2024

Dec 31, 2024 ∞

“Everything depends on everything and we don’t know anything!”
- my wife, while we decide on basement finishes

This perfectly describes software development.

Dec 2, 2024 ∞

My dad gave me his old 45 pound dumbbells so I:

• got excited
• made a list of the exercises I could do with them
• tried all the exercises
• crossed about half the exercises off my list because I can’t do them

45 pounds is heavier than I remember… Got some work to do. 💪

Nov 28, 2024 ∞

Capturing Shower Thoughts: How Aqua Notes Boosts Thinking

I learned it’s weird to talk to your coworkers about your showering habits.

The slightly uncomfortable laughs gave it away.

But it’s been on my mind because I’ve been doing something different in the shower lately. I think showers are more than just a way to get clean. They’re also a space to think. While most people have “shower thoughts”, I bet a majority can’t remember them.

When I say that showers are a “space to think”, I don’t just mean they’re a place to have thoughts pop in and out. I mean they are a place to do real thinking. To me, real thinking involves:

1. Loading up your short-term memory to work through a web of thought.
2. Moving the important bits over to long-term memory for future use.

Unfortunately, my brain is terrible at real thinking. It may be an inborn trait, or it may be a symptom of growing up a digital native. My brain feels like it’s wired for reacting: social media, texting, news cycles, etc. But I struggle to just… think.

Except I have a little trick to help me do real thinking: writing things down. The paper is part memory-aid and part memory-replacement. Seeing the words in writing helps encode them in my brain, but it also provides a hard-copy of the thought in case my brain fails to hold onto it. Yet even more helpful is using the paper as my short-term memory. I can follow a long chain of thought and remember every step I took. When my thoughts are trapped in paper, they are outside of me, so it is easier to separate my thoughts from my self. I can observe them with more objectivity.

So showers are a space for thinking, but real thinking requires writing. Therefore, showers are a space for writing.

But how does one write in the shower?

I use Aqua Notes.



This is not a paid post and there are no affiliate links. I just like Aqua Notes.

Aqua Notes has changed the way I shower

Some days I go into my shower with an idea I really need to think through: a complex challenge at work, a parenting dilemma, a tough conversation I need to have, etc. But on other days, I sleepily clamber into the shower and wait to see what rises to the surface of my mind while the warm water hits my back.

Regardless which kind of day I’m having, having a paper pad in the shower gives me a way to externalize my inner dialog.

Whether I’m showering with the intention of thinking or not, I always end up doing some thinking. The shower seems to have a unique capacity for shining a light on the recesses of my mind. Then the paper can capture the fleeting ideas that usually lie dormant in these recesses.

I have used Aqua notes to capture all sorts of shower thoughts, from random ideas, to poetry, to visuals. I want to tell you more about what Aqua Notes is, how I’ve used it, and other things I tried before Aqua Notes.

What is Aqua Notes?

Aqua Notes is a simple product. It is just a plasticky paper notepad, a pencil, and suction cups. It was founded by a guy that wanted to remember his shower thoughts, and all the component pieces are manufactured and assembled in the USA.

The Pad

The paper in the pad is waterproof and has a very smooth texture. It is surprisingly easy to write on with pencil, even when wet!

I have not seen this advertised or discussed anywhere, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that each piece of paper can be ripped off and stuck to the wall by itself. It just takes a little water, and I’ve never had a piece of paper fall off the wall from drying out. This lets me write on the reverse side of each paper and fill up my shower wall with notes like a mad scientist.



Being able to rip off pieces of paper also means that I can take my notes with me outside the shower if I need to.

The paper is a little difficult to rip cleanly (although it is perforated) so you have to be careful when pulling a page off the pad.

The Pencil

The pencil is a standard graphite pencil that needs to be sharpened occasionally. Inscribed on one side is the saying “NO MORE GREAT IDEAS DOWN THE DRAIN!”. It has an eraser, which works okay on the plasticky paper. It’s not as easy to erase as standard paper, but not too difficult either.

The pencil has been great, and I love that it’s a no-nonsense tool I can always expect to work. Unlike some of the other things I’ve tried…

The Suction Cups

I don’t have much to say here other than that I have had no issues with these staying on the wall. That was something I was concerned about when I bought this, so I wanted to mention it for others wondering the same.

Now that you know what Aqua Notes is, you might be thinking “but what would I actually write on there?” The answer is: all sorts of things!

What I write in the shower

Tasks

I used to think of something I needed to do while showering, and then would forget it right after.

Now I can write down any pesky to-dos that come up during my shower. After I shower, I’ll take a look at my notes and transfer any tasks into my phone or elsewhere.

Random thoughts

Some random thoughts are worth capturing. This could be a spontaneous idea for a product, self-reflection about how I am living my life, or anything in between.

