Comments Systems and Covid-19 https://dsriseah.com/journal/2026/0123/ --- Sri flops on Recurse Center, gets COVID the day after, and tries to make up with lots of good curry. Finally added COMMENTS to my Eleventy site too!

Groundhog Day Resolutions Postmortem Day! https://dsriseah.com/journal/2026/0113/ --- I'm starting my yearly planning on January 13 in preparation for Groundhog Day Resolutions! Maybe others are interested in joining in?

Updates to DS|CAFE Onboarding! https://dsriseah.com/journal/2026/0109/ --- The DS|CAFE Discord Server now uses the native "Community Server" onboarding system, which required a massive conversion effort of all documentation. I'm pleased with how it came out.

2026 Blogging Schedule: First Post! https://dsriseah.com/journal/2026/0106/ --- For 2026, Sri will be posting new blog posts on Tuesday and Fridays! This is the first simple post to just get the conversation rolling.

Last Groundhog Day Resolutions Report of 2025! A strong finish! dsriseah.com/ghdr/2025/12...

BUILD 30/30: Freelance Services First Draft https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1205/ --- The final MONTH OF BUILDING CHALLENGE post is a first draft of a freelance services page. I'll post a summary of all 30 days on December 12.

BUILD 29/30: ETP 365 Day Journal Updated for 2026 https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1204/ --- I updated my PDF tool to generate the 365-page ETP Journal. Free for supporters on Patreon, $10 otherwise.

BUILD 28/30: Mini ETP Notebooks available on Amazon https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1203/ --- The Mini Emergent Task Planner notebooks (5.8 x 8.5 inch) have appeared on my Amazon listing, whew. That kicks off other e-commerce related activities!

Skip Week! Thanksgiving Staycation https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1126/ --- The holiday season is here! Taking a week-long break to let my relax by not having to make something every day.

BUILD 27/30: Short Productive Sprint Day https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1125/ --- I used athering-style productivity today, as deep work wasn't possible while waiting for a phone call from my mechanic.

BUILD 26/30: Experimental Collaboration https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1124/ --- We are doing a "Freelancer Coworking" experiment in the DS|CAFE Discord server for a week. Will it give isolated freelancers a sense of support?

BUILD 25/30: Personal Cards Revisited https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1120/ --- A quickie "personal card" design will give me something to hand out to people I meet. It emphasizes personal warmth on the front, and data on the back.

BUILD 24/30: Mini ETP Production Update! https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1119/ ---

BUILD 23/30: Alpha Word Counting Calendar! https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1118/ --- Today's sharepiece is the minimum viable prototype for the Word Counting Calendar. Grab the November and December 2025 prototypes.

Skip Day 03! A Restorative Visit to the North Shore https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1117/ --- Skip Day! I tagged along with my buddy Sid to visit The Brickyard Collaborative, a makerspace in Lynn. Roast beefs were also had!

BUILD 22/30: Calendar Labeling and Space Filling https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1114/ --- Added new layout elements to the Word Counting Calendar code generator. It's coming along! Still need to implement variable data and conditional layout.

I tried Arc Raider’s solo queue for the first time today, and it was super chill. PVPers didn’t shoot me on sight. In fact, players were generally helpful; reminded me a lot of chill times helping each other with fetch quests in 2004 WoW.

BUILD 21/30: Correct Calendar Layout Progress https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1113/ --- Today's sharepiece is progress rendering calendar cells for each month in the right places. Still missing the Word Counting Calendar data! That's next!

BUILD 20/30: A Mythical Magical Adventure Cat Primer https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1112/ --- I used the new Affinity App to make a one-page primer about "magical adventure cats"; they are a narrative device I use for personal development.

BUILD 19/30: Calendar Day Drawing Progress https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1110/ --- Progress on drawing the Word Counting Calendar programmatically from parameter data. Getting closer!

Skip Day 02! Minimum Progress Despite Nausea https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1107/ --- Another skip day, but I managed to add janky word count labels to the PDF renderer then passed out. Bonus thoughts on momentum and loving the journey.

BUILD 18/30: Programatic Drawing of Word Counting Calendar Blocks https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1106/ --- Today's progress on the 30 Day Build Challenge is using code to draw a "Pyramid Block" for the Word Counting Calendar! Getting closer!

BUILD 17/30: A PDF-LIB Reference https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1105/ --- Today's sharepiece is the start of a PDF-LIB API cheatsheet. Info is reorganized into functional groups instead of a useless alphabetical listing.

Skip Day Blog Post! Doctor Visits and Voting https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1104/ --- A daytrip to Concord, followed by voting in the midterms and a reward meal. No energy left, so I'm declaring today a SKIP DAY of blogging instead of building.

BUILD 16/30: Articulating Friendship https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1103/ --- I wrote a working definition of friendship, as I understand it, after being inspired by K-Pop Demon Hunters this weekend.

BUILD 15/30: Super Simple PDF Progress https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1031/ --- I'm not feeling well today, so I just ported the minimum PDF page generation code to refamiliarize myself with pdf-lib. Notes follow.

