Came across this: Can Drupal Developers Come to the Aid of American Family Farmers?. The Drupal aspect might not be a necessary part of the equation, but it got me thinking.

It’s now possible to set up EBT payments so that you can pay for food online using SNAP (as part of a limited-states pilot program). However, because it’s a pretty involved process in the states where it’s available, it’s mostly just Amazon and Walmart that are offering it.

For a small farm to sell direct to consumers and accept EBT, they need a compatible POS system and USDA Food and Nutrition Service approval.

Then, if they want to also take online orders and accept EBT, they have to do major upgrades on their website (plus some more bureaucratic hoop-jumping).

Trying to locate the problem

1. Do farmers want to sell online, direct to consumers, but need help with the technology?
2. Would farmers like to accept EBT payments at their foodstands, but the technology and bureaucracy are difficult to navigate?
3. Would farmers like to accept EBT as payment online? I’m not even sure how many grocery stores outside Amazon and Walmart are doing this yet. Is there demand for it?

Possible user stories

• As a farmer, I accept EBT payments at my stand.
• As a farmer, I can sell my food online.
• As a farmer, I accept EBT payments at my online store.

I’m gonna try to hold off on proposing solutions and instead talk to some folks in order to make sure this is a real problem and if it is, better understand it.

In trying to think how I could spend open source Friday in a way that helps people affected by COVID-19, at first I looked for projects on GitHub directly related to the virus.

After some browsing, though, I decided that there are already a great number of web projects doing data modeling, tracking, mapping, and the like. Since data isn’t my main bag anyway, I decided that wasn’t the best place for me to try to help.

Local business

I know this is a big area of concern right now, so I started to think about how I could contribute. I considered putting out feelers to businesses to see if they could use (free) help getting online sales set up or something, but then I thought I should do some research first. Perhaps local businesses have already made their pain points known. If they have, I should pursue that rather than decide for myself what they do or don’t need.

Gift cards

That’s when I came across this article, whose number one suggestion was to buy gift cards. It makes a lot of sense, since it immediately boosts the business’ cashflow.

After Googling it, I found a couple sites that let people buy gift cards for local businesses, (Giftly and GiftRocket), but it seems they don’t necessarily provide the cash to the business immediately, which is the whole point in this case. So that wouldn’t really help.

What I need is a list of local businesses with URLs to a page on their website where they sell gift cards.

Getting a list

My first pass at this is going to be to explore the Google Maps API and see if I can get the data I need.

Turns out the Google Maps API isn’t free anymore. Also, there is already a good directory of local businesses, https://www.localfirst.org/member-directory. Local First also has a program that helps businesses set up gift cards, although very few seem to be using it. I have to imagine that a lot of local businesses already sell gift cards on their websites, but not all do, and of the ones that do many don’t advertise it prominently.

Summary

Okay, so I think my next steps are to look for ways to encourage the people I know to buy gift cards to their favorite local businesses, and if they don’t seem to be advertising their availability much, point out the possibility.

The first part of my treatment was six weeks of radiation. First, I was fitted for a mask, the job of which was to hold my head in precise position each time I received treatment. To create this mask, the technicians heated a piece of mesh plastic and then used an x-ray and lasers as guides as they pulled it to form over my face. It then cooled into a rigid shape suitable for keeping me in place, like so:

Once I had the mask fitted, it was time to begin treatment. Starting in the beginning of October, I went to Huntsman Cancer Institute (on the campus of the University of Utah Hospital) every weekday morning for six weeks. Usually things went pretty fast, only having to wait for a short time before going back to the radiation vault, but sometimes there were longer waits of an hour or more. Once I got in, it was fast: usually five minutes. Going so often was interesting, because I saw the techs every day, but it was for such short amounts of time. They were good at getting to know me and making me feel comfortable in spite of such brief encounters. They also put up with my daily music request of either Josh Ritter or Jason Isbell. I really liked my team there. During this time, I happened to read an account of a woman who went through radiation and chemo, and her experience sounded terrible; very different from mine. I attribute a lot of that to the great radiation techs at Huntsman.

Here’s a pic of the radiation machine, for some context:

The big part that’s above my head in the picture rotated around in order to be positioned behind and to the side of my head at the proper angle.

The side effects from radiation weren’t too bad for me. One side effect, hair loss at the site of the radiation, was merely annoying. It also caused my skin to itch, but only a bit. As treatment went on, though, I started to really feel depleted of energy. By the time I’d get home from work I’d be completely wiped out. I wasn’t a lot of good around the house during that time. That started during the last two weeks or so of treatment and lasted another few weeks after that.

Some other memories from this time:

• Despite how boring I’m sure it was, Laura was extremely faithful about taking me to my appointments. I never felt alone.
• My good friend Allen Gilbert (whose brother gave this blog its name) came to visit and help me with Louise during a few days when Laura had to be out of town, which was great. Of course, Louise only started to warm up to him at the very end, but that’s just her way 😂. I’ll close out with a poor quality but cute video of the two of them.

