Month: April 2015

2015.04.10 – Pycon Day One

I was too tired to get up and make it to the opening statement and keynote talks. Andrew let me sleep while he got up, made coffee, tea, showered and got dressed. We made it across the street to the conference at around 10:00 and wandered around the expo hall. We talked to a few people, ran into some old friends and scoped out the different booths. I spotted a Dreamhost booth which surprised me a lot. They are a Perl shop and this was all about Python. Andrew and I wandered over to chat with them and I talked with a really nice guy for a bit and then glanced over at the other person, looked at their nametag and noticed it said Jonathan. Huh. I was supposed to speak with a Jonathan on Monday but the call had to be rescheduled. Could this be the same person? He saw me and I saw him and then we both realized who the other person was. I didn’t know he would be there and he didn’t know I would be there either. So weird. Anyway, he said we should have lunch on Sunday and I said that would be great but I was definitely not expecting he would follow through. I figured it was just awkward for him and he was being nice.

It was time for the talks to start so I went to the first one and ran into Amanda. We stayed in the same room for the next talk as well. Andrew went to a couple of security talks and then sat with us for the last talk before lunch. The talks were all pretty good. I enjoyed the talk about PEP 8. The three of us went and stood in a really long lunch line and then ended up missing the next talk. Andrew and I headed to the Advanced Git talk. I was very curious about what constituted advanced. I ended up knowing and regularly using everything he talked about except for bisecting. I thought, “If that’s advanced Git then I’m a freakin’ genius!”

After that we watched David Beazley LIVE code for his talk. It was so impressive and very funny. He’s a great speaker. We had the pleasure of listening to his talk last year about being locked in a vault with a computer. It’s also a fantastic talk.

After all of the talks were over we were both pretty tired so we went to the local IGA and got some groceries. We made a yummy dinner in our cute little studio, caught up on some email and went to bed. Great day!

Today I learned that I know more Git than I thought. That or the talk was horribly titled.

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2015.04.09 – To Montreal and Pycon!

Today was pretty much just a day of travel to Montreal but with one interesting twist! Our flight had a connection at Dulles airport in Washington D.C. which would be a first for us. Taylor and Delaney were returning from a trip to New Orleans and Alabama. Apparently their flight was delayed by several hours and they now had to connect in D.C. as well. I just happened to see his post about it right before we were to board the plane so I told him what time we were arriving. They were arriving at exactly the same time and just a few gates down from us! We would be able to hug them in passing and I could wish Taylor a happy early birthday since it’s tomorrow.

We arrived and there they were! It was so great to meet them all the way across the country like that when we live just a mile from each other 🙂 The rest of the trip was totally uneventful. We arrived in Montreal at about 19:00, easily made it through customs and caught our bus to the city. Our flat was pretty easy to find and although I knew it was close to the conference I didn’t realize it was right next to it. Perfect! The flat is really nice and has everything we need for our week here including a washer and dryer. Once we dropped off our stuff we headed out for dinner. There was an Ethiopian place about a mile from where we are staying so in spite of the cold and the rain we walked there. It was a nice brisk walk and our delicious food was totally worth it. We ate every scrap and were both stuffed. The perfect time to make the walk back. There were a surprising amount of people out at that hour and in that weather but I guess the rain is an improvement for the locals. I am told they had the coldest winter they have had in years.

Today I learned that I can handle being out in colder weather than I had realized.

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2015.04.08 – Last Day at Mozilla

I had a meeting in the morning with someone from a local tech company that was supposedly offering apprenticeships. It was a total waste of time unfortunately and a bit discouraging but onward. I worked for a few hours just tying up loose strings, meeting with Peter and Richard to go over everything, say goodbye officially and to talk to them about what my plans were for continued contributions to Air Mozilla. I also had a chance to say goodbye to the other employees and Katt bought cupcakes! She’s so sweet! I will definitely miss her.

