to increase this as I do more work with my fitness tracker app and any tutorials I do to learn other languages and frameworks.
<h3>Goal #4 - Hit the 1,000 lbs. Club</h3>
The 1,000 lbs. club is for those who can lift a total of 1,000 lbs. across bench press, squats, &amp; deadlifts. It doesn&#39;t matter what weights each of them are at so long as the total equals 1,000 lbs. I was 15 lbs. shy last year and am hoping to finally surpass it.
<h3>Goal #5 - Bike &amp; Run 400 Miles Each</h3>
Running shouldn&#39;t be an issue here given how close I was last year and that I&#39;m going to attempt a marathon again. With biking, I just need to kill the excuses and see if I can&#39;t find a better way to make stationary biking a little more tolerable. I do have a large podcast episode backlog that could help.
<h3>Goal #6 - Take More Photos</h3>
I haven&#39;t taken my 60D out in a long while. In 2023, I would like to do more photography. My goal is to get in 5 good photo shoots. I&#39;m not sure where. Maybe Cape May, Valley Forge, or anywhere else that might be interesting. Maybe it will help me find a good workflow for my photograph processing as well.
<hr>
Here&#39;s hoping that I can make some good progress on them. You can view my progress <a href="/progress/2023">here</a>.

2022 Retrospective

December was a quiet month, but I feel like I spent the better part of it dealing with colds.
<h2>Cold Season is Back</h2>
After generally avoiding being sick over the last 2 years, I ended up with back to back colds. The first and last week of the month I was knocked on my ass with a cough and a nose running more than a faucet. Tested negative for COVID thankfully, so just annoying bugs I had to deal with...twice.
<h2>Christmas with Family</h2>
Thankfully the colds sort of surrounded Christmas and didn’t occur on the actual holiday. Lauren and I were able to spend time with both of our families over the holidays. I even saw my one brother who I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. I also met his son for the first time, my nephew who was born during the pandemic.
Other than that, it was a relatively quiet month.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I only ended up running 7.4 miles in December thanks to the weather and being sick.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Haven’t been too active lifting due to being sick</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/four-lost-cities-a-secret-history-of-the-urban-age-annalee-newitz/16712885?ean=9780393882452">Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age</a> by Annalee Newitz</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/snow-crash-neal-stephenson/7327954?ean=9780553380958">Snow Crash</a> by Neal Stephenson</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/02/reading-log-december-2-8">December 2 (#8)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/09/reading-log-december-9-9">December 9 (#9)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/16/reading-log-december-16-10">December 16 (#10)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/23/reading-log-december-23-11">December 23 (#11)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/30/reading-log-december-30-12">December 30 (#12)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/07/chokepoint-capitalism-a-review">thoughts on the book, Chokepoint Capitalism</a></li>
<li>Wrote about how <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/08/developing-with-dev-tools-open">having the dev tools open during development can be helpful</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/26/the-importance-of-compatibility">compatibility</a></li>
<li>Wrote about how <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/12/27/star-trek-generations-is-underrated">Star Trek: Generations is underrated</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Completed <a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/jedi/jedi-fallen-order">Jedi: Fallen Order</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-zero-dawn/">Horizon Zero Dawn</a></li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-us/">Pokemon Violet</a>, but have been losing speed</li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">Yellowstone</a>, now up to date</li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118298/">Daria</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112178/">Star Trek: Voyager</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464335/">Uncharted</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10731256/">Don&#39;t Worry, Darling</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6264654/">Free Guy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/">A Christmas Story</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3553442/">Whiskey Tango Foxtrot</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097958/">National Lampoon&#39;s Christmas Vacation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111280/">Star Trek: Generations</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535108/">Elysium</a></li>
</ul>

December Check-In

I recently re-watched Star Trek Generations and I really feel like it&#39;s an underrated Star Trek film. Beware, there are spoilers ahead, so don&#39;t say I didn&#39;t warn you.
<PostImage
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<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111280/">Star Trek Generations</a> came out in 1994 and is the first of the Star Trek movies to feature the Next Generation crew. As a Star Trek fan, I&#39;ve noticed it doesn&#39;t get a lot of love. There&#39;s a lot of fans who seem to dislike the movie. Some of their reasons aren&#39;t unreasonable, but I still feel like it get&#39;s overlooked a little too much.
The main plot of the movie is that there&#39;s a scientist, Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) is trying to enter The Nexus, another dimension that is described as “being inside joy”. Soran went so far as to destroy a star to accomplish this goal and that is what Picard and the crew of the Enterprise are trying to stop. In the process, Picard meets up with Captain Kirk from the Original Series and the two of them work to save the day.
There are a few reasons I&#39;ve heard that people don&#39;t like the movie.
<h2>The Destruction of the Enterprise</h2>
The first is that it features the destruction, and end of the USS Enterprise D as it crashes into the planet at the end of the movie. Now part of this is apparently Rick Herman and others wanted an Enterprise that fit better on the big screen and the proportions of the Enterprise D didn&#39;t fit that mold. Whatever the reason, it didn&#39;t bother me all that much. Yes, it was a beautiful and iconic ship, but Kirk destroyed the original Enterprise back in Star Trek III, albeit in way that moved the story forward a little more. Either way, I&#39;m not bothered by it&#39;s destruction.
<h2>Kirk&#39;s Death</h2>
There&#39;s no easy way to put this, Kirk dies at the end of the movie. While his death doesn&#39;t feel quite as “Saves the day” as Spock&#39;s death in The Wrath of Khan, it wasn&#39;t a meaningless death. He died fighting to save the lives of the crew of the Enterprise as well as the millions of lives of the species who lived in the Veridian system. It might have been better if he were on a ship rather than some random planet, but dying in the line of duty feels right for him.
<h2>When Picard Chose to Return to Reality</h2>
This is the one plot hole I don&#39;t get and can see the annoyance. In the movie, when Picard is in the Nexus, he finds out that he can return to any point in time. Why did he choose to go to Veridian III shortly before Soran&#39;s weapon was slated to shoot off and destroy the Veridian star? If I were Picard, I would&#39;ve gone back to just after they reached the Amagosa Observatory right after they rescued Soran. I&#39;d march into sickbay with a security team or two, throw him in handcuffs, drag him in the brig, throw up the forcefield and be done with it. Super easy, no muss, no fuss. Soran is imprisoned and the galaxy is saved. Obviously this wouldn&#39;t work as a plot point, but it would be so much simpler.
Either way, I definitely feel the movie is underrated and I always enjoy it when I watch it.
Besides, any Trek movie is better than Star Trek V.

Star Trek Generations is Underrated

I was recently listening to the <a href="https://nodogmapodcast.bryanhogan.net/">No Dogma Podcast</a> and they had Jared Parsons, the C# Compiler Lead at Microsoft on. He said something that got stuck in my head.
They were talking about potentially deprecating parts of the C# language and Parsons responded with:
<blockquote>
People underestimate the value compatibility has to customers
</blockquote>
He&#39;s right, developers rely on the core functionality of languages remaining the same. It makes updating libraries and language versions much easier to do. Companies rely on being able to maintain and update their software. It gets very difficult to modify, update and maintain software if upgrade paths require massive rewrites.
It was an interesting interview and you can listen to the <a href="https://nodogmapodcast.bryanhogan.net/163-jared-parsons-the-c-compiler-part-1/">Episode 1</a> and <a href="https://nodogmapodcast.bryanhogan.net/164-jared-parsons-the-c-compiler-part-2/">Episode 2</a> here.

The Importance of Compatibility

One thing I&#39;ve started to do when I&#39;m actively developing a website or application is keep the dev tools open docked to the side. I do this for two reasons.
<h2>Disabling Cache</h2>
First, dev tools have a nice setting that allows you to disable the cache when the dev tools are open. If you open up your browser dev tools, under <code>Preferences &gt; Network</code> there&#39;s an option to disable the cache
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This just helps make sure I&#39;m not debugging old Javascript or CSS. It doesn&#39;t happen too often, but can save some hassle.
<h2>Catching Errors</h2>
The second, and probably more important reason is to catch errors and warnings early. While interacting with what I&#39;m working on, any errors, warnings or other messages of note will often pop up in the JavaScript Console in the dev tools. Keeping the console open and docked to the side allows me to easily see what might be happening that I might not notice. It definitely can cut down debugging later.
<PostImage
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And besides, with larger 4k and ultra wide monitors, I have the screen real estate.

Developing with Dev Tools Open

Earlier this year I backed a Kickstarter campaign by Cory Doctorow &amp; Rebecca Giblin for their new book Chokepoint Capitalism. I had read several of Cory&#39;s books and consider him someone who is knowledgeable about the creative industry. So when the Kickstarter campaign popped up in my feeds, I decided it was worth my investment, and a read.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-12-07-chokepoint-capitalism-a-review/book_cover.jpg"
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Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We&#39;ll Win them Back is at it&#39;s core a book about how companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, TicketMaster, and others are hurting the creative labor industry. We&#39;re talking authors, musicians, TV &amp; movie writers, app developers and more, and how they are being squeezed by big tech and other big companies to the point where it can be hard to make a real living.
I can&#39;t begin to do as good of a job explaining all of this as Cory and Rebecca can, so I will encourage you to buy the book at your local bookstore, or check your local library. But I did want to make a few points and share some of my takeaways.
<h2>My Thoughts</h2>
First off, copyright law in America, and in many countries for that matter is broken. Amazon dominates the eBook and audiobook market. Part of the reason for that is that they were able to lock people into their systems, myself included. All the audiobooks you get through Audible and the overwhelming majority of eBooks you buy from Amazon have DRM attached to them. This means that you can only read and listen to them through Amazon. If you decide you want to switch to a different service or device, all your purchased content gets left behind. You can&#39;t take it with you, at least not without breaking the law and risking fines and possible jail time. That shouldn&#39;t be allowed to happen. If you buy an eBook from Amazon, you should be able to transfer it to a Nook if you switch devices, and vice versa. This shouldn&#39;t be controversial and the law can fix this. Being able to switch platforms would weaken Amazon&#39;s hold and could help authors and publishers get better deals.
Second, antitrust laws need to be updated and enforced. Too often antitrust is looking at consumer harm in the here and now, and not considering what will happen down the line when the big companies can corner the market. Cory and Rebecca had this apt quote:
<blockquote>
However, the Chicago School had a unique remedy for the problem of monopolists being able to pervert their regulators: eliminate regulation altogether! No regulation, no regulators, no regulatory capture, no problem (somehow, preventing monopolies from forming in the first place didn&#39;t seem to cross their minds).
</blockquote>
There hasn&#39;t been much enforcement of it late and companies like Ticketmaster have been able to grow bigger and bigger, swallowing up everyone, and then using that size to corner the market. Looking at Ticketmaster, if you&#39;re a small venue, good luck getting any major acts to come if you refuse to do business with them.
<blockquote>
US antitrust law is actually pretty great (and new bills in the pipeline as we write this would strengthen it further), but the US political consensus has been that antitrust is mostly a dead letter, a quirk of history that can be ignored the same way we ignore laws that require you to hire a boy to run ahead of your auto-car with a lantern and a bell to warn horse-riders that you&#39;re coming.
</blockquote>
Stop monopolies from forming and fostering true competition would certainly help the creative industry get better deals.
There&#39;s a lot more that Rebecca and Cory cover, but you&#39;d do better hearing it from them rather than me.
<h2>My Takeaways</h2>
Reading the book has left me thinking about how I consume media.
I&#39;ve been on a physical book kick at the moment, but I still do appreciate the portability of being able to use my Kindle. I have no reason to upgrade at the moment, but I will probably give serious consideration to moving to Kobo or another device when the time comes. I&#39;m also going to start branching out with where I buy my eBooks. I&#39;ve generally just bought them from Amazon...because duh, it&#39;s easy! Now, I&#39;m probably going to see where else I can buy them, ideally DRM-free.
One of the other things mentioned in the book is how much the auto-generated playlists from the likes of Spotify can make or break artists, especially those just starting out. While I certainly enjoy some of the playlists that Spotify generates for me, I think I&#39;m gonna try to look at other websites and services that might help recommend me new artists to listen to. And of course I will continue to purchase the actual records of some of my favorite musicians.
<h2>One Last Word</h2>
Again, I would highly recommend everyone go read this book, it&#39;s fascinating looking at how these companies have put the squeeze on the creative industry. But while I&#39;ve focused here on some of the issues, Rebecca and Cory do a much better job diving into them, and more importantly, digging into possible solutions. I&#39;ll leave you with this quote from the book:
<blockquote>
The increasing financial precarity that has accompanied these forty years of antitrust neglect is one reason why so many people are desperate and angry, and perhaps also helps explain why they are willing to listen to demagogues promising to blow the system up.
</blockquote>
Because while this book focuses on the creative industry, you can see parallels across all industries and the general population within in.
<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710957/chokepoint-capitalism-by-cory-doctorow-and-rebecca-giblin/9780807007068">Buy Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We&#39;ll Win them Back</a>

Chokepoint Capitalism: A Review

Thanksgiving has come and gone, so that means November has also come and gone. It was not a bad month by any means as I got to spend time with my family for both my niece&#39;s baptism as well as Thanksgiving.
<h2>Hockey Injuries are No Fun</h2>
In mid-November, I ended up getting run into while playing goalie in the upper leagues at the ice rink I play at. Banged up my groin and hip pretty badly which kept me off the ice and away from legs days at the gym for 2 weeks. It could&#39;ve obviously been way worse, so thankfully it wasn&#39;t a long-term thing. Just frustrating because the players are better and should have better control over their skating. I expect this more in the lower leagues where players are still learning how to skate.
<h2>Thanksgiving</h2>
I ended up spending Thanksgiving at my Aunt&#39;s house. It was nice to see most of my Dad&#39;s side of the family. Caught up since it had been a while since I&#39;ve seen any of them. Turned out to be a nice day too after a seemingly early cold spell.
<h2>Fitness Tracker</h2>
I had put this project aside to work on Digital Family Cookbook. I decided to re-start this project from the ground up as I realized the original foundation, while definitely useable, could&#39;ve been better constructed. Like most of my side projects, I learn more and want to build on what I&#39;ve learned to build better systems. I have a few more tasks on Digital Family Cookbook, but I should be able to knock them out pretty easily when I&#39;m in the mood. The restart of Fitness Tracker is also giving me the chance to start from scratch with <a href="https://vitejs.dev/">Vite</a> and <a href="https://vitest.dev/">Vitest</a>. I&#39;ll probably write up some quick thoughts on them sometime in December.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I only ended up running 9.34 miles in November. That hockey injury ended up curtailing my physical activities.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>I haven&#39;t done much lower body, again because of the injury, but have continued to press on with upper body exercises.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-data-detective-ten-easy-rules-to-make-sense-of-statistics/9780593084663">The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics</a> by Tim Harford</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/chokepoint-capitalism-how-big-tech-and-big-content-captured-creative-labor-markets-and-how-we-ll-win-them-back/9780807007068">Chokepoint Capitalism</a> by Rebecca Giblin &amp; Cory Doctorow</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-2-additional-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions-randall-munroe/18153615?ean=9780525537113">What If? 2</a> by Randall Munroe</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/weapons-of-math-destruction-how-big-data-increases-inequality-and-threatens-democracy-cathy-o-neil/11438502?ean=9780553418835">Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy</a> by Cathy O&#39;Neil</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/four-lost-cities-a-secret-history-of-the-urban-age-annalee-newitz/16712885?ean=9780393882452">Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age</a> by Annalee Newitz</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/04/reading-log-november-4-4">November 4 (#4)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/11/reading-log-november-11-5">November 11 (#5)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/18/reading-log-november-18-6">November 18 (#6)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/25/reading-log-november-25-7">November 25 (#7)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/08/adding-themes">adding themes to my site</a></li>
<li>Wrote about my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/18/on-ftx-and-crypto-in-general">thoughts on FTX &amp; Crypto</a></li>
<li>Wrote about my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/23/artemis-i">excitement and mixed thoughts on Artemis I</a></li>
<li>Shared my new <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/11/27/apollo-remastered">coffee table book</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Haven&#39;t played much <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic">World of Warcraft</a>, might end up cancelling my subscription</li>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/jedi/jedi-fallen-order">Jedi: Fallen Order</a></li>
<li>Picked up and started <a href="https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-us/">Pokemon Violet</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">Yellowstone</a>, now up to date and on Season 5</li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118298/">Daria</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
My wife and I have started back up watching movies on the weekend.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109444/">Clear and Present Danger</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14813212/">The Munsters (2022)</a></li>
</ul>

November Check-In

At the recommendation of <a href="https://mastodon.world/@kairyssdal">Kai Ryssdal</a> from <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/">Marketplace</a>, I ended up purchasing a new coffee table book called Apollo Remastered. And oh man was it worth the purchase.
All the film taken during NASA&#39;s Apollo Program has been placed in cold storage to protect and preserve them. Andy Saunders has been taking the film and digitizing it and then enhancing the photos taken by the Apollo astronauts for this book. Needless to say, the photos are amazing. I haven&#39;t gotten through a quarter of them and I&#39;m blown away.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-11-27-apollo-remastered/apollo-remastered-front.jpg"
 alt="A view of the cover of Andy Saunder's book Apollo Remastered"
 width={1080}
 height={1366}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-11-27-apollo-remastered/apollo-remastered-side.jpg"
 alt="A side view of Andy Saunder's book Apollo Remastered showing how thick it is"
 width={1080}
 height={663}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
If you&#39;re a fan of NASA, space, or are interested in the history of the moon landings, I would highly recommend buying this book.
<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/apollo-remastered-the-ultimate-photographic-record-andy-saunders/17299956?ean=9780762480241">Buy on Bookshop.org</a>

Apollo Remastered

Almost a week ago, NASA finally launched the Artemis I mission. This is the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS). It launched an unmanned Orion capsule around the moon. While I&#39;m excited about the prospect of us going back to the moon, I have mixed feelings on the current program.
<h2>The Excitement</h2>
I&#39;m not going to lie, I love the thought of humans touching down on the lunar soil once again. I wasn&#39;t alive at the time of Apollo, but I&#39;ve watched plenty of documentaries about the early days of human space exploration. I remember watching shuttle launches as a kid in awe of them. I was excited to watch the final launches and the completion of the International Space Station. I was excited to see SpaceX launch their first Falcon 9 rockets and eventually launch men up to the space station again from U.S. soil.
The pictures the Orion capsule is sending back from its mission are absolutely breathtaking.
&lt;PostImage
 src=&quot;/images/posts/2022-11-23-artemis-i/artemis-i-1.jpg&quot;
 alt=&quot;NASA&#39;s Orion capsule floating in space with Earth in the background&quot;
 width={1200}
 height={900}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
 credit={Image Credit NASA}
/&gt;
&lt;PostImage
 src=&quot;/images/posts/2022-11-23-artemis-i/artemis-i-2.jpg&quot;
 alt=&quot;NASA&#39;s Orion capsule floating in space with the Moon in the background&quot;
 width={1024}
 height={768}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
 credit={Image Credit NASA}
/&gt;
&lt;PostImage
 src=&quot;/images/posts/2022-11-23-artemis-i/artemis-i-3.jpg&quot;
 alt=&quot;NASA&#39;s Orion capsule floating in space with Earth rising up above the Moon&quot;
 width={1024}
 height={630}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
 credit={Image Credit NASA}
/&gt;
<h2>The “Hmmmm...”</h2>
Launching into space is expensive, there are no ifs ands or buts about it. SpaceX has been able to bring the cost of launches to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) down with its reusability, but it&#39;s still super expensive. The Falcon 9 doesn&#39;t have the lift capacity to launch outside of LOE though. The Falcon Heavy has more, but still not the level the SLS has. And later SLS models will have even more lift than the Block 1 model being used for the first 3 Artemis missions.
The SLS has a nickname of the Senate Launch System. It&#39;s got the nickname because it seems more like a jobs program than a launch system. The SLS rocket is going to cost well over $2.1 billion dollars per launch. In other words, really expensive. For reference in today&#39;s dollars, the Apollo Saturn V launches cost around $1.25b per launch, and the Space Shuttle clocked in around $1.5b per launch. It&#39;s hard to wrap your head around some of those numbers, but they&#39;re huge.
The Falcon Heavy by comparison costs anywhere from $100-150 million per launch. Quite the difference.
I&#39;m not a rocket scientist by any means, but I have to wonder if there isn&#39;t a cheaper way to bridge the gap between the Falcon Heavy and the SLS to allow for man to walk on the moon and to potentially build a permanent base on it.
SpaceX&#39;s Starship is also around the corner promising another heavy lift rocket.
<h2>Making Sure Science isn&#39;t Missed</h2>
I&#39;m someone who wants to keep the science part of space exploration at the forefront. I&#39;d be concerned if we relied on SpaceX for all of our human exploration.
SpaceX is a business out to make money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If they can help NASA by ferrying astronauts back and forth to the space station, launching satellites, or even getting astronauts to the moon, and make money by doing it, that&#39;s great. Good for them. I&#39;m not knocking the profit motive at all. My concern is that profit, resource extraction and everything else will take center stage and the science will be put on the back burner.
I firmly believe that both science and the business of space can successfully coexist. It&#39;s not an either-or proposition. I think that&#39;s the one thing Artemis and the SLS have going for them. It&#39;s NASA&#39;s rocket and NASA determines what it&#39;s used for.
I just hope we have the drive as a country to ensure that the the science of space exploration continues to be alive and well.

