Jake Weidokal

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:04:07 -0400

I just completed my first Field Notes pocket journal. It’s covered in scotch tape because the cover completely separated from the pages after being stuck in my suit pants pocket all day during a particularly hot and humid wedding.

I wonder if that was just a one-off or if this is a durability issue I’ll run into more often. I’m being optimistic and hoping it was just a fluke. I love the art on these National Parks Editions, each from different artists.

Next up: Olympic National Park

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:56:26 -0400

TIL: A 1997 episode of Pokémon sent 685 people to the hospital with seizures. Here’s a wikipedia entry about it.

Warning: the Wikipedia article has snippets of the scene that caused seizures for viewers.

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 21:41:09 -0400

Finished reading: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Common, Oscar Levy 📚

This was a hard read that took me months to work through. I’m going to let it simmer for a while, and then read the analysis in the appendix that weaves in context from Nietzche’s various life experiences. It was interesting to work through criticisms of my beliefs while also finding other parts of this work that I agreed with. Many of the ideas were tough enough to understand through the parables they were encapsulated in, but reading it in old-timey English was the cherry on top that made this an excruciatingly slow read for me. I found myself rereading sections multiple times very often.

I’m very glad to be done with it, but also glad that I challenged myself with this book. It might be a while before I take on something this difficult again though. I think I need to build up my stamina for reads like this, much like I need to build of my cardiopulmonary fitness for running races!

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:02:39 -0400

This paragraph hit hard this morning. I found this in an essay titled “Why Story Matters” in the Late Summer 2026 edition of The Classical Teacher, a homeschooling magazine that showed up in our mailbox recently.

Every good story must have a conflict. If yours does not have a conflict, if you are not fighting for something (or against it), if you are not risking something of yourself to bring about some good, if you’re not on any kind of quest - it’s probably because you didn’t fight back when you should have. It could be that you let the dragon get away with it.

Martin Cothran

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:15:47 -0400

I’ve heard tuna described as “chicken of the sea”, but why have I never heard anyone refer to pistachios as “clam of the tree”?

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 05:44:14 -0400

I updated my Uses page. While updating it, I had fun considering the items I no longer use. A lot has changed!

Now 2026-07-17

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:14:37 -0400

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

This is going to be a very brain-dumpy update. There’s a lot that has happened since my last update to my /now page!

Two weeks ago on July 1, my son was born! He and his mom are healthy and doing well. In fact, this postpartum period has felt much easier than our first kid, which has been a huge blessing. I’ve been enjoying my 4 weeks of parental leave to spend time with him and my family. Also, I am using this time to update my blog, purge our messy garage, and build a playset in our backyard.

My daughter also turned 3 recently. This is such a fun, chaotic age. She has a lot of energy and particularly loves singing and dancing. Right now, one of her favorite activites is cutting paper with scissors. It’s a little bit dangerous and requires lots fo fine motor skills, which I think makes it exciting for her.

I accepted a new job with Progressive Insurance as a Senior Software Developer. I actually accepted the offer from the hospital the day my son was born. I had already been working there as a contractor since October, but now I will be there as a direct employee. I’ll be on the same doing the same work. I am building software that uses machine learning models to estimate repair and replacement costs for cars that have been in accidents, based on photos of the damaged vehicle. Most of my time currently is going toward a greenfield application that will be used to generate data to train the models more rigorously in pursuit of improved model outputs.

I left NASA because I was commuting an hour to work in-person every day, and my job had shifted away from software engineering more toward product management. I really missed being hands-on in the code. I was waffling on whether I should stay or not, but then the deferred resignation program was offered a second time. The deal was that I would get 6 months of not working but still receiving bi-weekly pay and benefits as usual, AND on top of that I would get basically the government equivalent of severance, AND I could work elsewhere during that time, BUT at the end of the 6 months I would voluntarily resign my position. So I took it, along with around 4,000 other employees who opted into the second round of the deferred resignation.