EDIT: I forgot to thank some other folks! Laura’s parents, Joel and Julie, were also so giving during this period. They came to the house most mornings before 7:00 so that we could go to my appointments without having to bring Louise along. Thank you guys; love you.

I’ve had quite a few people asking lately how I’m doing health-wise, so Laura suggested I write a post about it.

Quick recap: in the fall of 2015 I had a seizure that led to the discovery of a malignant brain tumor (oligodendroglioma). I had most of it surgically removed, and at the time my doctors decided that chemo and radiation were options best left for later.

Well, “later” came at the end of this past summer (2019). I had begun noticing some worsening coordination and cognition, so I moved up my biannual MRI by a few weeks. Sure enough, the results showed that, while slowly, the tumor was definitely regrowing.

This was difficult news. Despite living with the reality of brain cancer for four years, we had been going about life. We had a daughter who’d just turned one. As we drove away from the hospital, all I could think about was going to hug her at daycare, so we did.

Slowly, though, things started looking better. We realized that not much had actually changed; right after surgery we’d been told that patients with this type of cancer could expect to live, on average, 10 years. This news wasn’t actually adjusting that estimate downward or anything. It simply meant that I’d have to undergo further treatment now.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past several months: first I did radiation, then chemotherapy (which is still ongoing). I’ll post more specifics on that soon.

I’ve recently been migrating an existing bbPress forum to Discourse, and ran into some trouble. There are good instructions for this on the Discourse meta forum, but once I got to the step of actually running the import script, it would fail on me:

root@discourse-2gb-nyc3-01-import:/var/www/discourse# su discourse -c "bundle exec ruby script/import_scripts/bbpress.rb"
loading existing groups...
loading existing users...
loading existing categories...
loading existing posts...
loading existing topics...
/var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.4.0/gems/mysql2-0.4.9/lib/mysql2/client.rb:89:in `connect': Can't connect to MySQL server on 'xxx.xx.x.x' (113) (Mysql2::Error)
		from /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.4.0/gems/mysql2-0.4.9/lib/mysql2/client.rb:89:in `initialize'
		from script/import_scripts/bbpress.rb:27:in `new'
		from script/import_scripts/bbpress.rb:27:in `initialize'
		from script/import_scripts/bbpress.rb:410:in `new'
		from script/import_scripts/bbpress.rb:410:in `<main>'

The error was Can't connect to MySQL server. I checked to see that the MySQL container was running (for me that meant running docker ps to see what’s listed), and though I had started it previously, it was down now. I started it up and tried again. Same problem. Checked the MySQL container and once again it had gone down. I tried simply running the MySQL container and not even attempting to run the migration script. The container would only run for a few seconds.

After some research, I learned that due to the fact that:

1. My VPS instance was relatively low-memory and
2. The MySQL docker image was quite memory-intensive

I simply didn’t have enough power to be running the MySQL container. Fortunately, this situation is where VPS-providers like DigitalOcean shine: I just shut down the server, went to the DigitalOcean web backend, bumped up my Droplet to about 4x the memory, then went back in and ran the migration, which worked like a charm this time. As soon as everything was done, I went back down to the amount of memory Discourse recommends to run a small forum.

It’s easy enough to find the version of MySQL you’re using if you have command line access, but that’s not always the case.

If you do have shell access, it’s:

$ mysql -V

If the site in question is using WPEngine, though, you probably don’t have command line access. In addition, when I went hunting for the MySQL version in phpMyAdmin, I couldn’t find that anywhere, either. I just assumed it’d be displayed somewhere in the UI, but it wasn’t.

You can, however, use a query for this:

SELECT version();

Hope that helps.

This post describes an OS X solution to a problem I was having with my Markdown editor. If you’re a Mac user, you might find it helpful.

So, one of the most important features of Markdown is that it’s readable whether viewed as plaintext or rendered. However, tables in Markdown are a little tricky. You can make a table using this Markdown:

| Heading 1 | Heading 2 |
| :-------- | --------: |
| Cell 1    | Cell 2    |

and it renders as:

So far so good. It takes a little effort to include those extra dashes and spaces in order for everything to line up properly, but not too much.

However, let’s say we decide Heading 2 should now be called The Second Heading, and the content of Cell 1 should become “To be or not to be”. Then, unless we adjust our spaces and dashes, our unrendered Markdown looks like this:

| Heading 1 | The Second Heading |
| :-------- | --------: |
| To be or not to be | Cell 2    |

Our Markdown now fails to deliver on one of its most important features: readability in plaintext!

The Markdown editor I use doesn’t provide a way to clean this up, and as I searched around I couldn’t find another explicitly advertising the feature I wanted: ability to select table Markdown text in the editor and apply a transform to tidy it up. I’m sure there’s an editor out there that has the feature, but I was having trouble finding it. Besides, I was otherwise happy with my existing editor and didn’t want to switch on account of a problem that, while annoying, is only occasionally annoying.

