2024
Compound and Leverage
Compound and leverage are powerful forces to move us toward our desired outcomes.
I’ve been thinking about these two forces and how they can be used not only to improve finances, but they also apply to other areas of life.
I’m worried about my blog undergoing a LinkedInification. A lot of my recent posts have been good candidates to cross post on LinkedIn, but when I’m cross posting there I feel the tug to tweak my style for better “engagement”.
I don’t want that to drive what I write or how I write, so I’m keeping an eye on it. I kinda like the idea of writing a full post on the blog, and then throwing a shorter summary version on LinkedIn, but that sounds like too much work. I’ll have to give it some more thought.
Happy Mother’s day to all the moms!
Whether working or not, you matter. So thank you for all you do. ❤️
I’ve been blessed with an amazing mom and now I’m married to an amazing mom, so I’ve experienced the profound impact a good mom can have. Don’t forget to thank a mom today!
NASA's First Agile Technical Interchange Meeting
Yesterday was NASA’s very first Agile Technical Interchange Meeting! NASA is becoming agile 🚀🏃♂️💨
I learned how Agile is applied outside of my discipline, web software, to improve how we build hardware and integrated systems, particularly in the systems engineering discipline.
The team at Snipd is coming up with some great AI use cases for podcasts. I enjoy interview/discussion style podcasts, so I’m usually more interested in the guest than the podcast host. This new guest feature is going to be awesome!
Releasing: Podcast Guests ✨
On the latest version of the app, you can now:
👱 View a guest’s name, bio & picture
🎙️ Explore more episodes with the same guest
👣 Follow your favorite guests
🔍 Discover similar guests
Enjoying a local park before church
Introducing Fed Meetup
I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve saved by muting them when they unintentionally had their mics open on a call with 100+ participants. I just muted someone who accidentally interrupted a large meeting talking about a fly that had gotten into their house 🤦♂️
Not all heroes wear capes…
A Day In My Life At NASA
On days like today, I marvel as I reflect all the awesome things I get to do in my role here at the NASA Safety Center.
Today I…
🐛 Hosted a “bug hunt” for the new app we launched last month, having the whole development team try to break the app to catch bugs before they become an issue.
🌒 Spoke with someone from the Human Landing System program about their interest in using a fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram to identify what could cause the lunar lander to tip over during landing. This is a problem that has plagued recent commercial lunar landings, and we are looking to support these use cases in our new app.
🥗 Ate a fantastic salad with my team at the café in the new Research Support Building at NASA Glenn Research Center
🤹♀️ Consulted with a co-worker about how we could use Microsoft Delve to surface Reliability Engineers in the agency with unique skills that could be shared with others in that discipline.
📊 Reviewed the Science Mission Directorate’s system for tracking risks to inform how our team will build an agency-level tool that surfaces elevated risks from the mission directorates.
👬 Demoed our API for mishap data to a group building a Digital Twin of NASA facilities. Mishap data could be layered with information we have on aging infrastructure to build a compelling case for which areas of NASA’s infrastructure are in the most need of attention.
And that all is just the tip of the iceberg! Looking forward to tomorrow!
Beautiful day out on the course today. Playing an informal tournament with friends where we’ll be playing 4 courses in one day! 😯 Time to get some steps in…
I listened to Shakey Graves this morning while washing a mountain of dishes. I like whatever genre this is. Folk? I feel like I stumbled on something new to me, which is always exciting and fun! Opens up a new little world to explore. I welcome any artist/album suggestions like this! 🎶
Every now and then LinkedIn asks me to contribute to these collaborative articles, which have AI-generated content that humans respond to. This one was funny and unsettling… AI wants me to embrace AI if it disrupts my job… 🤔
p.s. This is actually good advice. Just feels weird coming from AI.
A Brief Thought On A Recent Bout of Resistance
Gotta get back on the ol' blog! I’ve been working a bit on a draft of an article, but have been having some resistance to finishing it. Do I keep it long and playful like it is now, or cut the fluff and get right to the message?
I’ve been pondering this question, and I think the right answer is to just get the dang thing out into the world. Have fun writing it. The style does not matter. Either way, it will be a hit with some people and a miss with others. And that doesn’t matter anyways. I want to write for me to work through things and hopefully that helps others along the way. But if not, fine!
Just write Jake!
Finished reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande 📚
Also, I started a digital garden at garden.weidok.al! I’ll share more about that another time. For now, here are my review and highlights of this book from my garden: garden.weidok.al/readwise/books/the-checklist-manifesto/
Text Message Triage
Me: “Oh, I need to respond to that later.”
Text Message: cries softly as it floats into the void, never to be seen again
📷 Day 11: sky #mbapr
We watched the eclipse from Total Eclipse Fest in Cleveland. It was cool seeing all the NASA exhibits and being there for the official NASA broadcast!
📷 Day 6: windy #mbapr
12mph winds today. The tree branches out back are swaying calmly while the clouds float past leisurely.
📷 Day 5: serene #mbapr
What greater serenity is there than fri(ed rice)day?
📷 Day 4: foliage #mbapr
Taken at a local disc golf course last summer.
Recent Microblogs
So far, I think I’m most proud to have passed on a love of pocket journals to my daughter ❤️ She loves scribbling on the pages and showing off what she drew.
After taking this picture, she disassembled the pen she was using, pulled out the refill, blew on it, and squealed “Blow bubbles!”. She has now been dipping the pen refill in and out of the pen body and blowing on it for the past few minutes pretending to blow bubbles. She is such a sweet soul. My heart is full.
I have much more important tasks to do, but it was nice to just sit on the couch for hours this morning with a coffee and put tabs on my Bible. It felt really good to accomplish something I want to do. The “have to dos” will have to wait.