Artemis I

Over the last 2 weeks, we&#39;ve seen one of the most popular and biggest crypto exchanges go from top of the world to declaring bankruptcy. I try not to dump on stuff I don&#39;t fully understand, but at this point, I&#39;m kind of glad I haven&#39;t gotten into the whole crypto craze.
I remember seeing all this hype over FTX. It was supposed to be respectable. Major League Baseball umpires wore their logo on their uniforms. The Miami Heat played in an arena where FTX had naming rights. FTX was supposed to be trustworthy and not riddled with the scams crypto is so often associated with.
I&#39;ve been reading articles and listening to podcasts talking about what&#39;s been going on and...just wow. John Ray III, FTX&#39;s new CEO, who was also responsible for handling the aftermath at Enron had the following quote while <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ftx-trading-former-ceo-d2c2b881dc0eb0ec37b454674f446b52">going through the mess at FTX</a>.
<blockquote>
Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.
</blockquote>
A lot of people are obviously going to lose money over this. I&#39;m not gonna be too broken up about the VC firms or the institutional investors. But still, I&#39;m wondering how many people who decided to dabble in cryptocurrency used the exchange. People who might not have all this money to lose. Obviously, people should have a diversified portfolio, but too many people have seen Bitcoin rise to incredible highs and they want in. If they decided to use FTX, they will likely not even have the chance to sell low, they&#39;ll be lucky to get anything.
The Economist had a good quote from their article <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/11/17/is-this-the-end-of-crypto">Is This the End of Crypto?</a>:
<blockquote>
Whether crypto survives, or becomes a financial curiosity like the tulip bulb, will not ultimately depend on regulation. The more scandals ensue, the more the whole enterprise and its aspirations become tainted. The lure of innovation means nothing if investors and users fear their money will disappear into thin air. For crypto to rise again, it must find a valid use that leaves the dodginess behind.
</blockquote>
All too often, crypto seems to be tied to scams and other schemes that leave people hung out to dry. The technology as I understand it is certainly interesting, but the Wild West nature of it all is only strengthening my “just stay away” position.

On FTX and Crypto in General

In case you haven&#39;t noticed, I decided to add some color and font themes to my blog.
If you click the little gear icon in the header, a bar will drop down where you&#39;ll be given the choice to choose the accent color and the font to use. I decided to add this to be a little whimsical as well as to play around with my site because it&#39;s my site and I can.
To accomplish this, I take advantage of CSS variables and local storage. By default when you first come to my site it sets the light/dark theme based on your system/browser light dark preference. I think it&#39;s important for the user to be able to decide whether they want light or dark outside just their system settings, so I also offer the ability to override it by saving the value in local storage to retrieve the next time they visit. Local storage will always override system settings. I did the same thing for colors and fonts except I default them to green and a sans-serif font.
I have 2 helper functions to help me to do this.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">export const saveToLocalStorage = (key: string, value: string): void =&gt; {
 if (typeof window !== &#39;undefined&#39;) {
 window.localStorage.setItem(key, value);
 }
};

export const retrieveFromLocalStorage = (key: string, isJson = false): string|unknown =&gt; {
 if (typeof window !== &#39;undefined&#39;) {
 const value = window.localStorage.getItem(key);

 if (value) {
 return isJson ? JSON.parse(value) : value;
 }
 }

 return null;
};
</code></pre>
Since my blog runs on Next.js, server side rendering does not contain the <code>window</code> object so I have to first check to make sure the <code>window</code> object exists. Other than that, the functions are simply wrappers for the localStorage object. The only slight enhancement is the ability to tell the retriever to parse the return as JSON if the expected value is JSON.
When you click one of the color or font buttons, the code will save the value chosen to local storage for retrieval the next time you visit the site.
In terms of the CSS, I take advantage of CSS variables
<pre><code class="language-css">:root {
 --primary-color-1: hsl(144, 100%, 15%);
 --primary-color-2: hsl(142, 68%, 29%);
 --primary-color-3: hsl(124, 95%, 32%);
 --sans-serif: WorkSans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
 --serif: Petrona, Georgia, &#39;Times New Roman&#39;, serif;
 --monospaced: SourceCodePro, &#39;Courier New&#39;;
 --font: var(--sans-serif);
}
</code></pre>
This sets the 3 primary colors to the greens for the default view as well as the default font. To go along with saving to local storage, I also add a custom data attribute <code>data-color-theme</code> and <code>data-font-theme</code> to the <code>html</code> element on the page. That allows me to override the root CSS variables based on what the attributes are
<pre><code class="language-css">[data-color-theme*=&#39;purple&#39;] {
 --primary-color-1: hsl(301, 91%, 40%);
 --primary-color-2: hsl(301, 77%, 46%);
 --primary-color-3: hsl(298, 100%, 36%);
}

[data-font-theme*=&#39;serif&#39;] {
 --font: var(--serif);
}
</code></pre>
The above CSS sets the primary colors to purple when the <code>data-color-theme</code> attribute is set to purple and sets the font to use the serif font if the <code>data-font-theme</code> attribute is set to serif.
Now the one thing I ran into with the colors is contrast. Colors that contrast well on a light background don&#39;t always look good on a dark background. So I also take into account the color theme attribute as well.
<pre><code class="language-css">[data-color-theme*=&#39;purple&#39;] {
 --primary-color-1: hsl(301, 91%, 40%);
 --primary-color-2: hsl(301, 77%, 46%);
 --primary-color-3: hsl(298, 100%, 36%);
}

[data-theme*=&#39;dark&#39;][data-color-theme*=&#39;purple&#39;] {
 --primary-color-1: hsl(301, 99%, 65%);
 --primary-color-2: hsl(301 72% 61%);
 --primary-color-3: hsl(298 100% 79%);
}
</code></pre>
The top block is exactly the same as the previous CSS block, but the bottom is different. The bottom will also look to see if the <code>data-theme</code> attribute is set to <code>dark</code>, then it should override the top block in favor of the colors that will contrast better on a black background. Accessibility is important!
You can view the full CSS file <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/kpwags.com/blob/main/styles/kpwags.css">here</a>.
The final piece tying it all together is my <code>useTheme</code> hook.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">interface UseThemeReturn {
 theme: Theme;
 color: ColorTheme;
 font: FontTheme;
 themeLoaded: boolean;
 getCurrentTheme: () =&gt; Theme;
 getCurrentColor: () =&gt; ColorTheme;
 getCurrentFont: () =&gt; FontTheme;
 changeTheme: (t: Theme) =&gt; void;
 changeColor: (c: ColorTheme) =&gt; void;
 changeFont: (f: FontTheme) =&gt; void;
}

export const useTheme = (): UseThemeReturn =&gt; {
 const [theme, setTheme] = useState&lt;Theme&gt;(&#39;light&#39;);
 const [color, setColor] = useState&lt;ColorTheme&gt;(&#39;green&#39;);
 const [font, setFont] = useState&lt;FontTheme&gt;(&#39;sans&#39;);
 const [themeLoaded, setThemeLoaded] = useState(false);

 const getPreferredColorMode = (): Theme =&gt; {
 if (typeof window !== &#39;undefined&#39;) {
 const prefferredMode = window.matchMedia(&#39;(prefers-color-scheme: dark)&#39;);

 if (prefferredMode.matches) {
 return &#39;dark&#39;;
 }
 }

 return &#39;light&#39;;
 };

 const changeTheme = (t: Theme) =&gt; {
 saveToLocalStorage(&#39;theme&#39;, t);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-theme&#39;, t);
 setTheme(t);
 };

 const changeColor = (c: ColorTheme) =&gt; {
 saveToLocalStorage(&#39;color&#39;, c);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-color-theme&#39;, c);
 setColor(c);
 };

 const changeFont = (f: FontTheme) =&gt; {
 saveToLocalStorage(&#39;font&#39;, f);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-font-theme&#39;, f);
 setFont(f);
 };

 const getCurrentTheme = (): Theme =&gt; {
 const localTheme = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;theme&#39;) as Theme;

 if (localTheme) {
 return localTheme;
 }

 return getPreferredColorMode();
 };

 const getCurrentColor = (): ColorTheme =&gt; {
 const localStorageColor = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;color&#39;) as ColorTheme;

 if (localStorageColor) {
 return localStorageColor;
 }

 return color;
 };

 const getCurrentFont = (): FontTheme =&gt; {
 const localStorageFont = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;font&#39;) as FontTheme;

 if (localStorageFont) {
 return localStorageFont;
 }

 return font;
 };

 useEffect(() =&gt; {
 const localTheme = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;theme&#39;) as Theme;
 const selectedColor = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;color&#39;) as ColorTheme;
 const selectedFont = retrieveFromLocalStorage(&#39;font&#39;) as FontTheme;

 if (localTheme) {
 setTheme(localTheme);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-theme&#39;, localTheme);
 } else {
 setTheme(getPreferredColorMode());
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-theme&#39;, getPreferredColorMode());
 }

 if (selectedColor) {
 setColor(selectedColor);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-color-theme&#39;, selectedColor);
 } else {
 setColor(&#39;green&#39;);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-color-theme&#39;, &#39;green&#39;);
 }

 if (selectedFont) {
 setFont(selectedFont);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-font-theme&#39;, selectedFont);
 } else {
 setFont(&#39;sans&#39;);
 document.documentElement.setAttribute(&#39;data-font-theme&#39;, &#39;sans&#39;);
 }

 setThemeLoaded(true);
 }, []);

 return {
 theme,
 color,
 font,
 themeLoaded,
 getCurrentTheme,
 getCurrentColor,
 getCurrentFont,
 changeTheme,
 changeColor,
 changeFont,
 };
};
</code></pre>
Don&#39;t let all the code scare you. This code is run when the site is loaded and will look at local storage for light and dark, color, and font and then apply the appropriate themes. You can view the full source code for the <code>useTheme</code> Hook <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/kpwags.com/blob/main/hooks/useTheme.ts">here</a>
So that&#39;s basically how I went about adding themes. It wasn&#39;t super difficult and I&#39;m happy with the results.

Adding Themes

The biggest thing to happen in the month of October was probably celebrating Lauren&#39;s and my 9 year anniversary. Other than that, it was mostly a quiet month.
<h2>The Gaslight Anthem</h2>
The month started out well, I ended up going down to Washington D.C. to see The Gaslight Anthem with my best friend who lives just outside of D.C. in Maryland. They had gone on an indefinite hiatus years ago so when they announced they were getting back together earlier in the year, recording new music and going on tour, I jumped at the opportunity. The show in D.C. was fantastic, and I ended up seeing them a second time two days later in Philly. If you haven&#39;t listened to them, I would highly recommend them. They put on amazing shows.
<h2>9 Year Anniversary</h2>
In the middle of the month Lauren and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary. We&#39;ve normally gone to Congress Hall in Cape May for it, but we decided to save some vacation time and some money and kept it low-key. I ended up cooking Filet Mignon and Scallops for dinner and we had a nice romantic evening in.
The next day we ended up going out to a restaurant the next day to have a dinner pairing with a local distillery. We had some good gin and bourbon drinks paired with some delicious food. We both had pig&#39;s head for the first time. It was a little on the fatty side, but fantastic. Their homemade barbecue sauce went really well with it.
We finished our anniversary celebration with a trip to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms home opener. We both love hockey and it was a fun evening. Starting with a trip to Fegley&#39;s Brewery for dinner and drinks, and then an evening cheering the Phantoms. They sadly lost in overtime, but it was a good night.
<h2>Phillies World Series Run</h2>
I&#39;ve been a huge Phillies fan since I was a kid. Despite thinking they&#39;d end up collapsing (again) in September, they managed to make their way into the playoffs. All October I&#39;ve been following along as they swept the St. Louis Cardinals, knocked out the Atlanta Braves in 4 games in the NLDS, and then won the NL Pennant by beating the San Diego Padres in 5 in the NLCS. They&#39;re currently in the World Series constantly making me both anxious and excited at the same time. They ended up losing 4 games to 2, but the unexpected playoff run has been fun and hopefully they can build off the success next season.
<h2>Digital Family Cookbook</h2>
My initial version of the .NET version of my little side project is nearing completion. I was able to get a lot done with it over the course of October. I still have some little things to finish up, but I&#39;m hoping I&#39;ll get around to them over the next several weeks. I&#39;m gonna have to figure out where and how to host it though.
<h2>Twitter Drama</h2>
At the end of the month Elon Musk&#39;s purchase of Twitter was finalized and he is now in charge of the bird site. I&#39;ve enjoyed Twitter, but for the forseeable future, I&#39;m not going to be using it. I have re-discovered my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@kpwags">Mastodon</a> account, so please follow me there...it&#39;s awesome.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: I ran a measly 3.78 miles in October...I should get back on the road more even without the marathon</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>No new PRs or even really close to a new PR in any of the major lifts, but I&#39;ve gotten back into some consistency lifting.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Continuing
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-data-detective-ten-easy-rules-to-make-sense-of-statistics/9780593084663">The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics</a> by Tim Harford</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/chokepoint-capitalism-how-big-tech-and-big-content-captured-creative-labor-markets-and-how-we-ll-win-them-back/9780807007068">Chokepoint Capitalism</a> by Rebecca Giblin &amp; Cory Doctorow</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Started back with my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/10/14/reading-log-october-14-1">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/10/21/reading-log-october-21-2">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/10/28/reading-log-october-28-3">logs</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Continued to play <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic">World of Warcraft</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/jedi/jedi-fallen-order">Jedi: Fallen Order</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Finished watching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386676/">The Office</a></li>
<li>Finished the current season of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9184820/">Star Trek: Lower Decks</a></li>
<li>Continuing <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">Yellowstone</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118298/">Daria</a></li>
<li>Started <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/">It&#39;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</a></li>
</ul>

October Check-In

For a while now I&#39;ve been adding an image for when my posts get shared on Twitter and the like. It&#39;s been a manual process where I open up Photoshop and manually update the text. I wanted to change that to make it faster for me to create, so I wrote up a quick .NET console app to go about doing that and will share with you how to build your own.
The first thing I had to do was build the template. I used Photoshop to build it, but you can use whatever graphics tool you would like such as <a href="https://www.gimp.org">Gimp</a> or <a href="https://www.getpaint.net">Paint.net</a>.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-11-03-building-a-social-image-generator-console-application/template.jpg"
 alt="the template I'm using for my social image"
 width={1200}
 height={675}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
The console application is reliant upon the <a href="https://sixlabors.com/">SixLabors Image and Font Libraries</a> as I wanted this to work on both Windows &amp; MacOS. Unforunately Microsoft&#39;s <code>System.Drawing.Common</code> library is dependent upon Windows libraries so MacOS would be a no-go.
<h2>Setup your project</h2>
<pre><code class="language-bash">$&gt; dotnet new console --name SocialImageGenerator
$&gt; cd SocialImageGenerator
</code></pre>
<h2>Install the dependencies</h2>
<pre><code class="language-bash">$&gt; dotnet add package SixLabors.Fonts
$&gt; dotnet add package SixLabors.ImageSharp
$&gt; dotnet add package SixLabors.ImageSharp.Drawing
</code></pre>
I still prefer the old program style so I reset the <code>Program.cs</code> file to use the .NET 5 template and added all the usings. I replaced the generated code with the following.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using SixLabors.Fonts;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Processing;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Drawing.Processing;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Formats.Jpeg;
using SocialImageGenerator.Models;
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace SocialImageGenerator;

internal class Program
{

}
</code></pre>
<h3>Get the data for image generation</h3>
In order for the image to be generated I need 3 pieces of information.
<ul>
<li>The date posted</li>
<li>The title of the post</li>
<li>The URL slug of the post</li>
</ul>
I might eventually see if I can automatically generate some of them, but for the moment, the app will prompt me to enter the data into the console. If you feel you need less, by all means, trim the inputs down.
The code to do this is pretty simple. I prompt the user to enter the data, and use the <code>Console.ReadLine()</code> function to assign the entered value to a variable. The only slight complication is to handle the date. To save some time, I added the ability to &quot;skip&quot; the date entry and default it to the current date. The <code>GetPostDate</code> function will then try to parse the entry and assign it to the current date if it fails for whatever reason.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">static DateTime GetPostDate(string enteredDate)
{
 DateTime postDate;

 if (!DateTime.TryParse(enteredDate, out postDate))
 {
 postDate = DateTime.Now;
 }

 return postDate;
}

static PostData GetPostData()
{
 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s date (defaults to {DateTime.Now.ToString(&quot;yyyy-MM-dd&quot;)}): &quot;);

 var date = Console.ReadLine();

 var postDate = GetPostDate(date ?? &quot;&quot;);

 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s Title: &quot;);

 var postTitle = Console.ReadLine();

 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s slug: &quot;);

 var postSlug = Console.ReadLine();

 return new PostData
 {
 Title = postTitle ?? &quot;&quot;,
 Slug = postSlug ?? &quot;&quot;,
 PostDate = postDate,
 };
}
</code></pre>
You&#39;ll notice that I created a <code>PostData</code> class to store the data. I take advantage of properties to make things simpler for me. You&#39;ll see where Url and Directory get used later.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using System;

namespace SocialImageGenerator.Models;

public class PostData
{
 public string Title { get; set; } = string.Empty;

 public string Slug { get; set; } = string.Empty;

 public DateTime PostDate { get; set; } = DateTime.Now;

 public string Url =&gt; $&quot;kpwags.com/posts/{PostDate.ToString(&quot;yyyy&quot;)}/{PostDate.ToString(&quot;MM&quot;)}/{PostDate.ToString(&quot;dd&quot;)}/{Slug}&quot;;

 public string Directory =&gt; $&quot;{PostDate.ToString(&quot;yyyy&quot;)}-{PostDate.ToString(&quot;MM&quot;)}-{PostDate.ToString(&quot;dd&quot;)}-{Slug}&quot;;
}
</code></pre>
So now let&#39;s have the main program actually prompt the user for the data. In <code>Program.cs</code>, let&#39;s add this to the <code>Main</code> function.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">internal class Program
{
 static PostData? data;

 static async Task Main(string[] args)
 {
 data = GetPostData();

 if (data is null)
 {
 Console.WriteLine(&quot;Unable to generate post data&quot;);
 return;
 }
 }
}
</code></pre>
I create a global variable <code>data</code> to hold the post data and then assign it the value the <code>GetPostData()</code> function returns. If for whatever reason it fails, it should still be <code>null</code> so I error out and exit.
<h2>Writing the text on the image</h2>
The next step is to actually go about adding the text to the image. To keep <code>Main</code> clean, I&#39;m going to create a function called <code>BuildImage</code> to do the image and text manipulation.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">static async Task BuildImage()
{

}
</code></pre>
The first thing we&#39;re going to want to do is load the template image. To do that, we&#39;ll use SixLabor Image library to do that. My template image is called <code>Template.jpg</code> and it is in the project&#39;s root directory.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using var image = Image.Load(&quot;Template.jpg&quot;);
</code></pre>
This will load the image into memory so that we can overlay the text on it.
The next step is to load our fonts. I use the <a href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Work+Sans">Work Sans font</a> and have the variable font file <code>worksans.ttf</code> stored in my root directory as well.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">var fontCollection = new FontCollection();

fontCollection.Add(&quot;worksans.ttf&quot;);

if (fontCollection.TryGet(&quot;Work Sans&quot;, out FontFamily family))
{

}
</code></pre>
This code looks to grab the font file and create the font family object the image library can use to write to the image.
The next step is to write the title of the post to the image.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">var font = family.CreateFont(60, FontStyle.Bold);

var options = new TextOptions(font)
{
 Origin = new PointF(40, 60),
 WrappingLength = 600,
 HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Left,
};

var rect = TextMeasurer.Measure(data.Title, options);

image.Mutate(x =&gt; x.DrawText(options, data.Title, Color.White));
</code></pre>
The first step is to create the font I want to use. In this case I want to use the Work Sans font I defined above with the size 60pt and bolded.
The second step here is to define the font styling. The origin is the <code>(x, y)</code> coordinate of the template image you want to start drawing to. For me, I had to open up Photoshop to determine this point. The wrapping length is the number of pixels you want the text to go before it wraps to the next line. In my case, I want it to span 600 pixels before wrapping. The horizontal alignment should be pretty self-explanitory. I want the text to align to the left.
The next step is where I draw the rectangle where the text is written. It takes two arguments. The first is the text I&#39;m writing, in this case the title of the post. The second argument is the options for the font. This way it can calculate what size the rectangle is that is holding the title of the post on the image. You&#39;ll see where I use this later.
The final step here is to apply the mutation to the image. In this case, I&#39;m telling ImageSharp to draw the title of the post on the image with the text options I defined in the color white.
For my social image, I also want the URL of the post displayed in the image, so I repeat this for the URL.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">var urlFont = family.CreateFont(24, FontStyle.Regular);

var urlOptions = new TextOptions(urlFont)
{
 Origin = new PointF(40, 80 + rect.Height),
 WrappingLength = 600,
 HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Left,
};

image.Mutate(x =&gt; x.DrawText(urlOptions, data.Url, Color.White));
</code></pre>
Again, I create the font, this time with size 24pt and not bolded.
I also create the Text options, only this time I specify the Y coordinate as the <code>height of the title box</code> + <code>80</code> to give it some padding. This is why I created the <code>rect</code> object above. I&#39;m not always going to be sure how much space the title is going to take up as my blog post titles vary. The <code>rect</code> object will tell me how much height the title will take up, then I add an additional 80 pixels to give it some space.
This is the final piece of text I&#39;m writing, so I don&#39;t need to bother creating another rectangle. The final part is writing this bit to the image.
You&#39;ll also notice here is where I use the <code>Url</code> property of the <code>PostData</code> class.
<h2>Saving the image to disk</h2>
The final step of the process is to save the image to disk so it can be used.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using var ms = new MemoryStream();

await image.SaveAsync(ms, new JpegEncoder());

var imageData = ms.ToArray();

await image.SaveAsJpegAsync(BuildFilePath());
</code></pre>
I create a <code>MemoryStream</code>, and then save the image with the 2 mutations to the <code>MemoryStream</code> using the JPEG encoder. The next step is to then save it to disk using the <code>image.SaveAsJpegAsync()</code> function. To save myself so time, I created a function called <code>BuildFilePath()</code> that creates the directory and returns the path.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">static string BuildFilePath()
{
 if (data is null)
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Post Data is null&quot;);
 }

 string rootDirectory = string.Empty;

 if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX))
 {
 rootDirectory = &quot;/Users/keith/Developer/kpwags.com/public/images/posts&quot;;
 }
 else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Windows))
 {
 rootDirectory = @&quot;C:\Users\keith\Developer\kpwags.com\public\images\posts&quot;;
 }
 else
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Invalid Operating System&quot;);
 }

 var directory = Path.Join(rootDirectory, data.Directory);

 if (!Directory.Exists(directory))
 {
 Directory.CreateDirectory(directory);
 }

 return Path.Join(directory, &quot;social-image.jpg&quot;);
}
</code></pre>
This has a little bit of hard-coding as it&#39;s specific to my enviroments and it might be useful to put some of this in an <code>appsettings.json</code> file, but for now, It&#39;s just spelled out.
Since I will sometimes be on Windows when I work, I wanted to make sure this works on either. I use the <code>System.Runtime.InteropServices</code> library to check the operating system I&#39;m using and assign the root directory based on that. I want this to go to where my blog is hosted so there&#39;s no additional steps I need to take to publish. This is the hardcoding that could be moved to a config file.
Now that the directory is defined, I check to see if it exists, and if it doesn&#39;t, I create it. Then I return it with the image filename <code>social-image.jpg</code> appended to it.
Note that this is where I use the <code>Directory</code> property on the <code>PostData</code> object.
All that&#39;s left to do is have the <code>Main</code> function calll the <code>BuildImage()</code> function.
<pre><code class="language-csharp">internal class Program
{
 static PostData? data;

 static async Task Main(string[] args)
 {
 data = GetPostData();

 if (data is null)
 {
 Console.WriteLine(&quot;Unable to generate post data&quot;);
 return;
 }

 await BuildImage();
 }
}
</code></pre>
After this, it&#39;s all done. The image is saved and the app exits. The final product of this little app is:
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-11-03-building-a-social-image-generator-console-application/example.jpg"
 alt="example output of my social image"
 width={1200}
 height={675}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
Here is the final <code>Program.cs</code> file
<pre><code class="language-csharp">using SixLabors.Fonts;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Processing;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Drawing.Processing;
using SixLabors.ImageSharp.Formats.Jpeg;
using SocialImageGenerator.Models;
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace SocialImageGenerator;

internal class Program
{
 static PostData? data;

 static async Task Main(string[] args)
 {
 data = GetPostData();

 if (data is null)
 {
 Console.WriteLine(&quot;Unable to generate post data&quot;);
 return;
 }

 await BuildImage();
 }

 static DateTime GetPostDate(string enteredDate)
 {
 DateTime postDate;

 if (!DateTime.TryParse(enteredDate, out postDate))
 {
 postDate = DateTime.Now;
 }

 return postDate;
 }

 static PostData GetPostData()
 {
 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s date (defaults to {DateTime.Now.ToString(&quot;yyyy-MM-dd&quot;)}): &quot;);

 var date = Console.ReadLine();

 var postDate = GetPostDate(date ?? &quot;&quot;);