Just a little more searching, however, led me to Markdown Service Tools. They are a collection of OS X Services you can install and make available via the context menu in most any GUI app. Just select the text, Ctrl+click, and you’ll have a list of handy Markdown Services at the ready. Since they’re OS X Services, you can also associate them with keyboard shortcuts.

I’m really glad I found this. It means from now on when I need a Markdown table I can type as little as this:

| One Column | Another Column |
| :--- | ---: |
| A whole lot of content | Less content |

but I’m just a select and two clicks from this:

| One Column             | Another Column |  
| :--------------------- | -------------: |  
| A whole lot of content |   Less content |

I like it!

My birthday was a few weeks ago, and I got some thoughtful gifts in the mail. As I was making coffee this morning, I remembered that I still have several thank you cards to write, and I thought about my classic thank you note formula, which consists of the following three parts:

1. Some version of saying “thank you” (“Thank you so much!", “I really appreciate it”, “That was so nice of you”).
2. Describing specifically why this gift was a nice one to receive (“I’ve been eyeing that for awhile”, “I’m totally going to use this when we go hiking this weekend”).
3. A reference to the next time I’ll see the person (“Looking forward to getting together at Christmas!", “Not sure when the next time we’ll be in town will be, but hopefully soon!").

When I write it out like that it sounds pretty thoughtless. I really do mean what I’m saying, but I could put in more effort. At any rate though, I didn’t sit down to write about sincerity.

As I was thinking about my thank you note formula, it occurred to me that I really should have a fourth item in this particular round of notes: the whole “Sorry this is so late” thing. That’s when I caught myself planning to include a cliché: “Better late than never though, right?” Har har.

Now, the fact that it’s a cliché is bad enough, but it suddenly struck me that not only was I employing an overused phrase, I was using it incorrectly. Or rather, I want to argue that it’s an inappropriate usage.

If I’m late to the game on something and say “better late than never” (BLTN from here on out) when I finally come through, what I’m really doing is asking to be excused or forgiven, but by telling instead of asking. I’m saying, “I screwed up, but since it’s better to eventually get it right than never at all, you really should cut me some slack.” That last part is seldom stated, but it is implicit. It’s also rude and presumptuous.

This might sound a bit too obsessive of a meditation on the etiquette of thank you note writing, but what made me want to really think this through was the other contexts in which we say BLTN. For example, a person who realizes too late how offensive something they said to a friend might have been taken. I think it would be wrong in those cases for the guilty party to approach the person they hurt, apologize, and then say, “I know I should have made this right months ago, but BLTN”. The aggrieved may not be ready to forgive, but this phrasing pressures them to. Maybe the apology will be accepted, but the person needs time.

The notion (if not the clichéd phrasing) of BLTN can be useful, however. It just needs to be self-applied rather than directed outwards. Now, when considering whether to apologize to someone for a wrong committed long ago, of course I ought to first consider whether I’m doing it for them or merely to ease my own guilt/restore my image. If that’s all I’m doing and it’s unlikely to actually help them, it may be better to leave it alone. That part is tough; it’s hard to make that call with imperfect information. But if it’s a person with whom I have an ongoing relationship, things might be different. It’s a case by case thing, but restoring or improving it might make bringing up the past the right thing to do.

Only after I’ve determined that it is the right thing to do should BLTN come into play. For example, I might be tempted to continue ignoring the issue, but I should tell myself, “Better late than never, don’t use the passage of time as an excuse.” And I think that counts whether it’s a weighty issue, or just a late-arriving thank you note. I’m not positive, still thinking it through, but I definitely want to start being more self-aware, and catch myself using it. When I do, the key is whether I used it to get myself to take action, or just as an excuse.

Laura and I have felt so much love from you all in the past few weeks. I want to thank everyone again for your support.

Surgery day was October 26th. As you may have read in Laura’s updates, it went quite well. The vast majority of the tumor was removed. However, there are some complications.

One of the first things I noticed the morning after surgery was that sensation in my right leg was significantly less than in my left. This makes walking a challenge. I also discovered that I have a harder time using my right hand. Both of these issues have improved significantly in the last week, but I still feel a long ways off of normal. Hopefully, this will continue to improve through therapy.

We met with the neurooncologist yesterday to discuss my prognosis. She confirmed that the tumor is cancerous, but slow-growing. While they were able to remove much of it, they couldn’t safely get it all. For now, she recommended monitoring it with an MRI every few months. In the coming years, chemotherapy may be necessary, but it is very hard to know much at this point.

Thank you so much for all of your support. These days texting and typing is extremely difficult and time consuming for me, so I appreciate everyone’s patience in that regard. I do love hearing from you even though I’m unlikely to respond.

I’ll (with a great deal of Laura’s help) post more updates here in the coming weeks as I have time and energy. Thanks everyone!

Laura is planning to update this page with surgery progress throughout the day, for anyone who’s interested. Hopefully this will make keeping folks updated easier on her.