A quick and dirty concert flyer, but everyone seemed to like it.
Back to the Sac’ …. well, that’s what I wanted to call The Rubber Band’s return to Alacran Court.
It’s a cul-de-sac. We’re returning. Can I be any more clear?
The guys, however, thought that there were some childish innuendos in the name. Needless to say I got vetoed and we decided to go with the more mundane “Block Party”, instead. March 30th will always be remembered as the “Back to the Sac’” show to me, though.
Here is the highlight reel.
Were we perfect? Far from it.
Did we have fun? Oh, yes.
Did the crowd have fun? Yes, all three of them did.
My friend, Ben Good, gave me this idea for a comic – or, rather – his van did!
Teaching
I’ve been assisting in art class at Rancho Bernardo High School as an “Artist in Residence” and loving it. I really enjoy working with the students and am blown away by their talent. Thirty years ago I was in their shoes, taking art at a different high school in a different time. It might surprise you, but I didn’t have a great experience in my art class. It would be twenty years later before I’d take another. Part of me wants to make sure that these students have a better experience than I did. And, if that means attempting awkward poses for their figure drawing course, so be it. Art is a serious thing, but it should never be taken too seriously.
While RBHS was out on “Ski Week” ( a one week holiday bookended by President’s Day ) I got the opportunity to substitute for middle school English at Classical Academies in Escondido for a few days. Middle schoolers are squirrel-ly counterparts to their older high school peers, for sure – but I enjoyed my time there, too.
The path to teaching takes time and money, however. For starters, I’m looking at one year of coursework and another year of unpaid student teaching. Furthermore, Computer Science isn’t an “approved” subject matter in California – not yet anyway. I would need to pass a CSET, an exam proving my expertise in an “approved” field, to teach Middle School and above. Yes, Art is an approved field, and I am considering it amongst other things.
So, yeah. I guess I want to teach…
Still in Remission
For those of you who have been following my cancer story, I am still in remission. I just had my quarterly bloodwork, and there is still no evidence of disease. That’s not to say I don’t think about it a lot. The boogeyman is always there, and the boogeyman is me. When I was undergoing treatment, I drew a lot as an escape. Five years since my surgery, it’s still an escape…
Like it? You can wear it, too. I have it available as a t-shirt on TeePublic.
Music
Now that I’ve been playing in a band, music has become yet another outlet for me. I’ve been posting some questionable poetry on Drawn And Coded for a while, but what I haven’t shared is that I have also been writing songs. Up until recently the lyrics always came easier than the melodies. Suno, an AI music generation service which I wrote about in my last post, helped me bridge that gap. Suno is not perfect, but if I feed it my lyrics along with details on how I want them to sound, it’ll create a complete song. If I refine my criteria ( for example, if I change the timing, the key, the vocal style ), Suno will eventually produce something reasonably close to what I want.
After playing with Suno enough I realized that I wanted to accompany myself playing my own songs, or basically “cover” them. Before artificial intelligence this statement would have sounded gibberish, but now? Not so much, Unfortunately, whereas Suno can create a remarkably realistic and good sounding song, it’s horrible at transcription. I’ve yet to find a tool that does an adequate job of automating the process of converting audible music to sheet music, so I did it manually. It was a painstaking laborious process that resulted in many changes to what Suno had originally created : the chord progression, timing, structure, lyrics, and intonations all had to be changed to make it playable and singable by ( gasp! ) me.
My first song, “Survive”
This is my first song. I call it, “Survive”. It’s rough. It’s not perfect. But it’s mine, and I am proud of it…
Thank you Ben Good and John Hatcher for your help. Also, thank you to my stepfather, Don, who used to sing and play guitar every night before bed when I was growing up. Don, I don’t think you ever realized how much of an impression you made on me.
Here are the lyrics, if you’re interested…
Survive
[Intro] Why do you have to be there? And come back into my life. Why can’t you just stay sealed up? Where you cannot traum-a-tize.
