Add weeknote for March 28-April 3, 2026; update now and upcoming pages

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

content/now.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ title: Eric in the Present
 [locallygrown]: /posts/locallygrown-origin-story/
 [randomrecipe]: https://www.youtube.com/@RandomRecipeProject
 
-This page is all about what I am doing *now*. It was last updated on March 29, 2026, and will be edited as things change.
+This page is all about what I am doing *now*. It was last updated on April 12, 2026, and will be edited as things change.
 
 ## Where I am now
 
@@ -21,19 +21,19 @@ Still living in Athens, GA in the home my partner and I bought several months in
 
 ## Who I am around now
 
-Our house has three people and two cats. The people include me, my partner, and my youngest daughter who spends every other week with us—she's a sophomore in high school and doing great things. My eldest is now a senior at Georgia State University.
+Our house has three people and two cats. The people include me, my partner, and my youngest daughter who spends every other week with us—she's a sophomore in high school and doing great things. My eldest is about to graduate from Georgia State University.
 
 We [lost Charlie](/posts/2023-07-24-goodbye,-charlie/) but our two remaining cats continue to keep me company while I'm working. You'll find plenty of photos of them in [my gallery][pics].
 
 ## What I am doing now
 
-I just joined [Natera](https://www.natera.com) as a Staff Software Engineer. Natera is at the forefront of cell-free DNA testing, with work in oncology helping detect and fight cancers earlier and more effectively. After more than ten years at [Infinity Interactive][infinity]—the last several as VP of Technology—this is a big change, and a deeply personal one. Cancer took my mom. Writing code that plays even a small part in that fight is not something I could turn down.
+I'm a Staff Software Engineer at [Natera](https://www.natera.com), working on lab management software for their histology labs. We just completed a successful production deployment in San Carlos — real scientists, real equipment, real samples. Now I'm building out observability tooling, monitoring dashboards, and support runbooks for when the inevitable fires come. The travel schedule over the next couple months is intense: trips to San Carlos and Austin as we roll out across labs.
 
 [LocallyGrown.net][locallygrown] has settled into a rhythm of steady improvements after the massive six-month migration from Rails 3 to SvelteKit. The infrastructure work is behind us; now it's about new features, better tools for market managers, and growing the platform that serves 70+ farmers markets.
 
 ## What I am reading now
 
-Nearly finished with *Service Model* by Adrian Tchaikovsky — staying up too late every night because I can't put it down.
+*Starter Villain* by John Scalzi — palate cleanser after *Service Model* wrecked me in the best way.
 
 ## What I am playing now
 
@@ -55,11 +55,13 @@ After months of silence, I'm writing regularly again. The words are flowing.
 
 ### Upcoming Events
 
-- **Natera lab on-sites** — Started a series of visits to labs in San Carlos and Austin to meet the teams and see the environments the software needs to work in.
+- **Natera Austin trip** — First visit to Austin in about two weeks, with more San Carlos and Austin trips to follow.
+- **Vivian's graduation** — Georgia State University, closing in fast.
+- **Georgia Renaissance Festival** — Spring season starts soon.
 
 ## Where my head is
 
-Two months into Natera. The learning curve is still steep but the work is clicking — I just shipped observability dashboards for a system going live for testing next week, and I'm about to fly to San Carlos to meet the team and see the lab in person. The creative projects that feed my soul are still in motion. Writing is happening. Gloomhaven is happening. New game stores are being discovered. Life is good.
+The San Carlos deployment went flawlessly. I met my team in person for the first time, watched real scientists use the software we built together, and ate better than I have in years. The travel ahead is intense but I'm looking forward to it — Austin is shaping up as my home away from home. Life is good.
 
