Writing Notes & Practice

A long-running archive of engineering notes, technical tradeoffs, and leadership reflections.

Recent Reflections (2024-Present)

Current essays on leadership, mentorship, decision-making, and building through industry change.

🚀 From Y2K Panic to AI Anxiety: Why the Future is Always Worth Building Feb 2025 leadership, mentorship
“They’re Your Legs.” Feb 2025 leadership, mentorship
The Boy Who Told the Truth Feb 2025 leadership, mentorship
A Moment of Absurdity in Stagnation Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
The Sound Above: Bridging Inspiration and Understanding in Tech Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
The Power of People, Not Just AI Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
What I Learned from Running Down a Hallway with Groupon's CEO Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
The Power of Titles: What I Misunderstood Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
The Dog Who Caught Their Tail: The Best Collaborators I've Worked With Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
Stand Up and Fight: Running the Gauntlet of Change Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
From Yossarian to Orr: Moving From Seeing the Problem to Solving It Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
Practice vs. Repetition: The Key to Real Growth Jan 2025 leadership, mentorship
What Seasoned Developers Forget About Starting Out Dec 2024 leadership, mentorship
Mentorship Starts With a Conversation Dec 2024 leadership, mentorship

Deep Technical Focus (2013-2016)

Hands-on posts centered on SQL, performance, JRuby/JVM concurrency, and implementation-level tradeoffs.

Leverage the "J" in JRuby for Powerful Concurrency Apr 2015 Ruby , JRuby , Java , Concurrency , JVM
Using Postgres RegEx Expressions to Find Very Specific Matches Feb 2015 PostgreSQL , RegEx , Ruby on Rails , SQL
Improve Case-Insensitive Queries in PostgreSQL Using Smarter Indexes Feb 2015 PostgreSQL , Indexes , SQL , Performance

Community and Platform Transition (2009-2012)

Writing from the Alt.NET and user-group years: community facilitation, platform shifts, and steady skill-building.

