3^rd July 2020

Week notes: July 3rd

Birthday week! - I pseudo-celebrated my 39th birthday this week (there's not that much partying being done right now). I enjoyed a walk up to Devil's Dyke, followed later by a delicious salted caramel cake that Naomi made - and we all had unfathomable levels of excitement at the arrival of LEGO 21322 Pirates of Baracuda Bay which Naomi got me for my birthday. It's a beautifully detailed and nostalgic model based around the 1990's LEGO Pirates theme. We're only on bag six, and it's already my favourite set ever. Its the fun set which I would never have bought for myself. The boys all made some adorable birthday cards, and I enjoyed some other lovely gifts during the week 🥰. I am so lucky.
Fighting Webpack - Well, kind of fighting. I've been moving on to web dev this week and asking myself, again - is it possible to implement Webpack into a project without feeling like it's been a battle you've mostly lost? Gulp felt easier before but Webpack can do all the things, it's just that taming it can be a real headache. Anyway, I'm pretty much there with the setup now, I think. CSS with PostCSS, Image optimisation and JavaScript build pipeline working how I like it to.
Storybook with twig and Craft CMS - I love Storybook as a dev tool, especially the in-situ accessibility testing for components. So I'm pleased to have gotten it working well with plain HTML components which use Twig and then loading those templates into Craft CMS layouts. It's quite simple to get running with the @storybook/html branch.
HSL Colour - Why have I not been using HSL all my life? It makes so much more sense. It is clear, easy to understand and especially easy to adjust with precision. After enjoying the previous web series of tips, I bought the Refactoring UI book and the single biggest take home from it has been the explanatory chapter on HSL. I'm not going back to RGB in CSS anytime soon.
Climate change - More freakouts by me during the week, this time I was wondering where we are going to move to in the next five years, scouring Right Move and thinking about what we should ensure we have in our next house.
The family was sent some lovely photos from Maurice, under the subject "Booze up in Worthing", of our families in Mum & Dad's back garden during summer 1982. Dad enjoyed cocktails, which is clear from the array of spirits and paraphernalia on the tables (something I very much adopted). I now have the cocktail book that my Dad was reading and the Ricard ashtray, visible in the photos. It's fantastic seeing these photos - almost all for the first time. Especially when memories of the places are anchored by physical objects in the present, sort of connecting you to the moments more closely.