I had a great lunch date with Rachel whom I met at Kronda’s Church of Waffles last month. I had the nicest time just sitting and talking with her. I hope we can do that again soon!

Wayne picked me up and then it was a mad rush to do laundry and pack for our trip to Montreal and Pycon tomorrow. Sooooooo tired!

Today I learned that Lovejoy Bakers has an amazing chickpea and lemon sandwich! Definitely need to go back there.

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2015.04.07 – I Didn’t Love It but I Did It

Today was the day of my presentation. There was a bit of confusion about where I would be presenting and I was hoping it would be in HUB but it ended up I had to present out in the commons. Peter was also being helpful, gah, and telling Outreachy and other Mozillians to tune in so totally no pressure! Katt was incredible though and closed the glass wall for me to make the room not feel so big. She’s the best. Anyway, I did it.

Starring Events On Air Mozilla

It was dinner night and Wayne made a huge pot of not-beef stew. We had Miri, Dale, baby Michael, Miri’s sister Lisa and her daughter Jessica, John, Spencer, Jason, Alice and the six of us.

Today I learned that a presentation longer than five minutes is actually easier because one has time to kind of relax and feel comfortable up there before it’s over. Wouldn’t have expected that.

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2015.04.06 – I Think I’m Sick That Day

I tried to use that excuse to get out of giving a presentation about my project on Air Mozilla but of course it didn’t work. It’s tomorrow so I stayed home and worked on my slides and my notes.

I did take a break to take Natale to the doctor and then to lunch afterward since he missed school lunch. We went to Por Que No? because I thought he would really like it. He LOVED it. He ate all of his lunch, half of mine and picked at Jason and Alice’s leftovers. Yes, they happened to be there having lunch so we joined them.

I also took another break to go tour a really old building in Chinatown that had been unused for the last 70 years. A friend of Alice and Jason is the general contractor and project manager who is remodeling the historic building into a new, affordable hotel. It was amazing to see it all torn back to the studs, to see the work that has been done and to hear about the plans for finishing it. I can’t wait to see it all done. It has an incredible rooftop view too!

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Today I learned that one million tons of cement were poured for one 70 foot shear wall in the hotel. Damn!

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2015.04.05 – This and That

Today was full of miscellaneous trips here and there. Andrew went running while Wayne and I took our walk in the neighborhood north of our house. We didn’t really realize that Gay Street kind of jogs east and becomes an alleyway for quite a distance. I think all the way to Rosa Parks at least. I should have known because our friend Mulysa’s house backs up to the alley and I’ve been there several times. I’m not really the most observant person though.

When we got back I wrote out TOO MANY checks for tax payments, visited with Jason for a bit when he came over then took a shower. It was soon time to pick up Dale, Miri and baby Michael from the airport but first we had to drop off Penny Loafer at their house and grab their car since it has the carseat. They landed nearly 30 minutes early! They were just getting their bags when we got there though so it was fine. They brought us back a loaf of San Francisco Sourdough bread. Yum! After we dropped them off Wayne and I stopped at this cool store that reclaims items from the landfill. The find some really sweet stuff. We found an old five panel door for $30!

Once we got back home I needed to take Jayde and Natale shopping for shoes, socks, underwear and such. That took a while because Natale is kind of picky about shoes. The pair he really liked were leather though and NOPE. He eventually found a pair he liked and lots of the stuff was on sale.

I worked more on my code/talk by looking over what I had written down yesterday and I also took some screen shots for slides. When I was done with that I worked on the test for pagination. I had to get a bit of help from Andrew and soon figured out that I was over-thinking the test for sure. I pushed it up and submitted a PR so we’ll see what might need rewriting if anything.

Today I learned about git cherry-pick. VERY handy!

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2015.04.04 – Telling a Story

Wayne and I went for a long walk zig-zagging along the streets in our neighborhood while Andrew went for a long run. We have to order windows and were just kind of looking at what other houses had. We didn’t walk very fast with so much looking but we did enjoy seeing the changes people have made since we last looked this closely. It was so much fun that we decided we’ll do it again tomorrow in a different part of the neighborhood.