That kicked off a fun season of life where I was hanging out with my wife and daighter all-day, everyday. I started to think about various business ideas I could start during this unique time, or whether I wanted to go back to work full-time as a software engineer. I ended up starting Cuyahoga Digital, a web design business. I worked with one client and that went great, but I’m not sure web design is where my passion is at, and I’m hesitant about how AI will impact the niche I was targeting (websites for small businesses). I’m thinking I will keep the business name but focus on a different aspect of software. My two front-runners write now are AI consulting or website rentals. But for now, I’m focusing on my full-time gig and family since there has been a lot of change in those areas.

While starting Cuyahoga Digital, I also applied to full-time software engineer jobs. And that process was so much harder than I expected! I must have sent out hundreds of applications, I got a handful of interviews, and I think 3 times I made it to the final round but was rejected at the end. And each time it was the same explanation, “We really like you and would love to have you join, but it was between you and someone else and they had more recent coding experience”. Not having recent coding experience really hurt me in my job hunt, but eventually I landed back at Progressive as a contractor on their Claims Payments team working on their invoicing and payments systems.

I’m writing this from an M2 Macbook Pro, so I begruglingly have at least a toe in the Apple ecosystem now. But honestly, I love this thing. It’s easily the best laptop I’ve ever owned. I get excited to use it each time I open it up. The build quality feels super premium, the keyboard is surprisingly pleasant to use (coming from Thinkpads, with extra-deep key travel), and the screen is gorgeous. Plus, it’s FAST.

I also bought an iPhone, but that was an intentional downgraded to an iPhone SE 3 after my Pixel 7 Pro started acting up. The iPhone SE is a 4 year old phone, with the smallest possible screen I could find while still having the usual smartphone features. It even has a physical home button! I have a love/hate relationship with it. I bought it so that I would spend less time on my phone, which I think has worked so far? I’m still on my phone more than I would like, but It’s very annoying to use. It seems like a lot of app developers no longer account for this small screen size when developing their apps, so I sometimes get weird behavior like things not showing up on screen. And overall, I liked the Android operating system more than iOS. So once this iPhone craps out, I’m going to switch back to Android.

My wife and I have been on a house project binge. A lot has changed around here since my last update:

finished our basement
fenced in our backyard
poured a concrete patio in our backyard
bought all new living room furniture

And currently, I am working on leveling out a section of our yard to build a playset for our kids.

We sold our 2012 Toyota Prius V. I was sad to see it go, but we traded it in for a 2024 Kia Carnival. After being accustomed to a 15 year old Prius, our new minivan feels like living in the future. And I am loving the amount of cargo space we have in the back while still accomodating two kids' car seats.

I should tell the story of buying the Carnival. It was used, so we had a pre-purchase inspection performed. That uncovered a few things, but it took weeks for the dealership to resolve, because they took it to another dealership for warranty work. Well, when they finally had it ready for us, we planned to go in that day at 6pm. This was June 30th. If you’ve paid from the beginning, you’ll rememeber my son was born July 1. My wife’s contractions started intensifying around 4pm, so we weren’t planning on going in to get the car. But then, about an hour before the dealership would close, it seemed like her contractions had stalled. So we decided I should go get the car while her parents stayed at our house with her. I had a lot of fun telling everyone at the dealership “My wife is literally in labor right now, so if we could speed this along, I would really appreciate it”. The poor finance guy was trying to sell me on all the extra packages and I was just jittering and repeating “please, can I just decline everything?”. Eventually, after making his appeal that these packages were “smart money” and “investments”, he relented and let me decline all the extras so I could walk out of there. But by then, my wife’s contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, so I drove to the hospital in the new van and met her there when her mom dropped her off. That was not exactly how we had planned for our trip to the hospital to go!

