Weeknotes 26:01

Posted 5 days ago

Week of December 28–January 3

Back to work

I was back to work on Monday after taking the previous week off. It was a short 3-day week with the New Year holiday. It was a lot busier than I thought it would be. I built templates for Read through the Bible in 2026 for the 6 other languages by extending the template I had already built before Christmas. I liked having stuff to do as I thought I was gonig to have to look for things to do as the rest of my team took the week off. I enjoy these quieter days of work that are typical of the end of the year.

Front End Study Hall

I attended Front End Study Hall #43 on Wednesday. I mostly listened in on this one. I was in and out and there were different things going on at my house.

Playing around with grid lanes

I mentioned that I read Introducing CSS Grid Lanes by the Webkit team at the end of the week. At the beginning of this week, I decided to play around with it. I ended up using it in a personal project that I have been building this year–a personal memory keeper (think Facebook memories). Currently, I have the memories feed as a single column but decided to apply grid-lanes to it. It was very simple and I like that it takes advantage of existing grid code to define columns. You can play around and be inspired by demos at https://webkit.org/demos/grid3/.

• I found out a friend of mine lost his battle to brain cancer just after Christmas. Dave led our summer project team to Hungary when I went as a student. And we crossed paths many times the year that my wife and I lived in Eastern Hungary. We stayed with his neighbor our last night and ate dinner with Dave and his family and watched the Bulls win another championship over the Jazz. I also crossed paths with Dave several times when his family moved to Orlando while we were living there. Dave was ten years older than me. He was just such a nice guy and I enjoyed every conversation I had with him. My heart goes out to his family in their time of grief.
• I spent each morning praying for Robert Wolgemuth. He went into the hospital on Christmas Eve with pneumonia. He has been critically and is currently sedated on a ventilator. His condition has improved but he still has a long recovery ahead of him. I met Robert when I visited Michigan in April when I joined Revive Our Hearts.
• I wanted to write a post about 2025 and another post of numbers (similar to this post from last year) and links but did not get to either of those before the end of the year. I am still reviewing my weeknotes from last year to compile my favorite links remember things that I learned, etc. I hope to write at least one of those this coming week.
• My son got engaged on December 15. His fiancé came down to visit for the week. We all went out to dinner on Thursday night at Attack of the Katsu.
• I tagged along with my son and road tripped down to Atlanta on Saturday. He was picking up some new parts for the PC he built. He wanted to strike now before the prices go up as one of the three memory companies is pulling out of the consumer market this year. Our trip included a visit to Buc-ee’s and some brisket sandwiches. I also bought a couple of glazed almonds to enjoy later.

Articles I read

• My Only Plea at New Year’s (Tim Challies)
• Success (Jonathan Snook)
• I Work For an Evil Company, but Outside Work, I’m Actually a Really Good Person (Emily Bressler) – This is a humor piece. Read Top 25 of ’25: Emily Bressler’s “I Work For an Evil Company, but Outside Work, I’m Actually a Really Good Person” for the background of the piece. (via Chris Coyier)
• Easing into the New Year (Jonathan Snook)
• My 2025 in numbers (Patrick Brosset)
• Programming principles for self taught front-end developers (Killian Volkolf on Piccalilli)

What I watched

• Somebody Feed Phil (Netflix)
• Blue Bloods (Paramount+)
• Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
• Percy Jacksons and the Olympians, Season 2 (Disney+)
• High School Musical (Disney+)
• Dick Clark’s Rockin New Year’s Eve (ABC) – We just flipped over for the ball drop.
• Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney+)
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney+)

Speaking of the ball drop, I felt like the 2026 on the ball was a typography fail. I think it would have looked better with another column or two or lights to round out the 6 at the bottom. It just didn’t look right and almost looked like a 4 from a greater distance.

Books I am reading

• Sunday Matters (Paul David Tripp) – I read one devotional a week. I had planned to finish it in 2025 but fell behind so still working on it.
• Everyday Gospel (Paul David Tripp) – I finished this book and reading through the Bible on Wednesday.
• All That Jesus Commanded (John Piper)
• When Children Walk Away from Jesus (Paul Mallard) – I finished this one early in the week.
• The Basketball 100 (David Aldridge & John Hollinger)
• How to Tell The Truth (Preston Perry)

Walking – 14.88 miles

My goal going into the new year is the walk 9-12 miles a week. I would like to crack 500 miles this year.

• Sunday – 3.05 miles in 58 minutes
• Monday – 3.58 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes
• Thursday – 3.79 miles in 1 hour 9 minutes
• Friday – 4.46 miles in 1 hour 24 minutes

What I played

• MLB The Show 20 (Twins) – I won all three games I played this week. The first two games wrapped up the ALDS against the White Sox. And then I came back with 3 runs in the eighth to win the first game of the ALCS against the Rays, 5-4.
• NBA2K25 (Nuggets) – I won both games I played this week. I am having a lot of fun playing basketball.