Life Archive
Thoughts, links, and project updates
A public stream of ideas, discoveries, and things I am building.
Today I started building a new Airtable Stats dashboard for my Windows 95-style WordPress back office.
The goal was to create one place where I could see how quickly my Airtable databases are growing and how much activity is happening in each table. I wanted to track how many records were added today, yesterday, this week, and this month, along with the cumulative total for each table.
The idea expanded into a full database activity dashboard with headline totals, per-table statistics, cumulative growth charts, daily activity charts, busiest day, average daily additions, fastest-growing table, and manual refresh controls.
I also created a visual mockup of the dashboard first, which helped establish exactly how I wanted it to look inside the Windows 95 environment. I really liked the result and decided to move forward with development.
I initially uploaded the wrong version of the Windows 95 theme, so I stopped before making changes. Once I found and uploaded the latest theme, development continued using the correct version.
The updated theme became version 1.5.5 and now includes an Airtable Stats desktop icon, a Windows 95-style stats window, mobile-friendly scrolling, caching, and a new Appearance → Airtable Stats settings area where I can choose which Airtable tables to monitor.
The system can use Airtable’s record creation timestamps to determine when records were added, which means I don’t necessarily have to manually add a Created Time field to every table.
I also decided that WordPress should maintain historical daily snapshots locally. This will reduce unnecessary Airtable API calls while allowing the dashboard to build a long-term history of database growth.
What started as a simple way to count new Airtable records has turned into something much more useful: an analytics layer for my entire back-office database system.
I’m building a CRM widget for my Win95 Style WordPress theme that will pull data out of an Airtable base I keep, and display it in a Unix style terminal… (I’m basically just wrapping it, it’s not an actual terminal) which I’ve always preferred, at least as far as retrieval goes…
My goal is to have a vintage GUI for a dashboard displaying every aspect of my projects, interests, etc. I love details and I want to be able to see them all in one place… broken down by project.
I love the modern tech of course, I just prefer the old way of retrieving info… I’ve never found anything that quite suited me in that regard… So I’m building it myself with WordPress and Airtable API’s..
The theme is already finished… As I get into it though, I’ll decide whether it should be a widget or a plugin… the transition from one to the other is usually pretty easy. Of course, I won’t be selling it, at least in its current form, don’t wanna tick MS off.. ☺️
I’m watching “The Final Years Of Queen Victoria’s Reign | A Monarch UNveiled | Real Royalty” on YouTube. I learned some things I never knew about her. She wrote over 50 million words in her journal. She was also of German heritage (3/4) and spoke fluent German. When her husband and mother died the same year… She was devastated and spent a lot of time in Germany, where her husband Albert and her mother were born.. Of course, it wasn’t technically Germany at that point….
She also disregarded social constraints and lacked a sense of snobbery. I enjoyed hearing the stories of how she treated her staff…. She never called them servants and went out of her way to correct anyone who did… I could see queen Elizabeth being that way as well… I think Queen Elizabeth also journaled, but I don’t know if it was to the extent that Queen Victoria did…
I have been wanting to watch (again) “Christmas thru the Decades” on YouTube but couldn’t find it. I did find it on Amazon Prime for Free though… It goes from the 60’s to the 90’s but stops… It premiered in 2015…. I wonder why they didn’t include the early 2000’s? I would also like to see all decades of the 20th century…
I’m watching a documentary on YouTube about Hart Island in NYC. It’s an island where over a million people are buried in mass Graves. They talked about a book titled “How the Other Half Lived” It’s a book written over 100 years ago by Jacob Riis… I noticed that there are a few people who have republished the book on Amazon. I’ve heard of publishing books that are in the public domain, I need to revisit the idea..
I just got through watching the short story “The Berlin Wall Revisited” on HBO max…. they discussed a guy who did a lot of filming of the berlin wall in the 80’s… both sides of it… I couldn’t find much out about him.. But found a video on youtube that’s in Spanish with some of his work… It looks very interesting.
I watched “Concorde A Supersonic Story (BBC 2017). Iconic Airplanes In History” Joan Collins was interviewed for this… along with several flight attendants, pilots, people who worked on building it and even passengers… They only had one profitable route, New York to London… so they started chartering the plane out….There were people who profited from selling day excursions to exotic places. When the Concorde crashed in 2000, it was a chartered flight headed for a cruise.
The last flight was in 2003. One of the flight attendants said it was like aviation took a step backwards…. It’s interesting how there really is not much interest in super sonic travel… It was mentioned that a lot of investment bankers and hedge fund managers used the Concorde to commute. Could you imagine?
While watching an episode (episode 3 season 1) “History of the Home” they were discussing how Virginia Wolf liked to have a room outside of the house where she could write in peace. I did a little reading about her…. She had an open marriage with her husband, had romantic relationships with woman and suffered from bipolar disorder, which ultimately took her life at the age of 59. Her husband, who was only two years older than Virginia, lived another 28 years.
