Wordle Exposed

Published: 02/16/2022

Today, I was teaching my highschool computer class. (I volunteer teach a Wednesday CS class) I wanted to build a Wordle solver so we took a JSON file containing all words in the English language, filtering all 5 letter words out of the file then using it to figure out suggestions for today’s Wordle based on letters included, excluded and positions. We got lost, some highschoolers couldn’t download files.. It was a hot mess. But it was a neat idea. Finally one kid was like, are the words in the JS file? We dug through the source code and found all the Wordle words.

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Building for the future

Published: 02/15/2022

In my early days of professional programming, I had an internship at my university’s rec center. I was a web developer and I was tasked with building an employee certification tracking system. New to the idea of reusability and building for the future I was pretty nervous and did not understand what the implications where to implementing 15 column table, 3 columns for each certification. The certification then mapped into the UI and each field was manually generated. I stored the date certified, date expires and some other meta data in the 3rd column.

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AG-Grid and React Hooks

Published: 02/10/2022

A coworker of mine is trying to integrate his UI code with my GraphQL Resolver code. What he wanted to do was on each button push make a call to the backend, to add a row item to a list. The trouble with this approach is that this is a CRUD type API call. It’s a wizard that collects a bunch of required attributes up front than at the end calls an API to create the record with all required attributes.

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On teaching others

Published: 02/09/2022

It’s Wednesday afternoon in sunny Golden, Colorado. Presently a high of 50 degrees with a light wind from a westerly heading. As I sit in my wife’s office, I relax at the sound of children screaming, pianos being played poorly and most of all, an ever present fear of the virus; the covid 19 virus coming from the cesspool that is a public school.

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Why I wanted to be a developer

Published: 02/08/2022

I started programming when I was 13 years old. I stole my brothers HTML and Javascript book and built some simple web forms. I had no idea that a backend was needed or even what a backend was. I just knew I had some gray buttons on the screen and it did things. I went on to play with some web forum software, launching my own unsuccessful internet forum.

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Ethical Programming

Published: 01/30/2022

I type this from my cushy home office, both dogs are in the office with me sleeping off their bunny chasing induced haze. Seriously, I have a damn good life. I get to work the hours I want (mostly) from an office where I have literally no coworkers or bosses shoulder surfing. It’s great, I love it.

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Functional Programming: tap

Published: 01/03/2022

Happy 2022! Life is new, it’s a new year and I’ve started a new job… ish. More on that here. I’ve been at my current job for nearly 4 years all as an happy independent contractor! Well, after a tremendously hard year personally, I’m back at it. I’ve dropped the security assessor role and moved back into full time development role. Luke is now 2 and a half and growing like a weed. We’re hunting for a new house and have put in several offers. Hoping this one is the house we get.

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Personal Statement

Published: 08/19/2021

I’ve decided to apply to the University of Denver for my Masters. I’m going to study in the Information and Communications Technology with a concentration in Cybersecurity Management. That is assuming I get in; hence why I’m applying. They are waving the application fee for the next few months, so lets see if they will take my money and admit me into the program!

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Garden Madness

Published: 05/14/2021

Ever since I went vegan last November I’ve had this desire to grow my own food. Sitting in-front of 160 sq ft of space and 67 packets of seeds, I may have done something beyond crazy. Or could be a delicious adventure.

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Magic on the web

Published: 05/12/2021

I was reading hacker news at lunch today and I came across a really cool feature of browsers that Mozilla and Chrome have been rolling out, CSS Houdini. Basically it exposes some rendering engine APIs that allow you to do amazing things using Javascript, web components and css. Its really amazing and you need to checkout the video below.

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mushroom risotto

Published: 04/08/2021

I’m a foodie. I eat and I love to cook. It’s my biggest passion next to family and work. It’s an inspiring and delicious way to live. Today, I’m going to walk you through how I make Risotto. It could be plain risotto, it could be mushroom, asparagus or even just onion garlic risotto; the steps are the same, just pick your favorite mix-ins and enjoy the process

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Saas sucks: we can do better

Published: 03/09/2021

SAAS – Software as a “Service”, ahem Subscription, sucks. It’s really good for software companies and for the engineers that build the systems but as an end user it totally sucks. I’m going to talk about why, and what we can do better as an industry.

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Using plain javascript to espace HTML

Published: 03/02/2021

At work I’ve spent the last 6 months working on security issues. From jQuery updates to React, Angular and bootstrap and every possible framework in between. I’m going to show you a little trick you can use from the DOM to sanitize output without bringing in a library.

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Day 55: An update on eating like a weirdo

Published: 01/21/2021

It’s been 55 days since I started going Vegan. I’m still only 37 pounds down at my lowest. I feel frustrated and annoyed at that reality. I’m going to do something about it.

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Help! My ssh is still prompting for a password

Published: 01/11/2021

Recently, after 3 years of prodding, begging and asking I was assigned a Macbook Pro at work. Normally, when I work at a company, they hand developers a useful computer, not this client. This client I work for, gave me a Brand New To Me Dell Laptop on my first day. Welp, warm welcome. They didn’t care it took almost a month to setup the machine. Welp, 3 years of nagging has shown me that finally good things come to those who are persistent enough.

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Happy New Year Plus Life Hacks

Published: 01/01/2021

Happy 2021!!! Hopefully this year is better than the last. It will be for me; that’s what I resolve to do. In the past 7 years, my wife and I have done a series of planning sessions at the end of each year to plan for the next, and we fell short in 2020 in many ways - mostly in reading the Bible more, eating out less and traveling. This year we have a set of new goals to focus on: work on the house, focus internally on wellness, and enjoy living. 2020, you weren’t so bad. You brought me ever closer, in time and space, to my wife and family. Farewell, 2020, and praise the Lord we don’t have to write /2020 on checks or legal documents, instead a simple /21 will do!

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Almost a month in! Status update

Published: 12/24/2020

Life has never been better. I’m 27 days into my new lifestyle and I’ve lost a whole toddler in weight! Yes, a toddler worth of weight. I’m surprisingly happy, healthy and excited about the future.

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I used to be fat

Published: 12/12/2020

Oh man, 2 weeks ago, I started on this journey, the great potato famine. I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but I quickly let that go and made it to the front page of the Hacker News. I posted “I am not fat”, and oh boy people were mean. Some people listened and I even got new Linkedin connections because people are curious or excited about what I’m doing. Today, I’m going to share my results, talk about what’s next and address some of the common feedback.

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Day 9 of I am not fat

Published: 12/06/2020

Today is day 9; I’m about to close it, it’s been a interesting week. My goal wasn’t to blog everyday and I’m glad I didn’t otherwise I’d have failed miserably. My fat is disappearing at a speed I never could have imagined. It’s totally transforming my life. Today is a recap of how things are going.

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Day 6 of I am not fat

Published: 12/02/2020

Today is day 6. Not much to report. The weight had no gain and no loss. Grated potatoes is delicious and probably unhealthy, but its becoming my preferred way to eat them. I’m learning that microwaving potatoes tends to dry them out, so I need to find a solution to that problem. Was very tempted by the potato chips at Starbucks but I resisted the urge, I got a grande black pike instead; was going to go to Panera, but last minute switched to Starbucks because they have the Christmas Blend, well, they stop serving that at noon. Bummer. Apparently grated sweet potatoes burn in the oven after about 30 minutes, they cook really fast… Its interesting and weird at the same time, this potato diet. Finally a bunch of people on the internet don’t approve of my approach, but who cares what the internet says?

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