Three weeks at Natera under my belt, and it totally feels like I belong.

Shipped

Another full-speed week. I’ve moved past the bug fixes and last-minute features from the previous two weeks and started expanding into the larger ecosystem of services surrounding our application. Getting comfortable with the whole system, not just the piece I’ve been focused on. Three weeks in now, and I’m eager to meet everyone in person — the first on-site test run in San Carlos is in two weeks.

Played

The weekend started at the 40 Watt for a Camper Van Beethoven show. One of the band’s founders, David Lowery, went on to found Cracker and lives here in Athens, where he teaches at UGA as his day job. A friend and former co-worker, Bryan Howard, plays bass for them, and a chance encounter while grocery shopping led to him putting me on the guest list. Their album Key Lime Pie came out my freshman year of college and became one of those deeply affecting records that lodged itself into my identity. Seeing them live, with my friend playing bass for half the show, was sublime. I cried a little. I’ll admit it.

Another Gloomhaven session, and we won two more scenarios in the most clutch way possible. Two of our four players retired their mercenaries, so next time we play half the party will be brand new. We started the session with our third player bringing in a new mercenary to replace one she retired last session, which means I’m now the senior party member. I’ve still got a while before retirement, though, and the next session might be delayed by my upcoming travel.

The local brewery hosted a one-day renn faire, and Carol and I went. I enjoy the brewery, but their events are hit and miss. This one turned out to be fantastic — more artisans set up than I’ve seen at any of their previous events. We dressed up in low-effort garb (my expectations were low) and ended up spending a good chunk of the afternoon drinking barleywine and browsing wares.

Cooked

There is a boba place in the shopping center on our street, and our go-to item is their coffee, chocolate, and avocado smoothie. It could easily be a meal replacement, since each one contains an entire fresh avocado. For Christmas I got the house an ice cream machine with a built-in freezer — the kind where you can make ice cream any time without having to pre-freeze the container — and this week Carol had the idea of making avocado ice cream. I found a recipe that uses three whole avocados, Greek yogurt, dark chocolate, and heavy cream. We made it three times this week. It is that good.

Thinking About

The realities of travel during the TSA shutdown the current administration has orchestrated. I’ll be flying to San Carlos in two weeks, and the logistics of navigating a deliberately hobbled system add an unwelcome layer of stress to what should be straightforward.

What’s Next

Next week I transition from bug fixes and feature tweaks to preparing observability tooling for the production deployment. A big reason for us going on site is to provide quick in-person support if things go sideways, even in small ways. Being able to monitor application logs, server metrics, and performance data will be essential in helping us help them.