 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s Title: &quot;);

 var postTitle = Console.ReadLine();

 Console.Write($&quot;Enter the post&#39;s slug: &quot;);

 var postSlug = Console.ReadLine();

 return new PostData
 {
 Title = postTitle ?? &quot;&quot;,
 Slug = postSlug ?? &quot;&quot;,
 PostDate = postDate,
 };
 }

 static async Task BuildImage()
 {
 if (data is null)
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Post Data is null&quot;);
 }

 using var image = Image.Load(&quot;Template.jpg&quot;);

 var fontCollection = new FontCollection();

 fontCollection.Add(&quot;worksans.ttf&quot;);

 if (fontCollection.TryGet(&quot;Work Sans&quot;, out FontFamily family))
 {
 var font = family.CreateFont(60, FontStyle.Bold);

 var options = new TextOptions(font)
 {
 Origin = new PointF(40, 60),
 WrappingLength = 600,
 HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Left,
 };

 var rect = TextMeasurer.Measure(data.Title, options);

 image.Mutate(x =&gt; x.DrawText(options, data.Title, Color.White));

 var urlFont = family.CreateFont(24, FontStyle.Regular);

 var urlOptions = new TextOptions(urlFont)
 {
 Origin = new PointF(40, 80 + rect.Height),
 WrappingLength = 600,
 HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Left,
 };

 image.Mutate(x =&gt; x.DrawText(urlOptions, data.Url, Color.White));
 }

 using var ms = new MemoryStream();

 await image.SaveAsync(ms, new JpegEncoder());

 var imageData = ms.ToArray();

 await image.SaveAsJpegAsync(BuildFilePath());
 }

 static string BuildFilePath()
 {
 if (data is null)
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Post Data is null&quot;);
 }

 string rootDirectory = string.Empty;

 if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX))
 {
 rootDirectory = &quot;/Users/keith/Developer/kpwags.com/public/images/posts&quot;;
 }
 else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Windows))
 {
 rootDirectory = @&quot;C:\Users\keith\Developer\kpwags.com\public\images\posts&quot;;
 }
 else
 {
 throw new Exception(&quot;Invalid Operating System&quot;);
 }

 var directory = Path.Join(rootDirectory, data.Directory);

 if (!Directory.Exists(directory))
 {
 Directory.CreateDirectory(directory);
 }

 return Path.Join(directory, &quot;social-image.jpg&quot;);
 }
}
</code></pre>
My template works well for me, but hopefully you can use this to build your own.
You can view the <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/social-image-generator">full source code on my GitHub Repository</a>

Building a Social Image Generator Console Application

Of course the month of my vacation is the month that seems to fly by the fastest.
<h2>Hockey Starting Back Up</h2>
Since the teams I play on either got knocked out of the playoffs early or missed them entirely, I&#39;ve had almost a month to a month and a half of no hockey. Mid-September that changed and 2 of the 3 leagues have started back up with the 3rd starting up mid-October.
<h2>Vacation</h2>
In the middle of the month, I went on vacation to Cape May, New Jersey. It was a glorious week where I relaxed, checked out the local breweries and wineries, read a bunch, and just re-charged. I was sad to see it end, but super glad to be back in my own bed.
<h2>Not Running the Marathon</h2>
I hate quitting and giving up on things, but I&#39;ve come to the conclusion that the marathon is not going to happen for me this year. My long runs have not been going well and I&#39;m feeling absolutely broken after them. I was doing well on my medium (6-7 miles) runs, but the long 13+ mile runs were becoming too much for me. I was looking forward to trying to beat 5 hours, but at the end of the day, the toll it was putting on my body just wasn&#39;t worth it to me. I don&#39;t recover like I used to.
<h2>Boosted</h2>
At the end of the month I got the new COVID-19 booster. COVID isn&#39;t done with us and I wanted to make sure I got myself protected. I&#39;d highly recommend you do so too.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Despite calling off the marathon, I ran just shy of 76 miles in September.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Getting back into it, since I&#39;m not running the marathon, I&#39;m going back to a 5/3/1 plan</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/walkaway/9780765392770">Walkaway</a> by Cory Doctorow</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-night-the-lights-went-out-a-memoir-of-life-after-brain-damage/9780593232712">The Night the Lights Went Out</a> by Drew Magary</li>
<li><a href="https://abookapart.com/products/responsible-javascript">Responsible Javascript</a> by Jeremy Wagner</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-data-detective-ten-easy-rules-to-make-sense-of-statistics/9780593084663">The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics</a> by Tim Harford</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Fell behind on my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/09/02/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/09/23/reading-list">reading lists</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Continued to play <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic">World of Warcraft</a></li>
<li>Re-started <a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/jedi/jedi-fallen-order">Jedi: Fallen Order</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continued watching <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386676/">The Office</a></li>
<li>Started the current season of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9184820/">Star Trek: Lower Decks</a></li>
</ul>

September Check-In

Life&#39;s been busy lately and I didn&#39;t get around to posting my weekly reading the last 2 weeks. I&#39;ms starting back up with a slightly new format. I&#39;m going to have a few links that I go into more depth with my thoughts on and then follow it up with the normal link list.
<h2>In-Depth</h2>
&lt;InDepthNotes
 source=&quot;Techdirt&quot;
 title=&quot;Everyone&#39;s Mad At Cloudflare; Is There Room For Principled Takes On Moderation?&quot;
 url=&quot;<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/06/everyones-mad-at-cloudflare-is-there-room-for-principled-takes-on-moderation-when-everyone-wants-what-feels-right-to-them/">https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/06/everyones-mad-at-cloudflare-is-there-room-for-principled-takes-on-moderation-when-everyone-wants-what-feels-right-to-them/</a>&quot;
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre><code>This all came to a head at the beginning of the month when Cloudflare stopped providing services for Kiwi Farms so it&#39;s probably several news cycles behind us at this point. I wanted to share this because it&#39;s important to think about how difficult content moderation actually is.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;The biggest issue with targeting infrastructure providers is that — generally speaking — they don&#39;t have any nuance on their side when it comes to remedies. They pull their services, and an entire site breaks. It does not allow for the more narrow targeting of specific content. It&#39;s very much a nuclear option.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

I think this is kind of the key point when thinking about content moderation at the infrastructure-level. When looking at services like Twitter and Facebook, if they want to kick someone off their platform, users can just go to a different service, or start their own like Trump did with Truth Social, cesspool it might be. There are even open source solutions like [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) that would allow someone to quickly setup their own Twitter clone.

When going after the infrastructure-level, it&#39;s a lot harder to start your own infrastructure platform like Cloudflare.

I&#39;m not saying this to defend Kiwi Farms. That site was fucking awful and the world is better with it offline. But like Mike Masnick talks about, it get&#39;s messy.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;When we&#39;re talking about taking down entire sites because some content on them is objectionable, even to a horrifying level, things get really messy, really fast.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

Who determines what is &quot;good&quot; content, and what is &quot;bad&quot; content. It gets complicated and I&#39;m still not convinced there&#39;s a good answer. It&#39;s often very nuanced and there really isn&#39;t a one-size-fits-all answer. It just gets a little more dangerous the farther up the tech stack you go.

Mike Masnick continues to go over the issues at stake here.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;The fire department analogy also got me thinking, because it kind of highlights how much of the anger directed at Cloudflare is similarly misplaced. The anger is basically saying “you need to remove your protection, so that we can burn Kiwi Farms down.” But, the larger question remains unaddressed: why does Kiwi Farms exist in the first place, and why is it left to Cloudflare to determine whether or not the public should be able to burn it down?&lt;/blockquote&gt;

And this is the crux of the issue. We in America are blessed with the First Amendment. The government is not allowed to restrict what people can and can&#39;t say. Private companies, however, through the same first amendment are allowed to determine what can and can’t be said on their platforms.

One final note, I do appreciate the response from Cloudflare. They too recognize how much power they hold at the infrastructure level and don&#39;t take their responsibility lightly. You should read their [statement on their policies and their approach](https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-approach/) to all of this. They talk a great deal about how they handle sites and services that use their platform.
</code></pre>
</InDepthNotes>

&lt;InDepthNotes
 source=&quot;Joël Quenneville&quot;
 title=&quot;Working Iteratively&quot;
 url=&quot;<a href="https://thoughtbot.com/blog/working-iteratively">https://thoughtbot.com/blog/working-iteratively</a>&quot;
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre><code>I thought this was a good article looking at how we as developers can improve how we write code.

&lt;blockquote className=&quot;small&quot;&gt;Before even getting into code, try to break your features into smaller chunks. What’s the smallest incremental amount of value you can ship to customers? This allows you to ship and get feedback faster while also giving you more flexibility to pause and shift focus to other priorities.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

This is definitely something I’ve done more of as I have grown as a software developer. In my early days I was very much just of the mind to “start writing code” and see where things go. Nowadays, both at work and on side projects, I try to slow things down and break up tasks into smaller chunks.

Ironically, by slowing things down up front, I’ve found it ends up speeding things up down the line while doing the actual development.
</code></pre>
</InDepthNotes>

<h2>Link Blast</h2>
<h3 className="text">👨🏼‍💻 Software Development</h3>

<a href="https://timdeschryver.dev/blog/new-in-entity-framework-7-bulk-operations-with-executedelete-and-executeupdate?">New in Entity Framework 7: Bulk Operations with ExecuteDelete and ExecuteUpdate</a> (Tim Deschryver)
<a href="https://code-maze.com/any-vs-count-dotnet/">Any() vs Count() in .NET: Which One is Better?</a> (Marko Hrnčić)
<a href="https://textslashplain.com/2022/09/12/edges-super-res-image-enhancement/">Edge&#39;s Super-Res Image Enhancement</a> (Eric Lawrence)
<a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2022/09/12/jetbrains-rider-net-watch-run-configuration-plugin/">JetBrains Rider .NET Watch Run Configuration Plugin</a> (JetBrains)
<a href="https://blog.ploeh.dk/2022/09/19/when-to-refactor/">When to refactor</a> (Mark Seemann)
<a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/09/15/why-the-number-input-is-the-worst-input/">Why the Number Input is the Worst Input</a> (Jared Toporek)
<a href="https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/i-have-complicated-feelings-about-tdd-8403/">I have complicated feelings about TDD</a> (Hillel Wayne)
<h3 className="text">🖥 Technology</h3>

<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright">Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of legal challenges</a> (The Verge)
<h3 className="text">🎮 Gaming</h3>

<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23340667/destiny-2-eruption-iron-banner-mode-explained-review">Destiny 2&#39;s new Eruption mode is the best thing to happen to its PvP in years</a> (The Verge)
<h3 className="text">📈 Business and Finance</h3>

💰 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/technology/recruiters-tech-layoffs.html">From Boom to Gloom: Tech Recruiters Struggle to Find Work</a> (New York Times)
<h3 className="text">🔬 Science</h3>

<a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/webb-telescope-captures-dazzling-views-of-neptune-and-its-moons/">New JWST image reveals full glory of Neptune, its moons, and rings</a> (Ars Technica)
<h3 className="text">🎧 Podcasts</h3>

<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/06/techdirt-podcast-episode-328-the-problems-with-the-california-kids-code/">Techdirt Podcast Episode 328: The Problems With The California Kids&#39; Code</a>
<h3 className="text">🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h3>

<h4>TIM - High Hopes</h4>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="pw0kJMh9SfM"
 title="TIM - High Hopes"
/>

Reading List: September 3 - 23

I can&#39;t believe the summer is basically over. August was spent running. So...much...running.
At the beginning of August my training for the 2022 Philadelphia Marathon began. I went from running regularly, if not intermittently, to running 4 days a week. My legs were yelling at me all month with having to run longer and longer distances. Thankfully my body is finally catching up and the runs have gotten a bit of easier. The long runs every Saturday are still tough, but this whole thing is a challenge so as far as I&#39;m concerned, it&#39;ll be worth it! 5 weeks in, 11 to go!
<h2>Various Events</h2>
I started the month going to a Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (Phillies AAA affiliate) baseball game with my family. It was a fun time, but not for the Iron Pigs as they got smoked. Later in the month I went to a Phillies game that went far better for the home team. I also ended up going to a whiskey tasting dinner later in the month that has gotten me to start trying some new whiskeys and bourbons. That could be dangerous.
<h2>New Project at Work</h2>
I ended up getting (temporarily?) put on a new team at work. I&#39;m now working with <a href="https://identityserver4.readthedocs.io/en/latest/">Identity Server</a> and it&#39;s a nice change of pace and a new thing to explore which is exciting.
<h2>Changing How I Journal</h2>
Over the last 6 months or so, I&#39;ve been trying to journal what I do every day and whatnot. I started out using a Moleskine notebook and pen, then I moved to Notion, then to my local Dropbox folder full of markdown files, then back to pen and paper...well, needless to say I&#39;ve had a hard time deciding how I want to do it. I&#39;ve started using Goodnotes on my iPad with the Apple Pencil and feel like I&#39;m getting the best of both worlds with regards to physically writing with the ease of technology and &quot;undo&quot; the iPad provides. The only thing I don&#39;t like, which is no better than paper and pencil, is that there&#39;s no real way to journal from my iPhone. I can view the notes, but since there isn&#39;t Apple Pencil support (if I even had it), I can&#39;t do much more. I definitely enjoy keeping track of what I&#39;ve done, just need to find a good way to make it easy for myself.
<h2>New Dining Room Piece</h2>
When my wife and I bought our house in 2015, our dining room was outdated, but it had an &quot;okay&quot; set of built-ins next to the fireplace. They weren&#39;t anything to write home about, but they were functional. When we found the wood paneling under the wallpaper and decided to gut the room, we ended up losing those built-ins. Since then, that area has been kind of useless. We&#39;ve also needed a pantry and some more storage, so we decided to hire a local woodworking company to build us a new set of built-ins. Only this one came with beautiful black walnut sliding doors. Needless to say, they turned out awesome and am so happy that we have a nice piece that is also functional.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-09-07-august-2022-check-in/closet.jpg"
 alt="beautiful black walnut sliding doors next to my fireplace"
 width={1080}
 height={1440}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Marathon training had me hit 86 miles in August.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:
Lifting 1-2 times a week, not really going for any PRs at this point, though I am trying to inch my way back towards a 400 lbs. deadlift.
📚 Reading:
<ul>
<li><ExternalLink href="https://bookshop.org/books/walkaway/9780765392770" title="Walkway by Cory Doctorow">Cory Doctorow - Walkaway</ExternalLink></li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued with my <a href="/posts/2022/08/05/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="/posts/2022/08/12/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="/posts/2022/08/19/reading-list">posts</a> every <a href="/posts/2022/09/02/reading-list">Friday</a>.</li>
<li>Wrote about my <a href="/posts/2022/08/03/marathon-training">marathon</a> <a href="/posts/2022/08/29/marathon-training-update">training</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="/posts/2022/08/18/upping-our-coffee-game">Coffee</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
Been playing WoW a bunch. Trying to get ready for Wrath of the Lich King in September.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">WoW: Burning Crusade Classic</a></li>
</ul>

August Check-In

Was a little busy last week so this week is a little longer.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://www.joshwcomeau.com/react/why-react-re-renders">Why React Re-Renders</a> - joshwcomeau.com
<a href="https://blog.tomayac.com/2022/08/30/things-not-available-when-someone-blocks-all-cookies/">Things Not Available When Someone Blocks All Cookies</a> - tomayac.com
<a href="https://mfcallahan.blog/2022/08/26/the-microsoft-edge-dev-tools-extension-for-vs-code-is-so-awesome-that-im-ditching-chrome-for-web-development/">The Microsoft Edge Dev Tools extension for VS Code is so awesome that I&#39;m ditching Chrome for web development</a> - mfcallahan.blog
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance_improvements_in_net_7/">Performance Improvements in .NET 7</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<a href="https://webkit.org/blog/13140/webkit-on-github/">WebKit on GitHub</a> - webkit.org
<a href="https://blog.appsignal.com/2022/08/31/4-ways-to-minimize-your-dependencies-in-nodejs.html">4 Ways to Minimize Your Dependencies in Node.js</a> - blog.appsignal.com
<a href="https://beesbuzz.biz/code/439-Falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-email">Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Email</a> - beesbuzz.biz
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/23312359/apple-iphone-lightning-cable-anniversary-10-years">Apple&#39;s Lightning cable turns 10, but its time is over</a> - theverge.com
<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/31/france-uses-ai-to-find-swimming-pools-for-tax-purposes/">France Uses AI To Find Swimming Pools For Tax Purposes</a> - techdirt.com
<a href="https://stratechery.com/2022/rights-laws-and-google/">Rights, Laws, and Google</a> - stratechery.com
<h2>🎮 Gaming</h2>
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/1/23332738/halo-infinite-season-3-delay-forge-launch-november">Halo Infinite’s co-op and Forge modes delayed to November</a> - theverge.com
<a href="https://www.destructoid.com/halo-infinite-forge-beta-split-screen-campaign-co-op-november-update">Halo Infinite will get Forge beta in November, but scraps split-screen campaign co-op</a> - destructoid.com
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/08/24/the-space-launch-system-is-yesterdays-rocket">The Space Launch System is Yesterday’s Rocket</a> - 💰- economist.com
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay-boeing-more-than-twice-as-much-as-spacex-for-crew-seats/">NASA will pay Boeing more than twice as much as SpaceX for crew seats</a> - arstechnica.com
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://neal.fun/design-the-next-iphone/">Design the Next iPhone</a> - neal.fun
<a href="https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/04/cool-things-people-do-with-their-blogs/">Cool Things People Do With Their Blogs</a> - brainbaking.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>The Wonder Years - I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="rwrsrsauHfI"
 title="The Wonder Years - I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral"
/>

Reading List for August 20 - September 2

Well, it&#39;s been just about a month since I started training for the 2022 Philadelphia Marathon. Overall it&#39;s been going well.
I&#39;m now on my 5th week of training and so far, so good. I&#39;ve been having to get up at the crack of dawn to get my runs in before the heat gets turned up to eleven, but I&#39;ve been doing it. It&#39;s been a bit of an adjustment doing distance as for the last several years I&#39;ve been focusing more on just running more and generally sticking to the 3-4 mile range. I&#39;m running 4 days a week now and 3 of the 4 are 5+ miles. The long runs on Saturday are gonna start to be a challenge, but I welcome it.
The only hiccup I had was 2 weeks ago when I missed a run thanks to aggrivating my groin playing hockey. I was, and am still a little concerned over it, but I&#39;ve been able to get my miles in without it bothering me so crossing my fingers 🤞🏻 in hopes that I&#39;m not going to aggrivate it further. I&#39;m not going to give up hockey for 3 months, but I&#39;m hoping that the two activities don&#39;t end up colliding.
I&#39;m 81 miles into my training...time to keep it going!

