Mark Palfreeman

The writer, the text and the audience Meaning in art comes from more than the artifact.

✏️ New post: The writer, the text and the audience hidde.blog/connection-c...

Thanks again @cascadiajs.com for a friendly, quality conference. I've been publicly nonexistent for two years tending to our son's leukemia treatment, and it was nice to dip my toes back into the broader web industry in a small way.

Excited for next year 👋
#cascadiajs

Starting January 1 Planning Center will be moving to a 4-day work week!! | Jeff Berg Starting January 1 Planning Center will be moving to a 4-day work week!! Sure, we're excited about the extra days off. But this is really about creating something sustainable that helps our team do t...

Our company @planningcenter.com just announced we're moving to 4-day work weeks in 2026 🙌🙏

www.linkedin.com/posts/jeff-b...

YouTube video by Anna Palfreeman Anna Palfreeman - My Love (Official Video)

Two months ago, we made a video for my wife Anna's song "My Love," about her unwavering commitment to help our son walk through child cancer treatment. I love that we got familiar scenes at our very own @seattlechildrens.org 💛

🎥 Video: youtu.be/eqcqLGJbDr8

🎵 "Frontline" album: found.ee/frontline

Seattle songwriter finds her words for childhood cancer Singer/songwriter and mom Anna Palfreeman is singing through cancer treatment—her son's. Her cathartic album,'Frontline," releases June 20.

Thank you Seattle's Child for writing an article about Anna's new "Frontline" album (and release show) this Friday 6/20!

www.seattleschild.com/anna-palfree...

🎤 CONCERT reminder: we're playing through Anna's "Frontline," an album processing our son's leukemia treatment 🎗️

Fremont Abbey, June 20 at 7:30

🎟️ TICKETS: lightcollectivepnw.ejoinme.org/frontlinetic...

My Love by Anna Palfreeman Listen now on your favorite streaming service. Powered by Songlink/Odesli, an on-demand, customizable smart link service to help you share songs, albums, podcasts and more.

Anna's first song, "My Love," from a new album Frontline, is out now. We even made a video with footage from home and Seattle Children's Hospital, where Emerson is being treated for leukemia. I hope it helps anyone going through the unthinkable 🫶🎗️

🎵 song.link/i/1808909182
🎥 youtu.be/eqcqLGJbDr8

Claudia's stepped it up a level this year.

Committed to going snowboarding next Friday for the first time in ~3 years!

Time to completely reevaluate my gear and spend 4x the price of a lift ticket on things I'll wear a few times.

📣 NEW blog post: "A year of childhood cancer: 10 lessons that changed me"

open.substack.com/pub/markpalf...

Welcome to Best Attentions 👋 Calm reflections on being, focus, and embracing imperfection. Where does your attention go?

🗣️ I'm off work for three weeks, so I did the next logical thing: start a Substack!

I'm calling it "Best Attentions: calm reflections on being, focus, and embracing imperfection."

Read the intro post 👇🏼
open.substack.com/pub/markpalf...

I'm officially off work until January 2, thanks in part to Washington FMLA. Time to reflect on a hell of a year.

No, I will not be doing any technical side projects (just writing, reading, photo, or video).

First up: 4-day family trip to a cabin in the woods 🌲

I just got notified a USPS package got delivered 9 hours in the future, but I did just see Interstellar so I'm not really surprised.

🤔 At what point can we graduate from the term "modern browsers"? What does that even mean?

"It is far more radical and dangerous to have hope than to live hemmed in by fear."
– Suleika Jaouad

❓ Legitimately curious: how do you decide on social communities and content to interact with?

Between the infinite sea of podcasts, Discords, social media feeds, I tend toward apathetically avoiding it all instead of engaging with a select few.

What's your approach?

In a year orbiting around our 5-year-old son's leukemia treatment, today I'm acutely thankful for:
- Modern medicine and Seattle Children's Hospital for saving his life
- Friends and family who've supported us in our suffering and isolation

💛🎗️

Excited for December primarily to build holiday LEGO. I'm up to 5 sets and bought white bases for a lil village 🎅🏼🧝🏼‍♂️🎄🏡

~15 years on Twitter, a stint on Bluesky, a year+ on Threads. I still gravitate back to these apps, though the fragmentation has killed a lot of value for me. Personally I have less to say, so it's becoming mindless consumption.

What keeps you here?
Learning? Influence? Fun? Identity?

I resisted this, but I may need to segment my social apps with a purpose instead of following everyone everywhere. Since the network effect was lost, it's been exhausting to know where to post and spend time.

- Bluesky: tech/web/career
- Threads: photo/video/creativity
- Twitter: stragglers

???

👋

Ok, the summer 4-day weeks at my new job have been amazing:

1. Built-in pressure to stay focused, eliminate distraction, and finish stuff.

2. Even if I "let housework slide" during the workweek, a 3-day weekend is enough to pick up the slack *and* have fun.

Well, I think I have to quit Wordle now.

Someone at work mentioned Crash Test Dummies—

Went on and listened to "God Shuffled His Feet" in its entirety, and was absolutely not disappointed 🎧

Jon Haidt has written that helping others, physical activity, focus, meaning, gratitude, and cultivating relationships make us happiest.

With all our devices and media and AI race, are we getting closer to these goals?

I can't stop thinking about what we're trying to accomplish with our time and technology.

Convenience? Speed? Connection? Happiness? Play?

What makes you optimistic (or pessimistic) about where technology is heading?

Also, deleting the Gmail app from my Pixel has been 💯 for eliminating the urge to check yet-another-app way too often.

I have a long ways to go in building resistance to stupid temptations, but one step at a time.

every now and then, whoever is in charge of salt and vinegar flavour at the pringles factory, goes absolutely *rogue* with the seasoning

i want them to know they are perfect and loved by me

As a kid, I never owned a Gameboy or any console. Sometimes I played N64 Mario Kart and Tony Hawk at friends' houses.

Yesterday at 34 I bought a Switch 🎮🤘

Every January: "I'm gonna write more blog posts this year!"

Every other month: