Weeknotes 22:02
January 17, 2022
Week of January 9-15
It was another slow week at work. I had anticipated starting a new project this week. It was delayed as we were still waiting on feedback from the client. I did get a jump on it on Friday, mostly getting everything set up locally with web fonts, tooling, etc. I did spend time reading several articles from my read later list in Pocket and watched a talk from Rachel Andrew from The State of the Browser conference. You will find a list of those later down the page.
Virtual Coffees
I have been meeting with about two teammates a week for virtual coffee for the past three or four weeks. I have found it to be a great way to catch up and get to know my teammates better which leads to a better experience in working together and just makes the work more enjoyable. It was an idea sparked by reading The Long-Distance Teammate last year. The book highlighted the importance of building team relationships. And for me, the best way of doing that is through 1:1 casual meetings.
Around the end of the year, I found that I mentioned to several teammates that I would enjoy getting together with them. So instead of just having the intention to do it and not follow through, I decided to schedule out about 2 virtual coffees a week for the end of December and into January. I have really enjoyed these conversations. Several of my recent coffees have been with teammates that I don’t work with as often (on our video team). It was great to catch up with many of them and hear about the work that they are doing. And it was great just to talk about a lot of non-work-related things.
Sick Day
I ended up taking a sick day on Tuesday. I woke up feeling fatigued. I have felt a lot more tired lately and have taken several naps in the afternoon because I had the time. I also felt like I had a bit of a scratchy throat, which has been a common symptom for people who have had the Omnicron variant of COVID-19. I decided to take the day to rest and I isolated myself from my family. I slept, played some MLB The Show 21, and watched several episodes of Cobra Kai to finish out the latest season. I also grabbed a mattress and slept in my office. I felt much better on Wednesday and I am pretty sure I did not have COVID. I believe I had a mild sinus infection, which I commonly get this time of the year.
Articles I Read
- The Best Font Loading Strategies and How To Execute Them
- SuperFriendly 2021 Wrap-up – I appreciated Dan Mall’s vulnerability in sharing lessons he learned this past year from running his studio business.
- How to Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources: A Deep Dive – A very helpful article looking into performance issues. I took some time after reading the article to address some issues on this site.
- A New Container Query Polyfill That Just Works – I would like to take some time soon to play around with this.
- Don’t Fight The Cascade, Control It! – Some interesting solutions to controlling the cascade with CSS.
- 30 Frontend Tips – Some great advice from a developer with over 10 years of experience. As someone with over 20 years of experience, I found the nuggets of advice very helpful and on target.
- How to Hire for Digital Accessibility Roles – I found this one really interesting and informative.
- When CSS Isn’t Enough: JavaScript Requirements for Accessible Components and A Guide to CSS Debugging – Two great articles from Stephanie Eckels.
- Conservatives and Liberals are Wrong About Each Other
- The False Philosophy of Cancel Culture
- How COVID Has Affected Our Relationships–And What To Do About It
Books I Read
- God of All Things
- The Baseball 100 – I am really enjoying this book. It is nice to have a book that I can just read for fun and enjoyment. I really like the stories both about players that I know and those I didn’t know before.
- The Burnout Epidemic
- The Wisdom Pyramid
- Beating Burnout at Work: Why Team Hold The Secret to Well-Being and Resilience – I requested my local library purchase this one. Very similar to some of the insights I have gained from The Burnout Epidemic that I started last week.
Watched
- CSS Layout from The Inside Out – Video of talk that Rachel Andrew gave at The State of The Browser in October 2021.
- All Creatures Great and Small, Season 2, Episode 1 (PBS)
- Cobra Kai Season 4 (Netflix) – Finished it this week.
- The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
- Frasier (Peacock)
- Kim’s Convenience (Netflix)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Prime Video)
Played
- MLB The Show 21 – I went 5-3 with the Braves this week.
- Wordle