Luke Updates: March 2022

Updates

Trying something new to get on a regular blogging schedule. I’m starting small with a monthly article goal: a life update post inspired by Dave Rupert’s Vibe Check series. Originally I was going to call this series Life Updates, but I’ve come to my senses and came up with an even better name: Luke Updates.

It’s also Self-Improvement In Public™️, a great way to stay accountable embarrass yourself in front of your audience when you consistently miss the goals Past You set. Past You loves to delegate things to Future You.

🐱 Cats

A gray striped cat posing for a picture

Taro, one of 4 kittens that decided not to leave when my wife and I took them in ‘temporarily’ a year and a half ago, insists on the office ottoman being right next to me and my desk at all times. She will complain quite loudly if it’s not there.

📝 Blogging

I think my days of 55 articles a year are gone, but I do feel the need to make up for the 4 year break from blogging I took between 2016 and 2020.

1-2 articles a month on average is perfectly doable.

This year though I’m way ahead of schedule, with 12 posts (including this one) and 9(!) posts just in March.

That’s a lot, so here’s some highlights:

📖 Reading

I used to read a lot of books and now I don’t. I do read a ton of articles though.

I’m slowly working through The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie, and by slowly, I mean I haven’t picked it up in 8 months, and my neglected Kindle is dead.

I signed up for the SmashingMag membership, so I’ll be digging through the 60+ ebooks it came with. Image Optimization by Addy Osmani is going to be the first one.

📚 Learning

I signed up for not one, but two courses last month: Vanilla JS Academy and Smart Interface Design Patterns.

JavaScript is something I’ve been putting off learning properly since the beginning (2010), and now, to my great dismay, it’s gigantic in the industry. Frontend and backend, there’s no denying its existence anymore, and 1+1 really does equal 11.

I’m positive this course will be what I need to finally sit down and get the basics of vanilla JavaScript down, which will allow me to expand to the rest of it, and then I’ll move on to TypeScript. Then whatever the hot JS framework of the week is. Just kidding; React and Vue are next.

I’m also excited to learn some concrete user experience design skills from the Smart Interface Design Patterns course. I like to think I have a good sense of how UX should be, but it’s never been something I could define in exact terms. This course will help with that I think. And upon completion I’ll have a certification, which is a good line item for the resume.

Ultimately I’m trying to move from freelancing to full-time roles, and learning JS + UX will be a solid starting point. I’ll be taking these courses starting this Monday until mid-May.

💪 Fitness

I’m 27 this month, and to my amusement, I had to calculate that. The days of eating 2-3 Whataburgers a day without consequences are behind me. Now it’s time to start thinking, “I should start working out again” and then not do that.

🎮 Gaming

It’s Elden Ring now, and it’s probably going to be Elden Ring for the rest of the year. Not just because it’s a great game, but also because I haven’t really wanted to play games lately.

🎵 Music