Peyton Holland 9/16/26 Peyton Holland 9/16/26

Elementary chemistry

Well hello there, cherished reader. If you are viewing these words, I want to extend my gratitude to you for stopping by. I’m taking a moment amidst the grind to touch base with what I’ve been working on here in the last number of days.

Classes are full steam ahead on all fronts, and especially so in Chemistry. First exam is this week, so I’ve been drilling down on quantum numbers, electron configurations, Lewis structures, periodic trends, VSEPR, bond order, and all sorts of other fun things. That comes up on Friday. I just today (Wednesday) took my 2nd quiz in PHP/Web Development. PHP is not my best subject for whatever reason and it’s been 16 years since I’ve worked with it, so I’m very rusty with it. Haven’t done exceptionally stellar on either programming question for either quiz so far.. the first one was an absolute disaster, this most recent one was much easier since I’ve worked to increase my understanding of W3 CSS for styling, form, and table creation. This most recent quiz was about file operations, and my sites looked great, but for some unknown reason (probably something that would irritate me if I knew what it was!) my PHP wasn’t compiling, and was instead just displaying as if it were something I was meaning to type. Almost guaranteed I didn’t close a paragraph bracket or something. I’ll cuss about it in private, but we keep it marching on.

Capstone course has been an absolute blast. Love my group, and grateful to them for voting me as project manager for our pothole detection app. We’ve been working with Antigravity, which is absurdly, ridiculously powerful and impressive. Between the four of us, we all had separate visions which we recently united into a single unified source, and the result was a GIGANTIC app with so much functionality that we are now having to take a big ol’ digital hatchet to it and chop everything down to the bare minimum, then pivot and press forward with making what we have better, and getting a better idea of scope, direction, and all the other things that go into making an ambitious project something more feasible and pragmatic.

In addition, I’ve continued to work on the website earnestly. This week, I finalized and debuted a slick new look, and then made some minor tweaks to a couple of things like making sure links were going where they are supposed to. I’ve also added a section on the site for my resume. The resume is still a work in progress and something I’m actively working on, and I also need to get the downloadable PDF version up. The current-but-incomplete resume is up and reasonably accurate (definitely gonna rework that ugly summary), but the download link does not work. That’s on the list to fix. I made a quick adjustment to my calendar in which days from the previous and following months are shown in the current month’s view. Small QoL changes that make it a bit easier for me to navigate and get use from. I also spruced up my GitHub account, where I’ve deployed the current iteration of the group Capstone prototype, as well as an additional repository where I have stuck a Java text-based adventure game that I’ve decided to undertake. The reasoning behind this is that I want to re-sharpen my Java skills and make sure they are 100% ready to go. I love getting to use generative AI to make all this mad scientist-type stuff, but it’s worth nothing if I can’t back it up with actual practical knowledge and understanding of what’s doing what. Also, I haven’t gotten to use just straight-up Java regularly in as long as I would have liked to. So, to this end, the text-based Java adventure game is going to serve the purpose of getting back to the level I want to be at with Java fundamental knowledge, but also getting some exposure to actual granular GitHub usage. I’m intending on leveraging GGC’s free LinkedIn learning courses to find a good one for GitHub so I can get that under my belt as well.

Outside of that, Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter remake just arrived today, and as soon as I’ve finished up Ys X: Nordics, I’ll be jumping on that, and I cannot begin to even express how excited I am. I love the Trails series so much (and clearly Falcom in general with the titles I’m juggling right now) and having wrapped Sky FC last week, I’m extremely hyped to begin SC.

And that wraps up everything up to now, I guess. I would have included a photo but there haven’t been very many because I’ve been pretty slammed the last couple of weeks, but if I manage to get out to the Brewhouse Saturday for the Arsenal match, I guess that’ll be the next photo in the next post, next week. So, ‘til next time, gang.

Peyton Holland 9/9/26 Peyton Holland 9/9/26

In the thick of it all

So, it's been a couple of weeks since my last blog post. Thought I'd take a moment to circle the proverbial wagons and get some thoughts out about how the last couple of weeks have gone. Well, gang, it has been busy! I've spent the last couple of weeks bearing down and making the adjustments necessary to support an extremely heavy workload in this chemistry course. In its absence, this semester would be a complete breeze. Chemistry is a pretty intense workload and requires a lot of hours spent on menial handwriting of pretty much everything. This is something I don't really agree with, but I'm actively acknowledging there's nothing for it but to do it and get through it. Otherwise, everything is going spectacularly. I'm excited about the group I am a part of for the Capstone course. Our Software Dev II class was an exploration of Google Antigravity and Cursor. We engaged both to create an operative prototype for a couple of our project ideas. I am absolutely blown away with how powerful they both are. With Cursor, I hit my token limit within about 10 minutes. With Antigravity, in conjunction with the free year of Google AI Pro offered to students, we had much better results. Cursor seemed to very much brute force its way through creation of the app. Antigravity, however, checked in with every major file operation and elaboration that needed to be made. Having used the same prompt for both, they yielded very different results, but the deliverable created by Antigravity seemed more useful, with more mechanics, more layers, and a much cleaner dashboard. We have some really exciting ideas in play for that course, and I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to work Antigravity more.