360 Learning at User Groups Sep 2012 Community , User Groups , Learning , Facilitating
How upgrading to Lion and performing a clean re-install of Xcode 4.3 made Homebrew cry and how to fix it. Feb 2012 homebrew , lion , os-x , xcode
Moving off Google to Google. Feb 2012 accounts , google , identity , services
Re-getting back on the bike. Jan 2012 beginnings , personal
The Lost Episode Sep 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
Interview with Jeff Hardy Sep 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
Episode 3: Interview with Brian Hogan Aug 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
Upcoming Iron Languages Podcast Episodes Aug 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
Episode 2 – Chat with Shay “IronShay” Friedman Jul 2010 community, practice
July Meeting – Node.js with Heroku to flavor Jul 2010 community, practice
Next Show: DLR, IronRuby and IronShay Jul 2010 community, practice
Minor Updates: iTunes and IronLanguages.net Jun 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
Episode I: We Have Lift-off Jun 2010 podcast , ironlanguages
RVM (Ruby Version Manager) is Neat. Jun 2010 community, practice
Getting back on the bike, or horse, whichever metaphor you prefer. Jun 2010 personal
Chicago Code Camp 2 Apr 2010 chicagocodecamp , events
START making DOS follow your CMD Mar 2010 craftsmanship , tool-mastery
Mixed Emotions Feb 2010 community, practice
Henryka Zalewski — 1952-08-10 to 2010-02-06 Feb 2010 community, practice
Tags vs Categories in WordPress Feb 2010 i-don-t-like-categories , tags-are-better
February Challenge: Very Improved Developer Feb 2010 challenge , vim
Biting Off (Almost) More Than You Can Chew. Feb 2010 done
McHenry Cloud Developer’s Group February Meeting Jan 2010 azure , cloud , cloud-developer-s-group , user-group
What comes after Alt.NET? Jan 2010 not-net
Presented “Building .NET w/Ruby” at LCNUG Jan 2010 albacore , lcnug , rake , ruby , speaking
Pair Programming Jan 2010 community, practice
IronRuby at Obtiva’s Geekfest Jan 2010 geekfest , ironruby , obtiva , presentation
MVC Song Jan 2010 fun , learning , mvc , song
Quantity Over Quality. Jan 2010 community, practice
Career and Family. Also Known As “This Here’s For Reals, Yo.” Jan 2010 career , family , personal
Why We Need Installers for IronRuby and IronPython Jan 2010 installers , ironpython , ironruby
Roundup of Cool IronRuby Stuff. Jan 2010 fun , ironruby , rails , ruby
IronRuby: Tell Me. What Do You See Here? Jan 2010 ironruby , rspec
Chicago Code Camp 2 Jan 2010 community, practice
Playing with HttpModules, HttpResponse.Filters and Streams in .NET Jan 2010 asp-net , c , csharp , css , html , http , stream
What’s with All These Roles? Jan 2010 community, practice
January McHenry Cloud Developer’s Group Meeting. Jan 2010 community, practice
Coding Architects != Senior Developer Jan 2010 opinion , thoughts
[UPDATED] StructureMap Question, Always Returning the Last Registry in the List Jan 2010 net , asp-net-mvc , c
Building .NET with Ruby Jan 2010 continuous-integration
Skinning your ASP.NET MVC Application Based On Your Sub-domain. Jan 2010 asp-net-mvc
A Month of Blog Dec 2009 blogging , personal , challenge , writing
McHenry Cloud Developer’s Group: First Meeting in Review Dec 2009 cloud , community , networking , user-group , google-app-engine , azure , amazon , mchenry , illinois , cloud-developer-s-group
Clean AOP using Post# Multicast Syntax. Dec 2009 aop , net , aspect , aspect-oriented-programming , c , csharp , post , postsharp
Is IT Culpable in the Decline of the United States? Dec 2009 professional , thoughts , industry
The Trouble with Titles Dec 2009 thoughts , career , titles
The Poor Developer’s Object DataStore: Iteration 000 Dec 2009 net , alt-net , database , c , dotnet , oodbms , xquery , xpath , serialization , mssql , object-database , objects , csharp , rdbms , relational-database , xml-sql-server , linq , linq-to-sql , linq-to-xml , l2s
String Formatting In JavaScript Nov 2009 javascript , code
Iowa Code Camp Nov 2009 community, practice
How Can Chicagoland Microsoft Developers Improve Their Community? Jun 2009 chicago , code-camp , coder-to-developer , community , conferences , conventions , developer , microsoft , networking , speaking , user-groups
Terrible Icons in High Resolution Mode in RDP/MSTSC May 2009 annoyances , mstsc , notes-to-self , rdp
Terminal Services Goes Wonky May 2009 mstsc , note-to-self , pita , rdp
Integrate Beyond Compare 3 Into Your TortoiseSVN Merge Process (or Any Other Client) May 2009 merge , notes-to-self , tortoisesvn
It’s like an Ice Pick in my Brain (disable the system beep on a VM) May 2009 note-to-self , vm
Set “Classic Search” as Default Search Engine Over Desktop Search in XP/2003 May 2009 note-to-self , tech , wds , ws2k3 , xp
Make Your Code Pretty On WordPress.com With SyntaxHighlighter. May 2009 community, practice
Using Twitter as a Simplified Message Distribution Platform (aka using Twitter how it was designed). Mar 2009 rest , c , fun , idea , patterns
Rockford .NET User Group Meeting Recap Mar 2009 alt-net , coder-to-developer , javascript , self-improvement
Does My Android Dream of Electric Sheep? Mar 2009 android , tech
Rant on building strings in C# Mar 2009 c
Chicagoland Software Developer User Groups Mar 2009 alt-net , chicago , coder-to-developer , meetup , networking , professional , self-improvement , software-architect , user-groups
ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released! Mar 2009 asp-net-mvc
SonicFileFinder should be in *every* visual studio developers toolbox. Mar 2009 visual-studio
OODBMS vs. RDBMS Mar 2009 c
ChicagoAlt.NET March Meeting Recap Mar 2009 alt-net , chicago
db40 on shared hosting love Mar 2009 c

Early Field Notes (2006-2008)

Short-form experiments and notes-to-self from early-career practice. These are intentionally preserved as snapshots of where my thinking was at the time.