Many of her statements and essays would be offensive today…
I just got through watching “Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland” It showed the final months of his life. I didn’t realize he was so broke the last few years of his life. One of his guards said that Michael Jackson was essentially homeless. He rented homes and never stayed in one location long.
At one point in the film, Michael was shopping at the Schwarz toy store and ran up s $39k bill. His card would not go through.. His security also had not been paid in five months.. They must have felt awful while he was out spending money and they did without. I just can’t imagine someone of his status wouldn’t be able to pay the people who helped them. I don’t believe it was to dodge them, I honestly think he wanted to. At one point he gave them a check for half of what he owed them.
He had a lot of problems at the end of his life. After watching this, I don’t see how he even functioned after having to worry about everything… It gave me a better understanding of how difficult his life was…. Having to worry about every step you take or every word that comes out of your mouth.
It was very touching. It came out in June of 2017 on Lifetime…. I had not heard of it until today..
The worries of this world are no longer his to bare. I find peace in that for some reason..
I’ve been watching a documentary about John Belushi… It’s very interesting. The doctor interviewed pretty much gave a gloomy picture of Addiction – that you’re always going to relapse… He’d do well at times, but according to his wife at the time, something would trigger him and he would start using again. It’s an interesting story but very depressing.
I watched a documentary about Kurt Cobain last night. I had to buy it off of Amazon Prime. Originally I thought I could watch it from Hulu but it required that you also have an HBO Max subscription… I had already subscribed to Hulu when I realized you had to have the HBO Max subscription in conjunction… I first added it to my watch list in memento on Feb 20, 2020… so a few years ago.
I was thinking about the documentary on eminem.. the rapper.. that I watched the other day… it came out in 2004. They interviewed his mother and grandmother.. they did not seem like very nice people.
During the beginning of the documentary, his grandmother discussed how she told her mother that she was going to hell for the way that she treated her growing up… her mother, the way I took it, wanted validation that she was a good mother as she laid on her deathbed.. Eminem’s grandmother would not give it to her. that really really bothered me. she just seemed so cold.
closer to the end, the interviewer said that she looks like Aubrey hepburn.. She replied “I don’t want to look like Aubrey Hepburn. People have said I looked like Reba Mcantire…”
His mother seemed very cold and distant as well… It really made me appreciate my family. I never felt unloved by anyone in my family..
When this was filmed in 2004, His mom was almost my age… She was born in 1955 and was 49 years old.. I looked to see if his grandmother was still alive but couldn’t find anything.
I just got the watching “Biggie: The Life of Notorious B.I.G. | Full Episode | A&E” on YouTube. I was on a roller coaster of emotions while watching it. There were a lot of details I wasn’t aware of… and I had no idea what a positive and loving attitude he had about life.
I believe this came out in 2017 on the A&E Network. I read an article about where he grew up in Brooklyn… That his childhood home in Brooklyn was selling for $725k… But the listing made no mention that it was once home to a famous rapper. The journalist contacted the agent and she basically snubbed him… This was back in 2013….Another person that was asked about him said that noone knows him anymore and that he’s not important.. I just find that very hard to believe.
I’m guessing Brooklyn has gentrified a lot, which really bothers me… People being pushed out of their homes… It just really does..
Anyway, I really enjoyed watching this.
I just got through watching “JANIS JOPLIN LITTLE GIRL BLUE PBS DOCUMENTARY”. I think I’ve seen parts of it before or started it and half watched it. It’s strange to watch these Documentaries sometimes. It’s almost like you really know them and they are still around. There was someone who read the letters she sent to her family… It sounded just like her… What a neat person. At the end they had Pink say something about her.. It came out in 2016 on PBS.. it’s a series called “American Masters”
I was just watching an interview with Joan Collins….. She made $1650 a week on some of her projects in the 50’s. She also appeared in Star Trek, Batman, some horror films and Cleopatra. She was replaced with Elizabeth Taylor though, because the production company was losing money and wanted to go with more of a sure thing…
Her daughter Katy, was in a coma for seven weeks after a bad accident. It was right before she played on Dynasty…
I didn’t realize that “Modern Marvels’ has twenty seasons and over 160 episodes. You have to have a cable subscription to watch most of them… But there are a lot of them online… Even on the history channels YouTube page.. I saw where you can buy seasons 18-21 on YouTube as well..
The History Channel also has several good playlists… I’ve been adding them.
I just got through watching “Lucy and Desi” It was a documentary about the couple and the media empire they started together. I had no idea how dignity they really were in Hollywood. If course, I’ve heard of “The Lucy Ball Show” but I just always thought of it as just an old show from the 50’s…. and never gave it much thought.