Intentional thoughts

Occasionally I’ll give my shower a goal. In these cases there’s a very specific thing I need to think through, so I will use my shower as a chunk of dedicated time to work through it. I write through each step of the process and work out my thoughts methodically.

Podcast notes

Sometimes I listen to a podcast while I’m in the shower, so I will write down any memorable quotes. I also write down my own notes about impactful ideas I want to remember.

Visuals

Many thoughts are better captured in a visual rather than words. I might be trying to work through a complex topic, or there might just be an image in my brain that I want to hold onto for later.

I love that the empty pad gives my notes the flexibility to take whatever form they need.

Haiku

I enjoy writing haiku occasionally. I use it as a way to capture an idea in short, memorable prose.

Love notes for my wife

Short shower notes are a sweet, thoughtful surprise that I use to lift up my wife.

Alternatives I’ve tried for capturing shower thoughts

Before Aqua Notes, I had tried to perfect the art of capturing shower thoughts. My previous attempts had revolved around using technology, but they all fell short. I had assumed digital capture would be better because it would be quicker and easier to retrieve my notes. But I found all the digital options to be unreliable and have come to appreciate the way that the slowness of handwriting allows me to simmer in my thoughts.

Smartwatch

I thought for sure the smartwatch would be the answer. I could dictate my notes into my watch and then have them seamlessly uploaded to the cloud for safekeeping and retrieval later. But this didn’t play out in reality the same way that I dreamt it up.

For one, dictation into my watch (Galaxy Watch 5) sucked. It was bad outside the shower, but inside the shower with all the noise I could rarely get it to capture a single sentence correctly.

I also ran into an issue with the apps I tried to use to capture notes. I tried Google Keep and the recording app that came on the watch. The recording app would just randomly shut off in the middle of me talking, which was irritating. And I think something similar happened with Google Keep, although I can’t quite remember.

And don’t even get me started on interacting with the watch screen while it was wet.

Maybe an Apple Watch could do better, but my Galaxy Watch was NOT a good shower notes companion.

Alexa

I also tried setting an Amazon Echo Dot right outside the shower so I could shout notes to it, but it did a poor job capturing what I said as well. It was also pretty annoying to try shouting outside the shower, or opening the door and poking my head out each time I had a thought.

Phone

When I got frustrated with my watch, I tried using my phone for a little while, but that was destined for failure because I was too scared to get it near the water. It was hard to interact with if my hands were wet, and voice commands didn’t work out too well for me.

After going through all of these iterations of digital tools, I realized that sometimes the simplest tools are the most powerful.

Takeaways

Writing is great for thinking is great for showering. So writing is great for showering.

I’ve been amazed at the insights I’ve captured while in the shower. It brings me joy to see an idea from a shower months ago that sparks new thought patterns in me today.

Aqua Notes is the best tool I’ve found for thinking and writing in the shower. It’s simple but effective. It can flex to accommodate two-word ideas, long chains of thoughts, visuals, and everything in between. Though flashier digital tools like smartwatches and automated home assistants seemed better, I’ve found pencil and paper to be the best tool for the job.

Let’s say we spend 15 minutes in the shower daily. That’s roughly 91 hours in a year. Getting clean is a noble enough way to spend that time, but I’d encourage you to also intentionally think and write.

Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions. What comes up might be important. And the important things should be captured, not washed down the drain.

Nov 24, 2024 ∞

Note to self: I want to write an article soon. It’s been a while.

Nov 6, 2024 ∞

I just discovered and used screenshotr.app for my previous post. This is an awesome free tool for making screenshots look more interesting and professional!

Nov 6, 2024 ∞
I removed my bio from the header of my blog and improved the user experience on my subscribe page to make the call-to-action clearer. I like the minimal look. 👍🧹
New Look 👶

Old Look 👴

Oct 25, 2024 ∞

Had a beautiful walk after working from a coffee shop this afternoon.



Oct 25, 2024 ∞
Coffee shop hack: bring your own stroopwafel ☕🧇
One of my wife’s many good ideas.

Oct 25, 2024 ∞

I kinda like Comic Sans. Also, today I learned that if you google Comic Sans or Vincent Connare (the guy that created it) the results come back in Comic Sans.

Love or hate the font, you gotta love internet easter eggs.

Oct 11, 2024 ∞

Dang, Google Photos over here making me cry 😭 It finds video snippets of my daughter, puts them in slow motion, and plays emotional piano music in the background 🥹

I would love to hear from the product team crafting these experiences and what their goal is for Photos. Not a feature I would think of putting in a Photos app, but I’ve really enjoyed it! I love that it surfaces nostalgic memories for me!

Oct 10, 2024 ∞

LinkedIn is cool sometimes

LinkedIn can be so cool sometimes. I connected with Mural’s VP of Product, Matt Crawford, and we got to talking about my experience.