I got into running at the beginning of the year. I signed up for a half-marathon Spartan Beast race with some friends, so I started running since January to prepare. The race was in May, and although it was pretty difficult, we all ended up finishing it. Apparently our course here in Cleveland is the muddiest Spartan venue. We don’t have much else in the way of mountains or interesting terrain. The race started with a hundred yard walk through waste deep water, so my shoes were soaked from the get-go. And at one point, as I stepped into a puddle of water, my leg sunk down into a hole of mud clear up to my mid-thigh. And it was about as wide as my leg, so I couldn’t get my foot lose no matter how hard I tried. My friends had already crossed the water, so they looked back, said “you’ll be fine!”, and ran off. I must have been stuck there for a minute, exhausting myself trying to get out of the hole, when finally two other racers showed up and asked if I needed help. It took both of them grabbing under my armpits and me pushing with all my might to hoist me up out of my muddy hole. We collapsed on our backs together, laughed, caught our breath, and continued on with the race. Eventually, I caught back up with my friends who I had been running with. That event was a lot of fun, but I think the best thing was how I fell in love with running during the preparation for the race. I’m glad to have a fun new hobby that is keeping me healthy.

While this may seem minor, I changed my pocket journal setup recently. That’s a big deal for me. I had been rocking the same custom setup for a long time. I had a travelers notebook leather cover, with a paper folder insert, plastice zipper insert, one notebook insert, and then a leuchturmm pen loop that held a fisher space bullet pen at the top. The space pen was modified to take Zebra pen refills for smoother writing. It was both a wallet and journal combined, and it went with me everywhere. I had perfected it and built it uniquely for myself, but I’ve turned away from it now. Instead, I’ve been carrying a Field Notes journal with me everywhere and using a Ridge wallet for my cards. I like the journal being just a journal, so it is not as thick to hold and write on as when I had it combined with my wallet. I don’t love the Ridge wallet because it’s so heavy. I’ve dented and damaged multiple things in our house from accidentally dropping it, and it feels like a hazard to have around small children for that reason. So I’m planning to replace it with a Carhartt Nylon Duck Front Pocket Wallet. We’ll see if I like that better.

So in summary, a LOT has changed, and I’m too tired to organize or spell-check this update so I’m throwing it up as-is. I’m really loving life right now. I am so excited to watch my son and daughter grow, to start this new chapter of my career, and to do it all in style in a minivan. God has been good to me and my family. Since my last update we have had hard seasons and scary moments, but God has been faithful through it all and I’m excited to see where he takes us in the future.

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:13:38 -0400

My chipotle order has changed. I’ve gone all in on the “get as much as possible for leftovers” philosophy, so I double up on most ingredients now. And I dropped the sour cream and hot salsa.

The Magic Swaddle

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:05:49 -0400

I am again in a season of diapers and burp cloths. In other words, my son is born! We welcomed him July 1, and it has been wonderful spending time with him. This has felt much easier than our first kid for a variety of reasons, which has been such a relief.

One thing that I feel like I need to share is this new swaddle we’ve been using. It has been life-changing. We call it the “magic swaddle”, because our son has been sleeping so well when we put it on. I’m talking 3+ hours consistently, as a newborn. We are setting alarms to wake him up in the night to make sure he eats.

It’s the Happiest Baby Sleepea® 5-Second Baby Swaddle. This swaddle was actually a “free” gift from the hospital, that we almost didn’t take with us! We had no idea that they had this swaddle for us, but as my wife and son were starting to be wheeled out of our room in a wheelchair to go home, I opened up a drawer under the hospital’s bassinet and found it in a little gift bag! I’m terrified to think of the alternate universe where I didn’t stumble upon this swaddle. It is amazing how well it works, and it’s much easier to put on than other swaddles I’ve tried. Completely straightforward and dad-proof.

If you have any new dads or moms in you life, consider getting them one of these!

p.s. Holy crap, I was looking on this company’s website and they sell a bassinet for $1,695… that is insane. I can’t vouch for the macbook-priced bassinet, but the swaddle is worth every penny.

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:43:12 -0400

I was just working on my laptop outside when I saw a big fuzzy jumping spider on the umbrella above me. I didn’t want him near me, but I didn’t want to kill him, so I waited until he moved to the top of the umbrella and then I bounced him down into the grass below my 2nd story deck. That was about 90 minutes ago. Just now, he popped up around the edge the table near my hand, staring right at me. I was spooked, so I brushed him down onto the floor.

Are we friends now? Or enemies? This is making me want to learn more about jumping spiders. I didn’t expect him to be back so soon.

I wish I had gotten a better picture before he ran off again.