[Verse] You hurt me, burned me, you scarred me deep. You left me all for dead. A horrible void you left for me. I need you outta’ my head.
[Pre-Chorus] From the outside all is normal. No evidence of disease. But my mind still wanders back to you. Distracted and un-eased.
[Chorus] I will NOT give into you. I will NOT sat-is-fy, I will take you to the grave with me. At best it will be a tie.
[Verse] There are nights where I’m not sleepin’… ‘Cause of what you did to me. Thinkin’ of what mighta’ been… …and of what still could be.
I’ve found myself in re-tro-spect. In this vacuum you left behind. Why can’t you let me live my life? Free from you. Dig-ni-fied.
[Chorus] I will NOT give into you. I will not sat-is-fy. I will find myself! You will see. I just need to try.
[Bridge] I’m not the same I was before I don’t think I’ll ever be. I’ve picked up the pieces you left behind. And made myself a better me.
[Outro] I will NOT give into you. I will not sat-is-fy. I’ve found myself no thanks to you. It’s time to say good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye.
The Rubber Band
Meanwhile, the “Dad Band” that Shawn Burgwald and I started over two years ago is still going strong. Some Dads have left, and others have joined. The current roster is Shawn Burgwald ( Lead Guitar ), John Hatcher ( Bass ), Kenn Matthews ( Vocals ), Colin Young ( Drums ), Aaron Pipkin ( Keyboard / Guitar ), and Me ( Rhythm Guitar / Backup Vocals ). We’ve been playing together regularly and have even “broken out of the garage” and played live a handful of times now. Kenn Matthews is our lead singer, but occasionally I get a chance to stretch my vocal chords. Here we are at a practice a couple of weeks ago…
After 25 years of corporate software development I am trying something different.
I just received an email from Rancho Bernardo High School confirming that I am eligible to start work as a part-time assistant art teacher. The opportunity caught me by surprise and I owe a debt of gratitude to my friends and neighbors for recommending me for the role, and their ongoing encouragement. The position is only through June, but will hopefully give me a taste of the classroom.
I also volunteered for Encorps, a non-profit organization that helps STEM professionals get into the classroom and, eventually, credentialed. Over ten weeks I will volunteer as a computer science instructor in underprivileged schools once a week.
Why am I doing this?
I want to teach, but I’d like to “test the waters” first. Originally, my plan was to substitute teach, but my applications went largely unnoticed. This way, however? It’s better. I get to teach kids what I love – Art and Programming – and see if the grass truly is greener on the other side of the fence, at least for me.
Holy Cr@p, Teenagers
Ashley takes after many women in my family. Like my Vavoa, however, it’s all about finding the right approach. For my Vavoa it was See’s Candy. For Ashley? Just give it time 😉
I now am the proud father of two …. teenagers. Ashley is now 15. Kaylee is now 13. Being a guy, it’s amusing to experience how the teenage years play out for my two girls. To all the girls I knew when I was a teenager, you had me completely fooled! I thought you had everything figured out the entire time I was tripping over my own hormones and treading water in an ocean of social awkwardness. Ha! I know better now!
Anyhoo, I drew Ashley a comic on the eve of her 15th birthday. She’s notorious for being difficult to shop for. Her sister, Kaylee, however, is not. I hope I did a good job of conveying that in the comic.
Suno – A Generative AI Music Service
I strongly believe that Generative AI is going to dramatically change how music is created. I only hope it’ll be for the better.
If you haven’t tried out AI by now, you should. I’ll admit, I was scared of it first, but I am also finding it to be an amazing tool.
About a month ago my friend, Ben Good, introduced me to Suno, a generative AI music service. First, he showed me how he could provide Suno a “theme” ( i.e. “I want a happy summertime song about driving along the beach and enjoying the sun” ) and a “style” ( i.e., “American Folk” ) and it would generate a song complete with vocals and a backing track. Then, as a gag, he fed Suno lyrics – in this case a random wikipedia page – to show me that Suno could make a song out of just about any source material. You haven’t truly rocked out until you’ve rocked out to Wikipedia, by the way.