Marathon Training Update

Quite a lot this week.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/typescript/announcing-typescript-4-8-rc/">Announcing TypeScript 4.8 RC</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<a href="https://jeremydmiller.com/2022/08/09/what-is-good-code/">What is Good Code</a> - jeremydmiller.com
<a href="https://deno.com/blog/changes">Big Changes Ahead for Deno</a> - deno.com
<a href="https://coderethinked.com/what-are-guard-clauses-in-net/">What are Guard Clauses in .NET</a> - coderethinked.com
<a href="https://medium.com/young-coder/no-c-is-not-dying-but-no-language-lives-forever-3f841aeeaf55">No, C# Is Not Dying. But No Language Lives Forever</a> - medium.com/young-coder
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/dotnet-6-is-now-in-ubuntu-2204/">.NET 6 is now in Ubuntu 22.04</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<a href="https://daverupert.com/2022/08/github-copilot/">Thoughts on Copilot</a> - daverupert.com
<a href="https://dateo-software.de/blog/best-practices-async-await/">10 Best Practices in Async-Await Code in C# in 2022</a> - dateo-software.de
<a href="https://www.architect.io/blog/2022-08-16/react-environment-variables-developers-guide/">React environment variables: A developer&#39;s guide</a> - architect.io
<a href="https://daverupert.com/2022/08/web-is-a-harsh-manager/">The web is a harsh manager</a> - daverupert.com
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/08/17/will-deprinting-reduce-the-paper-industrys-carbon-footprint/">Will &quot;deprinting&quot; reduce the paper industry&#39;s carbon footprint?</a> - marketplace.org
<h2>🎮 Gaming</h2>
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/08/nfl-blitz-arcade-games-will-relaunch-as-arcade1up-cabinet-exclusive/">NFL Blitz arcade games will relaunch as Arcade1Up cabinet exclusive</a> - arstechnica.com
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/16/23308514/american-airlines-boom-supersonic-jet-order">American Airlines places order for 20 supersonic jets from Boom Supersonic</a> - theverge.com
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/nasa-declares-that-its-space-launch-system-rocket-is-now-ready-to-fly/">No, seriously, NASA&#39;s Space Launch System is ready to take flight</a> - arstechnica.com
<a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/08/11/how-thinking-hard-makes-the-brain-tired">How thinking hard makes the brain tired</a> - 💰 - economist.com
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://shows.acast.com/the-new-bazaar/episodes/mma-and-the-business-of-america">The New Bazaar S1 E17 - MMA and the business of America</a>
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/star-trek-first-contact-a-meta-movie-about-star/id1562785021?i=1000543045178">Galaxy Brains S1 E33 - Star Trek: First Contact | A meta movie about Star Trek&#39;s creation with John Hodgman</a>
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://ofdollarsanddata.com/when-data-fails/">When Data Fails</a> - ofdollarsanddata.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>VNV Nation - Testament</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="9kf0BiM6Unc"
 title="VNV Nation - Testament"
/>

Reading List: August 13 - 19

A couple months ago, my wife and I decided to up our coffee game.
We ended up getting a nice <a href="https://www.oxo.com/conical-burr-coffee-grinder.html">OXO Coffee Grinder</a> with the hopes of trying different coffee beans. We started small getting some local beans, but then I got it into my head to look into a coffee subscription service. We ended up going with <a href="https://www.drinktrade.com/">Trade</a> and for the last several months have been getting a new bag delivered to us every other week from various roasters from across the country.
I&#39;d like to say it stopped there, but then we decided it would be a good time to get an espresso machine. We ended up getting the <a href="https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/espresso/bes500.html">Breville Bambino Plus</a>. I can&#39;t say I have any regrets with that decision. Being able to make a latte at home is convenient. It takes a little more work than simply pressing the brew button on my coffee maker, but they&#39;re delicious. Lauren even was able to make a vanilla simple syrup to up the latte game. I&#39;m hoping to be able to get using the machine down to a science enough that I can quickly and easily add some espresso shots to my coffee when I need that extra oomph in the morning.
Over the last several months, we&#39;ve gotten some coffee beans we&#39;ve really liked and it&#39;s nice to be able to try some coffee from shops we otherwise wouldn&#39;t be able try. If you like coffee and want to give a coffee service a try, I&#39;d highly recommend it. We&#39;ve been happy with <a href="https://www.drinktrade.com/">Trade</a>, but there are plenty of others out there.
Also, thanks to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/">Wirecutter</a> for helping figure out what gear was best for us.

Upping Our Coffee Game

Let me preface this by saying that I definitively enjoy programming with JavaScript. It does have its quirks though!
I found this through Reddit earlier today and couldn&#39;t help but laugh.
<EmbeddedPost
 content="JavaScript."
 name="den"
 username="DennisCode"
 link="https://twitter.com/DennisCode/status/1559383962299944960"
 date="August 15, 2022"
 profileLink="https://twitter.com/DennisCode"
/>

The Quirks of JavaScript

Looking forward to .NET 7 and a man in Michigan hitting back against Comcast.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://css-tricks.com/designing-for-long-form-articles/">Designing for Long-Form Articles</a> - css-tricks.com
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/announcing-dotnet-7-preview-7/">Announcing .NET 7 Preview 7</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/differentiating-visual-studio-instances/">Differentiating Visual Studio Instances</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.engadget.com/gm-is-doubling-the-size-of-its-super-cruise-network-in-the-us-and-canada-123034974.html">GM is doubling the size of its Super Cruise network in the US and Canada</a> - engadget.com
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/man-who-built-isp-instead-of-paying-comcast-50k-expands-to-hundreds-of-homes/">Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes</a> - arstechnica.com
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-cryptos-market-cap-never-booms-or-busts-as-much-as-you-think-11659691802">Why Crypto&#39;s Market Cap Never Booms, or Busts, as Much as You Think</a> - 💰 - wsj.com
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://www.julian.com/blog/craftspeople">Becoming an expert</a> - julian.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>Tim Barry - Prosser&#39;s Gabriel</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="sSuh44wDbmM"
 title="Tim Barry - Prosser's Gabriel"
/>

Reading List: August 6 - August 12

Amazon now has Alexa on wheels!
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2022/08/01/containerize-net-applications-without-writing-dockerfiles">Containerize .NET applications without writing Dockerfiles</a> - developers.redhat.com
<a href="http://humbletoolsmith.com/2022/08/01/customizing-typescript-string-types-with-template-literal-types-and-utility-types/">Customizing TypeScript String Types with Template Literal Types and Utility Types</a> - humbletoolsmith.com
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-and-irobot-sign-an-agreement-for-amazon-to-acquire-irobot">Amazon Acquires iRobot</a> - aboutamazon.com
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://www.curbed.com/2021/11/nice-try-interior-weights-home-exercise.html">Nice Try - The Weight</a>
<a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/cute-little-monstrosities-of-nature/">99% Invisible - Cute Little Monstrosities of Nature</a>
<a href="https://www.dotnetrocks.com/?show=1767">.NET Rocks #1767 - Cross-Platform .NET Testing with Kendra Havens</a>
<a href="https://www.hanselminutes.com/816/web-assemblys-hidden-talent-with-wasmclouds-kevin-hoffman">Web Assembly&#39;s hidden talent with WasmCloud&#39;s Kevin Hoffman</a>
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://marcoheine.com/blog/just-hit-publish/">Just Hit Publish</a> - marcoheine.com
<a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/other-peoples-websites/">The OG Social Network: Other People&#39;s Websites</a> - blog.jim-nielsen.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="HRqSg2PrJpY"
 title="Rise Against - People Live Here"
/>

Reading List: July 30 - August 5

Whelp, the Philadelphia Marathon is 16 weeks away and I&#39;ve started training for it.
Back in May I decided to run another marathon and signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon in November. I ran the 2015 Philly Marathon in 5 hours 15 minutes. I want to get that time under 5 hours this year.
Now is when I have to put action to my words and have to start training for it. I&#39;m gonna be running 4 days a week and for the first time in several years run for distance. I&#39;m going to have to run 8 miles on Saturday which will be my longest run since 2017. It&#39;s gonna be a challenge but I&#39;m looking forward to it. The worst of it will probably be this month and maybe into September when I have to deal with higher temperatures and high humidity. There will be some early wake-ups to help me beat the heat! Oh boy...
Wish me (and my legs) luck!

Marathon Training

July was mostly a good month for me. A small medical mishap, but otherwise a good month.
<h2>A Quick Trip to Urgent Care</h2>
My attempts to break new PRs for deadlift and squats ended up getting delayed thanks to a mishap with a garden hose. I had to replace the end of a hose since it got damaged and unfortunately sliced my finger open on the metal ring holding the new hose end. I ended up needing stitches so lifting was basically out of the question. I definitely did not want to bust the stitches open by twisting the skin or anything else that might happen when you&#39;re lifting hundreds of pounds of weight. I ended up condensing two weeks of lifts into one at the end of the month in an attempt to hit my goals before starting my marathon training. I was able to set a new squats PR at 365 lbs., but ended up failing in my quest to deadlift 400 lbs. I&#39;m disappointed, but will try to hit 400 in the next one to two weeks before lightening my lifts for when the marathon training really ramps up. I don&#39;t really want to be going super heavy and setting new PRs while I&#39;m trying to also put in 30 miles of running in a week. My plan is to lift two days a week, but with less volume than I&#39;ve been doing for the year. Keep my strength up, but focus on running.
<h2>Hockey Tournament</h2>
In mid-July, my ice rink hosted their yearly tournament. I formed a team last year and played and it was fun. This year though, I just joined a pre-formed team so I didn&#39;t have to worry about gathering enough players which took a bunch of stress away from the event. Our team went 0-3-1, but we played competitively despite never having played together before. For anyone who hasn&#39;t played hockey before, it can be challenging sometimes to play with a new team since different players have different tendencies. Learning those tendencies and quirks can make teams and players more effective. Not knowing those same tendencies can make things a little more difficult. At the end of the day though, it was fun. Met some new people, played with people I&#39;ve played both with and against previously, and got plenty of exercise.
<h2>Journaling</h2>
Over the last couple of months, I&#39;ve been trying to keep a daily journal of what I&#39;ve done, read, and anything else that might come to mind. I&#39;m just not sure what kind of format I want to use. I&#39;ve been making a new markdown file every day, but I&#39;m also considering just using my Moleskin notebook and a pen. To make matters more complicated, I&#39;ve also considered using my iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. I&#39;m still not sure what format will end up winning out, but I find it relaxing and interesting keeping track of my days. With how crazy things often are and how the days seem to blur together, it&#39;s nice to have a little log to write down my activities and thoughts.
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Only ran a little under 13 miles this month. The 90-100 degree days did not make running all that appealing. Marathon training starts in August, so might be some early-morning runs in my future.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:
<ul>
<li>Hit a new PR on squats - 365 lbs.</li>
<li>Failed a 400 lbs. deadlift</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading:
Finished 3 books this month.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Katie Mack - The End of Everything</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Albert Bourla - Moonshot: Inside Pfizer&#39;s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a></li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued with my <a href="/posts/2022/07/08/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="/posts/2022/07/15/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/22/reading-list">posts</a> every <a href="/posts/2022/07/29/reading-list">Friday</a>.</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="/posts/2022/07/31/updating-my-likes-page-with-feedbin">connecting to Feedbin to populate my likes page</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
Been playing WoW a bunch. Trying to get ready for Wrath of the Lich King in September.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">WoW: Burning Crusade Classic</a></li>
</ul>

July Check-In

I&#39;ve been tweaking my site here and there and the one thing I recently did was change how I populate my &#39;<a href="/likes">likes</a>&#39; page. Previously I had been doing it manually, but recently after having listened to the founder of <a href="https://feedbin.com">Feedbin</a> on the <a href="https://changelog.com/podcast/499">Changelog Podcast</a>, I decided to try something different. I wanted to use a nice feature Feedbin has to make the page better.
I&#39;m a subscriber to <a href="https://feedbin.com">Feedbin</a> and the one feature it provides is the ability to view the items you&#39;ve starred as a feed in and of itself. That means that for any article on any of my feeds, when I star it, it gets added to its own RSS feed that is public. I decided that I was going to use that to populate my <a href="/likes">likes page</a>.
The first thing I needed to do was to create a TypeScript model for it.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">interface FeedbinItem {
 title: string
 link: string
 domain: string
}
</code></pre>
It&#39;s a pretty simple model, I want the title, the URL, and the domain.
The next thing I needed to do was to find a good way to parse the XML returned from Feedbin. Since I&#39;m using Node, the DOM Parser the browser uses is a no go as the Node backend doesn&#39;t support it. Fortunately I found <a href="https://github.com/NaturalIntelligence/fast-xml-parser">fast-xml-parser</a> which does a fantastic job of converting an XML string into a JSON object that would allow me to easily go through the data returned.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import { FeedbinItem } from &#39;@models/FeedbinItem&#39;;
import { XMLParser } from &#39;fast-xml-parser&#39;;

export const getFeedbinItems = async (): Promise&lt;FeedbinItem[]&gt; =&gt; {
 const items: FeedbinItem[] = [];

 const res = await fetch(&#39;https://feedbin.com/starred/starred-items.xml&#39;);

 if (!res.ok) {
 // handle error logic
 return [];
 }

 const response = await res.text();

 const parser = new XMLParser();
 const data = parser.parse(response);

 data.rss.channel.item.forEach((i: any) =&gt; {
 const domain = (new URL(i.link));

 items.push({
 title: i.title,
 link: i.link,
 domain: domain.hostname,
 });
 });

 return items;
};
</code></pre>
The first thing I do in the code is to declare the array of items to return. I then make a fetch call to Feedbin to retrieve my starred items.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">const res = await fetch(&#39;https://feedbin.com/starred/starred-items.xml&#39;);
</code></pre>
Assuming the call was successful, I create the parser and have it parse the XML into a JSON object.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">const parser = new XMLParser();
const data = parser.parse(response);
</code></pre>
After that, it&#39;s simply parsing the returned items and adding them to the items array.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">data.rss.channel.item.forEach((i: any) =&gt; {
 const domain = (new URL(i.link));

 items.push({
 title: i.title,
 link: i.link,
 domain: domain.hostname,
 });
});
</code></pre>
The only slight complication is me getting the domain or hostname from the article&#39;s link to add that to the model. For that, I simply create a new <code>URL</code> object and pass the link in and then grab the hostname.
The next step was to pull the data into the page in Next.js. Originally I was just using a <code>.ts</code> file with an array of my likes. Since it was static data, I just used Next.js&#39; <code>getStaticProps</code> to get the data from the <code>.ts</code> file and load it into the component. Since I need this to now be dynamic, I switched to the <code>getServerSideProps</code> so that the call is made on the server, rendered on the server, and sent down to the client after.
I wrapped the fetch code above into its own file to make the <code>likes.tsx</code> component a little cleaner.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import { getFeedbinItems } from &#39;@lib/feedbin&#39;;
import { FeedbinItem } from &#39;@models/FeedbinItem&#39;;

export const getServerSideProps: GetStaticProps = async () =&gt; {
 const data = await getFeedbinItems();

 return {
 props: {
 // only return most recent 25
 likedItems: data.slice(0, 25),
 },
 };
};

type LikeProps = {
 likedItems: FeedbinItem[];
};

const Likes = ({ likedItems }: LikeProps): JSX.Element =&gt; {
 // the render code
}
</code></pre>
It&#39;s pretty simple. When the page is to be rendered, it loads the starred items from my custom RSS feed, and passes the items into the React component.
So there you have it. It&#39;s a pretty simple thing to setup, and it provides me a way to keep my likes page a little more up-to-date without having to manually add items. Of course it means that the items I star have to be part of an RSS feed, but that&#39;s why everyone should have a blog of their own WITH an RSS feed.
Edited 8/3/2022 - Typo/Grammar Edit

Updating My Likes Page with Feedbin

Delved a lot into C# and .NET this week. Also a great discussion on Plain English about the current state of Crypto.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://ayende.com/blog/197793-C/when-debugging-assume-an-unreliable-narrator">When debugging, assume an unreliable narrator</a> - ayende.com
<a href="https://www.josephguadagno.net/2022/07/19/how-to-simplify-your-c-sharp-unit-testing-with-a-mocking-framework">How to simplify your C# unit testing with a mocking framework</a> - josephguadagno.net
<a href="http://dontcodetired.com/blog/post/Work-with-SQL-Data-with-Fewer-Lines-of-Code-Using-Dynamic-C">Work with SQL Data with Fewer Lines of Code Using Dynamic C#</a> - dontcodetired.com
<a href="'https://simpleprogrammer.com/node-js-vs-asp-net/">Node.js Vs ASP.NET – Battle of Two Server-Side Languages</a> - simpleprogrammer.com
<a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/html-email-rant/">HTML Emails: A Rant</a> - blog.jim-nielsen.com
<a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/07/18/how-observability-is-redefining-the-roles-of-developers/">How observability is redefining the roles of developers</a> - stackoverflow.blog
<a href="https://coderethinked.com/what-are-minimal-apis-in-asp-net-core-6/">What are Minimal APIs in ASP.NET Core 6</a> - coderthinked.com
<a href="https://event-driven.io/en/union_types_in_csharp/">Union Types in C#</a> - event-driven.io
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/digital-divide-widening-cost-of-living/">The Digital Divide is Coming for You</a> - wired.com
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-moves-closer-to-all-electric-goal-11658306271">Volvo Moves Closer to All-Electric Goal</a> - 💰 - wsj.com
<a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/07/24/why-it-is-too-early-to-say-the-world-economy-is-in-recession">Why it is too early to say the world economy is in recession</a> - 💰 - economist.com
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-astronomy-best-extragalactic-candidate-quiet-black-hole-found">The first dormant black hole likely found lurking in another galaxy</a> - syfy.com
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://www.theringer.com/2022/7/25/23273614/crypto-crash-part-1-debating-the-case-against-crypto">Plain English - Crypto Crash Part 1: Debating the Case Against Crypto</a>
<a href="https://www.theringer.com/2022/7/26/23278361/crypto-crash-part-ii-packy-mccormick-debates-the-future-of-web3">Plain English - Crypto Crash, Part II: Packy McCormick Debates the Future of Web3</a>
<a href="https://github.com/readme/podcast/fred-schott">ReadME S2E3: Giving 110% in the right place at the right time</a>
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://joylere.substack.com/p/imposters">Imposters</a> - joylere.substack.com
<a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/imposter-syndrome-as-a-developer">How I dealt with imposter syndrome as a newbie developer</a> - thenextweb.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="Lf-rEslupnY"
 title="The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten"
/>

Reading List: July 23 - July 29

Some articles about C#, SQL and looking at local newspapers.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://jeremybytes.blogspot.com/2022/07/nullability-in-c-what-it-is-and-what-it.html">Nullability in C# - What It Is and What It Is Not</a> - jeremybytes.blogspot.com
<a href="https://blog.plover.com/prog/git/tips-2.html">Things I wish everyone knew about Git (Part II)</a> - blog.plover.com
<a href="https://brandur.org/soft-deletion">Soft Deletion Probably Isn&#39;t Worth It</a> - brandur.org
<a href="https://steven-giesel.com/blogPost/3992a289-4cc9-460c-b484-0cc137cccafa">Abstract Class vs Interface</a> - steven-giesel.com
<a href="https://jvns.ca/blog/2022/07/20/pseudoterminals/">What happens when you press a key in your terminal?</a> - jvns.ca
<a href="https://una.im/style-queries/">Style Queries</a> - una.im
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/teamviewer-font-privacy.html">TeamViewer installs suspicious font only useful for web fingerprinting</a> - ctrl.blog
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/07/19/supermarket-design-emotions-impulse-buys/">It&#39;s hard to keep costs down at the supermarket, thanks to store design and our emotions</a> - marketplace.org
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?ShowNum=1759">.NET Rocks #1759: Code That Fits in Your Head</a>
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://defector.com/this-is-not-the-way-to-help-local-news/">This is Not the Way to Help Local News</a> - 💰 - defector.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>Gregor Barnett - Don&#39;t Go Throwing Roses in My Grave</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="liHH9TIY-Ik"
 title="Gregor Barnett - Don't Go Throwing Roses in My Grave"
/>

Reading List: July 16 - July 22

I&#39;ve been finally catching up on my (all-too-massive) podcast backlog and figured I&#39;d place a shout-out to the podcast Chats with Kent.
For fellow devs out there, I&#39;d recommend subscribing to and listening to it. I&#39;m currently on the 4th season and he has some great chats with various developers with a wide variety of backgrounds.
Go <a href="https://kentcdodds.com/chats/04">give it a listen</a>

Chats with Kent

This week we look at a lot of web dev articles as well as some amazing photos from the JWST.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/resiliency-in-the-webs-layers/">The Resiliency in the Web&#39;s Layers</a> - blog.jim-nielsen.com
<a href="https://ishadeed.com/article/figma-css/">The CSS Behind Figma</a> - ishadeed.com
<a href="https://brandur.org/fragments/code-database-vs-app">Code in database vs. code in application</a> - brandur.org
<a href="https://jakearchibald.com/2022/img-aspect-ratio">Avoiding &lt;img&gt; layout shifts: aspect-ratio vs width &amp; height attributes</a> - jakearchibald.com
<a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/07/look-remix-differences-next/">A Look At Remix And The Differences With Next.js</a> - smashingmagazine.com
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/business/media/evan-williams-leaving-medium.html">Evan Williams Is Stepping Down as C.E.O. of Medium</a> - 💰 - nytimes.com
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages">First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope</a> - nasa.gov
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/">Darknet Diaries 101: Lotería</a>
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/07/12/1110510488/lean-out-employees-are-accepting-lower-pay-in-order-to-work-remotely">Lean Out: Employees Are Accepting Lower Pay In Order To Work Remotely</a> - npr.org
<a href="https://www.curbed.com/2022/07/boy-scouts-open-space-for-sale.html">The Great Boy Scouts Land Sell-Off</a> - curbed.com
<a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-learning-loss-has-been-a-global-disaster">Millions of Wasted Minds</a> - 💰 - economist.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>Dave Hause - Sandy Sheets</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="nFTpnWUl_WY"
 title="Dave Hause - Sandy Sheets"
/>