Tue, 26 May 2026 07:52:06 -0400

I am elated that I can start my days on the back deck again! And for some reason, there is no construction noise in the neighborhood this morning. Just birds chirping and the highway in the distance. This 54°F weather with light sun is just right for sweatpants, a hoodie, and a warm coffee ☕️

Sat, 02 May 2026 11:06:14 -0400

It was a gorgeous morning for a run. Thankfully, my earbuds died halfway through. I felt way more present hearing the gravel crunch under my feet while the birds chirped.

I love starting my Saturdays this way now. And I’m lucky to have these beautiful trails just a few minutes from home!

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:53:18 -0400

“I’ve wasted a lot of time journaling on “problems” when I just needed to eat breakfast sooner, do 10 push-ups, or get an extra hour of sleep. Sometimes, you think you have to figure out your life’s purpose, but you really just need some macadamia nuts and a cold fucking shower.” (Timothy Ferriss, Tools of Titans)

Yep. My “ExiSTeNTiaL” problems usually have a painfully basic solution. Becoming a runner since the beginning of the year has made me feel 10x better.

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:29:39 -0400

My goodness. I just peeked at my Now page and realized I haven’t updated it since October of 2024.

Where does the time go?

I’m going to have to update that soon. There has been a lot of change in my life since then!

Conventional Comments

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:05:06 -0400

I came across conventionalcomments.org yesterday and love the idea. It is a simple convention for making clear comments on others' work products. In particular, code changes.

It is easy to unwittingly offend or confuse when commenting on someone else’s work, so I like that this gives a framework to set your intention early. Another nice side-effect is that it forces the commenter to think more clearly about what they’re actually trying to communicate.

I shared this with my dev team at work and plan to use it a lot more myself. I can see this being useful in pull requests as intended, but could also see it being useful when commenting on documents, slide decks, etc. I believe this would work well for feedback on any knowledge work product.

In case you don’t want to read the full web page I linked above, here’s a brief summary of the convention and ideas for different labels or tags you could use.

Format: <label> [tags]: <subject>
Example: suggestion (non-blocking): Consider using a framework for this

Labels (Prefixes):

praise - Positive feedback
nitpick - Trivial preference-based requests
suggestion - Proposes improvements
issue - Highlights specific problems
todo - Small necessary changes
question - Potential concern, needs clarification
thought - Idea from reviewing (non-blocking)
chore - Task that must be done before acceptance
note - FYI info (non-blocking)
typo - Misspelling
polish - Quality improvements (like suggestion)
quibble - Like nitpick

Decorations (Tags):

(non-blocking) - Doesn’t prevent acceptance
(blocking) - Prevents acceptance until resolved
(if-minor) - Only resolve if changes are trivial

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:00:41 -0400

“Creating the conditions for success is a very different project than finding a heroic move that saves the day.” (Seth Godin, Analyzing the Last Move)

This old highlight stood out to me today. I’ve been noticing more “success” popping up in my life from conditions I set up months or years ago.

This is a good reminder for me to keep planting seeds and watering them, even though it will be a long while before I see the first sprout.

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:56:01 -0400

I love that AI doesn’t judge me when I send it messages like:

CAn yuo kep it shorteR?

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:58:32 -0400

“You are not simply your own possession to torture and mistreat. This is partly because your Being is inexorably tied up with that of others, and your mistreatment of yourself can have catastrophic consequences for others.” (Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge (Forward), Ethan Van Sciver (Illustrator), 12 Rules for Life)

I like a simplified version of that first sentence “you are not your own possession”. That’s something to think about. I was discussing that with some friends in Bible study yesterday, related to how we’re called to be light-givers in our community.

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 11:57:02 -0400

“The Internet is a novelty machine that pulls us away from age-old wisdom. Even though we’re just a click away from the greatest authors of all time, from Plato to Tolstoy, we default to novelty instead of timelessness.” (David Perell, The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online)

I find it hard to strike the right balance between novelty and good literature. I don’t think all novelty is bad, the tricky bit is that it has a much stronger gravitational field than classics, at least for me.

