3.5 Years Later, I finally write another blog entry!

Wow.

“Written on January 18, 2022”

It’s been that long since my last blog post. 3.5 years, and what is there to update the Internet on?

I’m still an Analyst Programmer with the State of Alaska. I’ve certainly learned a lot about Fullstack .NET Development, Vue.js, SQL Server, and Blazor. I’ve learned about integrating Excel Sheets into read/write processes. I’ve learned a lot about Data Structures and Algorithms, Clean Code principles and Application architecture. And I’ve finished a college course or two!

Life outside of work? I started singing and playing guitar for people again. What started as some Open Mics at a local Vintage clothing store turned into a handful of paid gigs, lots of friends made and lots of memories. I hadn’t performed for an audience since the COVID years (remember that?) so that’s been huge. I’ve even become friends with one of the local music stores and demo some of their guitars for their Instagram page! Getting encouraged to play $3000 instruments? No complaints here.

And through Music, I also found my community here in Alaska. There’s a family I’ve become quite close to that I play music with every week. And when it wasn’t music, there was fishing, golf, or trivia nights. It’s been such a blessing to get adopted by an Alaskan family and shown the true Wilderness that Alaska has to offer.

I’ve also visited my relatives in Colorado a few times. I have a niece that is a few years old now, and she’s the sweetest thing. It’s also nice to visit the parents, my brother, and my grandma.

And, what of the usual coding projects?

Well, I’ve certainly been very excited about the recent developments in the world of AI. I participated in the Microsoft Build conference and was pretty impressed at the way developers are now using AI to generate code files, prototype simple app proof-of-concepts, and even assist in debugging code.

However, one of the things I’m most excited about is Notion. It’s basically a minimal page builder with a lot of great functionality. It’s pretty good for laying out content in a written-format. However, there is also tabular data, checkbox to-do lists, user mentions, and input forms! The real power comes from this inter-component functionality.

The really amazing thing is the AI text prompt. I asked Notion to create a data table for a monthly spending tracker and it did a pretty great job in less than a minute.

AI definitely saves so much time doing the rote, tedious work we all hate slogging through. I don’t think AI is replacing jobs anytime soon, if anything it’s making people so much more capable and productive.

Anyways, this blog entry was to re-start blogging practice. Writing is a form of shaping one’s thought process and communicating to others. I’m installing Docker and working through some .NET 9 project tutorials on a free laptop that my coding bootcamp gave me.

Over the past 3.5 years I have embraced the process. Coding every day, polishing and learning the fundamentals of app development in my spare time. And part of embracing the process is enjoying life in all the ways that we can’t measure. Slow Saturday mornings sipping on coffee and play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Going to Seward for a music festival and camping at the family lot. Doing a 5k with a girl who would eventually become my girlfriend. Calling friends over to play Dungeons and Dragons, Wii Sports and have a few Alaska-made Seltzers.

It’s been such a beautiful 3.5 years away from the blog and documenting my coding progress. But it’s time to catch the rhythm again. It’s time to learn, keep my sword sharp and ride the next wave of Software Development through AI.

Written with StackEdit.