Happy New Year! The Internet says this is the time of year to reflect and to plan. And I have. Listed here are not New Year’s resolutions nor 2020 goals but an inventory of what's on my mind heading into the new year. Here is my 2019 annual review (h/t to the Full Focus Planner … Continue reading 2019 Review
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Welcome
I am the co-founder of Synap Software, an Elixir Phoenix and Ruby on Rails consultancy and software company. I am a Christian and church member, family man, certified diver, private pilot, hiker, reader, and productivity junky. I have a Masters of Applied Science in CS from the University of Denver and a business degree from Illinois Wesleyan University. I am @smeade on Twitter and am not on Facebook.

Volunteer at vlnteer.com
We finished! After 48 hours of design and programming (with plenty of breaks for sleep, Rachel's soccer game, and general visiting), may we introduce vlnteer.com.

Rails Rumble 2013: “Phaser Beam” Wireframing
Low-Fidelity Pencil Wireframes Wireframing is a common and time-tested tool to hash out app details. While working through our “team Phaser Beam” app idea we have found wireframing to be useful. Yet for hackathon efforts such as Rails Rumble, this planning step is often...

Halloween!
Karen started us off with a Halloween breakfast! Rachel and a friend chose their costumes together. After sitting out last year, Jonathan did go trick-or-treating this year with other kids in his class [...]

Eugene Kim’s Eagle Ceremony
Today, we attended Eugene Kim’s Eagle ceremony at Cherokee Ranch. Jonathan was Eugene’s “Project Buddy” or PB on the project. Eugene’s project was to plan, build, transport, and install benches [...]
Weeknotes
Saw the idea of weeknotes mentioned in Hacker News and thought it sounds like a great idea. Small weekly journal entries might be good balance between lofty expectations of something interesting to say daily and the desire to keep a history of my life. A weeknote calculator. A couple corporate examples: http://berglondon.com/blog/tag/weeknotes/ http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/categories/weeknote
The Ember.js Todos Demo Application: app.js Part 2
The previous post walked through most of app.js. In this post we look at the remaining pieces of this core code. Extend Ember.TextField Control Ember provides hooks into common html controls, including buttons, check boxes, text fields, select lists, and text areas. The Todos app has one text field. This control binds to the insertNewLine function. insertNewLine … Continue reading The Ember.js Todos Demo Application: app.js Part 2
NOLS Wilderness First Aid
Today I took day one of a two-day NOLS Wilderness First Aid course at the REI Denver Flagship Store. Today we learned:* "Wilderness" (as opposed to urban) is defined in relation to "Time". How much time will it take for professional medical help to arrive? In an urban environment, minutes. In a wilderness environment, hours.* … Continue reading NOLS Wilderness First Aid
Chains
Inspired by Chris Strom, I've decided to create a new chain. "Don't break the chain" is based on the idea that consistent, repeated effort brings a successful outcome. Each day you complete the task, you mark it. After a while you've got a consecutive series of marks which form a chain. As the chain gets … Continue reading Chains