Deermons

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:17:38 -0400

My deermons lurk in the shadows of these morning runs. They hear every footfall. They watch with glowing eyes, waiting for me to fall. They taunt me, “Look how far you ARE from what you COULD BE!”

I retort, “Go lie in your bed of mud, deermon! Man’s fall from his potential is well known. It is his great agony. But do not steal from my heart the great JOY that is running toward THE IMAGE I was created in! You cannot understand what it means to carry this image! Graze your grass, with your head low and your nose in the dirt. As for me, I will climb, eyes ever upward.”

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:53:55 -0400

Hot take. I like it.

“People commonly use the word “procrastination” to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what’s happening as merely not-doing-work. We don’t call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working.” (Tim Ferriss, 5-Bullet Friday — January 26, 2024)

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:54:54 -0400

“Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices.” (Maria Popova, Virginia Woolf on How to Read a Book)

I often come to books with a blurred and divided mind. But I come to the book asking it to help me un-blur and un-divide. That the slow process of reading would give me clarity and a singular focus, free from the distraction of short-form or digital media.

What choices made you who you are?

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:36:05 -0400

“A Question Cal Suggests Asking People More Often “What are some of the choices you’ve made that made you who you are?”” (Timothy Ferriss, Tools of Titans)

I’m going to give this a try. I tested it out on myself and found this question made me dig a little deeper than I normally do in conversations.

Here are some choices I’ve made that made me who I am:

following Jesus
switching from a Psychology major to Computer Science
marrying my wonderful wife
deciding to have children
committing to journaling
surrounding myself with people who keep me accountable
starting this blog
staying near family instead of moving somewhere with nicer weather or more job opportunities
getting off of Instagram/Facebook, never signing up for Twitter or TikTok
and so many more things!

It makes me think about the butterfly effect and all the different ways my life could have gone. I’m glad things happened the way they have.

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 07:47:31 -0400

It’s been taking me a long time to read through “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. I pick it up in bits and pieces on my phone. It’s hard to read partially due to the heavy concepts and partially due to the antiquated language. I’ve realized I have some pretty fundamental disagreements with Nietzche, but it’s still interesting to see how he thinks. And every now and then a particular point hits home, usually his critiques of the church.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I’ve over-optimized for comfort, so this one really resonated with me and felt convicting.

To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.

I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open; they have become SMALLER, and ever become smaller:—THE REASON THEREOF IS THEIR DOCTRINE OF HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE.

For they are moderate also in virtue,—because they want comfort. With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible.

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 12:09:26 -0400

Wow… The chance of a lifetime just fell into my LinkedIn inbox. (sarcasm)

On a serious note, anytime I get one of these scam messages, I just feel sad for the vulnerable people that fall for these. On a less serious note, I’m starting up a fund to support the victims of these scams. Please send me $100 in Amazon gift cards and your social security number if you want to support it.

Hello Jake, you have not been responding. I have a business proposal for you. I want to bring to your notice that I have worked in the gold mining sector for more than 30 years. Over these years, I have had local mining contracts across 5 countries, namely: Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Kazakhstan and New Zealand. I also worked with Keneoli Gold Mining under Glory Mining Ltd in Ghana West Africa. Am currently working with a gold company in New Zealand and my contract will expire by next year. I privately bought about 140 KG of gold from some local miners here at a cheaper price. I don’t want my company to know I own this gold because contractors are prohibited from buying gold from local miners.

So I want to present you as my partner who bought and owns the gold. All legal documentation will be in your name, then the company would ship the gold to your provided address. After you receive it then I can come over to pick it up. I’m willing to give you 20% of the total 140KG of gold. All I want from you is honesty and transparency.

If you’re okay with the proposal, then I will inform the Gold Company and introduce you to them as my partner so they can prepare all documentation in your name before shipment. All this can be done within 8-10 working days.

NOTE: This is 100% legal business. I bought the gold with my money. Am only doing it this way because as a contractor with the company I’m not permitted to buy gold from the local miners. The 140KG of gold is worth more than 7 Million USD if we sell 1KG for 50,000USD. This is unrefined 23 Karat gold with 99% purity.

If you need any further clarification, kindly let me know.

I await your response and readiness to enable us start the process immediately.