Weeknotes 36 - 2026

The best thing that happened this week

Since I made CalAction free to use the number of daily downloads has tripled which just goes to show that 1. there's demand for an app like this and 2. that people actively despise the in-app purchase label. I'll be honest and say that I was not expecting this increase in downloads at all. But it's a very nice surprise and it makes me really happy to see people get value out of something I made. The fact that now more people have access to CalAction gives me way more satisfaction than the amount of money I was making off the in-app purchase. I think this is a good reminder that sometimes it's not about trying to make a buck, but about making something that's truly useful and valuable to people. And if it reflects well on me as a person, then that's a nice bonus.

At work it's been kind of busy as due to circumstances I had to take on a few extra responsibilities. I didn't really look forward to it, especially the IT support part, but I turned it around and made it into a personal challenge to see how fast I could clear the queue. And I did! The entire IT support queue is now empty and all my colleagues are happy with the support I could provide. Next week I can get back to engineering and setting out Q4-Q1 goals for my team. It's going to be another busy quarter with Black Friday coming up and I'm super excited to see what we can achieve as a team this time around.

Playing

I'm back to being absolutely obsessed with Risk of Rain 2. I played it a lot in the past but I never really stuck with it. But now, for some reason, I can't get enough of it. Earlier I shared some of my forever games and that list shows I love a game that's easy to get into, but difficult to master. Risk of Rain 2 is exactly that. The utter chaos that ensues when you finally get a good run is like nothing else. I'm now trying to get as far as I can in Simulacrum which is a wave-based mode that gets progressively harder. Last time I tripped a mine at wave 58 because I couldn't see a single thing of what was going on. Just awesome.

Listening

This song by tig3r lewis is currently on repeat. As is a new song by Josh Rouse.

Random things

• I've been working on a small side-quest called Maandplanner which is a simple web app that helps you plan the month for your kid(s). Our daughter has a lot of anxiety around not knowing what the next day or week will look like and this helps with building a visual calendar we can hang on the wall. It's still in early development and I have a lot of tweaks to the icon set to make but the core functionality is there. Give it a try and let me know what you think. (Disclaimer: yes, AI was used in the development of this. I just wanted to solve an issue quickly. I couldn't have done a better job in such a short amount of time myself.)
• I didn't get a ton of running in this week because of that horrible wind. No point in doing the workouts I was planning to do because every zone 2 run will turn into a difficult zone 3-4 run. But I got out there and did a few runs just to keep the motor running.

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