christensen143

I love word games. My day starts with Wordle and Spelling Bee. I have been looking for something to work on with AI. I have watched the videos and read the articles and used Claude to help figure out issues with another app I'm working on. I came up with Letter Lockbox [https://www.letterlockbox.com]. It started as something fun to play around with but friends and family love it so I have been adding on to it as I go. I added a Postgres database and Clerk for user management so users can save their results. I added streaks, stats, and sharing. I built out my own admin area to allow easier adding of puzzles and analytics on game play. I'm really proud of it.

Great game! I enjoyed playing. I made Genius!

Looks like it might be down. Love this idea.

I had a recruiter teach me a trick for LinkedIn that seems to be working. Turn off your "Open To Work" every couple of weeks for at least 48 hours. Then turn it back on. It shoots you back to the top of search results for recruiters. I did it when I was looking and my contacts from recruiters increased significantly every time I turned it back on. One of those recruiters got me the job I landed.

I agree with previous responders on cold applying. My experience here is twofold. As an applicant, I have landed one job by applying for it, and I believe that was a fluke. As a hiring manager, the applicant systems are jam-packed with hundreds of applicants. There isn't enough time to look through all of them, and when you do, you aren't looking closely.

I don't hate the idea of networking, and I have helped contacts get jobs. Networking has many pluses outside of the job search.

The most important thing is to keep interviewing every chance you get, even if you aren't serious about the job or the pay is too low. When I got laid off in June, my first few interviews were disasters. I was out of practice and ill-prepared. About ten interviews later, I'm poised and practiced. My elevator speech is short and on point, and I sound like I know what I'm talking about.

I created my first chrome extension! I sell a lot of stuff on eBay. It is a fun little side hustle that I have. I tend to buy items on large auction sites. When I am on those sites I like to check how much an item has sold for previously on eBay. To do this I had to copy the item's title, go to eBay, search for the item, then switch the filter to show only sold items. This was tedious. I have done some React and JavaScript dev in the past so I put that to use. I came up with this extension which sets a new item into the context menu (right-click menu). All you do is highlight text, right-click, and choose "Search eBay sold listings for" and it opens a new tab.

My favorite non-fiction book of the year was Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste" but I tried to spend some time reading some high quality fiction this year and stumbled upon Kristin Hannah's "The Four Winds." This says a lot since I read some classics this year including "Anna Karenina", "All the Light We Cannot See", and "Where the Crawdads Sing." I enjoyed "The Four Winds" the most. So beautifully written and so much emotion. I managed to read 50 books this year which was huge because I have never considered myself a "reader" but I received several books for Christmas because my family considers the "reader" of the family. For my fellow ADHD friends skip the Kindle and get the actual book. Then use your finger to read. Life-changing. Happy New Year!

I never used to be a "reader" but have built the habit through reading at least a section of a book everyday. I have had days where I rattled off 120 pages and days that I read 3 pages. With any habit it is about starting and building it.

Until about 6 weeks ago I commuted an hour one-way so I filled my two hours with podcasts. In the past weeks I haven't been as avid a listener. Regardless, I spent five years tweaking my list for my taste.

- SANS Internet Stormcast https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html

- NPR Up First https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510318/up-first

- The CyberWire https://thecyberwire.com/

- Daily Tech Headlines http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/category/headlines/

- NPR The Indicator https://www.npr.org/sections/money/567724614/the-indicator

- Casefile https://casefilepodcast.com/

- Historical Figures https://www.parcast.com/history/

- Serial Killers https://www.parcast.com/serial/