Reading List: July 9 - July 15

This week we look at a lot of CSS web development and some background on GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/unlocked-possibilities-of-has-selector/">The Unlocked Possibilities of the :has() Selector</a> - blog.jim-nielsen.com
<a href="https://steven-giesel.com/blogPost/a252f2da-1ae8-4449-9b5f-43657308eabb">SOLID Principles in C#</a> - steven-giesel.com
<a href="https://blog.mayank.co/the-case-for-using-sass-in-2022">The case for using Sass in 2022</a> - blog.mayank.co
<a href="https://yatil.net/blog/text-overflow-ellipsis-harmful">Text-overflow: ellipsis considered harmful</a> - yatil.net
<a href="https://rubikscode.net/2022/06/20/c-11-top-5-features-in-the-new-c-version/">C# 11 - Top 5 Features in the new C# Version</a> - rubikscode.net
<a href="https://daily-dev-tips.com/posts/using-the-native-web-share-javascript-api/">Using the native web share JavaScript API</a> - daily-dev-tips.com
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-terminal-preview-1-15-release/">Windows Terminal Preview 1.15 Release</a> - devblogs.microsoft.com
<a href="https://www.miriamsuzanne.com/2022/07/04/body-margin-8px/">Body Margin 8px</a> - miriamsuzanne.com
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/07/05/cryptos-last-man-standing">Crypto&#39;s last man standing</a> - 💰 - economist.com
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/technology/tech-start-up-funding.html">Start-Up Funding Falls the Most It Has Since 2019</a> - 💰 - nytimes.com
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/02/science/webb-telescope-exoplanets-atmosphere.html">Webb Telescope Will Look for Signs of Life Way Out There</a> - 💰 - nytimes.com
<h2>🎧 Podcasts</h2>
<a href="https://www.jordanharbinger.com/dan-carlin-apocalyptic-moments-in-hardcore-history/">Jordan Harbinger #560: Dan Carlin | Apocalyptic Moments in Hardcore History</a>
<h2>🎒 Everything Else</h2>
<a href="https://mattgemmell.com/theres-no-perfect-time/">There&#39;s no perfect time</a> - mattgemmell.com
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/07/book-excerpt-anti-game-design-and-the-making-of-goldeneye-007/">Excerpt: How the designers of GoldenEye 007 made use of &quot;Anti-Game Design&quot;</a> - arstechnica.com
<a href="https://world.hey.com/rjs/21-prototyping-to-learn-726e2d3e">Prototyping to Learn</a> - world.hey.com
<a href="https://annehelen.substack.com/p/so-youve-decided-to-bungle-your-companys">So You&#39;ve Decided to Bungle Your Company&#39;s Flexible Work Plan</a> - annehelen.substack.com
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="eujM5uoo-l0"
 title="Orchestral Suite from The Inner Light"
/>

Reading List: July 2 - July 8

I can&#39;t believe the first half of 2022 is already over. Another month has come and gone and I&#39;m not sure what I have to show for it.
<h2>Recovering from COVID</h2>
At the end of May, I ended up getting COVID as I mentioned. Thanks to the vaccine and booster, it wasn&#39;t too bad, but I&#39;ve struggled to get back into the swing of fitness. I was in a nice groove, but now I feel a little &quot;off&quot;. Not physically, just mentally. Between work &amp; hockey, I feel like I haven&#39;t had the time to get my normal lifting sessions in. I didn&#39;t run as much as I would&#39;ve hoped as I&#39;m still getting my lung capacity back. I&#39;m not rushing into anything as I start training for the marathon next month. Figure ease myself back into it.
The other downside of COVID throwing me for a loop is that I&#39;m also figuring this will probably be my best chance to hit my deadlift goal and my goal of hitting the 1,000 lbs. club. I&#39;m hoping to go for 365 on squats and 400 on deadlifts. That, combined with my 235 on bench press will give me 1,000 lbs. on the nose. Maybe I&#39;ll be able to try to work up bench press to 250 like I wanted in December, but I&#39;m not holding my breath. I already hit my squats goal of 350, so if I can hit 400 on deadlifts, and 1,000 between bench press, squats &amp; deadlifts this year, I&#39;ll be quite happy.
<h2>The Re-Design</h2>
At the beginning of the month, I released a redesign of the blog. I ended up changing the color and slightly tweaked the layouts. I decided I wanted the home page to have a little more pop. I like the way it turned out. I ended up cleaning up some of the code I used to display what <a href="https://kpwags.com/current">I&#39;m currently up to</a>, the <a href="https://kpwags.com/bookshelf">bookshelf</a> and <a href="https://kpwags.com/movies">movies</a> pages as well. Still got a little bit to clean up here and there, but I like it so far.
I&#39;m hoping to introduce a few tweaks to make posting a little smoother and easier over the next month.
<h2>New York City</h2>
I ended up going to New York City mid-month for my birthday. The weather was nice and it wasn&#39;t too hot. Not too much to report, though I was able to go to the Morgan Library and Museum and that was incredible. So many old and classic books, including two Gutenberg Bibles on display.
<h2>Brand New Desktop</h2>
After going back and forth for the last few months, I finally ended up deciding to build a brand new PC. I kept my graphics card from my old one as well as the SSD, but got a new CPU, RAM &amp; case. I ended up going with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU and bumped my RAM up to 32 GB. Took the plunge and went with Windows 11 as well. No complaints so far. Figure I should be good with PC gaming for a while. I can upgrade the graphics card later down the line.
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Only ran a little over 17 miles this month. COVID recovery and the heat limited me a bit.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:**ot much to report, getting back into the swing of it for my last cycle prior to the marathon.
📚 Reading:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/born-a-crime-stories-from-a-south-african-childhood/9780399588198" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Trevor Noah - Born a Crime</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/project-hail-mary/9780593135204" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a> - Continued reading this.</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Started up <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/03/reading-list">my</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/10/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/06/24/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/01/reading-list">posts</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/07/01/mocking-react-router-and-useparams">mocking useParams when using React Router</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/WitchQueen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Destiny 2</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/star-wars-battlefront-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Star Wars Battlefront II</a></li>
<li><a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">WoW: Burning Crusade Classic</a></li>
</ul>

June Check-In

Didn&#39;t get to much reading this week, but a little bit on CSS, Apple&#39;s issues with WebKit and iOS, and women and grunge.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://swyx.io/the-end-of-localhost">The End of Localhost</a> - Developing on our local machines might not be as common as it is now (swyx.io)
<a href="https://sprucecss.com/blog/writing-better-css">Writing Better CSS</a> - There is no &quot;one size fits all&quot; method for dealing with CSS, but any ideas to improve is welcome. (sprucecss.com)
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/">Apple Is Not Defending Browser Engine Choice</a> - I am an iOS user and even I agree Apple should open up iOS to different browser engines. (infrequently.org)
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://longreads.com/2022/06/29/the-women-who-built-grunge/">The Women Who Built Grunge</a> - They&#39;ve been sadly long buried beneath men. (longreads.com)
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<YouTubeEmbed
 id="vfGZZJnoJ0U"
 title="Deaf Havana - Boston Square"
/>

Reading List: June 25 - July 1

One of the things I needed to do recently was write unit tests for one of the pages of Digital Family Cookbook where I pull a value from a query parameter in the URL. I ended up having some trouble with it so I figured I&#39;d share what I did to get it working.
First, let&#39;s look at the component. In the component, I&#39;m looking to get the recipe&#39;s ID from the URL and then query the API to get the recipe data. The URL is formatted like <code>/recipes/view/:id</code> where <code>:id</code> indicates the recipe&#39;s ID. An actual URL would be <code>/recipes/view/25</code>.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import { useParams } from &#39;react-router&#39;;

const { id } = useParams();

const fetchRecipe = async () =&gt; {
 if (!id) {
 setErrorMessage(&#39;Error loading recipe&#39;);
 setPageState(PageState.Error);
 return;
 }

 const [data, error] = await Api.Get&lt;Recipe&gt;(`recipes/get?id=${id}`);

 if (error) {
 setErrorMessage(error);
 setPageState(PageState.Error);
 return;
 }

 setRecipe(data);
 setPageState(PageState.Ready);
};
</code></pre>
In the code, I use the <code>useParams()</code> hook to get the ID and I use it in the <code>fetchRecipe()</code> function to query the API.
This worked well, but I also needed to write unit tests for this which means that I need to be able to get the ID when there isn&#39;t a URL to pull from. Enter some Jest magic.
<pre><code class="language-typescript">import Router from &#39;react-router&#39;;

jest.mock(&#39;react-router&#39;, () =&gt; ({
 ...jest.requireActual(&#39;react-router&#39;),
 useParams: jest.fn(),
}));

describe(&#39;&lt;ViewRecipe /&gt;&#39;, () =&gt; {
 test(&#39;It renders the recipe&#39;, async () =&gt; {
 jest.spyOn(Router, &#39;useParams&#39;).mockReturnValue({ id: &#39;1&#39; });

 renderWithRouter(
 &lt;MockAppProvider user={MockUserAccount}&gt;
 &lt;ViewRecipe /&gt;
 &lt;/MockAppProvider&gt;,
 );

 await waitForElementToBeRemoved(() =&gt; screen.queryByText(&#39;Loading...&#39;));

 expect(screen.queryByText(/Test Recipe 01/)).toBeInTheDocument();
 });
});
</code></pre>
At the top we setup the mock for <code>react-router</code>. We tell it to use the actual module, but then replace the <code>useParams()</code> hook with a mock function since we need to adjust what it returns.
In the test, we then tell jest to spy on the router component and watch for <code>useParams()</code> to be called. The spy will then pay attention to if and when it is called, and if it is, return the mocked value of <code>{ id: &#39;1&#39; }</code>.
Now when the <code>ViewRecipe</code> component is rendered the <code>useParams()</code> hook will return an ID of 1 for the test. The cool part about this is that we can set the spy in every test to return a different value for the test. I use <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2021/02/03/unit-testing-with-msw">Mock Service Worker</a> to mock my API calls, so the different ID values can trigger different data returns.
So there you go, a nice easy way to write tests when your components rely on React Router and the <code>useParams()</code> hook.

Mocking React Router and useParams

Due to my trip last week to New York City, this list is a little bit longer.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻 Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://alistapart.com/article/mobile-first-css-is-it-time-for-a-rethink/">Mobile-First CSS: Is it Time for a Rethink</a> - I&#39;ve been plenty guilty of thinking desktop first even though I know it is often harder. Maybe it&#39;s time for me to rethink how I start my designs and layouts. (alistapart.com)
<a href="https://www.barbarianmeetscoding.com/notes/css-modules/">CSS Modules</a> - I opted for a mix of basic CSS and styled components for my blog. Maybe I&#39;ll end up revisiting this. This is a good overview of CSS Modules. (barbarianmwetscoding.com)
<a href="https://nolanlawson.com/2022/06/09/the-collapse-of-complex-software/">The Collapse of Complex Software</a> - Interesting take on how code and legacy systems can grow and grow and then implode (nolanlawson.com)
<a href="https://stephenroughley.com/2022/06/09/explaining-typescript/">Explaining TypeScript</a> - Having started using TypeScript, it&#39;s now kind of painful to ever write JS nowadays. (stephenroughley.com)
<a href="https://timdeschryver.dev/blog/maybe-its-time-to-rethink-our-project-structure-with-dot-net-6">Maybe it&#39;s time to rethink our project structure with .NET 6</a> - I&#39;ll admit I haven&#39;t looked deeply at the new minimal API functionality, but this looks interesting. (timdeschryver.dev)
<a href="https://blog.ploeh.dk/2022/06/13/some-thoughts-on-naming-tests/">Some thoughts on naming tests</a> - Test names can make understanding what tests are written to verify much easier. (blog.ploeh.dk)
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/typescript/announcing-typescript-4-8-beta">Announcing TypeScript 4.8 Beta</a> - Info on what to expect in the next version of TypeScript (devblogs.microsoft.com)
<a href="https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/">How we think about browsers</a> - Interesting take on supporting the different browsers and versions at GitHub. (github.blog)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=860d8usGC0o">Have Single-Page Apps Ruined the Web?</a> - Most of the dev work I&#39;ve been doing has been building SPA using React. Interesting discussion on pros, cons, and what can be done to improve things. (youtube.com)
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/10/23131029/mozilla-ad-blocking-firefox-google-chrome-privacy-manifest-v3-web-request">Firefox and Chrome are Squaring Off Over Ad-Blocker Extensions</a> - For the moment, I&#39;ve switched back to Firefox as my default browser. I&#39;m curious as to how other Chromium-based browsers will handle this change. (theverge.com)
<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/10/trumps-free-speech-social-network-truth-social-is-banning-people-for-truthing-the-truth-about-january-6-hearings/">Trump&#39;s &#39;Free Speech&#39; Social Network, Truth Social, Is Banning People For Truthing The Truth About January 6 Hearings</a> - Color me shocked (techdirt.com)
<a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/06/09/artificial-intelligences-new-frontier">Artificial intelligence&#39;s new frontier</a> - 💰 - AI is improving. (economist.com)
<a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/revealed-thunderbird-on-android-plans-k9/">Revealed: Our Plans For Thunderbird On Android</a> - I&#39;m not an Android user, but this looks like big news. I love Thunderbird on both Windows &amp; Linux. (thunerbird.net)
<a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-rolls-out-total-cookie-protection-by-default-to-all-users-worldwide/">Firefox rolls out Total Cookie Protection by default to all users worldwide</a> - More privacy protection is always a good thing (blog.mozilla.com)
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/21/23177624/volvo-trucks-tests-hydrogen-fuel-cell-semi">Volvo&#39;s commercial truck group is testing out hydrogen fuel cell semis</a> - Still looks to be in its infancy and the infrastructure needs to be there, but any steps to get us off fossil fuels is a good thing. (theverge.com)
<h2>📈 Business and Finance</h2>
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-stand-up-to-a-bear-market-11655477101">How to Stand Up to a Bear Market</a> - 💰 - Markets today are looking scary. (wsj.com)
<a href="https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/06/how-long-does-it-take-for-stocks-to-bottom-in-a-bear-market/">How Long Does it Take For Stocks to Bottom in a Bear Market?</a> - Some thoughts given the current market (awealthofcommonsense.com)
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/business/tesla-online-sales-dealerships.html">Why You Might Buy Your Next Car Online</a> - 💰 - There&#39;s something to be said for the convenience of online shopping...cars are getting to that point. (nytimes.com)
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/06/22/the-minivan-is-kind-of-making-a-comeback-this-summer/">The minivan is kind of making a comeback this summer</a> - Not just for toting around kids anymore. Read the WSJ article <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/minivan-sales-prices-memorial-day-11653423051">here</a>. (marketplace.org)
<h2>🔬 Science</h2>
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61744257">James Webb Space Telescope hit by tiny meteoroid</a> - Uh oh...looks like the damage was minimal thankfully. (bbc.com)
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/space/nasa-shutting-down-voyager-50-years-b2104956.html">Nasa starts shutting down Voyager after 50 years</a> - It was bound to happen, but it&#39;s amazing they&#39;re still going after almost 50 years! (independent.co.uk)
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://matthiasott.com/notes/just-put-stuff-out-there">Just Put Stuff Out There</a> - I agree with Matthias here, not everything has to be perfect...just click publish! (matthiasott.com)
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
<h3>Will Varley - Weddings &amp; Wars</h3>
<YouTubeEmbed
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Reading List: June 11 - June 24

A little bit of everything this week from new features coming to .NET and Next.js, to working from home, and prediting the future.
🧑🏼‍💻 <a href="https://www.telerik.com/blogs/build-2022-updates-aspnet-core-developers">Build 2022 Updates for ASP.NET Core Developers</a> - As a .NET developer, always keeping up with all the awesome features they&#39;re adding. (telerik.com)
🧑🏼‍💻 <a href="https://nextjs.org/blog/layouts-rfc">NEXT.js Layouts RFC</a> - I&#39;m excited to try this out when they release it. This blog is built on Next.js! (nextjs.org)
🕵🏻‍♂️ <a href="https://world.hey.com/dhh/employee-surveillance-software-is-managerial-bankruptcy-94e48a08">Employee surveillance software is managerial bankruptcy</a> - I&#39;m a firm believer in trusting your employees to do their work. It&#39;s pretty obvious when they aren&#39;t, you don&#39;t need spyware to do it. (hey.com)
🔮 <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/05/techdirt-podcast-episode-316-predicting-the-future/">Techdirt Podcast #316: Predicting the Future</a> - Interesting discussion on making predictions about the future and getting better at it. (techdirt.com)

Reading List: June 4 - June 10

Spent a bit of time this weekend looking at CSS and web development. Pixels, rems, typography &amp; more!
🧑🏼‍💻 <a href="https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/surprising-truth-about-pixels-and-accessibility/">The Surprising Truth About Pixels and Accessibility</a> - Josh does a great job in this article talking about when you should use rems and when you should use pixels, and why. (joshwcomeau.com)
🅰 <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/01/modern-fluid-typography-css-clamp/">Modern Fluid Typography Using CSS Clamp</a> - I&#39;ve been wanting to improve the typography on what I design and develop. This can help. (smashingmagazine.com)
🤔 <a href="https://benfrain.com/where-the-f-is-native-css-nesting/">Where the f*ck is native CSS nesting?</a> - I&#39;d like to know as well. Hopefully soon as it&#39;d be nice to clean up some CSS. (benfrain.com)
💾 <a href="https://chriscoyier.net/2022/05/31/whats-in-a-monorepo/">What&#39;s in a monorepo</a> - A nice bit talking about the benefits of using a monorepo. (chriscoyier.net)
🎚 <a href="https://www.bram.us/2022/05/25/dark-mode-toggles-should-be-a-browser-feature/">Dark Mode Toggles Should be a Browser Feature</a> - I agree with this. It would be nice as a developer to not have to duplicate code to support both the browser being set to dark mode and the user selecting something different than what the browser is set to. (bram.us)

Reading List: May 28 - June 3

May was an eventful month. I didn&#39;t do much because I was exposed to COVID…and then got COVID later in the month. Needless to say, the month could have gone better, but it could have been far worse.
<h2>COVID</h2>
Getting the COVID part over with…early in the month, my wife and I ended up getting exposed to COVID. We opted to play it safe and isolated ourselves up in the house for 3-4 days to make sure we didn&#39;t have it or spread it to others. We never got it…then later in the month happened. I got it, presumably from hockey, and while I holed myself up in the basement trying to protect my wife from it, failed at that too. While certainly not pleasant, both of us are fine now and thankfully only had to deal with mild symptoms. Being vaccinated and boosted certainly helped keep us out of the hospital and alive.
<h2>Data &amp; Office Clean-Up</h2>
Earlier in the month I decided to delve back into Linux by putting the latest version of Fedora on my desktop to dual boot. I was hoping to extend its life a little bit, but even with Fedora, it is seemingly a little on the sluggish side. I&#39;ll have to play around with it a little bit to see if I can figure out what&#39;s going on. It was beneficial though because it allowed me to pull the data off my old server&#39;s hard drives. I used to run a file server on an old desktop computer. Sadly it died and all my data was just sitting around on the hard drives. I recently bought a Synology NAS and spent the better part of a weekend pulling data off the old drives and put them onto my NAS. I have to do some organization, but at least the data is now accessible.
<h2>Fitness News</h2>
I also finally made the decision to run the 2022 Philadelphia Marathon. I&#39;ve been going back and forth on it, and finally decided to run it in an attempt to run a sub-5 hour marathon. I&#39;ll have to trim 15 minutes from my 2015 time, but I think it&#39;s doable. Official training starts in August, but I&#39;m gonna try to slowly up the distance prior.
I also ended up hitting new PRs on both deadlifts and squats. Managed 385 lbs. on deadlifts, and hit my 350 lbs. goal on squats. Yay me! I ended up stalling on bench press so hopefully I can get that going again in June. Want to try to hit my goals by the time marathon training kicks in.
<h2>Stage Fright</h2>
I volunteered to give a presentation on unit testing to my company&#39;s development department. I was nervous as all get-out, but managed to do it. Probably could&#39;ve done a little better, but it didn&#39;t go bad.
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: Only ran a little over 23 miles this month.</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting:**nded up setting new PRs on both deadlifts (385 lbs.) &amp; squats (350 lbs.)
📚 Reading:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-passion-economy-the-new-rules-for-thriving-in-the-twenty-first-century/9780804172776" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Passion Economy</a> - Finished this one. It was not what I was expecting, but some interesting stories about making it in today&#39;s economy.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a> - Continued reading this.</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Started up my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/13/reading-list">weekly</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/20/reading-list">reading</a> <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/27/reading-list">posts</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/12/taking-control-of-your-content">taking control of your content</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/05/29/better-sql-update-stored-procedures">better SQL update stored procedures</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/WitchQueen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Destiny 2</a> - Getting back into it</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/super-mario-odyssey-switch/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Super Mario Odyssey</a> - Picked up a new Nintendo Switch and this.</li>
</ul>

I unfortunately was dealing with COVID this week, so I didn&#39;t have a lot of energy to read.
🌾 <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/05/19/the-coming-food-catastrophe">The coming food catastrophe</a> - This is scary. Again, it&#39;s more negative results of Russia&#39;s invasion of Ukraine. (economist.com)
🎧 <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/17/techdirt-podcast-episode-320-elon-musk-doesnt-understand-twitter/">Techdirt Podcast Episode 320: Elon Musk Doesn&#39;t Understand Twitter (Podcast)</a> - A good discussion talking about Elon&#39;s purchase of Twitter and talking about how social media works. (techdirt.com)

Reading List: May 21 - May 27

This afternoon I attempted squatting 350 lbs. and I&#39;m happy to say I was able to do 2 reps!
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Might have set too low of a goal, but since I&#39;m planning on running a marathon in November, it&#39;s nice to be done a little sooner since I&#39;ll be busy running quite a bit starting in August.