I was hooked ( Ben already was ). I bought a subscription and started feeding it some song lyrics that I had been working on. Low and behold! Suno generated a song. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. A huge start, honestly. Just hearing my lyrics sung to a backing track got my creative juices flowing.
Since then Ben and I have discovered you can explicitly tell Suno through a prompt what exactly you want your song to sound like ( baritone, edgy, acoustic, heavy metal, twangy, emotional, simple melody, etc …) as well as specify the structure of the song ( verse, chorus, intro, solo, etc … ). The end result? Still not exactly what I was looking for – but close enough.
Here’s the coolest part if you can play an instrument and have a decent voice ( cough, cough – me ). Suno also allows you to download what’s called “stem” files for any song it generates for you. One stem file is the vocals. The other stem file is the music track. Then, you can take the stem files, feed them into a transcription service, generate the sheet music for your song, and learn to play it. Of course, you can generate them by hand – I mean ear, too, it just takes a little longer.
So what happens next?
Well, it doesn’t take too much effort to see the music industry is fighting back. Their claim is that Suno has “trained” its AI model on existing songs. I know for a fact that I heard inklings of well-known artists’ voices in the songs that it generated for me. However, in my very humble opinion? The train has left the station and is roaring along at breakneck speed. I, personally, don’t think they can stop it.
As for me? It’s an enormous win. Suno is helping me create music – my music – music that might have never been heard, otherwise. And with the stem files? I plan on learning to play and sing it, too. Ben and I are currently collaborating on an album. I’ll post here soon about it!
Vandervort Realty has a website
Last, but certainly not least – I finally got around to launching a website for Jodie’s brokerage, Vandervort Realty! You can see it here. Jodie is still very much into the sales side, but has been expanding more and more into property management as well. If you have any questions regarding buying or selling a home, or if you need help with a rental, feel free to use the “Contact Us” page – mainly because I haven’t tested it yet. ( Just kidding, I have ).
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading, people, I hope to post again soon. In the meantime? Go create … and….
Before I share some of my New Years Resolutions, I’d first like to post some of the projects that I have been working on…
No bad days – if you look through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia, that is.
I’ve been told that this methodology works in other professions as well…
My new design for a cheer t-shirt I can wear to my daughters’ games. Jodie was taken aback when I showed her the finished product. “I didn’t think you’d actually DO it”, she said in alarm. You can buy your very own t-shirt at my TeePublic store.
Some college friends and I started tossing around ideas for a portfolio of products to teach network security. One idea was to create a comic strip, to which I wholeheartedly agreed and created some concept sketches. Unfortunately, the idea never progressed further than a few cups of coffee – and these drawings.
As far as my resolutions?
Get proficient at Data Science and Machine Learning
A couple of conversations with my sister-in-law, Jayme, and friend, Ben Good, have spurred my interest in Data Science and Machine Learning using Python. I have been taking free courses on Kaggle, and have been nothing short of fascinated. A lot of the examples leverage housing data, which is of great interest to me in supporting my wife’s brokerage, Vandervort Realty. Ben also introduced me to Suno, which uses artificial intelligence to allow users to create songs ( yes, with vocals ). I have a few songs I have been working on that sure could use some help, even if it’s… artificial?
Draw more!
Obvious, right? From my experience being a project manager I know that all good goals should have good mile markers, less there is never a semblance of “done”. For art, however, I am beginning to realize there is never really a “done”. Leonardo de Vinci was supposedly quoted as saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”. Aside from me being a far ( far ) cry from the master, I am beginning to see his point. For 2025, however, I would like to produce something each week. I would also like to get a lot better about learning – whether it is YouTube videos, books, or just “copying” others works.