With the website, I have so much I'd like to continue to do. I have to brag on the calendar first. It has been, far and away, the tool I have used the most. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of the tool I've been able to create, and I'm constantly looking at ways to tweak it and change it to make it better. I'll get to those eventually, but I also need to get the remainder of the site operative. I've recently integrated the Projects section, which will serve as the basis for my portfolio and the projects I've worked on throughout my time at GGC. Next, I'm looking to overhaul the main landing page. I've got a lot of thoughts for that in mind, centralizing everything into a bit of a dashboard format so I don't fully lose my changelog. I'm sure something as minor as a changelog is considered antiquated by most, but for me, it serves as a good reminder of where I left off. Also, the intent behind it is to show that I'm mindful about the design of the site, consistent in it's maintenance, and that I'm actively working on it. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get some good headway on possibly integrating that completely over the next few days.

As for the remainder of this week, it's no surprise that chemistry labs will pretty much take over most of my free time through Friday. Every other class is going stellar, and I have no complaints. I am fully bought in, and intent on continuing to work as diligently as I can to try to stay ahead. On a personal level, I'd really like to get another new Spotify playlist made, because I'd like to nail down a vibe I can sail with for a few weeks as I make a big push to get some more authority over my workload and try to wrestle some time for myself so that I can get some coding projects nailed down.

Back to work on the site! If you are reading this, as always, thank you for taking the time, I am grateful for your consideration.

Peyton Holland 8/19/26 Peyton Holland 8/19/26

Start as you mean to go on

Today is Wednesday, and after a good week and a half of work I was finally able to get the website soft launched today, so W in the chat, gang. Classes are proceeding fairly well, and the workload is generally as I hoped it would be for my last semester (not you Chem II!) and has given me a little bit of room to work on other projects. The ongoing AI language modeling research project has bled over from summer semester into an additional project to work on throughout the fall, which I’m actually pretty excited about because it gives our group a better opportunity to achieve completion as our goals evolve.

Chemistry II is behaving as expected, with both a pretty crazy workload and also the whimsical and emotionally-fulfilling requirement for all assignments to be submitted in HANDWRITING ONLY. Thus, my workspace has looked like this pretty much every night since last Wednesday.

I still think I’ll come out well in Chem, but it’s definitely going to be intense. Outside of that, the remainder of my classes look decent. All told this semester, it’s the AI research project course, software development capstone project, mobile application development, web development, systems analysis and design, and chemistry II. Afterwards, you can find me dancing in the streets after graduation on December 11th.

Work on the site will continue as I have time. I’m proceeding with intent on ensuring ease of navigability, cross-contextual continuity between desktop and mobile view, as well as security. Look-and-feel work will continue as I deem it necessary or appropriate. The integration of the task calendar I built has completely replaced my use of Google Calendar + Tasks. I’m thinking a photo gallery may be next since I deleted my socials a couple of years ago and miss sharing inane photos of me working on things and also Bravo Cat. I also need to get the projects section integrated. So! Much to do moving forward.

Peyton Holland 8/13/26 Peyton Holland 8/13/26

In medias res

So, my first official blog post! Welcome to my site. I can't help but feel that it's a little self indulgent, but I think it's also the best way to get my stuff out into the world since I'm not on the ol' socials anymore.

Anyway, I'm Peyton! Nice to meet you. As I said in the first (informal) post, this blog will probably not be limited to my professional pursuits. I miss writing (and LiveJournal lol) so I think this is a good exercise.

This blog post comes to you from a coffee shop in Midtown Atlanta. I had an early mobile app development course this morning, and I wanted to get out for breakfast, stretch my legs, and go for a walk before I dive headlong into 7-10 hours of chemistry II homework.

The impetus behind starting this website is to put myself out into the world, introduce myself to prospective employers, and to sharpen and improve my design skills. I intend to do this behind the inclusion of small projects within the site, such as integration of a calendar that can pull information from Google Calendar. I only discovered today that when you integrate Google Calendar, the tasks do not follow, as they are private and user-specific. I feel like being able to view my calendar would give a prospective employer a good idea of how I manage my workflow during the semester.

Speaking of the semester, I have just started my (final!) fall semester at Georgia Gwinnett College. Little bit of a nonlinear path, but two weeks ago I left my job of 14 years as an Operations Manager in the telecom and IT retail space so that I could finish pursuing my degree full time, and for the first time in the four year online program, do so in person and on campus. It has been fantastic so far, much smoother than I had anticipated. My profs are excellent, and I'm looking forward to diving into the 5 class course load. This semester, I have mobile application development, web application development, systems analysis and design, chemistry II, and my software development capstone project course. Graduation in December (on the 11th, not that I'm paying any attention to it lol) will get here sooner than I think. I'm looking forward to doing my very best. Much more to come!

I'm hoping to get a couple/few blog posts off every week, and I'm intent on working on the site daily to continue adding to it and sharpening it. I'm also hoping to begin using exclusively my own media (photos, etc.) in the construction of my site. Right now, I'm using Gemini 3.6 Flash for assistance with constructing components (such as the CSS "Aspiring ..." block on the main page) and will continue to do so, along with hard HTML and CSS coding of my own. All blog content will be MY OWN. All killer, no filler. That is my promise in this and every blog post, as well as all text used on the site. The construction will be AI assisted. The content will never be so.

At any rate, I think that's a pretty reasonable first blog, gang. We covered a lot of ground. I'm out for a walk around Midtown before it gets hotter than the surface of the literal sun outside.

Peyton Holland 8/12/26 Peyton Holland 8/12/26

Getting started

Hello! This is my first blog post, and the integration of my blog with the overall site. This blog will not be limited to professional pursuits, and I will be intentional about updating with new content a couple/few times a week as time allows. Please look forward to it.

In the meantime, here is a photo of Bravo Cat.