When we got back I pestered Andrew into sitting down with me so that I could walk through all of my code to make sure I really understand what everything is doing. I call it “Telling a story” and it helps me SO much because he can correct me immediately if I am mistaken about how something works. I hit a lot of bumps in the road while telling this story but I definitely feel like I see what I did as a whole instead of a piece here and a piece there. Whew!

I took a break in the afternoon and made a vegan lemon meringue pie. It was much easier the second time. After dinner, Wayne and Andrew went over to Alice and Jason’s house to watch a movie but I wanted to keep working on my talk. I’m waaaaaay too tired though so early bedtime for me.

Today I learned there was a lunar eclipse. I’m so outta the loop these days.

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2015.04.03 – Friday, Blah Day

I was supposed to go down to Mozilla but I have been feeling really tired so I decided to just stay home. I worked on my presentation but mostly rested. I still have to write the test for pagination but I really want to get a solid understanding of how all of the code parts and pieces fit together. I’m also trying to make sure I have all travel in order for our trip to Montreal. I haven’t even thought about packing and printing out addresses and such but all flights are booked and AirBNB is booked. I still have to buy train tickets but we can grab those at the train station in Montreal. I haven’t figured out when we should head to New York for our flight but if we leave the day before, we will need a hotel. We have a flurry of doctor’s appointments the three days before we go. Sooooo many things! But first I need a good talk outline so enough of this rambling.

Today I learned that we only get to dog sit Penny Loafer for the weekend and not a week like I had thought 🙁

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2015.04.02 – Hello Development Server!

With one final code change and merge my project was moved to the development server! It feels like a loooooong time coming but there it is. Peter immediately found an issue. The incorrect message displays when a logged in user goes straight to the starred page with no starred events. It says loading and never does anything else and that’s not going to work. I got busy figuring out how to fix it. My idea was to put the text in a <div> that can be hidden unless needed. I made the changes and pushed them up. Peter was leaving for the day though so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Andrew came to hang out with me because we had a PLUG meeting to go to at 19:00. When I was done working we headed out to find food. We decided we would just walk until we found something but as we were walking I remembered that Andrew hadn’t ever eaten at Boxer Ramen. They only have one vegan dish but it’s really good so we went there. He didn’t like it as much as I do but now he can say he ate there 🙂 We ate all we could (they have huge portions) and then meandered over to PSU where the meeting is held.

Clinton was giving a talk about mp4s, metadata and subtitiles. I bet it would have been an awesome talk if not for the guy who would. not. shut. UP! Ugh! He kept interrupting the speaker, correcting the speaker, explaining things in detail that the speaker was going to present himself. It was super annoying and kind of ruined the presentation for me anyway.

After the talk several people were going to the Lucky Lab on Quimby but I have been so tired every day by like 17:00. I couldn’t even stand the thought of taking the Max home so I called Wayne and asked if he would pick us up. He was happy to and was there in no time. I was so thankful. Straight to bed for me!

Today I learned that Elon Musk can affect his stock price with a simple April Fools Day tweet. Ridiculous!

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2015.04.01 – One More Week

I spent the day avoiding the news and people. Ok maybe not people. I sat out in the common area and talked to people here and there but everyone was pretty much head down busy. I’m trying to flesh out my talk since it’s coming up on Tuesday. Also trying to fix little bugs as they come up. It’s interesting how much gets missed even with tests and live testing. There are just so many possible scenarios. Peter is pretty quick to find stuff too.

I’m working on a test to check that pagination works. I find writing tests and testing to be very interesting but a lot of people really dislike and/or don’t understand the need for them. I see similar reactions from people who are asked to use a virtual environment for a coding project. I might write up my thoughts on these tools and why I think they are not just a great idea but very necessary.

Today I learned that my project is just about ready to move to the development server!

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