This week turned out to include a nice mix of work projects, local events, and some quality time experimenting with new tools. The weather has been all over the place though… enjoyably cool early in the week, then warming back up to obnoxious for September by Thursday.
Monday was a pretty standard day in the office. After work (and dinner), I decided to experiment with having Claude help me write a status update for my blog (not because I needed help, more because I was curious to see what it would do). I ultimately wasted way more time than it was probably worth, but it was interesting to see what an LLM thought a status update should look like, vs what I would normally post.
Speaking of my status update… it was actually about the weather. 😬 The weather was perfect Monday evening for a longer walk through the neighborhood, and I wanted to remember that when perusing my website in the future.
This week turned out to be an interesting mix of holiday productivity, server upgrades, good food, and diving deeper into some AI tools (a phrase I never thought I’d write).
Since Monday was Labor Day here in the US, I had the day off, and spent it doing some small personal projects around the house, plus working on another work-related project that I’ve not had time for in the office (see the next point - and yes, I know it was a holiday, but it was a project that I both needed to spend time with and that I was enjoying experimenting on). Nothing too exciting, but it felt good to catch up on things I’d been putting off.
While I’m not going to go into detail on the work project, I did find it as an interesting excuse to attempt some “vibe coding” on a little one-off Java app to manipulate Excel files (reformatting columns, adding new data fields, combining data from other files into a final export, etc). I got the first part working with Apache POI, though I still need to finish the combination logic. I do appreciate how quickly I was able to get to a functional solution, and the code is readable/modifiable, but I’m not entirely sure how comfortable I am with the overall vibe-coding concept. It still feels potentially perilous to me.
It’s been another week already? Well, I guess that means it’s time for another blog post!
Monday was fairly routine – nothing particularly noteworthy to report. Just the typical start-of-week meetings and catching up on projects.
However, Tuesday brought a fun change of pace as I headed down to the Farm Progress Show in Decatur with some coworkers. For those not familiar, it’s the nation’s largest outdoor agricultural event, and this year marked its 20th anniversary at the permanent Decatur site. The scale of the show is always impressive, and it’s fascinating to see all the latest innovations in farming technology, both from our company and competitors.
This week was mostly back to my normal routine, with a few bright spots that made it memorable.
Monday started off on a high note when one of my coworkers brought in homemade blueberry pie to celebrate a team member’s birthday. There’s something about unexpected office treats that just makes the whole day better – and this pie was no exception!
After a week away, this week it was back to the office, and a semi-normal schedule. Well… okay, half-normal. I had a coworker from Fargo visiting this week, which meant a few extra meetings, and a few extra meals out!
Monday was pretty standard, preparing for the week ahead and catching up on a few things I’d missed while out.
Tuesday we had multiple vendors meeting in for meetings, so I was barely at my desk all day. In the evening we took our coworker out to La Fiesta for dinner and drinks.
The past week was both more and less eventful than normal. How’s that possible, you ask? Let me explain…
Sunday afternoon I packed up and drove to visit family for the week, doing a remote work/vacation hybrid.
Monday through Friday I spent working during the morning/afternoon, with lunches and dinners with family.
Monday evening my mom, sister, and I baked pizzas for the family, and experimented with a few different flavors. The traditional/meat lover’s was my favorite, but everything turned out well.
I promise I’m not a food blogger, nor am I aspiring to be one, but I like to take photos of tasty food when I’m out, and I was out to eat with coworkers a few times this week, and so… this week’s update is going to include some food photos. 😂
Monday was overall a pretty normal day, not much to report.
Tuesday through Friday I had a coworker from Sunnyvale in town, for some internal meetings on tool consolidation and workflows. This meant a) a lot of our time was taken up in meetings, and b) you guessed it, some food!
Tuesday evening a local coworker and I took our Sunnyvale counterpart out to eat at The 208 House, one of my local favorites. After a long series of discussions during the day, it was great to relax and talk shop without as much pressure to settle on anything specific.