Reached my Goal for Squats

This week we&#39;re a little heavy reading about freedom of speech and content moderation.
<a href="https://meedan.com/blog/how-to-write-longform-git-commits-for-better-software-development">How to write longform Git commits for better software development</a> - I&#39;ve been trying to do a better job of providing more details for my PRs and commits at work. This could be helpful. (meedan.com)
<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/16/did-twitch-violate-texas-social-media-law-by-removing-mass-murderers-live-stream-of-his-killing-spree/">Did Twitch Violate Texas&#39; Social Media Law By Removing Mass Murderer&#39;s Live Stream Of His Killing Spree?</a> - Content moderation is hard...especially when politicians want to get involved. And in the end, people are hurt. (techdirt.com)
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/05/17/industrial-standards-help-explain-russias-economic-motives-invading-ukraine/">How industrial standards help explain Russia&#39;s economic motives for invading Ukraine</a> - This is an interesting story talking about how a country&#39;s standards can help or hurt economies. (marketplace.org)
<a href="https://chriscoyier.net/2022/05/17/need-a-quick-diff/">Need a Quick Diff</a> - 2 Handy tools to quickly diff text or code files (chriscoyier.net)
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220517-the-death-of-mandatory-fun-in-the-office">The death of &#39;mandatory fun&#39; in the office</a> - I&#39;m generally not a fan of forced socialization. Team building activities certainly have their place, but forcing people to stay late on a Friday to avoid being called &quot;not a team player” isn&#39;t the way to go about doing it. (bbc.com)
<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/20/if-you-think-free-speech-is-defined-by-your-ability-to-be-an-asshole-without-consequence-you-dont-understand-free-speech-but-you-remain-an-asshole/">If You Think Free Speech Is Defined By Your Ability To Be An Asshole Without Consequence, You Don&#39;t Understand Free Speech (But You Remain An Asshole)</a> - Too many people thing freedom of speech means freedom from consequences. (techdirt.com)
<a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/free-speech-ought-to-mean-more-than-mocking-trans-people/">&quot;Free Speech&quot; Ought to Mean More than Mocking Trans People</a> - Another good article talking out what free speech really is and why content moderation can be hard. It&#39;s always far more nuanced than can be easily described in a tweet. (thebulwark.com)

Reading List: May 14 - May 20

I&#39;ve been going through my podcast backlog so this week has a lot of podcasts.
<a href="https://changelog.com/podcast/455">Building Software for Yourself (Podcast)</a> - I build a lot of things that I have no idea if anyone will ever see or use. I find it a great way to learn and improve my chops. (changelog.com)
<a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2022/05/09/welcome-to-the-era-of-the-hyper-surveilled-office">Welcome to the Era of the Hyper-Surveilled Office</a> - I&#39;m glad I work for an employer who trusts us to get our work done and doesn&#39;t feel the need to constantly surveil us. I feel like a good manager will know when one of their reports is working and when they&#39;re not. I also take the privilege of working remotely seriously. <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/04/28/two-years-of-remote-work">As I posted earlier</a>, I don&#39;t think I would ever want to go into an office again so not abusing the ability to work from home is important to me. (economist.com)
<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/will-the-future-of-ai-repeat-past-injustices/">Will the future of AI repeat past injustices (Podcast)?</a> - Interesting podcast talking about how AI is taking advantage of poorer people in countries like Venezuela. (marketplace.org)
<a href="https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/emh36dn/178-i-am-not-a-bot">I Am Not a Bot (Podcast)</a> - I loved Team Fortress 2 and the bots ruin it. (gimletmedia.com)
<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2021/09/07/techdirt-podcast-episode-297-future-libraries/">The Future of Libraries (Podcast)</a> - I love libraries and it saddens me that publishers are making it hard and expensive to enter and loan digital books. (techdirt.com)
<a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast/all-you-need-is-nudge/">All You Need is Nudge (Podcast)</a> - Having just read Nudge, it was nice to hear more thoughts from Dr. Richard Thayler about the background behind it. (freakonomics.com)
<a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2022/ordering-css-delcarations/">Ordering CSS Declarations</a> - I&#39;ve always tended to put my CSS declarations in groups based on what they style. This is an interesting take that might make me re-think how I order things. (jim-nielson.com)

Reading List: May 7 - May 13

It&#39;s been almost 4 years since I got rid of my Instagram account which my last tie to the Facebook ecosystem. With the news of Elon Musk buying Twitter, I&#39;ve rethought where my blog fits into my internet presence.
Given that I suspect Twitter might very well take a turn for the worse with Elon at the helm, it reminds me of all the cases where platforms disappeared out from under users. Some are still around as a shell of themselves, others are gone completely.
That&#39;s one of the many beauties of having your own site. The platform is yours. It will only disappear if you want it to. You have full control over it which means you can tinker with how you display your content. You can add more forms of content, you can change how it&#39;s displayed, the web is your oyster.
I know I&#39;m not the only one who believes this, <a href="https://chriscoyier.net/2022/04/29/rss-3/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Chris Coyier</a>, <a href="https://cagrimmett.com/thoughts/2022/04/26/why-blog/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Chuck Grimmet</a> and many others feel the same way. So go out there, build your blog and control your own content.
Speaking of new content, have you checked out my new <a href="https://kpwags.com/photoblog">photo blog</a>?

Taking Control of Your Content

I think I&#39;m going to start this series of entries again. Trying to continue to share the interesting articles and stories I&#39;ve read over the course of the week.
<a href="https://ofdollarsanddata.com/we-all-knew-this-would-happen/">We All Knew This Would Happen</a> - This is basically why I&#39;ve stayed away from crypto. I feel like it&#39;s more speculative than anything else. I have a small brokerage fund where I invest in individual stocks, but 99% of my investments are in various different index funds. (ofdollarsanddata.com)
<a href="https://www.jackfranklin.co.uk/blog/working-with-react-and-the-web-platform/">Why I don&#39;t miss React: a story about using the platform</a> - I&#39;ve been working heavily in React both at work and home. It&#39;s an interesting thought about the possibility of moving away from React and more to native browser APIs. (jackfranklin.co.uk)
<a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/05/you-dont-need-ui-framework">You Don&#39;t Need A UI Framework</a> - Josh Comeau writes about some of the pitfalls of full UI frameworks such as Material UI. While I agree with him in many aspects, I think there&#39;s more to it and I believe they have their place. A framework can make it easier to handle re-inventing some the wheels with controls, or trying to unify the look and feel of a bunch of different 3rd party control libraries. While I like to build my own stuff sometimes to learn how to things work, there is something to be said for letting a polished library handle it. You still have to learn how to put it all together. (smashingmagazine.com)
<a href="https://cagrimmett.com/thoughts/2022/04/26/why-blog/">Why Blog?</a> - I&#39;m not sure how many people read this, but Chuck nails a lot of the reasons why I still have my blog and try to continue writing. (cagrimmett.com)

Reading List: April 29 - May 6

April wasn&#39;t a terribly busy month for me. I spent a lot of it just hanging around the house working on my blog and side projects.
I started the month by beating the Halo Infinite campaign. Despite the community&#39;s lackluster view of it, I mostly enjoyed it. Parts of it reminded me of FarCry 5, others definitely had the classic Halo feel. There were definitely some repetitive parts that probably could&#39;ve been spiced up some, and maybe made the open world part a little more open, but I still enjoyed it. The story had some holes to it, but lived up to the game&#39;s name and left open parts for future expansions or games.
Towards the end of April, <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/04/26/there-goes-the-neighborhood">Elon Musk bought Twitter and that began me seriously reconsidering how much of my time I will spend there</a>. I haven&#39;t made any firm decision yet, but I did use that as an excuse to clean up some things on my blog. I had noticed some bugs so I spent some time fixing them. The main one was my RSS feed. I had properly built my blog to support MDX, but my RSS feed didn&#39;t know what to do with it and rendered custom components as if they were HTML components. You can imagine that didn&#39;t turn out the way it should have. I got that squared away for the most part. Styling isn&#39;t perfect in the feed, but the content is rendered properly. I might try to play around with it some in the hopes of getting feed readers to preview it better, but I&#39;m also not sure how worth it the venture would be. I also ended up adding a font toggle in the footer to allow for users to switch between sans, serif &amp; monospaced fonts. Why? Because why not?
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
Running &amp; Biking: Still off the bike.
<ul>
<li>Ran another 27 miles this month. Not bad given the rain and dealing with a hip injury from hockey.</li>
<li>Biking...nada</li>
</ul>
Lifting: I ended up setting a new squats PR of 340 lbs. and broke through both my deadlifts and overhead press plateaus.
Reading:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/dark-pools-the-rise-of-the-machine-traders-and-the-rigging-of-the-u-s-stock-market/9780307887184" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Dark Pools</a> - Finished this book. It was a good history of the rise of high frequency trading.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.manning.com/books/unit-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns</a> - Started reading this in hopes that it will help me with a presentation I&#39;m doing for work.</li>
</ul>
Writing:
<ul>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/04/26/there-goes-the-neighborhood">Elon&#39;s takeover of Twitter</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/04/28/two-years-of-remote-work">working from home for 2 years</a></li>
</ul>
Gaming:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/halo-infinite" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo Infinite</a> - Beat it as mentioned above</li>
<li><a href="https://www.bandainamcoent.com/games/elden-ring" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Elden Ring</a> - Tried playing this. Just not my kind of game. Might try again at some point.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/WitchQueen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Destiny 2</a> - Picked up The Witch Queen and have been getting myself re-familiarized with it.</li>
</ul>

A little over two years ago, the world came to a screeching halt because of COVID-19. Myself, like many others started working from home to help curb the spread of the virus. While some have started to go back to the office on at least a hybrid basis, I am now 100% remote and loving it.
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For the first 9 months, I was working at my old job and we just closed the office to keep everyone safe, but then in December 2020 I changed jobs to a position where I am fully remote with no expectation to go into the office. This is where I&#39;m at now and I don&#39;t think I&#39;d ever want to go back into the office again.
At home, I feel more comfortable and generally more productive. It&#39;s a lot easier for me to get into a flow when I&#39;m working on a task. I feel like there are less distractions and I can just put my head down and code. I have to be cognizant of not letting my Microsoft Teams notifications distract me too much, but other than that, I can still get my work done in a timely manner.
I don&#39;t need to get into all the benefits as I&#39;m sure many already know what they are. Lack of a commute as well as wear and tear on my car, ability to intermittently take care of small tasks like laundry, easier to exercise over lunch, the list goes on. I enjoy them all while still being productive. I wish more companies and managers could respect that.
I would find it hard for myself to return to an office. If I have my way, I&#39;ll only work remotely from here on out.

Two Years of Remote Work

There&#39;s been a lot of drama with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, and overall, I don&#39;t think I&#39;m happy with where things are likely to go on the platform.
The more I&#39;ve learned about Elon Musk, the less I think of him. The guy is smart, there&#39;s no doubt about that. With what he was able to do with PayPal, Tesla, &amp; SpaceX, he&#39;d have to be. But through all of this, he&#39;s also shown his true colors and rubbing me, and a lot of others, the wrong way to put it mildly. This is one of the reasons I am not happy with him becoming the person in charge of Twitter.
Over the last couple of months, he&#39;s spoken out about how he&#39;s upset with how Twitter handles their moderation. He&#39;s seemingly upset that Twitter labeled a few of his tweets as false and that they&#39;re too restrictive on speech. He says he views himself as a free speech absolutist and has been using this to go after Twitter for how they handle speech on their platform.
I am all for freedom of speech, I believe that people should be free to express themselves. I also believe that while people are free to say whatever the hell pops into their mind, that doesn&#39;t mean that there aren&#39;t consequences for said speech. If someone comes to you and starts spewing the most racist garbage you&#39;ve ever heard, you&#39;re welcome to tell them to get lost and kick them out of your social events.
Twitter, like all platforms, has the right to moderate the content on their site as they see fit. If you don&#39;t like it you can <del>migrate to another platform</del> buy the platform...wait...ummm... Well, I guess that&#39;s what I may very well end up doing, I&#39;ve already become a little more active on Mastodon. That&#39;s the power of capitalism. If you don&#39;t like a product, switch to another or build your own. People have been upset with Facebook and Twitter for a long while now, accusing it of being biased against conservatism (spoiler alert, that&#39;s not the case at all). It&#39;s why we have platforms like Gab, Gettr, Parler and Trump&#39;s own Truth Social. The fact that they&#39;re generally filled with racist, misogynistic assholes should say all that needs to be said.
The concern however is how Elon&#39;s freedom of speech absolutism will show itself on Twitter. There has been a long history across just about every platform you can name of having to deal with people representing the worst of humanity. Twitter has had plenty of issues with dealing with this in the past, and they certainly have had their share of screw-ups, but it seems like they&#39;ve recently been doing a decent job of striking a decent balance. <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/26/twitters-legal-team-has-been-an-aggressive-defender-of-free-speech-will-that-continue-under-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Twitter has even been one of the most aggressive defenders of free speech</a>.
My concern is that Elon&#39;s going to relax the rules, and we&#39;re going to be left with a platform that supports more disinformation and one that allows for even more hate and harassment. I&#39;m a straight white man and am hardly even noticed on Twitter or any social media platform for that matter. I don&#39;t have to deal with a lot of the garbage that goes on behind the scenes for others. But I know that others are far more vulnerable and are constantly dealing with threats and harassment online from others, and from bots. Hell it&#39;s pretty common knowledge that if you criticize Elon Musk or Tesla online, his fanboys and their bots will deluge you with hate. Is he going to consider that free speech? It&#39;s one thing to disagree with someone, it&#39;s another to harass and threaten them to the point where they are worried for their life.
Let&#39;s face it, <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Content moderation is hard</a>, especially at scale. It&#39;s something the best and brightest have been trying to handle for over a decade. It&#39;s not an easy thing to accomplish and so far, no one really has.
It should also be mentioned that Elon himself has no problem trying to silence critics. He&#39;ll even go so far as to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/03/elon-musk-blogger-tesla-motors-model-x" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">personally cancel people&#39;s orders</a> if they criticize him. I guess some people&#39;s speech don&#39;t matter much. It makes you wonder if he&#39;d use his position to go after his critics on Twitter. I wonder if <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2019/03/19/rep-devin-nunes-sues-internet-cow-saying-mean-things-about-him-online/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Devin Nunes&#39; Cow would have something to say</a> given what the internet bovine had to deal with.
Maybe Elon has some better ideas for Twitter. I&#39;m very skeptical of that, but maybe. The fact that Twitter will no longer be publicly traded might help insofar as they won&#39;t have to deal with maximizing shareholder value every quarter. But others did help fund Musk&#39;s buyout so I&#39;m sure they&#39;re going to want to see a return on their investment. His comments on bringing transparency to the algorithm might be beneficial. There might be some upsides, but right now I don&#39;t see them outweighing the other questionable things Musk has said and complained about Twitter.
Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Reddit were really the only social media platforms I frequent. I ditched all of Facebook years ago and have mostly just hung out on Twitter. This change has made me start re-thinking that. I&#39;ll probably peruse Mastodon some (come <a href="https://mastodon.social/web/@kpwags" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">follow me</a>), but I think I&#39;m going to start focusing more on maybe writing and sharing here on my blog. I also went and updated my RSS feeds, so maybe I&#39;ll start to stay away from algorithmic viewing and go back to 2008 with blogs and Google Reader (RIP). On a side note, if you have a good blog and wanna share your RSS feed, by all means let me know.

There Goes the Neighborhood...

March didn&#39;t particularly feel like that busy of a month. About the only eventful thing that happened was a week-long vacation to Cape May, New Jersey at the end of the month.
<h2>Homebrew Results</h2>
I can proudly say that both the Belgian Blonde and the Red Ale I brewed both turned out fantasic. The red ale has a great malt taste to it and the blonde has a nice sweetness to it. I was worried about both since it can be too easy to contaminate a brew, but both ended up delicious.
<h2>Morning Brew</h2>
This month, I started grinding my own coffee right before brewing it. I picked up an <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07CSKGLMM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details" rel="noreferrer nofollow">OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder</a> that we keep right next to the coffee pot. I figure it will allow my wife and I to try new beans and flavors.
<h2>Continued Work on Digital Family Cookbook</h2>
I put my fitness tracking app on the back burner for the time being and have moved onto re-writing Digital Family Cookbook in .NET and a brand new React/TypeScript frontend. My big win this month was getting integration tests running succesfully. I ended up using Entity Framework for it, so I can use an In-Memory database to run the tests. It&#39;s pretty neat...at least to me.
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
Running &amp; Biking: Still cold out which limited me to some extent
<ul>
<li>Between sore legs and rain, I only ended up running 25 miles</li>
<li>Didn&#39;t end up biking any...the stationary trainer I have is kind of boring to me so I have to be in the mood</li>
</ul>
Lifting: I ended up setting a new PR for squats, but my deadlift is stalling a bit.
<ul>
<li>squats (335 lbs.)</li>
</ul>
Reading:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/nudge-the-final-edition/9780143137009" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Nudge</a> - This was a fantastic read into how we as humans can be persuaded into doing things in ways we don&#39;t always recognize. The authors do a good
job going into the good and bad of it.</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-storyteller-tales-of-life-and-music/9780063076099" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music</a> - Dave Grohl has always seemed to be an interesting and unique person. This was an interesting memoir talking about his growth from High School
punk musician, through Nirvana and eventually Foo Fighters. If you&#39;re a fan of any of his work, I&#39;d highly recommend this.</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/it-s-better-to-be-feared-the-new-england-patriots-dynasty-and-the-pursuit-of-greatness/9781631498237" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">It&#39;s Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness</a> - I&#39;m by no means a Patriots fan, but I found this to be an interesting look into the 2 decades long dynasty of Brady-Belichick and the Patriots.</li>
</ul>
Writing: Nada
Gaming - Continued my Halo series play-through.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/Halo-5-Guardians/BRRC2BP0G9P0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo 5: Guardians</a> - I beat this before and the story is probably the worst of all the Halo games. The battles are fun though.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/halo-the-master-chief-collection/9ntm9hxnlszx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo: Infinite</a> - Finally got to start the new Halo campaign. The open world aspect of it is a branch from the other games. At some points it has almost become
like Skyrim for me...putting off the main story to do all the side quests. The battles so far have been fun, Hunters are the bain of my existence.</li>
</ul>

February felt like a busy month, it seemed like every weekend we had something going on keeping us moving about.
As I mentioned in my <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/02/04/january-check-in">January Check-In</a>, I ended up brewing not just the one beer, but ended up brewing a second beer, an all-grain beer as well. The first beer was an extract brew, a Belgian Blonde, which is currently bottled and waiting for it to be ready to crack open. The second was an all-grain brew, my first attempt at an all-grain batch which I decided to go with a Red Ale. I was hoping to have it ready for St. Patrick&#39;s Day, but it&#39;s still fermenting so it will likely be a few days late...oh well. The hardest part is waiting to find out how they turned out. They could be fantastic...or they could be ruined. I won&#39;t know until I crack open the first bottle.
I also started a bullet journal. I had been using Notion to keep track of things, but I decided I liked the idea of going more analog and using a Moleskine notebook.
I&#39;m also trying to find a nice balance for myself with keeping up with the news. At the end of the month, Putin decided to invade Ukraine so the firehose of all the horrors going on has left me trying to stay informed while not feeling all gloom and doom all of the time.
I ended up really just spending a lot of evenings on the couch with my wife watching our TV shows. It really is the perfect way to wind down.
<h2>Monthly Roundup</h2>
Running &amp; Biking: Still cold out which limited me to some extent
<ul>
<li>Ran another 43 miles this month</li>
<li>Didn&#39;t end up biking any...the stationary trainer I have is kind of boring to me so I have to be in the mood</li>
</ul>
Lifting: I ended up setting two new PRs...I&#39;m now 92.5% of the way to the 1,000 lbs. club!
<ul>
<li>deadlifts (375 lbs.)</li>
<li>squats (325 lbs.)</li>
</ul>
Reading:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-apollo-murders-9781668601075/9780316264532" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Apollo Murders</a> - I enjoyed this book. It had a good story that pulled you in. As a space fan, I definitely enjoyed the tie-ins with the Apollo program. The ending
wasn&#39;t my favorite part, but it did tidy up the story arcs. Would still recommend it to anyone.</li>
</ul>
Writing: Wrote my first technical post of the year.
<ul>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/02/19/setting-up-github-actions-on-net-projects">setting up GitHub Actions for a .NET project</a>.</li>
</ul>
Gaming - Continued my Halo series play-through.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/halo-the-master-chief-collection/9ntm9hxnlszx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo 3</a> - I have obviously already played the heck out of this game, but played through it again for my Halo series play-through.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/halo-the-master-chief-collection/9ntm9hxnlszx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo 3: ODST</a> - This is the only Halo shooter I never beat. I got bored with it when it first came out, but wasn&#39;t gonna let that stop me this time. Finally
beat it and it does provide a nice little side-story to go along with the Master Chief Saga</li>
<li><a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/halo-the-master-chief-collection/9ntm9hxnlszx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Halo 4</a> - Played through this, again for my Halo series play-through. It was the first game done by 343 Studios and as I remembered, the story didn&#39;t
quite feel the same as the original trilogy.</li>
</ul>

After seeing Git Actions at work at my job, I decided that I wanted to see what I could do for my personal projects with GitHub Actions.
At work in order for our PRs to be completed, our code needs to match our ESLint guidelines and our unit tests need to pass. I like those rules so I wanted to apply them to my personal projects on GitHub. I knew GitHub had the ability to do the same thing so I sat down and taught myself how to set them up. A little while later, I was able to get them up and running and am quite happy with the results so I figured I’d share how I did it.
<h2>Some Background</h2>
I set this up for my re-write of <a href="https://github.com/kpwags/digital-family-cookbook" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Digital Family Cookbook in .NET</a>. I have my backend broken up into 3 projects.
<ol>
<li>The Web API (DigitalFamilyCookbook)</li>
<li>A “Core” Class Library (DigitalFamilyCookbook.Core)</li>
<li>A “Data” Class Library (Digital Family Cookbook.Data)</li>
</ol>
I have a separate .NET Unit Test project for the Web API and the core class library. One for the data class library will be added soon. Because of this, I ended up creating two actions, one to run the API unit tests, and a second to run the core library unit tests.
<h3>Step 1: Create the Workflows Folder</h3>
In your root directory create a folder named <code>.github</code> and inside that folder create a folder named <code>workflows</code>.
<h3>Step 2: Create an Action</h3>
Create a file called <code>unittests.yml</code>
<h3>Step 3: Build the Action</h3>
Start by giving the action a name
<pre><code class="language-yaml">name: DigitalFamilyCookbook Unit Tests
</code></pre>
This is pretty self-explanatory. We want each action to have a name that is descriptive of what the action does.
Next, we want to define when we want the action to be run.
<pre><code class="language-yaml">on:
 push:
 branches: [main]
 pull_request:
 branches: [main]
</code></pre>
This tells GitHub that we want these actions run when we push code to the main branch (I don&#39;t really do this, but put it here anyway), or when a pull request is submitted against the main branch.
Finally, we want to set up the action itself.
<pre><code class="language-yaml">jobs:
 build:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest

