Walrussian

August 6, 2025

Last week, I shared my Convention City Seattle trail card for Melrose Loop in Capitol Hill, and I have many other cards in the works -- more starting points, more destinations, more trails, and a brand-new template. I'll share those after incorporating stakeholder feedback.

In the meantime, did you know I have a degree from Harvard University?

And it's what I believe to be the best experience they offer: Harvard Extension School, with rigorous graduate study designed for adult learners, taught by Harvard's distinguished faculty.

I created the content in my Harvard Extension School Academic Portfolio by feeding my transcript, syllabi, and selected academic papers into a chatbot for analysis, cross-referencing, and more.

This part's easy. If you can find your transcript, the names of your former professors, and your syllabi, it's a fun exercise to see what comes out. My favorite part was getting book recommendations for getting back into the subject or for catching up with the latest readings in each area of study. There were some clunkers in the results, and I had to write an ISBN validation script to make sure that the details were correct, but overall, the AI did a fine job.

Article content Table of contents! Interactive transcript! Talking dogs!

What you may not realize at first glance is that this page hosted on my personal website... https://app.ivantohelpyou.com/education/harvard-extension

...and this page on a separate Convention City Seattle website... https://qrcard.conventioncityseattle.com/trails/capitol-hill/melrose-loop

...are running on the same infrastructure.

Article content Tab groups! Interactive maps! Cheeseburgers! Both have groups:

Overview", "Talking Dogs", "Foreign Literature and Culture", etc. "Food", "Coffee", "Drinks", etc.

Both have selections:

"Academic Summary", "Published Research" "Lil Woody's", "Melrose Market"

And both run on the same platform with shared:

Multi-domain Flask deployment Database-driven path resolution logic Shared content management system Dynamic QR Code generation and routing Template-driven content rendering with ability to add custom features (e.g. maps, hyperlinks, static content of any type) Environment-specific staging for template code and content Responsive mobile-first design JSON-based content intake Real-time content updates Analytics and usage tracking Security validation and token management

That's right, my friends, what looks like two completely different websites (an academic portfolio and a tourism guide) are the very same platform with different configurations.

That means I can add a new portfolio, or a new tourism trail, or a new customer site, by updating a database record through a dashboard, or at a command-line, or via API, or MCP server.

See where I'm going with this?

If not, you'll see soon enough.