Category: Uncategorized

Mermaid.JS – https://mermaid-js.github.io/

Mermaid is a charting a diagram and charting tool that I’ve been using on projects this year. It’s effectively a Markdown add-in library which means it generates diagrams based on simple text files. This has been very powerful for me because I often get tripped up in the context-switching that it takes to document a back-end system: building out API calls in Visual Studio or Postman, reviewing responses against sample data, making adjustments to the call, then writing up the details, etc. With Mermaid I also don’t have to remember how to build out specific sections and can instead focus on a simpler grammar – instead of dragging around little lines and arrows I can rapidly type out a chart as I’m working.

Continue reading “Text Based Charts with Mermaid.JS”

The Ténéré Tree, shown here in 1961, used to be the only tree within 250 miles of a certain area of the Sahara Desert. Used to be, because in 1973 a drunk truck driver hit it and killed it.

Can you imagine? Wide open desert and you hit the one famous landmark.

Continue reading “Fixation”

Does this concept behind this editorial cartoon seem familiar?

Martin Luther King, Jr. is known today for his marches and sit-ins. There are some popular images being shared on social media recently that proclaim he brought about change using peaceful methods. Did you know many people in his day didn’t have that view of him? Challenging the status quo seems to always lead to trouble, as this anti-MLK cartoon by Charles Brooks in the 1960’s shows. In fact, a 1966 Gallup poll showed that only 1/3 of the respondents nationally had a positive view of the civil rights leader.

Continue reading “Non-violent”

I think about these signs at the grocery store a lot, because if you didn’t know a Red Delicious is better fresh you’re going to get pretty frustrated when you toss it in a baked dish. That doesn’t mean it’s worse than a Golden Delicious, or that one is lesser than the other, they’re just different.

Each variety has purposes that it is best suited for.

The reason why it sticks with me, of course, is that it’s important to know what sort of apple you are. Quit trying to make apple crisp with yourself if you’d be better off in a smoothie or fruit salad, right?

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

A big protest march went down both lanes of the road around the corner from us at close to midnight on Wednesday. There’s a lot of talk about what’s been happening in Tosa but as best as I can understand it 3 people are dead, and a lot of people don’t feel like their concerns are being heard.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the days since.

Cars and bikes blocking the road can really get you wondering if everything is ok and if things are safe.

But I only had to wonder for a few minutes. The people protesting were saying that people are being killed and that things aren’t safe.

A protest may interrupt a moment or two. But the deaths being protested? That’s an entire life that’s been interrupted.

Genesis 4:10

3 years and 17 days ago Milwaukee held a meeting to start the bidding process to turn the baseball diamonds and soccer field at Washington Park into a bigger multi-use set of fields.

Continue reading “Potential”

Always nice to look outside with binoculars and know your place in the universe 🌃

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

It’s hard to do difficult things by yourself. Writing a document may have been straightforward enough but the signers of the Declaration of Independence knew that they would be forever linked by the consequences of their actions. By standing together with people who were dedicated to the same cause, they would be much more stronger than going it alone.

I always think about my dad when I have Italian bread or salami. Those were part of the supplies he stock in the big white and blue plastic cooler to keep us fed while hiking around out at Devil’s Lake State Park, Parfrey’s Glen State Natural Area, Pikes Peak State Park in Iowa, Wyalusing State Park, or any of several other places we’d drive out to with my grandpa or siblings. Apparently that’s the only time in my life that I’d have salami? The trips were usually long days and I can imagine I’d be crabby towards the end of them but sandwiches like these always remind me of waterfalls and eagles and riverside flea markets. Thanks dad. I’m looking forward to you being the grandpa out on these trips soon.