BUILD 14/30: Calendar Layout Code Progress https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1030/ --- Working on the Word Counting Calendar layout code. Slow going! I share the drawing code parameterization process.

Build 13/30: Word Counting Calendar Interim Release https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1029/ --- I posted the interim Word Counting Calendar for November so writers had something to use while I get my software moving. It's going slowly.

Still making Word Counting Calendars for Novel Writing Months! davidseah.com/node/nanowri...

Build 12/30: Word Counting Calendar Reboot https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1028/ --- The old NaNoWriMo org is dead, but there's still demand for Word Counting Calendars! I made a placeholder pdf, and will write software to generate them for the rest of this week.

Build 11/30: Unprofessional Business Cards https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1027/ --- Rather than make a business card with my title and areas of expertise, I wanted something that conveyed what interactions I warm up to.

Build 10/30: A Silly Pass at Logo Design https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1024/ --- An logo design experiment for farmer's market vendor who needs a business card. We start with some associative questions, and look for the silly parts.

Build 09/30: ETP Mini Notebook Printing Press Tour https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1023/ --- I check on the progress of The ETP 5885 Mini Notebook at the local commercial printer that makes them. This production run will be the last on Amazon Marketplace.

Build 08/30: Activity Bingo Form Progress (part 2) https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1022/ --- I took the last revision of the "activity bingo board" and adjusted it to fit within A4 width, then normalized type sizes and dimensions. I also added C-rank quests.

Build 07/30: Restart ETP Notebooks Production https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1021/ --- I have the final run of 1000 ETP Mini Notebooks in production, but the front cover insert needed name and link updates. Tried Affinity Designer for press-ready work for the first time.

Build 06/30: Workshopping the 'Activity Bingo' Form (part 1) https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1020/ --- I'm focusing on creating new design work this week, testing Affinity Design as a replacement for Adobe Illustrator. In Part 1, I work through what an "Activity Bingo [...]

Build 05/30: Productivity Energy Crash Day https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1017/ --- Today's sharepiece details an unexpected energy crash after four good days of productivity. Was it ADHD? Lack of sleep? Or did I just overdo it?

Build 04/30: Eleventy Templates for Atom Feeds https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1016/ --- I wanted my autoposts to Mastodon and Bluesky to have a single image, not all the images. Today's sharepiece is the Eleventy code I hacked up with a nice XSL stylesheet.

Build 03/30: Reviewing Old Work and Stories https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1015/ --- Restarting my design business means new business cards and a logo. I have a good idea what's important to me NOW, but it's very different from my PAST identity work. I review old work to look [...]

Day 3 of a push to reboot my design practice by making crap! I’m going to shift from voice to visual design today. After fixing stupid encoding issues in my site feed output.

Build 02/30: TypeScript Mini Apps in Eleventy https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1014/ --- I added "mini web app" functionality for my Eleventy template pages. I can create individual Typescript source files inside a project directory that works with live-reloading.

Build 01/30: A Web App Template https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1013/ --- I'm starting a 30 Day Building Challenge to build and share something every day to help get my design business restarted. I'm not exactly sure what the business will look like, but today's exploration [...]

Making Operational Diagrams for Motivation https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1006/ --- This month I have been rebooting my 2010-era design practice, and there's many moving parts. I've been making a set of maps to help me visualize tasks with my current understanding of The Sri [...]

Bad Habits that Undermine My Productivity https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0930/ --- I have been feeling icky and lethargic for weeks, and finally realized it might be based on my eating habits. Here's what I've been doing to test whether this is true. ⊕caption A gooey [...]

A Bingo Board for Task Focusing https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0922/ --- I have created an Activity Bingo Board to accompany the Master Planning Collage from last month's GHDR Progress Report. The board is intended to serve as visual reminder of what kind of stuff I ought to [...]

Sharepiece 5/5: Resume Layout Hacks https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0919/ --- ⊕caption I hated every minute of using these programs, but it's possible to use these in a pinch. But really, you probably should use Canva or something newer. Today's sharepiece is an [...]

Sharepiece 4/5: Emergent Task Timer for Lawyers https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0918/ --- Today's sharepiece is a refresh of the 6-minute increment version of the Emergent Task Timer which helps see where your time is going throughout the day. It was mentioned by Chris [...]

Sharepiece 3/5: Making a Clonk Sound https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0917/ --- Today I tried to export a sound from Reason 12 . I have no idea how to create music with it, nor how to use its many synthesis and filtering modules. I had previously only used it to record podcasts [...]

Sharepiece 2/5: Resizing a Crab https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0916/ --- There is an animated pixel crab I'm very fond of and would like to use as a Discord Emoji, but it's too small. Here are my notes using GIMP for the first time in years to try resizing it.

Daily Sharepiece 1/5: Trying to Draw Cats https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/0915/ --- We've started a trial "5 Day Sharepiece Challenge" in the DSCAFE Discord, where I and others are posting "something small yet tangible" we made. The idea behind this is to [...]