 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Setup .NET
 uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
 with:
 dotnet-version: 6.0.x
 - name: Restore dependencies
 run: dotnet restore
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
 - name: Build
 run: dotnet build --no-restore
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
 - name: Test
 run: dotnet test --no-build --verbosity normal
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
</code></pre>
Let&#39;s look at how this is structured.
<ol>
<li>We tell GitHub to run this on the latest version of Ubuntu.</li>
<li>Next, we define the steps to take to run the action. Each bullet point is basically a step in the process<ol>
<li><code>uses: actions/checkout@v2</code> is the official GitHub action that will checkout the code in order to run the actions we define</li>
<li><code>name: Setup .NET</code> is the name of this step which we use the official GitHub action to setup .NET for the action, specifying we want to use .NET 6. This is important as I am taking advantage of some of the new .NET 6 functionality that will break on previous versions.</li>
<li><code>name: Restore dependencies</code> is where we tell the action to install the project&#39;s dependencies. you can see the next line defines the actual command. Just like we&#39;d do in the terminal on our own machine. We tell the action to run <code>dotnet restore</code> The final part is to specify the directory to run this command in. Since I&#39;m running the tests for the API project, we specify it as <code>./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests</code> which is the path from the root of the repository to where the <code>.csproj</code> defining the unit test project lies.</li>
<li><code>name: Build</code> is where we tell the action to build the project, again just like we&#39;d do in our terminal. Again, we need to specify the working folder.</li>
<li><code>name: Test</code> is where the butter is at. This tells us to run the test command to execute our unit tests. Like the <code>restore</code> and <code>build</code> steps, we also need to specify the working folder here as well.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Final Result</h3>
<pre><code class="language-yaml">name: DigitalFamilyCookbook Unit Tests

on:
 push:
 branches: [main]
 pull_request:
 branches: [main]

jobs:
 build:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest

 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Setup .NET
 uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
 with:
 dotnet-version: 6.0.x
 - name: Restore dependencies
 run: dotnet restore
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
 - name: Build
 run: dotnet build --no-restore
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
 - name: Test
 run: dotnet test --no-build --verbosity normal
 working-directory: ./backend/tests/DigitalFamilyCookbook.Tests
</code></pre>
That&#39;s it. It was not nearly as difficult to setup as I initially thought. Now whenever I open a pull request, it will run the unit tests and make sure they pass before I can complete it and merge it with the main branch. I ended up creating a second action file and run the same steps, only with the <code>DigitalFamilyCookbook.Core.Tests</code> project.
<h2>Bonus: Run the React Unit Tests Too!</h2>
As an added bonus, I&#39;ll add how I set up the action to run Jest for the frontend unit tests.
<pre><code class="language-yaml">name: Front End Unit Tests

on:
 push:
 branches: [main]
 pull_request:
 branches: [main]

jobs:
 build:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest

 strategy:
 matrix:
 node-version: [15.x]

 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
 uses: actions/setup-node@v1
 with:
 node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
 - run: npm install
 working-directory: ./frontend
 - run: npm run test
 working-directory: ./frontend
</code></pre>
It&#39;s very similar to the .NET actions, only in this case we specify the node version instead of .NET, and run the npm commands in the frontend directory.

Setting Up GitHub Actions on .NET Projects

I can&#39;t believe it&#39;s already February. It feels like January just came and went.
January as a whole wasn&#39;t a super busy month. The biggest thing that happened was me taking an all-grain brewing class at the end of the month. Over the course of the last several years I&#39;ve been brewing beer at home as a hobby, but I&#39;ve been limited to extract brewing. It can turn out some good brews, but I know there is so much more I can do moving beyond extract and mashing the grains myself. I was hoping to learn how to do it before the pandemic, and when my local homebrew shop was offering a class, I signed right up. It was a good class and I am now itching to try my hand at an all-grain brew. I’m planning on brewing this weekend but it will be one more extract brew before I try my hand at some more advanced recipes.
Other than that, not much to really report so far.
<h3>Monthly Roundup</h3>
Running &amp; Biking: Ran 43 miles and biked 9 in January. Braved the cold quite a bit.
Reading: Finished Leviathan Falls, and with it, The Expanse series.
Writing: Wrote about the <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/01/19/books-i-read-in-2021">books I read in 2021</a> and my new <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2022/01/25/tracking-my-2022-goals">2022 goals page</a>.
Gaming: Continued my play-through of the Halo series. Beat Halo 2 and started Halo 3. Also picked up a PS5.

Goals can be a funny thing. We all set them, and what happens next can be all over the spectrum. I figured I’d build a little something to help keep me accountable.
You can view this <a href="https://kpwags.com/progress/2022">new page</a> where you can see the goals I’ve set and the progress I’m currently at. The lifting goals are a little weird as it looks like I’m already almost there. I can say with absolute certainty though that getting that little bit more will be harder than it may seem.

Tracking My 2022 Goals

I didn&#39;t read as much as I wanted to in 2021, managing a measly nine books.
&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America&quot;
 author=&quot;Marcia Chatelain&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/3JTQPJtY/franchise-golden-arches.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/3JTQPJtY/franchise-golden-arches.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/franchise-the-golden-arches-in-black-america-9781684577019/9781631498701">https://bookshop.org/books/franchise-the-golden-arches-in-black-america-9781684577019/9781631498701</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I had heard about this book on{&#39; &#39;}
 <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/06/the-complicated-history-of-mcdonalds-and-black-america/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
 Marketplace
 </a>{&#39; &#39;}
 and given the tumultuous 2020, felt like this would be an interesting read to maybe give myself some insight. It was an interesting read
 going into areas where McDonald&#39;s did well and where it fell short.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The MVP Machine: How Baseball&#39;s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players&quot;
 author=&quot;Ben Lindbergh &amp; Travis Sawchik&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/bvGGwDJS/mvpmachine.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/bvGGwDJS/mvpmachine.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={193}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-mvp-machine-how-baseball-s-new-nonconformists-are-using-data-to-build-better-players/9781541698925">https://bookshop.org/books/the-mvp-machine-how-baseball-s-new-nonconformists-are-using-data-to-build-better-players/9781541698925</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I&#39;ve been a big fan of Ben&#39;s{&#39; &#39;}
 <a href="https://blogs.fangraphs.com/category/effectively-wild/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
 Effectively Wild Podcast
 </a>{&#39; &#39;}
 and his previous book{&#39; &#39;}
 <a
 href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-only-rule-is-it-has-to-work-our-wild-experiment-building-a-new-kind-of-baseball-team-includes-a-new-afterword/9781250130907"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer"
 >
 The Only Rule Is It Has to Work
 </a>{&#39; &#39;}
 so I decided to pick this up and wasn&#39;t disappointed. It was a great look into how teams and players are trying new things to get a leg up
 in the game.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing&quot;
 author=&quot;Jacob Goldstein&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/1X0V1kzW/money-goldstein.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/1X0V1kzW/money-goldstein.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={200}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up-thing/9780316417198">https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up-thing/9780316417198</a>&quot;
 thoughts={&lt;&gt;Having listened to Jacob on NPR&#39;s Planet Money podcast, I had heard about this book and thought it had an interesting premise.&lt;/&gt;}
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit&quot;
 author=&quot;Neil Demause &amp; Joanna Cagan&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/dVFQmjbR/fieldofschemes.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/dVFQmjbR/fieldofschemes.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={202}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/field-of-schemes-how-the-great-stadium-swindle-turns-public-money-into-private-profit-revised/9780803260160">https://bookshop.org/books/field-of-schemes-how-the-great-stadium-swindle-turns-public-money-into-private-profit-revised/9780803260160</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I had figured out a while ago that publicly funded sports stadiums were a raw deal. This book only enforced my opinion on why these are
 raw deals. I learned more details on how they&#39;ve been able to pull it off. The book goes into detail on how bad these deals are how owners
 were able to swindle us all.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Premonition: A Pandemic Story&quot;
 author=&quot;Michael Lewis&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/h40Ggbr3/premonition.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/h40Ggbr3/premonition.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={197}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-premonition-a-pandemic-story-9781713631897/9780393881554">https://bookshop.org/books/the-premonition-a-pandemic-story-9781713631897/9780393881554</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 Having lived through 2020, I understood that the US Government royally screwed up its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reading this book
 gave me a better idea of why the different departments struggled to get a handle on it.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don&#39;t Know&quot;
 author=&quot;Adam Grant&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/3JDMZ2Rx/thinkagain.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/3JDMZ2Rx/thinkagain.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/think-again-the-power-of-knowing-what-you-don-t-know-9781984878106/9781984878106">https://bookshop.org/books/think-again-the-power-of-knowing-what-you-don-t-know-9781984878106/9781984878106</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 I wrote a{&#39; &#39;}
 <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2021/10/27/think-again-review" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
 whole post
 </a>{&#39; &#39;}
 on this. It was a good read looking at trying to get us to change our thinking and recognizing when we might not know as much as we think
 we do.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion&quot;
 author=&quot;Eliot Brown &amp; Maureen Farrell&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/15X48kcp/cult-of-we.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/15X48kcp/cult-of-we.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={199}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-cult-of-we-wework-adam-neumann-and-the-great-startup-delusion/9780593237113">https://bookshop.org/books/the-cult-of-we-wework-adam-neumann-and-the-great-startup-delusion/9780593237113</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 It still amazes me reading about the WeWork saga that it got as far as it did. I had heard some of the craziness that was going on thanks
 to{&#39; &#39;}
 <a
 href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/weworks-whole-bananapants-story/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer"
 >
 Make Me Smart
 </a>
 , but until I read this book...let&#39;s just say...wow!
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy&quot;
 author=&quot;Josh Kosman&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/RF1JTwNK/buyoutofamerica.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/RF1JTwNK/buyoutofamerica.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-buyout-of-america-how-private-equity-is-destroying-jobs-and-killing-the-american-economy/9781591843696">https://bookshop.org/books/the-buyout-of-america-how-private-equity-is-destroying-jobs-and-killing-the-american-economy/9781591843696</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This book just made me angry seeing Wall Street &amp; Hedge Funds come in and destroy companies and jobs for a quick buck. But as angry as I
 might be over what happened, I feel that it&#39;s important to know what and how it happened. This book does a good job of giving examples and
 talking about the history of it all.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;
<hr />

&lt;BookRead
 title=&quot;The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion&quot;
 author=&quot;Jonathan Haidt&quot;
 coverImageSrc=&quot;<a href="https://i.postimg.cc/sD2xf6w0/righteousmind.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/sD2xf6w0/righteousmind.jpg</a>&quot;
 width={196}
 height={300}
 link=&quot;<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-righteous-mind-why-good-people-are-divided-by-politics-and-religion-9798200560639/9780307455772">https://bookshop.org/books/the-righteous-mind-why-good-people-are-divided-by-politics-and-religion-9798200560639/9780307455772</a>&quot;
 thoughts={
 &lt;&gt;
 This was my second attempt at reading this book. I finished this time. It wasn&#39;t a bad read, but it was felt like a dense read. The
 explanation Jonathan gives does seem to fit some of the things we see going on in politics today.
 &lt;/&gt;
 }
/&gt;

Books I Read in 2021

Well 2021 was quite the year...it started with a failed coup by the GOP, a wide rollout of a life-saving COVID-19 vaccine that almost half the country doesn&#39;t want to take because they&#39;re being lied to by their (vaccinated) political leaders and news channels, and we&#39;re back in another COVID-19 wave entering the third year of the pandemic...so all in all...just peachy.
Now that that part is over with, my 2021 wasn&#39;t awful. I ended up getting my vaccination in March &amp; April, so that by the beginning of May I was ready to cautiously re-enter the world to at least a certain degree. I still wear my mask while out and about, even before Omicron entered the equation, but it&#39;s nice to feel comfortable visiting family and having the occasional dinner out. It also means I&#39;m back at the ice rink playing hockey. So to make a long story short, a small bit of normalcy has returned.
<h3>General Overview of 2021</h3>
At the end of last year, I started a new job at Webstaurant and a year in I&#39;m still enjoying working there. I feel like I&#39;m learning a great deal and am able to work with new technologies to keep my development chops growing and fresh.
I ended up redesigning and rebuilding my blog using React &amp; Next.js which was fun. I&#39;d been toying with the idea of moving away from Jekyll for a little while and when I was starting to have problems getting it to play nicely with my new M1 MacBook Pro, I decided to take the plunge. I still want to write about my experience porting it over and re-writing it so hopefully I&#39;ll get to that soon.
With regards to vacations, I ended up taking three trips this year. I spent a week in September in Cape May for our yearly vacation. We were able to check out some breweries and wineries and just relax. In October we went back to Cape May for a long weekend for our anniversary, and in November we visited New York City so Lauren could see Hamilton and we could have some fun.
In December, we unfortunately had to say goodbye to the bestest boy, Otto. It was an unfortunate way to enter the holidays and end the year, and it still fucking sucks.
<h2>Looking Back at 2021</h2>
Last year I didn&#39;t really set any tangible goals, I just wanted to focus on certain things.
<h3>Staying Active</h3>
This one I felt I did pretty well with. I was able to focus primarily on my lifting while getting in plenty of runs and some walks as well. Starting in May I was able to get back into hockey so I had another outlet to keep active. My diet got better towards the end of the year as well so I&#39;m starting to see a downward trend that I hope I can continue.
<h3>Improving My Development Knowledge</h3>
I&#39;ve ended up making tremendous progress on my fitness tracking app. There&#39;s still a lot to go and a lot to smooth out, but I feel like I have a good framework in place. This is one area where what I&#39;m learning to do at work has been helping me improve at home.
My blog re-write and the setup I&#39;m starting to look at for a .NET re-write of Digital Family Cookbook is challenging me as well.
<h3>Continuing to Read</h3>
This didn&#39;t go as well as I had hoped. I only ended up reading 9 books this year.
<h3>Write More</h3>
I&#39;m not sure this went badly, but I&#39;m not sure it went great either. I ended up writing 21 posts this year which was more than 2020, but am not sure that they were as substantive as I would have liked.
<h2>Setting Goals for 2022</h2>
Since I&#39;m hoping that 2022 will continue our trek towards normalcy and hopefully a better headspace, I want to set some actual goals for myself.
<h3>Goal #1: Run More &amp; Start Biking More</h3>
In 2020, I ended up running over 800 miles. That was spurred by a 175 day running streak and a good period of time where running was the only exercise I felt comfortable doing given the pandemic. In 2021 I started out biking on my bike trainer and getting some runs in. A month or two in, the biking stopped and the runs weren&#39;t as consistent as I would have liked while I focused on lifting. I did end up hitting 325 miles on the year which still isn&#39;t too shabby. I&#39;m going to target running 400 miles and biking 500 miles this year. I&#39;ve been toying with running the Philadelphia Marathon this year to hopefully break the 5-hour mark, so if I end up attempting that, the 400 miles might be easy to hit. The 500 miles on the bike could potentially be a challenge to fit in with everything else, but also feel it&#39;s doable.
<h3>Goal #2: Bench Press, Squat &amp; Deadlift PRs</h3>
This year I&#39;m hoping to set more PRs on the 3 of the 4 big lifts. I want to break a 400 lbs. deadlift, a 350 lbs. squat, and a 250 lbs. bench press. I&#39;m at 360, 310 &amp; 215 respectively so while it&#39;s a stretch, I&#39;m not sure it&#39;s outside the realm of possibilities.
<h3>Goal #3: Max Out My Retirement Accounts</h3>
Over the last several years, I&#39;ve been really focusing on improving where I stand with regards to retirement. Last year I was able to max out my Roth IRA and I&#39;m hoping to do that again this year while also hopefully maxing out my 401k at work as well.
<h3>Goal #4: Read 30 Books</h3>
My goal this year is to read at least 30 books, with at least 15 of them being non-fiction. Not to knock fiction and novels, but I want to have a good balance.
<h3>Goal #5: Write 10 Technical Blog Posts</h3>
Writing monthly wraps and other posts are fine, but I want at least 10 posts in 2022 to be focused on software development and have some substance to them. I&#39;m hoping by just getting started it will spur the writing to continue.
<hr>
So that&#39;s what I&#39;m hoping to accomplish this year. I think all 5 of them are doable. Some could certainly pose a real challenge, but I guess that&#39;s part of the point.
Here&#39;s to a good 2022!

2021 Retrospective

December was a rough month.
<h2>Mr. Otto</h2>
Despite the good start for December, the month was a rough one. A week before Christmas, Otto had a relapse. The fluid had built up around his heart again and his vitals took a pretty bad turn. They could&#39;ve drained the fluid again, but it would have been hard on Otto and was only a band-aid for the larger issue of the (now certain) tumor on his heart. There wasn&#39;t much more we could do for him and still give him a good quality of life, so Lauren and I made the incredibly difficult decision to say goodbye to him. Needless to say, it put a huge damper on the holidays. Even now after 3 weeks the house still feels empty. It still hurts and it fucking sucks.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2022-01-05-december-check-in/otto.jpg"
 alt="Otto in the hallway smiling"
 width={1920}
 height={1280}
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<h2>Busy with Work</h2>
The project I was working on since I started my job at Webstaurant a year ago went live the week leading up to Christmas. Needless to say it was all hands on deck to work out the various kinks and bugs that we weren&#39;t able to catch in QA or didn&#39;t have the right data to find in QA. There were a bunch of late evenings working, but things are going well with it now. Despite the seemingly weird time to do a product launch, there were good reasons to do it then and things ended up working out.
<h2>The Holidays</h2>
With Otto weighing heavily on our minds, we did our best to still celebrate the holidays. Lauren and I were able to do our Christmas Eve Seafood Dinner this year and hosted her side of the family Christmas Day. We were able to enjoy ourselves which a week earlier I wouldn&#39;t have thought as possible.
We were supposed to go up to see my family Sunday, but unfortunately my brother tested positive for COVID, so we opted to stay home instead. We&#39;re hoping to see them this weekend.
<h2>Starting Over with Halo</h2>
Halo Infinite came out December 8th, but instead of jumping right in, I&#39;ve opted to re-play through the series in story order. I&#39;m currently on Halo 2 after playing through Reach and Combat Evolved. I&#39;m planning on playing right through until I get to Infinite while trying to avoid spoilers.
<h3>Summary</h3>
Staying Active: Had plenty of hockey this month, one team made it to the finals and lost in the shootout. Lifting, I set a new PR on deadlifts at 360 lbs. I also ran more miles this month than I had in any month this year and was able to break my goal of 300 miles for 2021!
Development: Have made some progress in the next phase of my fitness tracker project. Also spent some time laying out a .NET Core re-write of Digital Family Cookbook.
Reading:
<ul>
<li>Finished <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-righteous-mind-why-good-people-are-divided-by-politics-and-religion-9798200560639/9780307455772">The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion</a> by Jonathan Haidt*.* It was a dense read, but was interesting.</li>
</ul>
Write More: Other than my November Recap, nada.

November was a rather quiet month all things considered.
The month started out a lot quieter than September or October. A few hockey games here and there, but otherwise it was just my normal <a href="/posts/2021/01/14/my-typical-weekday">nothing-out-of-the-ordinary</a> days.
<h2>New York City</h2>
Mid-November that changed with a long weekend visiting New York City. Lauren and I love going to New York, but haven&#39;t been there since right before the pandemic locked things down.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-12-06-november-check-in/nyc.jpeg"
 alt="Washington Square Park in New York City at night"
 width={1920}
 height={2560}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
It was a fun trip, we spent a lot of it just wandering around the city. We ended up going over to Bryant Park for the Christmas Village. We went over to Queens to check out some of the local breweries. Overall it was just an enjoyable trip. It was nice to be able to go to events there and know that they were checking vaccination status. Made me feel safer to be out and about.
<h2>Killing Spree!</h2>
After getting back, I was greeted by being able to download the Halo: Infinite multiplayer beta. It definitely brought me back to my late college and early post-college days of playing Halo 3 online with friends. The game has been a lot of fun. I&#39;m still getting back into it, but I&#39;m definitely enjoying it. If you&#39;re playing, let me know and maybe we can hop on and play a few rounds. I&#39;m annoyed at how 343 is handling the customizations in terms of having to pay for just about everything, but it&#39;s not pay-to-win, so it&#39;s not an absolutely huge deal to me. The gameplay is fun. I&#39;m looking forward to playing the campaign, but am kind of bummed that co-op doesn&#39;t come out until May(ish) 2022.
<h2>Mr. Otto</h2>
Sadly, the month ended on a little bit of a down note. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we had to take our dog Otto to the emergency vet and found out (surprisingly) that there was fluid build-up around his heart which was preventing his heart from beating properly. Thankfully they were able to drain it and he&#39;s back to his old self, but we now need to find out what caused the build-up. Hemangiosarcoma seemed to be the worst-case scenario, but thankfully that&#39;s pretty much now ruled out. There still could be a tumor, so we&#39;re going to have to bring him back in for more tests. It was just tough leaving him in the hospital overnight and then having to wait throughout the day Thanksgiving for updates. He&#39;s home now and happy as ever so if you&#39;ll excuse me, I&#39;m gonna go give him some lovin&#39;.
<h2>Summary</h2>
Staying Active: Wasn&#39;t too much hockey this month. 2 of my teams are now down to 2 games a month. Was able to get a bunch of runs in and have continued progressing with my lifts.
Development: Have made some progress in the next phase of my fitness tracker project. Hoping to devote some time over the month to get this next feature set in place.
Reading:
<ul>
<li>Finished <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-buyout-of-america-how-private-equity-is-destroying-jobs-and-killing-the-american-economy/9781591843696" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Buyout of America</a> by Josh Kosman. It was one of those books that made me a little angry seeing what part of Wall Street has done, but it&#39;s also helped me understand the how and why stuff like Toys &#39;R&#39; Us happens.</li>
<li>Started <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-righteous-mind-why-good-people-are-divided-by-politics-and-religion-9798200560639/9780307455772" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion</a> by Jonathan Haidt*.* I had started it before but couldn&#39;t get into it. Gonna try again.</li>
</ul>
Write More: Other than my October Recap, nada.

