February Postmortem
It’s laughable how I thought there was a weather whiplash in early February. Having lived through Snovid 2021, I now know what weather whiplash is.
- No power for more than 24 hours (just 36 hours in our case)
- No water for more than 24 hours (just 48 hours in our case)
- Boiling water because it might otherwise make you sick (if you had water and power that is)
- Conserving power (and hoping others do the same) if/when you get it to reduce load on the grid to increase how many can get back their power
- Dealing with burst pipes and collapsed ceilings when there are waitlists to get help
Ok, on to how February panned out.
Goals for February
- Start My Spring Garden
- compost
- seed
- trim rosemary
- general leaf, debris, dead plant clean up
- Family trip to Enchanted Rock. I haven’t been since I was in college and @rocktavious has never been so it should be fun!
- Complete the APIs and Web Scraping In Python course in DataQuest
- Complete the Data Analysis in Business course in DataQuest
- Build my own (albeit simple) project. I was thinking something along the lines of how (or if) the pandemic has affected Texas State Park attendance. I’ll have to see what kind of data there is available.
- Finish out some random lessons I skipped over in DataQuest to strive for that 100% - review never hurt anyone!
From the top!
1. Start My Spring Garden
- Compost? Check!
- Seed? Technically not done until March 2nd, but done as of the writing of this post!
- Trim Rosemary? Snovid killed the Rosemary so I trimmed it down to the ground and will be replanting it
- General clean up? Done!
All that’s left is to get a few transplants (tomato, serrano and dill) and see if I can find some watermelon radish seeds.
2. Visit Enchanted Rock
It was a great trip. Both kids hiked all the way to the top, down the side, up to the Little Rock summit and back down. It was about 2 miles of serious hills. The 2.5 year old was pooped and rode on our shoulders after that but the 4.5 year old kept going for another mile, no problem. Strong kids! I can’t wait to visit more parks.
3. Complete the APIs and Web Scraping In Python course in DataQuest
Done! Although it is oddly no longer in the Data Scientist Track. Either way, I completed it and it actually was not very much new information. To my relief, I actually still remember a lot about APIs and how to interact with them. When built correctly, they are very intuitive so it makes sense that it was easy to pick back up.
4. Complete the Data Analysis in Business course in DataQuest
This will be moving to March. I started this but got off track working on my personal project.
4. Build my own (albeit simple) project.
I wasn’t able to find any data on State Park attendance. @Rocktavious suggested I contact them and try to get it. I may still do that but so I could get moving on a project I found another data source.
My family tries to watch the International Space Station (ISS) pass over the night sky when we can. The notification system NASA provides for the ISS pass over is TERRIBLE. So bad. So I decided to try to make my own! You can read more about it on my Weather Whiplash February post.
5. Finish out some random lessons I skipped over in DataQuest to strive for that 100% - review never hurt anyone!
Not done. I didn’t expect to get to this unless I finished up everything else. Maybe next month I’ll make this a priority to make sure it gets done.
Bonus!
- Applied for multiple jobs.
- Starting drinking coffee without sugar.
- Lived through Snovid 2021 without any damage.
- Both kids now love spinach!
- Submitted the State Taxes for Red Owl LLC.
Things I learned/realized this month
- When I go back to work I will miss hanging out with my kids.
- A five gallon bucket holds enough water to reliably flush a toilet 3 times.
- GitHub Actions is free for 2,000 action minutes per month
March Goals
- Go back and 100% all skipped DataQuest content.
- Request data from State Parks.
- Write a tutorial post. I’ll have to think on what topic to cover. Maybe Docker? Hmm…
- Make one website improvement.
- Take a week off to vacation at the beach (with social distancing and masks still worn). Visit Mustang Island State Park while we’re there to keep the one park a month trend going!
- Submit 2020 Personal Taxes.