Okay, so only two resolutions – or, at least only two that I am willing to share. I have many more, of course, but to post them here would hold me accountable, and I am not quite sure I am ready for that sort of commitment. Not, yet, anyway. Stay tuned, however, as me thinks it’s going to be a very very exciting year. I hope it will be for you, too.
The end of the year is rapidly approaching and, after a quick audit, I’ve realized a substantial backlog of projects that I have been meaning to post about. With the holidays on the horizon now is as good a time as any to catch up, so here goes…..
First up – a new Vandervort Realty Logo. Jodie’s real estate brokerage is growing and has expanded into property management. Although that doesn’t necessarily warrant a new logo, I couldn’t help but add some flare to the one that I created for her in 2021. My real reason for the gussying up? I wanted to surprise her with an applique for the glass doors leading to her home office and realized the original design didn’t exactly “pop”. Although I don’t expect “Vandervort Realty” swag to be a big seller, you can order your very own hat, shirt, coffee mug on my TeePublic store.
Next up – yet another comic based on my experiences in Corporate America. “Firehosing” is a term used in tech circles that is used to describe feeding someone information at such a rate that it’s impossible to digest. This particular comic has been sitting in my sketchbook for a while and it was overdue for some ink and color.
The Rubber Band and Penny, the birthday girl.“I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones“I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” by R.E.M.“Santa Monica” by Everclear
Next up – some tracks of The Rubber Band playing at my good friend, Penny Bauder’s, 50th Birthday Party at the Westwood Club. We played about twenty songs – three of which I sang lead vocals on – all of which I opted to post here. I’ve been working hard on improving my voice ( and accompanying myself on guitar), so please indulge me. On a side note, if you want to indulge me further please go buy some band swag on my TeePublic store.
Next up – some concept artwork I created for my friend, Mike Jock, for his new car dealership, Classic Motors ( Facebook Page ) . Mike had been bouncing the idea around for a while and finally pulled the trigger earlier this year. If you’re looking for a used car, give him a call.
Next up from 2023 – some tattoo sketches that I created over a year ago for my band’s lead guitarist, Shawn Burgwald. He wanted something to honor his late dad, Eric, who was a huge Beatles fan. The guitar pictured is of “Rocky”, George Harrison’s eccentrically-painted Fender Stratocaster.
Next up from 2022 – a comic I drew after spending the better part of a month recovering from pneumonia. On the left is Asclepius, the Greek and Roman god of medicine and healing. On the right is Zeus, the king of gods. A hidden joke for those unfamiliar with Greek Mythology is that Zeus did in fact kill Asclepius after Asclepius attempted to heal mortals of wounds that would have normally been fatal. Zeus’ fear? That Asclepius would close the gap between mortals and gods.
Next up from 2021 – some concept drawings I did for a an illustrated book on engineering security practices that my college buddy, Adham Shabaan, and I were tossing around. The artwork was designed to make the material more approachable. Unfortunately, the idea failed to gain critical mass.
Next up from 2021 – a logo I created for the custom Stratocaster my brother, Todd Vandervort, built for me. Yes, it’s a play on words and probably wouldn’t fly past Fender’s legal department without being riddled with holes. My brother decided to use the more conventional “Fender Stratocaster” applique on the headstock, instead. As far as the guitar? It sounds great. I’m so lucky to have my own personal luthier in the family.
Phew! That’s it. I’ll try and stay on top of things moving forward.
The band has changed a little. Shawn now primarily plays electric guitar rather than drums. Colin Young has taken up the drums in his place. Mike Jock, our original bassist, has decided to pursue other things. John Hatcher has replaced him on bass, and has introduced a banjo into some of our covers. Kenn Matthews maintains his role as lead vocalist. My brother, Todd Vandervort, and I bring up the rear on our respective guitar.
