I’m grateful Micro.blog exists for a number of reasons, but today, it’s because it’s been the catalyst for me making 100 informal posts onto this WordPress blog (even if it took me awhile).

New WhiteHouse.gov

This morning I’m reading through several of the write-ups on the new WhiteHouse.gov – initial reactions from Matt Mullenweg and Pagely in addition to the longer piece by Fast Company.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to see developers pushing the boundaries of WordPress on such a high profile site.

From what I’ve gathered, the site’s content editing experience is as good as its front end experience.

? ? ? to everyone involved!

I have been avoiding watching the remaining episodes of The Crown because then there will be no more episodes of The Crown left to watch. ?

If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis.
– Barack Obama to The Atlantic

My 3-year is absolutely obsessed with board games these days. Anyone have any recommendations for that age group?

Photo of my son playing a board game with a fire burning in the background

A Call To Spy ?

I think what amazes me about the World War II era is just how many films and documentaries seemed to still be released about it every year. We thought Summerland was very good but it was a bit more niché. A Call To Spy really had something for everyone and retold such an important story. I’d definitely recommend for your next movie night.

Happy New Year! (this is 100% a scheduled post, I am definitely asleep)

Notes from Essentialism ?

Find the convergence of “inspired by”, “talented at”, and “significant need”.

Discern more so you can do less.

Zero-based budget your time.

If I didn’t have this, what would I be willing to do to get it?

What is the “slowest hiker” in your job or your life?

What is the smallest amount of progress that will be useful and valuable?

Ultimately, what is important right now?

If you’re using the original Independent Publisher WordPress theme and want a retina-sized Gravatar image, this snippet of PHP will do the trick. Reach out if bundling it into a plugin would be helpful for anyone.

Voted!

There are many days where I’m cynical about our politics but I will not let today be one. There are many great current / future public servants on the ballot this week. In a year where our state is experiencing a pandemic and reckoning with racial injustice, I’m grateful I got to vote for a black physician to be our next governor in addition to getting to vote for my literal neighbor three doors down to represent us in the state house. Get out there everyone! Our system works best when more people are involved.

It’s day 1 of Hacktoberfest! I made a few open-source contributions in September and hoping to keep the momentum going in October.

I love being his dad

Currently reading The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet ?

Book cover

Lastly, one of my side projects has been customizing WooCommerce to handle recurring payments for sponsorship programs. In Deed And Truth Ministries has been my test pilot for their pastor sponsorship program and they have almost $1k a month of transactions running through it now. I’d love to bring on another small non-profit (faith-based or not) who is running a program like this to try using the software (at no charge) so I can get some more feedback and frankly motivation to keep working on it.

If you know anyone, the project’s homepage has a contact form that’ll go straight to me.

Third up, Precept, I had a lot of fun working on this with the team at Whiteboard. While we initially built their system to support online Bible studies, this summer the proportion of online groups naturally increased drastically. Last week we rolled out a set of advanced filters to make sorting through them easier. They have over 100 studies available now anyone can join from home.

Second up, TBR, at the beginning of 2018 on a cold sunny day in Brooklyn, Alex laid out Book Riot‘s vision for a book recommendation subscription service they were starting where the recs were made individually by the cohort of hardcore reading enthusiasts they have on their team (no AI). I’ve made a commit to TBR’s codebase in 31 of the last 32 months since (the only month I missed was after Nora was born). It’s been fun to watch it gain its footing and grow. I think besides Mogiv, it’s the longest I’ve ever been a part of a piece of software. This summer, after numerous revisions and learning too much about sales tax and deferred revenue, we launched gifting so you can send a set of recs to a friend! They’ll supply the recommendations letter in a digital form so the recipient can go buy the books on their own or they’ve partnered with an independent bookstore in Maine who will mail a box of hardcovers.

First up, this summer Joel and I revamped Boil Line Coffee Company’s site from being for a brick-and-mortar business who’d also sell you their product online to a 100% e-commerce business. We started by setting up WooCommerce to facilitate their new local delivery option and continued from there.

I don’t always patronize my client’s goods / services but with Boil Line I do! With the extra coffee consumption at the Paulson house lately, we’ve been ordering the 5lb bags. I’ve been to some of the top rated coffee houses in NYC and Melbourne and Jeremy seriously roasts coffee that can hang with them.

We love the Trail Builder blend which is a perfect mix of coffee from Africa and the Americas. Plus, it supports the maintenance of one some of the hiking trails we used to frequent regularly.

Praxis published Leading Beyond the Blizzard in late March and it has held up remarkably well. I’m feeling fortunate that I got to spend my summer helping some great organizations pivot for the “winter” and “little ice age”. Over the next week I’m going to be blogging about some of the work I did.

Fun at home ?

Among the trees ?