Weeknotes 2025W41

To continue learning Office scripts, I wrote another one since it was a slow work week. At any given time, there are about ten different accelerated tests going on where ink sits in the oven for two weeks at a time to see how stable it is. Usually, what samples need to come out and when is tracked via invites to an Outlook calendar. When I started, the previous technician had to forward all of those invites to me and I couldn’t edit them because I wasn’t the original owner. Some were probably missed, too.

To solve this, I made a central database (Excel file) that is much more portable. I wrote a script that runs every morning that checks if a sample needs pulled out of the oven today and sends me an email if so. Lots of fun to write, makes my life more organized, and it’s a sustainable solution that will help the chemist and next technician in the future as well.

In more professional news, I applied to a job and got invited to interview early next week. I am extremely excited about the opportunity and it seems like a perfect fit. I’ve been doing everything I can to transition back to an engineering role and I hope it finally pays off.

On my website this week, I added a color picker that lets users “paint” blocks on my website. It’s not particularly useful but it is fun and whimsical. I’ve been brainstorming little widgets to add to my website to make it a bit more delightful. It’s also a great excuse to learn Svelte—it’s a blast to write in and really easy to integrate into my existing Astro site. Click the button at the bottom, choose a color, then click any block to apply that color to it.

The Ducks played on Saturday and we were invited to a tailgate function. I never really took sports seriously when I was in college (didn’t go to a single game) and mostly focused on studying. Some people take college football quite seriously and it’s fun to watch.

Weeknotes 2025W41

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