Aside from playing guitar I’ve started singing a little, too, lending backup vocals for Kenn as well as the occasional song. I joke with the guys that I have exactly two octaves to play with, but I’ll leverage them to the hilt if they’ll let me. The shower is now my studio and my family, the unfortunate audience. As for guitar, I find myself mostly playing acoustic. At band practice, surrounded by amplified electric guitars, it can be like bringing a knife to a gunfight, but I manage.
As far as the future of The Rubber Band? We’re trying to get out of the garage and start playing live more. It’s tough, though. We’re all Dads with families, jobs, and responsibilities vying for our attention. It’s hard enough to find time to practice alone, let alone as a group. But, we manage. And the good news? We’re getting better, too.
Maybe someday we’ll be the best band in a four block radius.
To my (old) team at UPS : Thank you for helping me keep the ol’ train on the rails for the last couple of years.
This is my station ( time to get off ) …
I resigned from my job as an Application Development Manager at UPS. While I enjoyed working with my team, I found myself increasingly at odds with my supervisor, a rigid back-to-office policy, an incredibly stale technology stack, an almost criminal lack of respect for working conditions, and an-out-of-touch CEO.
I have started interviewing, but it has been rough. I am finding myself overqualified for the software development positions that I enjoyed during the first two decades of my career. In Corporate America you are two things : a number and a salary. When either of those tips the scale you either need to adapt, or risk sliding off of the scale altogether. I’m trying to adapt, but as a software engineer ( also known as an “Individual Contributor”), I am finding myself competing with younger and/or cheaper talent than me.
That leaves management, which, at least at UPS, became an increasingly tough pill to swallow. As a manager I felt like my primary function was to find ways to manipulate people to do the greatest amount of work possible in the least amount of time against increasingly impossible deadlines. As a manager I never felt like I was helping people grow or learn. Aside from the paycheck, it was not a rewarding experience.
As I have gotten older and dealt with some pretty significant life changes, I find myself wanting to make a difference – wanting to help people. Yes, I am probably naive in the assumption that such a meaningful position exists for me, but I am not going to give up hope.
One last thing …
Interviewing can suck hard
One company I interviewed at had a final three hour interview, the first hour of which was a slideshow presentation. The recruiter suggested I “tell a story” to engage my audience. Taking him too literally, I drew a bunch of quick sketches to illustrate my take on managing a software development team ( the position was for a Software Development Manager ). After my presentation concluded I was met with blank stares and silence, like I farted loudly in an empty concert hall. The hiring manager just said, flatly, “Did you even read the instructions?” Needless to say I didn’t end up getting the job.
Are we there yet? There are many obstacles before you can deploy to production.
Always break up projects into manageable pieces that can fit into a 2-week sprint.
The client is just one of many stakeholders.
Licensing is a constraint to successful projects.
As an incoming manager, don’t rock the boat until you first determine how it’s floating.
There are lots of different sources of information an onboarded team member can learn from.
It’s not always a technical problem. Sometimes, it’s morale.
I thought it was a technical problem …
Always keep offshore teams engaged.
Keep the [ sprint ] board clean.
Sometimes it’s a legacy [ software ] problem.
Make first contact with the product owner and manager as soon as possible.
Meet regularly and see how you can help.
Only rock the boat after you’ve had a chance to study it first; you’ll get more support from your team.
I could get on my soapbox, raise my fist, and scream my frustrations in a lengthy, expletive-laced diatribe, but what’s the point? Capitalism has spoken – and boy, is it clueless, sometimes.
I have a friend, Richard. Over twenty years ago we worked together at a small software startup in Kearny Mesa. Since then Richard has delved into real estate and investments, while I’ve continued down the path of a software developer. We hadn’t talked in a while, so we agreed to meet up for coffee about a year ago.
“I’ll pick you up.”, he offered.
“You sure?”, I asked.
“Yes.”, was his response.
A few days later he rolled up in front of my house in a bright orange McLaren supercar. It stood in stark contrast to my current ride, a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country ( yes, that Town and Country ).
