Projects and Updates, 2021Q3

I fixed my cupcakes.

Playlist of music in this post: Spotify

Remembering To Water My Plants
Last I checked in, I was at the beginning of building a plant watering app, and I was hopeful Microsoft Power Apps would do the job well. Now it's now, and I've been using Power Apps to help me water my plants for about ten weeks.

1, 3, and 6 month averages, since humidity changes shift watering needs throughout the year

Some highlights:

• I tried using collections for data storage and I couldn't solve how to make the data permanent and retrievable. Linking forms to SharePoint lists was a better solution for me.

• Initially, I only included a Next Watering date. I often don't know the current date, though, so a Next Watering date wasn't all that helpful. I added a Days Left field (calculated at run time) to help with that.

• In theory, the app should display plant pictures and I'm not sure why it doesn't. Since these are my plants I'm fairly accurate with names alone, but the images would be nice to have.

The pictures are missing when viewed via the Power Apps Android app (inset left), but not when viewed online (right).

Baking
Previously on C. Kennedy Design, I was in the midst of intense cupcake experimentation. I'm not exactly sure what I did, but I'm finally happy with my cupcakes.

These are the three tricks I think made the biggest difference:

• Lowering the oven temperature by 25 degrees since I'm using dark cupcake tins.^[1]
• Using a food thermometer to monitor my butter and start creaming when it's in the 68 to 70°F zone. (I also made sure other ingredients were around that same temperature.)
• I started checking for doneness much sooner than I thought necessary.

Five Albums

• Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler, the Creator
• If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, Halsey
• Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, Ol' Dirty Bastard
• TEMPORARY HIGHS IN THE VIOLET SKIES, Snoh Aalegra
• The Mouse and the Mask, Danger Doom

Spotify playlist