An Astro site for my CSS Snippets / / No Comments As I think I’ve mentioned a few times already, I’m learning Astro and attempting to build random stuff with it just as an excuse to help practice and learn. With that in mind, during the Christmas break and between marathon sessions of Baldur’s Gate 3, I built a little site I thought I’d share here on the blog. To be clear, this is nothing special, and doesn’t come close to using all of the possible Astro features of course, but it was a useful coding exercise for myself and fun to build. The web platform as a whole has gotten dramatically better over the past decade, and CSS improvements are a big part of that. There is a huge amount of new CSS features I’m... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Astro, Site, Snippets
The Virtual Fireworks Show / / No Comments I couldn’t get tickets for London’s very popular New Year’s Eve fireworks display, so I had to make my own virtual version.My 3D Fireworks Map displays colorful bursts of fireworks exploding above the City of London. The map starts by loading real-world buildings from the Global Building Atlas, a massive dataset of city structures from around the world.The real magic happens with the fireworks. Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: fireworks, show, Virtual
Car Parks or Play Parks? / / No Comments How much of Berlin is designed for cars – and how much for children and nature?Hans Hack has released an interactive map that offers a clear view of how urban space is allocated in Berlin. The tool compares the amount of urban space taken up by parking lots with that devoted to children’s playgrounds and other green spaces across Germany’s capital.By centering the map on any point in the city,& Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: parks, Play
year plus plus… / / No Comments Welcome to my yearly "roundup" where I look back at my wins, accomplishments, and just about everything I did over the past year. As I always say, I assume no one really cares about this, but I like to take stock and honestly just remind myself of what I actually did. The years go by faster the older I get, but I swear they also feel longer as well. Of course, this year has been incredibly tough and that could account for that as well. Honestly, I don’t feel like rehashing the bad stuff. If you read this blog on the regular, yall already know what I went through, and as I’m ending the year on a high note, I’m going to focus on that. I love my new job, I’m relatively... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: plus, year
Tracking Santa for Christmas / / No Comments 🎅 Santa’s Big Adventure: Follow Him Around the World! 🌍It’s Christmas Eve – the most magical night of the year – and guess what? Santa is already zooming around the world, delivering gifts to kids just like YOU! 🎁 This year, why not join in the fun by following Santa’s incredible journey around the world? 🎄✨ 🦌 NORAD Santa Tracker: Powered by Rudolph’s NoseDo you know how NORAD tracks Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Christmas, Santa, Tracking
How Christmas Lights Up America / / No Comments According to NASA, Christmas lights up the winter. Using nighttime satellite imagery of American cities, NASA discovered that nighttime lights in American cities shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during the Christmas season than at other times of the year. In Even from Space, Holidays Shine Brightly NASA explains that nighttime lights start getting brighter on the day after Thanksgiving. You Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: America, Christmas, lights
My Tech Stack (2025) / / No Comments Every now and then I like to share my current tech stack, not that I think I’m doing anything special in my day to day, but I know I enjoy reading about other devs and their stacks as it’s a great way to get introduced to tools I may want to adopt myself. As far as I can tell, the last time I did this was back in 2020 and things have certainly changed for me. So without further ado, here’s what I’m using. Operating System – OSX I’m back to Mac. To be honest, this was part frustration and part practicality. I’ve been on Windows for maybe 7 or 8 years now and generally happy with it. I usually did most of my work in WSL (Ubuntu) and as most of what I did... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 2025, Stack, Tech
Using Chrome AI for Color Suggestions / / No Comments Today’s blog post came to me on the way to dropping of my kids at school and made complete sense to me, but I’ve also got the flu and am heavily medicated, so take that for what you will. The idea was simple, given a description of something in the real world, could I use AI to generate RGB colors that would represent that abstract idea. I thought this could be a good use of Chrome’s built-in AI model and decided to whip up a quick demo. The front end is pretty simple, just a form for you to enter your description and a place for the results: <h2>Description to Color</h2> <p> In the form field below, describe the color you are trying to recreate and Chrome... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Chrome, Color, Suggestions, using