I told him I LOVE using Mural for user story maps, but I’m having trouble integrating with Jira because of how our instance is set up at NASA.

Lo and behold, the current problem I’m having integrating Mural with Jira Data Center is a priority for him right now and they’re running a pilot program. I’m going to get him connected with the right people at NASA to see if we can get in on their pilot to get things working.

Mutually beneficial for everyone. Product people helping product people.

Love it.

Oct 10, 2024 ∞

Feeling extra tired this morning. Started reading scripture but kept falling asleep. Ended up just throwing punches in the air to keep myself awake while I read. I’m glad I was alone, I probably looked crazy…

But it’s a nice new trick to keep myself awake while reading early in the morning. 🥊

Oct 9, 2024 ∞

🌊 man is deep water.
💨 will is wind. fleeting and weak.
🌕 what then be his moon?

Oct 5, 2024 ∞

Now 2024-10-05

What I am up to now. Check my /now page for the latest update.

Dad Stuff

My daughter is walking! She is almost 15 months old now, and it feels like overnight she transformed from baby to toddler. Crawling to walking took a couple of months, but I think she went from walking to running in an hour. We’re chasing her all over the place now. This is such a fun age.

In addition to walking/running, she’s getting pretty good at sign language and a few words. Her favorite words right now are dada, mama, baby, blueberries (besbes), bees, go (doe), bottle (baba), wheels on the bus (wuhbuh), book (buhbuh), dog (wohwoh, because our dog’s name is Lolo), bye bye, thank you and ball. She’s also gotten very good at shaking her head “no”, and is not afraid to use it. This girl has some sass. It can be challenging, but I am proud that we are encouraging her sense of self and being assertive about her needs even at this young age.

I’m having a lot of fun spending time with my daughter and playing with her. She is sweet and pure in a way that starkly contrasts the messiness and hustle of the world. She loves giving kisses and hugs. I love watching her walk around kissing her stuffed animals, and then offering them up to me or my wife to kiss them too. I want to soak in every moment I can with her.

And yet… if I’m being completely honest, I find myself having a desire to check out sometimes. My wife and I are working to keep each other accountable to not turning to our phones when we’re tired. I know I will be so much happier if I stay present in the moment, but the siren call of distraction can be really strong. I can easily fall into binging articles or videos and justifying it as “learning”, but it’s just my way of turning off to the hard things in front of me.

Creating

I continue to blog infrequently but love it when I do it. It seems li ke my creative energy comes in waves, and it has been on the upswing recently. I went the whole month of July without posting any articles, but wrote a handful last month. Recently, I redesigned the homepage of my blog and am pretty happy with how it turned out. I like just seeing a listing of all the things I’ve written about, and I imagine that’s what others would be interested in too.

A while ago I liked the idea of writing think piece articles where I do a bunch of research to from a novel opinion on a topic of interest, but that hasn’t materialized yet. I think maybe it’s just not my style? So far, my process is that I get super obsessed with an idea of something I want to write, and I need to get it out of my system within 24 hours. Then I publish it with little to no editing. I’m not sure that there’s a right or wrong way, but I’d still like to at least experiment with a more patient approach to writing.

I’ve also been working on Fed Meetup more. I had to update it with the FY25 rates that got posted by GSA recently, and while I was in there I cleaned up the interface. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but it’s getting better. The worst part about the app right now is the initial load time. It’s atrocious, but I’m still figuring out how to get things to render correctly and lazy load in SvelteKit. That’s the next thing I plan to tackle.

I have ideas for all sorts of other things I’d like to create and put together an ideas page to keep track of them.

Work

My big focuses right now are the NASA Cause Analysis Tool (NCAT) and the NASA Mishap Information System (NMIS). NCAT was the first app that managed from idea all the way to release, and it was released earlier this year. It has been successful so far, and is getting good feedback from the mishap investigator community at NASA. These are the main people using the tool currently, it helps them brainstorm and organize data to determine findings and recommendations as part of their investigations.

NMIS is one of the NASA Safety Center’s oldest applications and I recently to over as the product manager for it. It is the source of truth for all NASA mishap data. It is a big legacy app and has a very different feel from NCAT, which is our newest application. NMIS is going through major changes right now since the mishap policy at NASA is changing, and the software needs to change with the policy. It has been fun getting up to speed on NMIS quickly and thinking about how we will implement major changes that touch most parts of the application.

Faith and Friends

The church group my wife and I are a part of has become completely overrun with babies… When we joined a couple of years ago, there were 0, and now we are well into double digits. We’ve all started going in on childcare together, and that has improved the dynamic of the group a lot. It’s a lot easier to have deep, meaningful conversation when there aren’t a bunch of kids toddling around and screaming.

