In “The Beauty of the Head,” author May Swenson notices how she breathes to the shift of the lake. Her group will sleep on deck. Little does she know that a gale would be washing and wind-wiping her rump hung over a rail.
In “Trinity Churchyard, Spring 1961,” some old stones have “an outcrop rounded as the head once was.” The torsos of the stones are “Perpetual in rain and wind and under the shrill file of the years.” The yellowed and tipped stones are reminiscent of “candles lopped or shortened for their use.”
The board of the Utah Stonewall Dems met to discuss candidate support. We voted to support our endorsed candidates at $500 apiece since they are both LGBTQ+ candidates that have been very supportive of a trans community that is under attack. The executive director of Outrun spoke with us about the services they offer. They want to work with the Utah Democratic Party to sponsor panels to help recruit diverse candidates in the state. Their target for recruitment and connecting with financial support are diverse progressive candidates under the age of 40 that support LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights, and are willing to be endorsed by Labor. For older candidates, they provide a free postcard writing campaign.
I shared with the board that we have someone wanting to intern to help us with Queer Connect and any mobilization we do over the Spring. I am not sure that we will be doing much mobilization, except for getting people to Caucus night. I can’t wait to see what kind of ideas he has.
David Torrey introduced himself as a prospective member of the board, and how he intersects also with the disability community. The board so far is in favor of him joining. Chelsie shared her draft bylaws around membership, commitment, and attendance requirements. The board overall was in agreement with the changes.
Zach encouraged everyone that could to join the picket line at the Sunn Trap, where the workers are picketing for better wages. Several members planned to attend, and I asked our Instragram coordinator to share the event to help mobilize more people to show up.
In Software Architecture: The Hard Parts, by Neal Ford, et al, software architects must figure out where to start untangling in order to understand complex subjects. Static coupling can often be measured at compile time. How architecture parts are called by one another, the type of communication, the passed information, the contract strictness, etc., is referred to as dyamic coupling.
Identifying and cataloguing the architectural components is the purpose of the Identify and Size Components Pattern. “Components that are too large relative to other components are generally coupled to other components.” While not perfect, the total number of statements within a component is a good indicator of how much a component does.
Understanding interactions and dependencies is critical, because each component in a monolothic application is potential service candidate. When a class from one component interacts with a class from another component, a component dependency is formed. Teams that jump straight into breaking monolithic applications into microservices without analysis or visuals of the applications struggle to break them apart.
A fictional development team has its own opinions about breaking apart domain services. Taylor insists on making everything fine-grained. On top of trying to figure out if customer registration, profile management, and billing functionality should be broken apart. Austen has a game that evening.
Customers providing profile information, credit card information, password information, and the product purchased during registration can be done either through a single consolidated service, a separate service for each of the functions, or a separate service each for sensitive and nonsensitive data. The team decides to create a single consolidated customer service. A single service supports the ACID transactions in order to meet the requirement that customer registration and unsubscription must complete in a single atomic unit of work.
It is not as easy as it sounds to assign data ownership to services. The general rule of thumb that services that write to an table own that table works well for single ownership. It is more complex with joint ownership. The authors illustrate some of the complexities with an example that has three services: a Wishlist Service, a Catalog Service, and an Inventory Service.
Sunday afternoon, I took another hike up Mueller Canyon Trail. This time I stopped at about 1.56 miles up the trail. Immediately ahead was a hairpin turn that fed back on itself at about a 135 degree angle, creating a gorge. This marked an easy landmark for me to remember.
The trail was covered in leaves again, but this time they were soggy from the rain. I encountered patches of black slick mud that I carefully avoided as much as possible. Small families bundled up with their dogs were the majority of hikers that I encountered. I asked one couple with their dog how far they had gone, and they said they had made it all the way to Elephant Rock. That’s still about two miles from my latest stopping point.
On the way up I made my usual stopping point at the table 2/3 of a mile up, hydrated, had a packet of trail mix, took my photos, and read a couple of pages of Software Architecture: The Hard Parts. My heart rate was 99 bpm (I’m getting more conditioned on this first part of the trails). I then continued up the trail to my two landmarks: first the tree trunks arranged like a teepee, and then the open overlook across the canyon.
At my stopping point was a small mossy glen, where I took a moment to sit on a mossy log, hydrate, and read a couple more pages. It was a nice tranquil spot, nestled just slightly in the woods, and the log and a bit of a spring to it, so it wasn’t that hard to sit on.
By the time I made it to the bottom of the trail, hiked to the bathroom, and then back to my car, I had hiked a total of 3.36 miles, a new record for me. If I keep this up, it won’t be too much long before I’m ready to join a 4 mile hike. I’m looking forward to starting my hike on the other side of the gorge.
Wednesday afternoon, I went back to my doctor's office to provide more samples, because he was concerned about the blood results that measure kidney functioning. Friday, the doctor updated my chart indicating that my kidneys were functioning perfectly, and he had no clue what had happened with the initial sample.
Thursday night, Brooke, her daughter Aspen, her daughter’s friend and I went to see a production of the Addams Family at the West Valley Performing Arts Center, put on by the Youth 360 program. You could tell their initial confidence was a little low as they first took the stage for opening night, but eventually you could tell when they gained their confidence. This is something practically every performer goes through. Gradually, a performer can learn to reach the confidence points faster, much like any professional.
I’m assuming a youth was also doing the sound technology. Sound tech is hard. With every actor having a headset microphone, trying to turn on the right headsets at the right time with the right amount of gain can get complex. I admire them for having the courage to tackle it, and they will only get better the more they do it. This is also where the confidence of the youth actors shined. They found it in themselves to just continue performing as normal, as they had rehearsed, knowing the best way through a performance is to just keep going no matter what happens.
The fun part of the story came when Pugsley tried to make his sister dark again with a potion he stole from granny Addams, but instead the mother of Wednesday’s boyfriend drank the potion and during “full disclosure” revealed all her frustrations with her husband in front of everyone. In the end, that moment of transparency ultimately brought everyone closer together.
Like the wind and water that shape the stones of Trinity Churchyard, our shared efforts shape the landscape of our community—slowly, steadily, and with purpose. Whether in board meetings, on picket lines, in code architecture, or along the muddy turns of a canyon trail, we learn that progress comes from persistence, reflection, and the courage to keep moving forward even when the path bends sharply. Confidence, like Swenson’s breath in rhythm with the lake, builds with each moment of showing up—again and again—for what matters. As we support one another, nurture new leaders, and keep walking together toward justice and inclusion, let’s remember: every step, every act of solidarity, every voice lifted adds to the greater harmony we are creating. Keep breathing with the rhythm of change—and keep going.