In the blink of an eye my daughter, Kaylee, who had been watching from the living room window, ran outside and pleaded to sit in the driver’s seat.
Kaylee, in Richard’s McLaren
After Kaylee was pacified I climbed in and Richard and I headed for coffee.
After swerving to avoid anything bigger than a pebble, I realized that supercars come at a cost.
“Your ride is cooler, but mine is way more comfortable.”, I told him.
“But overall, you seem to be, uh, doing well”, I continued, looking around the interior of his car.
He smiled.
Over coffee we discussed several things, but focused on a project that he wanted to build and launch. He wanted to bring to market a digital guestbook, and was looking for help.
He explained that it could be used at weddings, birthdays, baby showers, etc.., to streamline the process of registering at the party, making it easier for the party’s host to send correspondence.
“Instead of signing a physical guestbook, guests will photograph a QR Code. The QR Code will redirect them to an online guestbook.”, he told me.
The ubiquitous QR Code, a modern day bar code you can cram full of data.
“Then, after the party is over we can automate emails to all of the party’s guests”, he continued.
Without thinking I uttered the words no developer in their right mind should ever say.
“That sounds easy…”, I told him.
And then I uttered the other words no developer in their right mind should ever say.
“It shouldn’t take too long.”, I told him.
Richards’ proposal was timely.
I had studied Software Engineering in college for the creative aspects: the ability to create something from nothing. For the last year I had been working as an Application Development Manager, and, although the role offered me the chance to mentor other developers and plan and guide projects, it didn’t leave much time to, well, to create. Furthermore, I felt my programming skills stagnating, as well. So, when Richard asked me if I’d like to partner with him, I jumped at the idea.
A year later we launched Deetoh, Rich handling marketing and legalese, and I the software development. Here’s the link :
I decided to use Azure, .NET Core, Angular, and Bootstrap for Deetoh’s technology stack to create some synergy between Deetoh and what I was doing at my employer, a .NET shop with Azure “cloud” aspirations.
I have been using Angular since its initial implementation a decade ago, so no problem there. Bootstrap, too, although I would be using it foremost for its “mobile friendly” layout engine, and secondly for its UI components. Deetoh was to be a “mobile-first” application, after all.
I have been using .NET for over twenty years. Back then ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC were king. For Deetoh, however, I’d only be using it to create Web APIs – or, REST APIs that the Angular front-end could consume. In retrospect, I probably should have opted for Azure Functions as hosting a Web API as an Azure Web Service on Azure is pricey. Given Deetoh had no established audience, pay-as-you-go Azure Functions would have been much much cheaper in the short term. On the other hand, .NET Core, which Deetoh’s Web APIs were built upon, can be run as Linux Containers on Azure. Initially, I had everything running on Windows on Azure. After realizing I could migrate to Linux and cut my hosting costs in half, I switched.
Admittedly, Azure was new to me. At my prior employers I had used Amazon Web Services. What I found is that for every product offered by AWS, Azure had a doppelganger.
I used Azure AD B2C and MSAL for user management and token-based authentication. This project provided a good foundation for my Angular front-end. Azure B2C provided user flows for registering new users, signing in, and password resets. My only complaint is that it proved to be a little lacking in custom claims. The JWT tokens generated by Azure B2C were limited to the standard username, address, phone number, etc….
For security, I would rely on Angular Guards to authorize access to each of Deetoh’s routes. The Guards would leverage the MSAL library to “sniff” the token generated during sign-in. On the backend, the WebAPI would also use MSAL to restrict access to the various REST endpoints based upon the same token. So, even if a user were able to circumvent the front-end’s security, they wouldn’t be able to access any data on the back-end.
My .NET Core Web API would consume Azure’s NoSQL database, called Cosmos DB, using Entity Framework. In retrospect, using an ORM was probably overkill, but the implementation would be sparse and straightforward given the flat, non-relational nature of NoSQL, so I figured, why not?