I feel like my attitude toward my faith has been apathetic for a while, and I’m not sure what to do about it. I believe in Christ as my savior, and I believe God is active in my life and with me, but that doesn’t impact my heart as much as it used to. This concerns me. I feel a dissonance between my mind and my heart. It makes me wonder if I have allowed myself to get too comfortable? Am I settling for a typical American middle class life, concerned more with status and self-satisfaction than with the grand question of why I am even here? How could I not be moved by my belief that the reason I am here is to honor God and share love with others? I am praying for God to reignite my passion and excitement, but I am still waiting. That is okay, it does not shake the foundation of my faith, but I do feel like I am in a dry valley.

And despite all of these existential questions, I don’t want things to change. I really like my comfortable American life. I may be holding onto it too tightly. If I was asked to give it up, I would have a really hard time with that. It puts me in a weird place. I don’t really want change, but I am hoping and praying for it.

Leisure

I finished the Foundation Series by Isaac Aasimov, and now I am reading a couple different books: Ghost Soldiers, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.

I’ve been disc golfing occasionally when I can and have been playing really well. I played my highest rated round ever couple of days ago.

Exercise

I’ve been doing a couple sets a day of push-ups to failure, and that has been excellent for me. I’ve struggled with making time to go to the gym or even do a full workout at time, and this is so stupid easy that I’ve actually been able to keep up with it. I focus on going slow so that I use not just my arms but also my core.

My wife and I also recently got memberships to our local YMCA. We’ve gone a couple of times, but I’m not sure if we’ll stick with it. The place just has a weird feel. I don’t know if it’s too dark, or has a weird smell, but something is just off. I really want to do CrossFit or some sort of other group class like Jiu Jitsu, but those are so expensive that they’re tough to justify. They also feel like a little more of a time commitment, but I think that would be good for me. I think commitment is what I need.

Home

We’ve been rearranging the house quite a bit. It ended up in a weird setup, so I think we’re going to rearrange it all again soon. We’re trying to figure out how to have a nice adult space that is also kid-friendly.

Also, we had 5 different contractors come out recently to give us quotes for a back patio. We’re looking forward to making our backyard a nice space to entertain friends and let all the kids roam around.

Sep 29, 2024 ∞

This Started With A Title

Let the writing inform the title, or let the title inform the writing?

This started with a title, but it wasn’t this one.

Sep 29, 2024 ∞

I added an /ideas page to my blog, as mentioned recently in my post on indie hacking. I’ll update this page every now and then as I have new ideas or stumble on the ones scattered across my journals and note taking apps.

Sep 26, 2024 ∞

I love when I’m inspired by something I highlighted a long time ago in my Readwise Daily Review. This one feels especially relevant with my recent excitement around indie hacking.

I wish I would have known that there was no need to wait. I went to college. I went to law school. I worked in law and banking, though not for terribly long. But not until I started PayPal did I fully realize that you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months? Sometimes, you have to actually go through the complex, 10-year trajectory. But it’s at least worth asking whether that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or whether that’s the reality.

• Peter Thiel, quoted in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Sep 25, 2024 ∞

Advice To A Demotivated Job Seeker

I received the following question in my LinkedIn DMs:

What is some advice you can give me, I am having motivation issues. I have a decent job but it’s not my dream job, trying to join the aerospace industry. Also doing my masters to specialize in AI and eventually get a leadership role. Not seeing the clear path yet and it’s hard to stay motivated.

Here was my response:

There’s never a clear path! My path has been all over the place, and I never would have guessed I would be where I am now.

I think the key is to do the best you can where you are and always be on the lookout for new opportunities. Reach higher than you think you can go and ignore the requirements in job postings, they’re just wish lists.

I didn’t expect to get the job I have now. I was terribly underqualified on paper, and just wanted to apply to see what the interview process might be like for the kind of position I might apply for in a few years. And then I got the job!

Also, have fun along the way. If you’re early on in your career, look for fun ways that you can boost your visibility and increase your surface area for lucky opportunities. For me, that looks like posting on LinkedIn, starting a blog, working on web apps on the side, etc. Just find stuff you love related to where you want to go, and start now. Find little aerospace projects to work on, or AI projects, or local leadership opportunities.

You got this!

I want to capture this in a post so I can share it with anyone else struggling with the same things. Demotivation like this is really common and I’ve dealt with it too.

To anyone else out there struggling with the same thing, you really do got this! Keep moving, keep having fun, and tell people about what you’re doing. The right opportunity will come along!

I would be happy to chat over email about it!

Sep 25, 2024 ∞

I updated my bio (the words at the top of every page) and my about page. See the changelog for more details, or just check them out!

Sep 25, 2024 ∞

I just found out that UDisc Community was released a couple weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for this feature for years!

Here’s an invite link if you have the app but don’t have access to Community yet, and here’s my profile if you want to see how I’m playing!