Life

The University of YouTube
This week, I learned how to roll out potica dough thin enough to see the flowers on your tablecloth through it. I went from knowing vaguely that engines have carburetors to disassembling my snowthrower and repairing it. Other things I’ve used it for are video game hints for when I’m stuck, adjusting bike disc brakes,…

Ergonomics in my middle ages
Why a lifetime of living in this body has made me so picky about keyboards, among other things.

Talking about my internalized ableism
What if I prioritize comfort and joy over pride? Why is that hard for me?

Location, location, location: A perennial discussion
Last night, part 87 of a perpetual discussion flared up again. The one about where you live and why it matters. It started with an article by Sean Blanda – Our Remote Work Future is Going to Suck. I encourage you to read the article, it’s not 100% right, but Blanda brings up excellent points…

Circles of Care in the workplace
I first learned about Circles of Care from my brother, I think, when he was going through his chaplaincy training. It goes like this: The patient is in the center of the circle. Surrounding them in a ring are their parents, partners, or closest loved ones. The next ring out is more extended family, less-intimate-but-still-close…

A Day in the Life of DevRel
This picture was taken on April 11, 2019, in Linz, Austria, at DevOne. I had left the first LaunchDarkly Trajectory conference in the last hour and flown to Austria overnight to speak here. That was The Before Times. This is a capture of my events calendar for last September. There’s a lattice of different-colored event…
That’s not funny
This is me and my sister with our half-yearly shipment of goods from South Africa. Until I was kindergarten-age, we lived in Zaire, now DR Congo. As you can see, stockpiling is nothing new to me. What you need to know about DR Congo is that it’s not an accident I’m afraid of snakes. There…

Word of the Year: Equipoise
When I started thinking about my word of the year, the image I kept returning to was an object at a Lagrange point. That’s one of the five places in the orbits of two celestial bodies where a smaller object is effectively balanced between the competing gravitational forces of the larger objects. It’s related to…
Upcoming appearances
Velocity Berlin
Minneapolis DevOps Meetup
DeliveryConf