terriko

It's been a while since I just wrote about what I'm doing, so let me tell you about some of this week:



On Wednesday I...

... continued to run cool experiments on mutated software at work.
... went to see Cory Doctorow speak at the library.
... went out for falafel with some local hacklab folk.
... beat up an ingress portal with the help of my lvl 8 friend.

Today was less cool, what with the 2hr taxes-for-aliens session (not actually what they call it, but accurate enough), but I did make some coffee cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

I plan to feed those to my coworkers (partially to make fun of the fact that we ran out of coffee today. "Look, I brought coffee!") and anyone who shows up at the local 2600 meeting tomorrow.

Then, on Saturday I'm going to build stilts and hopefully learn to walk on them! Or more likely, bruise my knees a lot, but hey, can never learn if I don't try, right?

And on Sunday I'm playing a concert of predominantly Percy Grainger music (which is pretty music-nerdy), and then hopefully taking part in a meeting to start a local Hacker Scouts guild.

So yeah, I've mostly been living life rather than photographing it and posting about it lately, but it is a very awesome life and you should all be jealous, promise!

I'm mildly discombobulated since my flight got in quite delayed last night and I swear, there wasn't enough time between travel even though I had more than a week, but here's updates:

(1) GSoC Mentor Summit was amazing, filled with open source folk who were also passionate about mentoring. It was cool having lots in common with every person I talked to all weekend.

(2) I have pictures, largely of playing powerpoint karaoke yesterday. Also of some of the guys playing rugby in the hot tub. ;) (Well, okay, just tossing a ball around, but still!) They need some serious culling so expect most of them later in the week. Arc pulled the best ones off my camera and they're here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109741359399131092509/posts/VHbodBCsBPJ (Thanks to Denis of Gentoo for being our photographer!)

(3) Oh yeah, the big announcement is that I'm going to be the Org admin for the Python Software Foundation next year. Doomed! So yeah, I go from managing my 3 students, 7 mentors for Mailman (and backup managing another 3 students from Systers), to around 30 students spread across a pile of sub-organizations. Should be fun. Or terrifying. :) I'll probably write more about this later once it's had more time to sink in.

(4) I need to also make time to encourage folk to come to Pycon. There is financial aid available and the application is up. I'm going to be sending more personal notes out to my new contributors from GHC12 and my GSoC students from Systers and Mailman. The Mailman sprint last year was probably the most satisfying hacking event I've ever attended, and I want others to have that experience. :)

(5) I did get all my GHC12 pictures up before I left: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/terrio/sets/72157631687919350/

(6) My last official GHC12 blog post (about the open source day hackathon) is pending now that I have photos to go with it. I've got notes for a few more, but not sure I'll have time to write them.

In theory, I'll be home in New Mexico and not traveling again 'till December. Which is good, because I need to put together academic applications, write a paper with my remaining thesis research (the tech report got cited twice already, which is a sign that I should have something more peer-reviewed out there), and get the research done for my next paper. Plus, you know, squash all the open bugs/add all the missing features in Postorius, make sure the port of dynamic sublists to Mailman 3 is finished, and purchase flights for my trip home in December.

I feel like I should be a lot more stressed about all that I've got on my plate, but after a weekend with open source folk, I'm feeling pretty relaxed and pleasant and like it's all going to work out somehow. And to be honest, that feeling may be the most important thing I'm bringing back from Mountain View this week. :)

I've done a lot of complaining about Albuquerque, which is in many ways complaining about the US in general and poor Albuquerque is just getting the brunt of my culture shock because I live here. But I have missed two very important things you need to know that are totally awesome:

1. In the desert, it always becomes lovely and cool at some point around sunset.
2. There are no mosquitoes here.

So if you're wondering why I'm not back to playing Diablo this week now that my friends have headed home, it's probably that I'm enjoying the hours of absolutely perfect patio weather that this city graces me with every single night. Plus, that's when the hummingbirds come out and the sunsets are amazing.