Visited Link Styles Are Limited

I was making some small tweaks to this site over the weekend. One of those tweaks was to add more distinct visual styles for visited links. I started playing around with style variations using opacity (to visually “dim” the colors so visited links didn’t stand out as much), boldn … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 29 days ago

Christmas on Wendhurst

One of the more uniquely Richmond things is our weird but fun obsession with tacky Christmas lights. Yes, many cities can point to a house or business here or there that goes all out on decorating for the holiday season. Here though, tacky lights are a thriving industry at this t … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 month ago

Autumnal Anniversary Update

Wow, November already. The trees in our backyard have been full of color for a couple weeks. Some trees are starting to look bare while others are holding on. An unexpected storm blew through last night, which blew a hefty pile down. A bolt of lightning struck really close so I’l … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 months ago

On the Pesky Question of AI

Some days it feels like AI is consuming the whole of our collective attention in the same way that its servers and crawlers are consuming so much of our network and energy grid. It’s hard to have conversations with friends, family, or coworkers without the topic inevitably coming … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 months ago

How I Rate Media

Ratings are subjective. Everyone has their own system for rating things, from a simple thumbs up or thumbs down all the way to 100 point (or more?) scales. For the media section of my site, I wanted to show how things I’ve read, watched, or played have impacted me. I decided on a … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 months ago

A Brief Trip to the Valley

Last weekend we drove two hours west for a whirlwind weekend. Over some rivers, through some woods, to my grandmother’s birth and burial place we went. We went to bury my mom’s ashes and to visit my old university. And we snuck in some educational entertainment as well.A burialMy … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 months ago

St. Jude 2025 Recap

I am overwhelmed and thankful to every wonderful person who donated to St. Jude through my campaign this year. Thanks to them, we managed to raise just over $1000, helping Relay raise over $725,000 so far this year! The last batch of stickers and magnets went in the mail yesterda … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 3 months ago

The Node Pill Manager

Yesterday on Mastodon, Dave Rupert made this statement:We probably need a better metaphor than "packages" because that makes it sound like something you got from a Better Business Bureau retailer (you didn't) and you opened the box (you didn't) and you know what's inside (you don … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 3 months ago

Ste for St. Jude

We’ve donated to St. Jude for the past few years as part of the Relay campaign they run every September. One of our close friends is a host on the network, and my wife and I both enjoy a bunch of their podcasts. Their annual Podcastathon is always an amazing event to watch. Last … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 4 months ago

Summer 2025 Site Refresh

If you’re reading this post, my new site is live. It’s been several months in the making and several years in the planning. Over the past few months, I squirreled away time in the evenings and on weekends writing CSS, creating twig templates, and tweaking various things to rethin … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 4 months ago

End of Summer Update

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the kiddo. And not just any first day … the first day of high school. It’s still hard to believe that we’ve already come this far. It still feels like just yesterday we were terrified new parents coming home from the hospital with this newb … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 4 months ago

Inaugural RSS Club Post

Ever since I first discovered RSS Club, I knew I wanted to participate on my site. Secret categories, clandestine RSS feeds, posts that no one sees unless they’re in the know? I love everything about it. (There are whole sections of my site that I play around with and nobody ever … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 5 months ago

Spring Healthcare Update

Since starting a new full-time UX role in the healthcare industry last year, I’ve been busy learning a lot. I have talked with numerous clinicians and inventory folks in hospitals large and small. I've observed live medical procedures to learn how nurses document them. I've shado … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 8 months ago

A Bite of the Big Apple

We took a very quick trip to a very big city. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 9 months ago

Coping Through Cozy Pursuits

On the relaxing hobbies that help in the hard times | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 9 months ago

2025 Theme: Revive

All about restoring life, joy, and health after a hard year | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 11 months ago

Hello Kaladin

Say hello to the furriest new addition to the family. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 11 months ago

On Blogging

Answering the challenge on how and why I blog | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 11 months ago

2024 in Review

Only a month late, because life keeps happening. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 11 months ago

