Axel Valdez
Design Engineer
Short posts on random thoughts and things I notice in the world. This is my own Twitter (RIP). For medium to long form posts, visit the blog.

I got a small pack of Posca paint markers and I want to draw on every surface around me. These are my pocket notebooks.
Sometimes it gets reaaaally dificult to trust the process.
Inhale... hold... exhale.
I was doing some research about POSSE on an 11ty website when I landed on this post by Yuya Saito and I got my mind blown by the explanation about comment-driven development. I sometimes do the same, but how Yuya explains it is almost poetic.
"Just like writing an essay, I need find out something to rely on."
Go read it at virga.frontendweekly.tokyo.
I just realized it's been 5 years since the COVID-19 lockdown. All events from that time on are tangled up in my memory as a drawer full of old wires.
AMOR FATI
Yesterday I launched the website for one of my podcasts, Ferulita para el Alma (in Spanish). During the long weekend here in Mexico I hacked a bunch of stuff together to build the site automatically from the podcast RSS feed, and it worked!
11ty is awesome, and the nerd community sharing their how-tos more so ♥️.
A cashier at a Circle K noted my "memento mori" tattoo and we had a quick but wholesome chat about it. I'm liking this kind of random connections way more than the ones that happen online. They feel more... authentic? organic? I don't know, but I like them.
Cory Doctorow writes the most compelling essay about blogging I've read, and for me the effect of the message is amplified incredibly because it reaches me at an excellent moment.
There’s a version of the “why writers should blog” story that is tawdry and mercenary: “Blog,” the story goes, “and you will build a brand and a platformthat you can use to promote your work.”
Virtually every sentence that contains the word “brand” is bullshit, and that one is no exception.
It’s funny how the old ways of thinking have been flipped. If I want to get work done, I stay home. If I want to socialise, I go into the studio.
From Jeremy Keith.