Dev Life, Music & More!

March 29, 2020

Hi there, and welcome to my blog!

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, I am fortunate enough to be working from home. The lack of a commute is providing me with a bit more free time. My personal website needed an upgrade, so I figured I'd throw one together with a blog as well. Stay tuned for more interesting things to come!

What to expect from this blog:

I am a software developer and a musician, so I will likely talk about my work in either area. You can expect tips and tutorials, comments on professional development, and just general comments on my interests and what I'm up to.

Software Development

I'm language/methodology-agnostic, but I spend a lot of time working with JavaScript and I love working on agile teams. I graduated from DePaul University at the tail-end of 2019 and am currently working on a grant-funded dataviz project, doing some GIS work with D3.js. I'm very excited to be moving forward in my career as a developer and am eager to find ways to grow professionally.

Music

I love playing guitar, bass, and synths and I'm obsessed with guitar pedals and effects. I spend most of my time working in Ableton or running direct otherwise, but there's little I love more than a huge wall of daisy chained guitar amps. I mostly make music for fun, but I am available for hire if you like what you hear! I'm happy to contribute music to video games, films, and other forms of digital & interactive media. I am hugely influenced by artists like Brian Eno, Angelo Badalamenti, Kate Bush, the Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, and Tycho, just to name a few.

Given the fact that so many of us are under quarantine and shelter-in-place orders at this time, I just want to say that my heart goes out to all of the people showing up for work day after day in the essential roles that keep our society running -- doctors and other medical professionals, folks in logistics, store clerks, and janitors among others. They are putting their lives on the line to help us get through this. On your next run for supplies, please be sure to thank the folks stocking the shelves!

Take care of yourselves, your families, and your communities. We will get through this.

🔍

US Energy History Visualization

December 22, 2020

My first major project release was covered by the Atlantic! Learn how my colleagues and I prove that past energy transitions can be used to inform policy decisions and change the course of energy history.

Using Git Bash Aliases to Automate Your Windows Development Environment

April 3, 2020

Learn how to use git bash aliases to open your project in VS Code, run your server, and open an incognito window in Google Chrome with just a few keystrokes.

2019

🔗 US Energy Infrastructure Visualization

http://us.infrastructure.rdcep.org

June 30, 2019

A JavaScript-based data visualization documenting energy infrastructure in the united states.

Since July 2019, I have been helping develop a data visualization that documents all long-lived infrastructure (> 20 years service life) associated with extracting, processing, transporting, and using energy in the U.S.

This grant-funded project is a partnership between the University of Chicago, DePaul University, the Center for Robust Decision-making on Climate and Energy Policy, and the National Science Foundation. The application is a visual companion to a paper describing the resource inventory in preparation for submission to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While we are engaged in a national discourse on the merit and practicality of large scale energy transitions, this project informs a relevant, data-driven approach to investigating the details. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the research coming out of RDCEP. We will release our work as an open source project when we hand it off to the NSF, and I strive to keep the codebase easily scalable and maintainable for future developers. We are using vanilla JavaScript and D3.js on the client, and the application has a Python/Flask back-end.

🔗 Synthesizer Memes w/ GIPHY API

https://giphy-synths.surge.sh

February 28, 2019

A progressive web app that makes calls to the GIPHY API.

I built this with GatsbyJS and Node.js in the Spring of 2019 when I took an undergrad course on client-side JavaScript frameworks. During this course, I learned the fundamentals of making API calls and was first exposed to the node ecosystem. The app automatically loads and displays the latest GIFs tagged "synthesizer" at giphy.com.

You can download the app to your desktop or mobile device and use it offline. In Chrome, click the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the browser, and select "Install the Latest Synthesizer Memes." In Safari on iOS, tap the share icon and select "Add to Home Screen."

Design Principles Scavenger Hunt - Comparing the Design of Hardware & Software Synthesizers

January 31, 2019

In February of 2019, I took a course surveying Human Computer Interaction and User Experience design where I spent some time studying the fundamentals of Interaction Design (IxD). I made a presentation on the basic design principles of discoverability, affordance, signifiers, mapping, feedback, and constraint. This activity allowed me to apply my understanding of Don Norman’s design principles to the domain of music gear, one of my lifelong passions. In addition to demonstrating my knowledge of foundational design principles, this project highlights my strengths in written communication and my knowledge of hardware and software synthesizers.

2018

🔗 Chakra Advisors Website Upgrade

https://chakradvisors.com

December 31, 2018

My first experience working with an Agile team and a remote client.

During the first half of 2019, I worked as a developer & project lead with an Agile team of 5 to deliver a secure and stable Drupal 8 website to a remote financial services client located in the San Francisco Bay Area. This was a student volunteer effort to complete my senior capstone project at DePaul University. We rebuilt our client's existing Drupal 7 website from the ground up in a shared, cloud-based Linux development server, and the final deliverable can be seen live on the Chakra Advisors website.

I led the scrum team through one-week sprint cycles, facilitating all Agile ceremonies and guiding us through each milestone. Halfway through the project we found that a Kanban workflow was better suited to the needs of the project since the client's requirements were very clear. We developed a hybrid approach that allowed us to streamline our development process. I facilitated our Slack channel and kept it well-organized so that the team could communicate clearly and frequently, and I learned a lot about the importance of open and honest communication in an Agile development environment.