To a Wonderful Mom

A few thoughts to remember an amazing mother | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 11 months ago

Inspiring XOXO Videos

Even if you missed XOXO, the videos are amazing | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

The Firsts and the Lasts

On the precarious, bittersweet nature of fleeting moments. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

A Banner Moment

For a brief instant, something I created appeared in an Apple keynote | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

The Wax and the Wane of the Web

I wrote a little something about the web on A List Apart. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

The Wax and Wane of the Web

I can cross something off my bucket list today. I’ve wanted to write something for A List Apart since I was but a budding web nerd. Today, I published my first article there: The Wax and the Wane of the Web. For a long time, I struggled with imposter syndrome. Peop … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

A Whole New Vision

On how the Vision Pro could let us see the world through others’ eyes | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 1 year ago

2024 Theme: Rekindle

Or how to go from burnout to burning again | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 years ago

2023 in Review

A quick look back over the last year | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 years ago

Goodbye Izzy

In which I remember our good girl | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 years ago

Making a Hatbox Ghost Costume

When the costume doesn't exist, it's time to DIY | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 2 years ago

Select Entire Elements With CSS

On multiple occasions earlier in my career, I can remember writing JavaScript to make it easier for a person to select all of the text inside an element with a single click. (Most often so they can easily copy and paste it, for things like links, IDs, etc.) Now it turns out there … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 5 years ago

My 2020 Theme: Explore

The name of the game for this year is exploration! | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

2019 in Review

Revisiting what worked and what didn't in the Year of Rebuild. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

I Started a Web Comic

About design and making things for people | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

Hide False Spell Check Errors

As someone with an uncommon preferred nickname, I hate seeing those little red underlines on text that I know is correct. There are times when spell check is appropriate, and there are times when it is very unhelpful. Thankfully developers can prevent these errors by adding the s … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

Link Shortener With Netlify

A while back, I updated PHP on my servers so I could update to a newer version of Craft CMS. At the time, this caused a few small hiccups on most of my sites hosted on that server, but nothing that I couldn’t resolve in a weekend. Except for one site — a link shortener built on a … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

Changing Color Formats

When I’m working with color on websites, I often find it helpful to adjust colors on the fly. I prefer to play with colors in HSL because I can adjust the saturation or lightness values to get variations of the same color that are duller or more vibrant, lighter or darker. So bei … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

Loading Styles Asynchronously

Until recently, when you’ve wanted to load a CSS file asynchronously, the best method was using a preload polyfill like LoadCSS. But according to Scott Jehl, recent browsers have standardized CSS loading behavior and enabled an option that just requires a little bit of JavaScript … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

The Best Way To Skip A Stone

While watching this great video this morning about building a rock-skipping robot, I learned there’s actually a pretty tried and tested method for getting the most skips from a rock: Angle the rock 20 degrees upward in your hand. This angle creates a ramp on the surface … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

Count Files In Terminal

I was curious how many images I’ve managed to collect on my gifs site, so I ran a search on how to count the number of files in a directory. The result—unsurprisingly on the Unix Stack Exchance—was very simple: ls | wc -l. You take the results of ls (to list the directory content … | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

My Favorite Podcasts

Or what I enjoy listening to regularly | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

One Magical Moment

In which I remember a visit to Notre Dame | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

My 2019 Theme: Rebuild

This year, I’m getting back to building the things I’m passionate about. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 6 years ago

2018 in Review

Where I made big plans for 2018, but they all went out the window. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 7 years ago

My Favorite Music for Focusing

Sometimes you just need some tunes without lyrics to get down to work | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 7 years ago

A (Whole) New Me

For 30 days, we gave up sugar, gluten, dairy, and legumes. It was hard, but it was SO worth it. | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 8 years ago

Happy Holidays From Our Family!

A quick recap of our year and a new tradition we’ve started | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 9 years ago

Starting the Year Fresh

A few tips and tricks I use to prep for a new year | Continue reading


@stegrainer.com | 9 years ago