To support Deetoh’s emailing of guests I used Azure’s Email Communication Service and a Storage Account. At my employer I’ve used SendGrid for sending emails, but SendGrid only offers up to 100 emails/month for free. After that it’s $19.95/month. Knowing that I’d likely blow well beyond 100 emails in testing alone I opted for Azure’s platform, which charges a flat fee of $0.00025 per email. Azure’s service doesn’t have as much polish as SendGrid, but so far it’s worked out well.
“If Deetoh ever gets enough traffic so that our costs increase enough to warrant a revaluation of our platform, our service providers, or even a refactoring – I think it’ll be a good thing!”, I joked with Richard.
That’s not to say Deetoh isn’t production ready, but if it miraculously receives traffic rivaling Evite overnight, there will definitely be growing pains. Obviously, I don’t expect that. Don’t build a cruise ship when a sailboat will suffice, right?
A little help from AI
About a month before launch Richard was demoing Deetoh to a couple of his friends that wanted to use it for their upcoming wedding. At the time Deetoh was fully functional, if not a little rough around the edges.
“It needs a better help experience”, he told me. “They didn’t know how to use it.”
At this point Deetoh’s system consisted of little help bubbles that could be toggled on-and-off. Richard, however, wanted full page overlays with rich graphics.
“Who is going to do the artwork?”, I asked Richard, already knowing the answer.
If you’ve been following my website long enough – heck, just by the website’s name alone, you probably realize that I am an artist, too. However, at this point I had already revised Deetoh’s email feature twice per Richard’s request, and just wanted to launch. After sketching up what I wanted the help pages to look like I quickly realized the custom artwork was going to take a lot more time than I was willing to spend. I started perusing the web for open source artwork, but realized that I’d never find content specific enough. Then I tried AI.
AI is an acronym that has been met with both fear and excitement. As a software developer, I’m scared that someday it might be able to render code well enough to replace me, yet I am excited by its possibilities as a tool I can use to speed up my daily work. As an artist, I discovered the same fears, only multiplied. I have little doubt that in less than five years the majority of corporate artists will be replaced by AI. Keep in mind I say “Corporate Art”; this is the “generic” kinda’ stuff you see on internal memos, training videos, and the like. Anything public facing will undoubtedly undergo more scrutiny. For Deetoh, however, AI just worked. With the help of a mobile application called Recraft I was able to generate specific-enough content for Deetoh’s help pages. Admittedly, I still had to make alterations ( i.e. “nip and tuck” ), but overall it took me easily a quarter the amount of time. As far as the alterations? I vectorized the AI-generated imagery using Adobe Express Online and manipulated the resulting graphics using Inkscape. Here’s a sample of the end result. What do you think?
Closing thoughts
Deetoh took a lot longer than I expected. At most jobs I’ve worked I’ve taken to doubling my estimates and then some when determining how long something will take. Rarely, have I come under ( or over, for that matter ). For Deetoh, I went over. Way over. Why? It came down to two things :
A simple misunderstanding between what Richard, the product owner, wanted, and what I built.
An inability on my part to determine how many hours a week I could dedicate to the project.
Ironically, these two problems plague every single software project that I have led or worked on. Part of the problem is Agile Methodologies, or incremental / progressive development. Agile doesn’t leave a lot of time for proper design. However, I’ve worked on way too many waterfall-based projects, Agile’s polar opposite, where all planning is done up front, to realize its faults, too. I’ve seen Waterfall stall out before a single line of code, much less a prototype, saw the light of day. With Agile, the focus is in delivering something, anything.
Aside from governance, developing Deetoh gave me a renewed respect for Cloud to leapfrog development. There was a time not so long ago where I would have had to provision my own servers, my own user management, my own database, my own authentication, and so on. Now, I can do it relatively quickly ( and cheaply ). Cloud is not just for large corporations, but for the little guys, too – like Deetoh.
drawnandcoded.com 