 ---
 

content/posts/2026-04-04-weeknotes/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+---
+title: "Weeknotes: March 28–April 3, 2026"
+date: 2026-04-04T10:00:00-04:00
+draft: false
+description: Production deployment in San Carlos, extraordinary meals across the Peninsula, ICE at the Atlanta airport, turbulence grabs, and an unexpected museum encounter with Octavia Butler's typewriter.
+tags:
+  - weeknotes
+  - work
+  - travel
+  - cooking
+lastmod: 2026-04-13T03:39:28.373Z
+---
+
+*Spent most of the week in a new city among people I'd only seen online, providing tools we created together to scientists in a histology lab who will help even more people through a time where they need as much help as science can give them. It was a good week.*
+
+## Shipped
+
+The production deployment of our new lab management software to the Natera histology lab in San Carlos went flawlessly. Real scientists, real equipment, real samples, full end-to-end testing. I can't claim much credit for how smoothly it went, as most of the work was done by the team in the six months before I joined. But I was there, and it worked.
+
+![The entrance to the Natera office in San Carlos, California, with the company logo on the glass walls flanking a set of wooden doors](IMG_3408.JPG "First time through these doors.")
+
+Since there were no fires and no frontline support needed, I spent much of the week building out the tooling we'll need when fires do eventually come. I finished getting access to all the integrations I needed for several monitoring dashboards: real-time visibility into software performance, the scientists' workstations, the back-end servers, and the data flows into and out of systems we don't control. I also built a runbook for frontline development support, along with the carefully scoped tooling necessary for developers to look directly at live data and, in the hopefully rare cases where it's required, make repairs.
+
+![Eric in the Natera histology lab wearing safety goggles and a white lab coat, with scientists working at stations behind him](IMG_3429.JPG "Haven't worn a lab coat since my college days. Still fits (aesthetically speaking).")
+
+I also made connections across the organization that will matter as my role expands beyond this one system into the larger oncological side of the business. This is by several orders of magnitude the largest organization I've ever worked for, and I feel lucky that even through the hiring process it was made clear that while there was a specific open role, there was a larger vision for where they wanted me to be, even if that place didn't officially exist yet. Both me and the organization are equal partners in getting there as quickly as possible.
+
+## Read
+
+I finished *Service Model* on the plane to California, as predicted. [Here is my full five-star review](https://books.kestrelsnest.social/user/eric/review/10740/s/tchaikovsky-keeps-finding-me). Short version: I was worried it would be a well-executed riff on a familiar premise, set it down, came back to check, and the trap was sprung. One of those reading experiences where I started carving out time I didn't have. Tchaikovsky keeps finding me.
+
+Next up: [*Starter Villain*](https://books.kestrelsnest.social/book/27758/s/starter-villain) by John Scalzi. I need some fluff to cleanse my emotional palate after the last one.
+
+## Cooked
+
+I didn't cook a thing all week, but my team made sure I ate extraordinarily well. The best sushi I've had in years in downtown San Mateo, with wooden platters of sashimi and oysters covering the entire table. Georgian cuisine in downtown Palo Alto, which was a completely new experience for me. A seemingly endless parade of grilled Japanese items on sticks, again in San Mateo. After checking in to my hotel the first night I walked over to a little strip mall next door and had great dim sum and noodles. Even the office-provided lunches were good.
+
+![A table covered with wooden platters of sashimi, oysters, shrimp, takoyaki, seaweed salad, and tempura at a sushi restaurant in San Mateo](IMG_3418.JPG "One of several rounds. We did not hold back.")
+
+And then there were the cocktails, at a variety of places throughout the area after dinner each evening.
+
+![A citrus cocktail with a dehydrated lemon wheel garnish, served in a rocks glass at a bar in the San Carlos area](IMG_3435.JPG "One of many.")
+
+I don't think they could financially afford to treat me this well all the time, and I know I couldn't physically survive that treatment all the time, but I took full advantage while I had it.
+
+## Noticed
+