October felt like it was a busy month. It seemed that we had plans every weekend and were always on the move. It wasn&#39;t necessarily a bad busy, but it probably foreshadows the upcoming holiday season.
I&#39;ve decided to stick with using Notion as a platform and have moved a bunch of my notes and organizing into it. I&#39;ve been sticking with my daily journaling on it keeping track of what I want to do and what I&#39;ve done each day. Life gets busy and sometimes it&#39;s a nice way to look back and remember what happened when life&#39;s happenings start to blur together.
The month started out with us celebrating my Mom&#39;s birthday with a Lehigh Football Game and dinner at my sister&#39;s. The football game wasn&#39;t all that much fun to watch as it ended up being a 34-0 blowout, but the weather was beautiful and we had good company.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-11-17-october-check-in/lehighgame.jpeg"
 alt="The Lehigh Football team taking the snap deep in their own zone"
 width={1920}
 height={1440}
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 shadowed={false}
/>
In mid-October, after attending my cousin&#39;s wedding, Lauren and I went to Cape May, NJ again, this time celebrating our 8th anniversary. We stayed at Congress Hall and enjoyed sitting out on the veranda reading most mornings and evenings. We again went out and visited some of the local wineries and breweries. The weather was beautiful and it was a great way to celebrate 8 years.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-11-17-october-check-in/windowview.jpeg"
 alt="The view of Cape May from our hotel room at Congress Hall"
 width={1920}
 height={1290}
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We finished out the month with our annual tradition of bringing the fire pit out onto the driveway and handing out candy to the local trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, my pumpkin carving of Grumpy Cat lost the eye during transport to its driveway location.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-11-17-october-check-in/grumpypumpkin.jpeg"
 alt="My pumpkin carving of grumpy cat, but missing an eye"
 width={1920}
 height={1665}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
I also started using a new app to track my diet. I found the app <a href="https://www.strongerbyscience.com/macrofactor/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">MacroFactor</a> and have been having some success in keeping my diet a little more in check.
<h3>Summary</h3>
Staying Active: I got in plenty of hockey this month across the teams I play on. For lifting, I&#39;ve deloaded and have tweaked my workout again splitting up the 5/3/1 sets with the 5x10 sets on different days. It&#39;s been going well.
Development: Haven&#39;t done a large amount of work on my fitness tracker, but am making some small process here and there as well as some refactoring work.
Reading: I finished The Cult of We while in Cape May, and hoo boy! When <a href="https://twitter.com/mollywood" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Molly Wood</a> on <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Make Me Smart</a> was talking about it being absolutely crazy...or &quot;bananapants&quot;, she wasn&#39;t kidding. I have no idea how people were so blind to all the obvious red flags.
Write More: I wrote about my thoughts on <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2021/10/27/think-again-review">Think Again</a>.

Back in September, I finished reading <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/think-again-the-power-of-knowing-what-you-don-t-know-9781984878106/9781984878106" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Think Again</a> by Adam Grant. It&#39;s a fantastic book that made me think about how I form my thoughts and opinions, and how I go about possibly re-forming them as evidence changes.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-10-27-think-again-review/think-again-cover.jpeg"
 alt="The cover of Adam Grant's book, Think Again"
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I had first heard about this book listening to the <a href="https://www.pushkin.fm/show/cautionary-tales/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Cautionary Tales</a> podcast by Tim Harford. I’ve always appreciated Tim’s take on a multitude of topics so his recommendation had my interest piqued.
The book’s primary focus is to make the reader think about their opinions and consider how they form their opinions and what it might take to reconsider them. For plenty of people, including myself, what we think we know may or may not be as much as we actually know. (See the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Dunning–Kruger Effect</a>)
Being able to re-consider one’s viewpoints is a definitively good mindset to be in. All too often we form our opinions, get set in our filter bubbles, and refuse to change our minds. I know I can be guilty of this myself. I like to think the world works a certain way, and will sometimes need some extra prodding to revisit where I stand.
I think all too often we have our minds set on why people are the way they are, or that a certain group of people are [insert adjective here]. I know it’s grown even harder over the last 6 years given the current political climate. Democrats hate Republicans, Republicans hate Democrats. The polarization has become seemingly extreme as of late. The pandemic certainly hasn’t helped matters either. I know I sometimes have to take a step back and think about those who have chosen not to get vaccinated. I know there are those who are fervently anti-vaxx, thinking it’s some kind of liberal conspiracy or whatever the hell they’re believing these days. But then I take a step back, read some more, and see that there are others who are unsure for a multitude of reasons. Some understandable, some questionable, but not at the level of the QAnon folks. It’s kind of ironic that I read this while the pandemic is going on as one part of the book talks about doctors trying to figure out how to best handle those not wanting to have their children get the childhood vaccines (think MMR, Polio, etc.). As the book mentions, sometimes it’s just doing your best to listen to each other rather than talking down to them. Sure, there are plenty you won’t be able to reason with, but maybe, just maybe there are others you can help re-think their views.
The other thing that I often think about is how it&#39;s often seen as a weakness to change your mind on things. In politics, politicians who change their views are so often called flip-floppers. It doesn’t matter why they changed their view, or how long it took them. They changed their view, so they can’t be trusted. It’s a shame too, because there are countless good reasons to change or adjust your view.
Looking back at my life, I think the biggest “shock” for me was going to college. I grew up in the suburbs of Allentown, Pennsylvania. I was raised in a decidedly middle-class household. I was fortunate and never had to worry about how life’s necessities were going to be taken care of. The people I met in high school were very much the same.
Going to college, and given Drexel&#39;s location in Philadelphia, all of a sudden I was introduced to people from wildly different backgrounds. Some who came from more money than I’d know what to do with, others who had to scratch and claw for everything. It opened my eyes to what others had to deal with and made me re-think about how lucky I was and that maybe I should reconsider my thoughts about others who may not have had the benefits I had growing up.
It falls back to science as well. I mean think about the scientific method. The way scientists work is they come up with a hypothesis, test it, and adjust their hypothesis accordingly. It&#39;s a little bit more complicated than that, but it’s ultimately the gist of it. Scientists follow the science and will generally adjust their views based on the results of their scientific inquiry. I forget where I read it, but I remember reading somewhere that good scientists are willing to recognize when they are wrong just as fervently as when they are right. Changing your mind or re-thinking something as the situation changes shouldn’t be considered a weakness, but rather a strength. There&#39;s a maturity to be able to say you were wrong.
At the end of the day, I really believe that this is generally a good mindset to have. We all obviously have our convictions and views we strongly believe in. But to be willing to hear and listen to the other side or other alternate viewpoints will hopefully make us better people.

Think Again Review

September seemed to fly by pretty quickly, but it was definitely a good month. I enjoyed a week away on vacation and felt like I got a lot accomplished.
Month started off well and I was feeling very productive. It helped that hockey has been on a slight hiatus so I was able to spend more nights at home. I used that time to finish up my blog redesign. I actually just got it deployed and switched over. I&#39;m now using <a href="https://netlify.com">Netlify</a> to host it and the setup process was pretty easy once I got the kinks ironed out.
Towards the end of August, I started using <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion</a> for notes. I&#39;m still not entirely sure how I like it, but the one thing I&#39;ve started doing it creating new journal notes every day tracking what I would like to do, what I did, and links to some of the more interesting things I&#39;ve read. Even if I end up moving back to my synched Dropbox folder with Markdown Files, I think I&#39;m going to continue this.
In mid-September, my wife and I went to Cape May for a week on vacation. We rented a condo on the beach and took a nice week away to do basically nothing. Well, maybe not quite nothing, but it was a much needed break. We ended up visiting several breweries and wineries, and were able to meet up with my parents one afternoon for lunch and some beers. I brought several books hoping to read some while there, but I ended up working on my fitness tracker side project far more than I had planned. It worked out because I was able to get quite a bit done on it. There&#39;s still a ways to go, but progress is progress. Yes, I spent a bunch of time programming, but Lauren and I were able to spend the week the way we wanted, so I count that as a fantastic vacation. It was nice to come back home and sleep in my own bed again though.
<PostImage
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 alt="The Jersey Shore in Cape May"
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While I didn&#39;t end up finishing a single book while on vacation, I did finish Think Again by Adam Grant shortly after getting home. I thought it was a great book, and plan on writing something more about it over the next week or so.
Since getting back, I&#39;ve realized I&#39;ve put on more weight than I would really like, so I think I&#39;m going to be really focusing this next month on cutting back my alcohol consumption. It&#39;s been a little too easy for me to enjoy the evening with a beer or two. It&#39;s been adding up and I think it&#39;s been sabotaging my attempt to get into better shape.
For October, I&#39;m really hoping to make more progress on my fitness tracker.
<h3>Summary</h3>
Staying Active: Not much hockey this month, but outside of vacation, I&#39;ve been lifting and running. I&#39;ve run more miles in September than in any month this year April.
Development: Finished up most of my blog re-write. Made good progress on my fitness tracker. And not to muddy the waters, but have started putzing around with moving Digital Family Cookbook over to .NET Core.
Reading: I finished Think Again by Adam Grant and also was able to go through my Pocket list and read a bunch of articles I&#39;ve marked for read later.
Write More: I wrote one post on my thoughts about <a href="https://kpwags.com/2021/09/04/on-software-subscriptions.html">software subscriptions</a>.

One of the things that has started to bug me of late is that it&#39;s getting harder and harder to simply &quot;buy&quot; software. I mean we&#39;ve always been at the mercy of companies with their license agreements and sometimes DRM, but now it&#39;s starting to feel even worse.
If you go back ten years and you wanted the latest version of Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, or just about any other piece of paid software, it was simple. You went online or to the store and you purchased it. You got the installer either digitally or on CD/DVD, probably a license key and you installed it.
Nowadays, so many pieces of software require you to purchase a subscription in order to use it. Photoshop &amp; Lightroom can&#39;t be purchased standalone, you have to buy an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription for $10/month. Office is pushing people towards purchasing an Office 365 subscription instead of a standalone copy. Now apps on Apple&#39;s App Store and Google Play are getting in on the action. Now, no longer are you allowed to pay $5 for an app, now you have to pay $5/month to have all the features of the app.
I write about this as I&#39;m planning on getting back into my photography and am trying to decide how I want to handle my collection. I bought Adobe Lightroom 5 a while back (back when it was brand new which probably shows how long ago that was), but have since switched to using the $10/month Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop Bundle. Now that my old MacBook Pro bit the dust and I&#39;m starting fresh on my new M1 MacBook Pro, I&#39;m trying to decide if the $10/month is really worth it for how much I&#39;m thinking I&#39;ll use it. Now, don&#39;t get me wrong; Lightroom &amp; Photoshop are fantastic pieces of software. They&#39;re incredibly powerful, and do what they were designed to do fantastically well. The issue stems from having to pay for them in perpetuity.
Now I want to say unequivocally that I have absolutely no issue in paying for software. I&#39;m a developer so I understand what it takes to build software and I believe that companies and developers should get paid. My problem with this model is that I can&#39;t simply buy the latest version of Lightroom or whatever other app or software I&#39;m looking at. Like others, in the case of Lightroom, Adobe no longer sells Lightroom. All they sell is the subscription to USE it. Cancel your subscription, cancel your ability to use the software.
A previous example of this is the app I used to use on my Mac, iPhone &amp; iPad. Airmail was my favorite email app for the longest time. It provided a bunch of useful extra features that I enjoyed. I paid for the app on both my iOS devices &amp; my Mac. Then all of a sudden, they jumped to a subscription-only model. If I wanted to continue using the app to its full capabilities (including notifications), I would have to start paying for a subscription. I was bummed, and that was the last time I used the app. I opted to go back to the default iOS &amp; Mac Mail apps. It annoyed me. I paid for the app and it felt like they were playing a bait and switch game. I paid for certain features and all of a sudden they pulled those features away from me. If they had released a new version and required me to pay for the new version with the new features, I would have been much more understanding. At that point, I would simply look at the new features they were offering and see if they were worth the additional money to me. If they were, I would have paid the money and bought the new version. Again, I&#39;m not against paying for new versions or even new functionality. In Airmail&#39;s case, I was even more angry because they took away functionality that I felt that I paid for.
I think another reason why I feel a little peeved about this is that in some of these cases, I feel like there&#39;s not a reason for a subscription outside of a money grab. Again, take Adobe Lightroom &amp; Photoshop as an example. I can&#39;t see any reason why someone shouldn&#39;t be able to be able to simply buy the software to use. There&#39;s no real reason why it needs to be subscription only. They offer Adobe Creative Cloud and cloud storage as part of the bundle, and if that was what they were charging for, so be it. But I don&#39;t use their cloud storage. I already pay for Dropbox for my cloud storage and I don&#39;t really need any of Adobe&#39;s sync functionality. Let me simply pay for the software and if I decide I do want the cloud offerings, I&#39;ll gladly pay for them. With Lightroom, I was able to find an old installer download, so I&#39;ll soon find out if it still works. If it does, great! If it doesn&#39;t, I think I&#39;ll give <a href="https://darkroom.co/">Darkroom</a> a try.
I guess what a lot of this boils down to is that I miss simply buying the software I use and not having to pay a subscription for it. I&#39;m also worried that this will start to become more and more normal to the point where all of a sudden Windows 12 becomes subscription-only.

On Software Subscriptions

Earlier this year, I posted about how I was tweaking my workout to a <a href="/2021/01/28/tweaking-my-lifting-routine.html">6 day program</a>. That routine worked well for me, but then hockey started back up and I wasn&#39;t able to keep up. A new routine was in order, and I chose to build one based on <a href="https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/101077382-boring-but-big">Jim Wendler&#39;s 5/3/1 BBB (Boring But Big)</a> program.
I&#39;ve been running it for a couple months and I&#39;m seeing some decent progress. I&#39;m approaching my pre-pandemic weights on bench, squats &amp; deadlifts. I&#39;ve also set a new PR on overhead press at 155 lbs. (I&#39;m not entirely sure if this is 1:1 as I was doing standing overhead press, but now I have to do seated overhead press at home since my basement ceiling isn&#39;t tall enough). That said, I never hit 155 standing so I&#39;ll take it.
It&#39;s definitely similar to how I was running my 6 day program, but it forces me to move up a little faster than I was in the past, which is good. It focuses on the 4 main lifts (overhead press, deadlift, bench press, &amp; squats) and runs on 4 week cycles. It again uses my 1 rep max (1RM) to calculate my training max (TM) (90% of my 1RM) which then calculates the weights I lift.
For each of the main lifts, the sets are set up like.
Week 1:
<ol>
<li>5 reps at 65% of my TM</li>
<li>5 reps at 75% of my TM</li>
<li>5+ reps at 85% of my TM</li>
<li>5 sets of 10 reps at 50% of my TM</li>
</ol>
Week 2:
<ol>
<li>3 reps at 70% of my TM</li>
<li>3 reps at 80% of my TM</li>
<li>3+ reps at 90% of my TM</li>
<li>5 sets of 10 reps at 55% of my TM</li>
</ol>
Week 3:
<ol>
<li>5 reps at 75% of my TM</li>
<li>3 reps at 85% of my TM</li>
<li>1+ reps at 95% of my TM</li>
<li>5 set of 10 reps at 60% of my TM</li>
</ol>
Week 4:
Deload. I basically just do the lifts at 50-60% intensity to give my muscles a break.
I then up my 1RM for deadlifts &amp; squats by 10 lbs., and the 1RM for overhead press and bench press by 5 lbs., rinse, and repeat.
The one thing I&#39;ve been noticing on with squats and bench press is I feel like my brain is holding me back. There seems to be some kind of psychological component to it. Unlike the gym, I don&#39;t have access to a spotter so there&#39;s part of me that gets a little scared about the weights I&#39;m lifting. I do have safety bars that will protect me for both lifts, but I always managed to lift heavier when I know someone is there to help if I start to go the wrong direction. Failure is a part of lifting and I have no shame in saying I&#39;ve failed lifts on a multitude of occasions, but it&#39;s still scary when you have 200+ lbs. on your back or over your chest.
But even with the psychogical aspect of the heavy weights, one of the reasons I like the program is how it has me moving up in weights. The progress is slow, but it&#39;s steady. I&#39;m obviously not setting PRs every week, or even every other week, but I see and feel progress while limiting the &quot;scare&quot; factor.
Anyway, here&#39;s the routine I&#39;m running.
<h3>Day 1 - Overhead Press</h3>
<ol>
<li>Overhead Press</li>
<li>Upright Row - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Skullcrushers - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Front Raise - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Dumbbell Face Pulls - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>EZ Bar Curls - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Pull Ups - As many as I can do</li>
</ol>
<h3>Day 2 - Deadlift</h3>
<ol>
<li>Deadlifts</li>
<li>Front Squat - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Standing Barbell Calf Raises - 3 sets of 12-15</li>
<li>Russian Twists</li>
<li>Ab Wheel</li>
</ol>
<h3>Day 3 - Bench Press</h3>
<ol>
<li>Bench Press</li>
<li>Bent Over Barbell Row - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Incline Bench Press - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Hammer Curls - 3 sets of 12</li>
<li>Single-Arm Dumbell Tricep Extensions - 3 sets of 12</li>
<li>Dumbbell Face Pulls - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>Chin Ups - As many as I can do</li>
</ol>
<h3>Day 4 - Squat</h3>
<ol>
<li>Squats</li>
<li>Romanian Deadlifts - 3 sets of 10-12</li>
<li>Standing Barbell Calf Raises - 3 sets of 12-15</li>
<li>Dumbbell Side Bends - 3 sets of 15</li>
<li>Ab Wheel</li>
</ol>
<hr>
What&#39;s your routine, any lifts you swear by?

Running a 5/3/1 Lifting Routine

I can&#39;t believe how fast we&#39;ve gotten through the first half of 2021. It feels like despite the slow start, the year has just flown by. I figured I&#39;d take a look back and see how I&#39;m doing with what I&#39;ve been doing this year, and how I&#39;ve been faring with what I was hoping to focus on this year.
<h2>What I&#39;ve Been Up To</h2>
<h3>Playing Hockey Again</h3>
Until May, I wasn&#39;t fully vaccinated, so I opted to play it safe and limit my excursions outside the house. Now that I&#39;m fully vaccinated, I&#39;ve started to go back out into the world. This includes playing hockey again.
I&#39;m back to playing on the team I&#39;m captain of. And I&#39;m playing in the lower league as well. Sadly, I ended up losing my goalie spot as there are only 8 teams, so only 8 goalie positions. I am able to skate out with a good group of guys and girls so I&#39;m still able to get more time on the ice. I&#39;m on the sub list so I&#39;m still able to play in net now and again. I&#39;m hoping a spot will open up in the fall season so that I can start playing goalie again full time. I played in a tournament this past weekend as the netminder and had a lot of fun. Four games in three days made my legs a little unhappy...followed by a fifth game the next day, but it was totally worth it. I&#39;m now playing hockey one or two times a week, and I&#39;m happy to be back on the ice.
<h3>House Projects</h3>
The biggest project on my house was re-doing the kitchen cabinets. Our kitchen cabinets&#39; paint was looking a little run down, and in some cases peeling, so we opted to sand them all down, re-paint them, and install new hardware. It was a lot of hard work, a bunch of cursing at various things, but the end result turned out great. The cabinets aren&#39;t anything to ooooh and ahhhh over, but they look a lot nicer and will hold off a needed kitchen remodel for the time being.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-07-24-halfway-through-2021/kitchen.jpg"
 alt="The end result of the kitchen cabinets refinishing"
 width={1920}
 height={1440}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
I also ended up putting in a raised flower bed around one of our street lights. Again, nothing huge, but I liked how it turned out. Now all I need to do is get some new lights for the outside of the house.
<PostImage
 src="/images/posts/2021-07-24-halfway-through-2021/streetlight.jpg"
 alt="Adding a raised flower bed around a street light"
 width={1080}
 height={1440}
 centered
 shadowed={false}
/>
There have been a few other small projects here and there...there always are! (The joys of home ownership)
<h2>Looking at My Focus Points</h2>
<h3>Staying Active</h3>
I&#39;ve been pretty good with this one. I haven&#39;t been running nearly as much as I was planning, but I&#39;m back to playing hockey and am continuing to strength train, so all&#39;s well on the active front. Diet needs work, but that&#39;s always the case. I&#39;ll get there I hope.
<h3>Improving My Development Skills</h3>
I feel like this one is going really well. Between work and my side project, I&#39;m learning new ways of doing things and becoming more proficient in React &amp; TypeScript. Outside of the <a href="/2021/06/02/refactoring-loops.html">refactoring loops</a>, I like where I am at with my never-ending coding journey. I&#39;m trying to strike a balanace between also continuing forward with my <a href="/2021/04/27/switching-platforms.html">blog rewrite</a>. I&#39;m also going back and forth with how much I want to redesign my blog while rewriting it.
<h3>Reading More</h3>
I could be doing better here. Between late nights with hockey, video games, and other things, I haven&#39;t spent as much time reading as I would like.
<h3>Writing More</h3>
I&#39;m not unhappy with where I am, but I could definitely be writing more. I have some ideas for some posts, so I suppose I should buckle down and start writing them.
<hr>
Let&#39;s finish out 2021 strong.

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