Jake Weidokal

weeknotes

Jan 12, 2025 ∞

Weeknotes Vol. 2

My week summarized into 3 highlights, 2 discoveries, and 1 anticipation.

3 Highlights

Eating in
My wife and I have a chronic problem with being unprepared when dinner time rolls around, so we often end up ordering food or going out. My belt and my bank statements would attest that this is not a good practice. But this week we did much better eating in for most of our meals. I found the Tasty app and have been using that to plan our meals each Saturday so we can pick up groceries on Sunday. Since writing this, I’ve switched over to the Paprika app so I can get recipes from more sources (I’ve enjoyed Budget Bytes, but I am taking recommendations). I like that the interface is bare-bones, with no fluffy advertising or bright pictures/text. Cooking and eating together has been a delightful time for our family. My daughter has been using the toddler tower that my parents got her for Christmas to help while cooking. She likes taste-testing ingredients as we cook and watching hot pans on the stove from a distance.

Helping Hands
I didn’t have to work on Thursday since federal agencies were closed in remembrance of President Jimmy Carter. Instead, I spent the whole day working on the house with my wife, while each of our moms came over at different times to help watch our daughter. It’s amazing how much can get done on a free day with minimal child watching responsibilities. And it was fantastic getting to see and talk with each of our moms.

Green Owl
This week I got back on DuoLingo to try to revive my Spanish skills. I nearly minored in Spanish in college. I dropped my minor during my last semester, with only two classes left, so that I could focus on my internship. It feels a bit tragic to have been so close and not made it across the finish line, but I would make the same decision again. Since then, I’ve been noticing my Spanish comprehension slowly slipping away year by year. I’ve been having a lot of fun this week dusting off the cobwebs and experiencing “Aha!” moments as the intricacies of the Spanish language slowly come back to me. Also, I’ve noticed DuoLingo has changed a lot since I last used it a couple of years ago. I read an article about how they are big on “gamification”, but it’s crazy all the tricks they use to make it fun (and addicting) to learn a language. I guess dopamine reward circuit hijacking is okay if it’s for a good purpose?

2 Discoveries

AI App-Building Platforms
I’ve known about these AI coding platforms for a while, but just started playing with them this week and I can’t believe how good they are! The main one I’ve been messing around with is lovable.dev. You just give it a prompt, and it will build an app for you in seconds. Then you can tweak the app with more prompts. Once it’s ready, you can hook up a database with Supabase and deploy with Netlify or Vercel. Gone are the days of people saying with a straight face, “I have SUCH GOOD app ideas! I would be a millionaire if only I knew how to build them!”. There are no excuses for not building now. Check out this post if you want to learn more: A guide to AI prototyping for product managers

Wesley Huff
Wesley Huff is a biblical scholar with a personal website packed with resources on biblical history. I came across him this week on a podcast. His knowledge on original source documents for scripture is impressive. I can tell that he is very well studied from listening to him, and his website has a lot of great infographics that he has made himself on the bible, manuscripts, archaeology, translation, and more.

1 Anticipation

Fitness Challenge
I signed up for a twelve-week fitness challenge through NASA. The main reason I signed up is that I will receive three free body composition reports via calipers and InBody tests, each spaced six weeks apart. I just started intermittent fasting and regular exercise a couple of weeks ago, so I’m excited to use these reports as extra motivation to stick with it and see how my body composition changes over the next twelve weeks. I’ve already lost 5 pounds in the last week, if my scale can be trusted! I’ll have my first test on Tuesday.

Jan 5, 2025 ∞

Weeknotes Vol. 1

I’m on the couch, coffee in hand, excited to try a new format.

I actually have no idea what the true format will be, but I know that I am going to write weekly. The plan is to have a consistent format for these weeknotes, but I’m more concerned with actually doing the thing, so I’m starting without the format. Jump first, find a parachute later, right?

Bear with me while I sort things out for the first 5, 10, or 50 of these.

The holiday marathon has come to an end, and it feels like I’m settling in for winter now that snow has fallen and stayed for more than 24 hours.

Basement

Being stuck inside, my attention has turned toward my house and projects that need to be done. The biggest of these is finishing the basement. My wife and I have been getting quotes, with the last of these being last week. We also took a trip to the three major big box stores near us, and must have taken at least $100 worth of samples.

I have completely lost my kitchen island to paint and flooring samples. It looks like a detective is trying to solve a murder, and the primary suspects are green-ish paint, blue-ish paint, and vinyl plank.

1Zpresso

I bought a really nice manual coffee grinder this week, the 1Zpresso J. I thought about it for 7 days and 7 nights, and then decided to go for it.

It feels outrageously-priced for something where I still need to grind my own coffee, but I convinced myself it was worth it after reading endless forum discussions on coffee grinders. Supposedly the machining is incredibly precise and there were people who had been using theirs for 10+ years.

I’m excited to feel more connected with my coffee. I’m looking forward to the morning ritual of grinding my own beans fresh, and then making a pour over in my Chemex. I’m also dreaming of sharing this experience with people who haven’t had high quality coffee before. Coffee can be such a wonderfully communal experience.

Anyways, that’s probably just all the feel-good stuff I told myself to justify the purchase. It worked.

Work

I went into the office on Thursday and it was pretty quiet. I talked with our IT guy and got to meet the new designer who just joined on the contract.

I had a lot of time off and most people are out of the office, but our team is also all hands on deck for a major release to the NASA Mishap Information System on Jan 12. So it’s been one of those quiet-but-busy type of weeks.

Health

I’ve been back on intermittent fasting, which has been going well so far. I’m trying to only eat between 12-8, but shorter is better. I’ve always found that to be the easiest eating pattern for me to follow. I started before the Holiday stretch, which was a bad idea, but things have leveled out now.

I’ve also started working out this week (classic New Year). My wife and I have been following along to work out videos on YouTube from our living room each evening, and then stretching afterward. We found a guy that makes videos of Tabata workouts from scenic locations and doesn’t do any talking. That was perfect for us.

In addition to our evening workouts we do together, I’ve been working out in the mornings. We got this treadmill/stair stepper way on sale on Facebook Marketplace recently, so some mornings I use that, or I’ve been using the resistance bands I got for Christmas.

I’m not sure that I would have ever bought resistance bands for myself, but I’m really excited for them now that I have them. They’re easy to use, and I can do all sorts of different things with them. I’m keeping them in my office near my standing desk so that I can get some exercise while I’m in meetings for work.

Devotional

My wife got me the Grace for the Moment devotional for Christmas, and I have used it every day since. Each page is super short, but leaves some space for writing in your own thoughts/reactions. I like being able to slow down with something really short and process through how I feel about it.

This is the first thing I do in the morning (well… after I get my coffee) and it has felt right to prioritize the first part of my morning to look up to God.

Analog

I can feel myself moving into an analog renaissance (again). What I mean by that is I’m using a lot less digital tools and a lot more physical tools in my day to day.

I have been using my bullet journal to capture daily to-dos and track things on a monthly cadence, including my intermittent fasting. I also started printing off articles on pieces of paper to carry with me so I don’t pull out my phone as much. And I’m moving toward taking my sermon notes in a journal instead of digitally, although it has been super cool to see all of my sermon notes and share them from my digital garden. I’m having fun taking notes more visually, drawing ideas/concepts that really resonate with me.

Weeknotes Vol. 1 Postmortem

It felt nice to reflect on my week, but this is definitely not the final format.

I want to keep these weeknotes shorter and punchier. I’ll be more likely to keep up with it that way. I like how Tim Ferris does his 5 Bullet Friday, so it may end up similar to that.

But I did it. I’ll take my win, and I’ll see you next week.