MSDN Developer Conference Nov 2008 early-career-notes, practice-log
Coffee, Donuts and Asynchronous Message Handling Aug 2008 early-career-notes, practice-log
Video From Chicago ALT.NET Meeting Aug 2008 alt-net , chicago , coder-to-developer , meetup , professional , self-improvement , continuous-integration , cruise
Red Gate Assuming Responsibility For .NET Reflector’s Future Aug 2008 non-microsoft , red-gate , tools , utilities , net
Repetition Does Not a Satriani Make. Aug 2008 coder-to-developer , professional , self-improvement
Upcoming Chicago Architects Group Meeting On August 21st. Aug 2008 chicago , coder-to-developer , meetup , networking , professional , self-improvement , social-networking , software-architect
Chicago ALT.NET Meeting August 13th Meeting Review Aug 2008 alt-net , chicago , coder-to-developer , continuous-integration , java , networking , non-microsoft , professional , self-improvement , social-networking
VladStudio: Excellent Desktop Wallpaper Resource Aug 2008 art , fun , utilities , wallpaper
Upcoming Chicago ALT.NET Meeting On August 13th. Aug 2008 alt-net , chicago , coder-to-developer , meetup , professional , self-improvement , self-imp
Putting the “twit” in Twitter. Aug 2008 social-networking , web-x-0
In other words, violence is the answer. Aug 2008 coder-to-developer , professional , self-improvement
Cool Tool: “Quick Sequence Diagram Editor” Jul 2008 java , non-microsoft , sequence-diagram , tutorial , uml
Moved to another hosting provider. May 2008 early-career-notes, practice-log
Brain Mapping Mar 2008 early-career-notes, practice-log
Good Documentation Aug 2007 documentation
Will My Software Project Fail? Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
String formatting tips for C# Jul 2007 net , c , formatting , strings
BizTalk 2004 Links Jul 2007 biztalk , tdd , unit-testing
VS.Net: Trim EOL White Space Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Shared Server Etiquette Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
TextPad Regular Expressions: Replace Leading Whitespace with ' ' Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
TDD? You've got to be kidding me? Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
If yer code ain't tested, the waterfallists win. Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Know what's cool? Blogging from your installer is cool. Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Save money on Microsoft tools and systems. Jul 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Tsst. Jun 2007 agile , crazy-talk , development , just-kidding , process , sarcasm
Heroic Developer, the Saga Continues. Jun 2007 anti-process , clumsy , development , process
Clumsy Development Jun 2007 agile , development , process
Programmers Bill of Rights Jun 2007 coding , development , professional
Heroic Developer Jun 2007 coding , development , just-kidding , process , professional , sarcasm
GWDD Jun 2007 code , development , process
Automated code formatting tools Jun 2007 code , tools
The Play Jun 2007 dunno
Polish PM stands up to Germany Jun 2007 eu , poland
How would you unit test this? Jun 2007 just-kidding
wut it looks liek May 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
[Linky] HOW TO: Debug into a .NET XmlSerializer Generated Assembly May 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
From hard-sell to conversation May 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
JavaScript String.format() method. Apr 2007 javascript , code
The Landlord Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
WoW Summer Hiatus Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Recommended Tool: CopySourceAsHtml Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Whenever you think you have the toughest, nastiest and unpleasant job ever then you may need to watch a show that my wife and I have been enjoying for a while now that I think will put those thoughts to rest permanently. Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Okay, a film, albeit highly-stylized, about an actual historical event is "moronic", a "sword'n'sandals" "dumb audience-friendly" romp. Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Look what we can do on only a $2000.00* budget! Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
Being stupid has never been so funny. Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
SchemaInSight Apr 2007 early-career-notes, practice-log
NStun Nov 2006 early-career-notes, practice-log
NAT Nov 2006 early-career-notes, practice-log