+The Atlanta airport security checkpoint was staffed almost entirely with ICE agents instead of TSA. Not just standing around observing but actively running the lines. It was disconcerting, though the process itself was still smooth enough. Many of the express lanes and optional services were unavailable. Atlanta is unusual in that nearly everyone funnels through a single massive checkpoint, but there's one out-of-the-way side passage that often gets overlooked, and that's the one I took. About fifteen minutes, all told.
+
+The weather in San Carlos was wonderful. A little chilly, a misty rain now and again, but perfect for walking around the neighborhoods we chose for dinner each evening and for strolling through the coffee shops we stopped at on the way in each morning. I got to wear the gorgeous knit cowl Carol made for me everywhere, and I love showing off that beautiful artwork.
+
+The flight was five hours each way. I took an aisle seat because it's pretty much the only space my frame fits in, with the trade-off being constant bumps from people and the occasional cart. On the flight home, though, we had about three straight hours of turbulence, and despite the stay-seated lights being on there was a constant stream of people heading to the bathrooms. Many of them grabbed onto me for support as they walked past. One woman grabbed my head. Next trip, I'm choosing a window seat. Curling up in a ball to fit for five hours will still beat that.
+
+While waiting for my flight home at SFO, I stumbled into a small exhibit at the SFO Museum on "Women of Afrofuturism." Having just finished a novel about robots navigating the wreckage of human civilization and about to start a Scalzi, finding Octavia Butler's typewriter and books displayed alongside Nettrice Gaskins' portraits felt like a pointed reminder about which shoulders this genre stands on.
+
+![The SFO Museum exhibit sign for Women of Afrofuturism, featuring a portrait of a woman in Afrofuturist attire](afrofuturism-sign.JPG "An unexpected find at the SFO Museum.")
+
+![The Octavia Butler section of the Women of Afrofuturism exhibit at SFO, featuring her typewriter, books, and portraits by Nettrice Gaskins alongside depictions of Nichelle Nichols and other figures](IMG_3475.JPG "Octavia Butler's typewriter and books alongside Nettrice Gaskins' portraits.")
+
+## Thinking About
+
+Remote work. I've been working 100% remotely for over a decade, coming into Infinity Interactive when they'd already been fully remote for more than a decade themselves. It was deeply part of the company culture, with evolved systems that kept us working as effectively as if we'd been in one place. I'd argue even more so. Once a year we'd spend a long weekend together in person, but otherwise it was all remote, all the time.
+
+I watched a few new hires bounce off remote work over the years. Some were solo developers who couldn't adapt to working in teams at all. Some were people new to remote work who had difficulty with the separation. I took to it naturally, and I don't think I'll ever be able to adapt back to office life.
+
+That said, I loved the opportunity to work alongside my team in person, even for just four days. To a person they are personable and skilled developers, and I feel lucky to be among them. The planned travel over the next two months will be intense: two trips to San Carlos and at least two trips to Austin. But I'm looking forward to it. Austin will become a sort of home office for me, with much of the larger engineering organization in the area, and I'm planning on being in this company for the long haul. Austin as my home away from home sounds just fine.
+
+## What's Next
+
+My first Natera trip to Austin is in two weeks. Vivian's college graduation is closing in fast. And the Georgia Renaissance Festival begins its spring season next week, so I'll try to make it out there at least once.

content/upcoming.md

@@ -2,11 +2,13 @@
 title: Eric Yet To Come
 ---
 
-This page is all about what I am planning on doing in the not too distant future. As I get to them, they'll leave here and appear on my [now page](/now). It was last updated on March 29, 2026.
+This page is all about what I am planning on doing in the not too distant future. As I get to them, they'll leave here and appear on my [now page](/now). It was last updated on April 12, 2026.
 
 ## Where I will be
 
-Nothing on the calendar yet.
+- **Austin, TX** — First Natera trip to Austin in about two weeks, with more trips to follow as my role expands into the larger engineering organization.
+- **San Carlos, CA** — At least one more trip back for the next phase of lab deployments.
+- **Georgia Renaissance Festival** — Spring season starting soon.
 
 ## What I will be building
 
@@ -22,7 +24,7 @@ Nothing on the calendar yet.
 
 ## What I will be reading
 
-- Several John Scalzi books queued up — might just grab one at random when *Service Model* is done.
+- More Scalzi after *Starter Villain*, probably.
 
 ## What I will be exploring
 

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