I also didn’t realize that Lucy and Desi were divoy after being married 20 years and had their own studio…. Where several shows were filmed.. Their daughter said they were married to their second spouses longer than they were married to each other. They had two children, who gave interviews.
They played tapes that Lucy had recorded a journal of sorts on…. I thought that was pretty neat.
Lucille Ball was born in 1911 and died in 1989. Desi was born in 1917 and died in 1986.
What a story!
I just got through watching “Modern Marvels: How Las Vegas Became a City Like No Other” about an hour and a half ago…
It was very inspiring, it motivated me. It originally aired in Aug of 1998… Eric, Aaron and myself first went to Las Vegas in Jan of 1998. That was such a nice trip. We wanted papa pierce to go but he wouldn’t. We didn’t have a lot of money but managed to rent a car one day to look around the city some. We stayed in Circus Circus. I remember it being so nice and modern. It smelled good too. I would go in the hall where they had the conventions and walk around. I loved it there.
I remember the wind blowing real hard that day. What good memories. I don’t think we have any pictures of it. I went again with my former romantic partner and Eric. That was a good trip as well. I also went with him and his friend Tammie….. Ahhh Las Vegas. I’m not a gambler, but there is just something about its energy.
I was researching if there were any indians living in the Huntington WV area before it was settled by colonizers…. and there were several….. Some of the main groups connected to the area include: Shawnee, Mingo, Cherokee and the Iroquois Confederacy. I think asked if it could create an image of what the Indian settlements may have looked like on the Ohio River, and this is what it came up with… very interesting.
This isn’t about solving equations.
It’s about discovering the hidden mathematical patterns that may already be shaping your life.
If you’ve ever wondered why some habits stick, why motivation comes and goes, or why small actions can eventually produce massive results, this video offers a different way to look at the world.
Your life is more than a snapshot.
It’s a curve in motion.
We can use math to predict about anything.. it’s a powerful tool if you can learn the numbers behind it… You don’t have to be a math whiz either…
For decades, researchers have studied thousands of relationships looking for patterns that separate lasting connections from those that eventually fall apart. What they discovered is remarkable: the future of many relationships can often be predicted with surprising accuracy—not through mind reading or personality tests, but by observing patterns of change over time…. Basically, the Calculus of relationships….
Calculus isn’t scary, it’s just the study of rates of change… and it can help us to understand ourselves better and our relationships with other humans… among many other things…
Whether you’re thinking about a marriage, friendship, business partnership, family relationship, or professional connection, the same underlying principles often apply.
Relationships are not static. They grow, stall, accelerate, recover, and sometimes fade.
The question is: can we learn to recognize the patterns before the outcome becomes obvious?
Can math help predict burnout before we reach the breaking point?
Burnout usually feels as though it happens suddenly—but the pressure, exhaustion, and stress have often been accumulating for quite some time. In this video, I explore how dynamic calculus can help us think about burnout as a changing system rather than a single event.
It’s another fascinating example of how mathematics can explain experiences that seem deeply personal and difficult to measure.
Have you ever looked back and realized the warning signs of burnout were there long before you noticed them?
Watch Predicting Burnout Through Dynamic Calculus here:
Have you ever almost given up… only to have something unexpectedly good happen shortly afterward?
It makes me wonder how many opportunities we miss simply because we stop one step too soon.
In my newest video, The Mathematics of Hope, I explore a fascinating idea: even a small probability of success can become surprisingly powerful when you keep showing up over time.
Hope isn’t just about optimism—it may also be about understanding how probability, persistence, and time work together.
💬 I’d love to hear your story:
Have you ever had a moment where sticking with something longer than you wanted to ended up changing your life?
Maybe it was:
✨ Finding a new job
❤️ Meeting someone important
📈 Growing a business
🎓 Learning a new skill
🌱 Recovering from a difficult season
Sometimes the biggest turning points begin with what seems like an impossibly small chance.
I’d love to hear your experiences—they might encourage someone else who’s wondering if it’s worth taking one more step.
I heard this song “What Is Love” yesterday and a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It came out in 1993… I was so lonely and isolated in the 1990s. I spent a lot of time daydreaming of having friends and socializing, but of course I had no friends and I never socialized. It wasnt until I met my first love that the cycle of loneliness was broken, but it was short lived…. It did reappear briefly decades later.. only to disappear again and never return. Such is life I suppose, right?
I watched Madonna’s two hour podcast interview yesterday…. She said in the beginning that she wasn’t there to sell or promote anything… But she ended up around halfway bringing out her Kabala religious mentor (not sure what his title is) and they talked about it the rest of the time… It seemed like she was actually trying to shove the religion down everyone else’s throat.. It appeared to be a promotion or endorsement of Kabala… I didn’t know she was still practicing…
I did like a lot of the things she said, but it still felt salesy or gimmicky… Maybe it was just the mood I was in.. She’s still very pretty though and very interesting as always.