Life
What did you think was going to happen?
My mom taught 6th and 7th grade (often a gifted/STEM) class for the better part of two decades. If you think back, you may remember this as not your peak decision-making time of life. You can spot my mom’s former students by their love of history, language, learning and connections, and by a slight flinch…
BuJo Pig
It’s a joke about bourgeoisie performative productivity and how it intersects with bullet journaling… Nevermind. Bullet journaling is: a) a productivity system that uses a journal to capture to-do lists, stray thoughts, and planning, with various levels of elaboration b) an art form ostensibly about planning journals, but also worth time and devotion in itself,…
Satiety
In Disney’s Fantasia, Mickey, the sorcerer’s apprentice, enchants brooms to magically do his tedious chore. The problem is, Mickey is only an apprentice and although he can get things started, he is not wise enough to give the brooms an end point, an “enough”. I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot, lately, satiety. (It…
A Parable of the Polar Vortex
The best time to shovel your driveway is immediately after it snows, but failing that, any time before you have driven on it. Driving on fresh-fallen snow compacts it into something between “ice” and “pure evil”, depending on the temperature, humidity of the air, humidity of the snow, etc. I just went out and shoveled…
The Year That Was 2018
A wrap-up of my year’s travel, including links to conference talks, and photos of places I’ve been.
This job is all the best parts of going to college
I used to say that technical writing is an endless series of research papers, and if I had realized that when I started doing it, I might have studied harder at the Java class I flunked. But not really, because the thing I loved about research papers was reading the primary text, and a bunch…
Lady Conference Speaker: 14 Travel Tips
I was talking to a fellow ladyish conference speaker, and I reeled off a list of my travel tips as they pertain to people who are working for small/nimble enough companies that you don’t have to book through The Corporate Site. Remember that your time is usually more valuable than the amount you can save…
My first year, a professional review
A bit over a year ago, I applied to a startup. I’d never been a developer advocate before, and I wasn’t sure what the job actually entailed, but the person who recommended me (thanks, Rach!) and the hiring manager said that probably my experience doing talks about technical writing was enough to make me a…
My first year, a personal review
I woke up to a cheery email today telling me that a quarter of my stock options had vested. That means I’ve been with LaunchDarkly a whole year! (there are worse anniversary notes to get). And what a year it’s been. I thought about doing a photo essay of all the conferences I went to…
Dignity, Always Dignity
One of the interesting parts of being a semi-public figure by doing DevRel is that it makes you think a lot about how you look to other people, in a way I suspect is not a concern for the ordinary developer. It parallels the doubled perception that a lot of women already experience. In 1972,…
Upcoming appearances
Full Stack Conference London
DevOpsDays Minneapolis
Write/Speak/Code
DevOpsDays Chicago
Texas Scalability Summit
Velocity Berlin