Life rocks everyday of the week
This year’s just kicked ass. It’s been great, seriously.
I’ve been working on chapters for Definitive Drupal 7 about project planning and managing a major project. It’s supposed to come out this fall, we hope!, and this one’s been on my plate for awhile. I’m about half-way through the “Planning a Project” chapter, and I’m noticing a theme in my writing. It’s very subtle.
It goes a little like this: Continue reading →
Project management is sometimes like surfing: A whole bunch of waves come in and smash you and you kindof ride it out. Wait for next set of waves. Repeat.
Cute, neh?
Disasterpiece theatre:
When your life acquires an off-stage director. (Insert wild hair and villainous appearance here.) The normal supporting cast begins to move in ways that are at first merely perplexing, then fascinating. This does not necessarily involve ominous music, men in top hats and British accents. It all works out in the end.
And by ‘Today’, I mean the last 6 months, or so. Give or take.
DrupalCamp Portland kicked off last Friday night at NedSpace Old Town with a great turnout, and we had a great weekend of discussions about web development with Drupal.
Saturday was sessions all day, with highlights include: Josh Konig talking about Drupal in the Cloud, Sam Boyer talking about Panels, Damien Tournoud talking about Drupal 7, and Bill Fitzgerald talking about Views. An international rockstar DrupalCamp, clearly. (There were also great conversations over sushi, showing out of towners more of the beautiful city of Portland, and appreciating Portland’s great microbrews.)
Yeah, I gave a session on project management.
I’ve spent the last few days in San Francisco deeply buried in Drupal and the future of Ubercart, and am flying up to Vancouver this afternoon to work with the D7CX initiative. We’ll be posting more about that in conjunction with BadCamp and the Drupal 7 Contributed Module sprint this weekend.
In fact, in almost every region of the US and Canada, there’s a Drupal event going on. Drupal Events Calendar
No, I’m serious.
See you all in Vancouver!
One year ago this week, I took a leap and started working professionally in web development. One year ago this week, I became a Drupal project manager. (And lord, did I have no idea of what I was getting into.)
In retrospect, this is one of the best choices I think I’ve made. It has also been one of the most frustrating and rewarding choices.
Continue reading →
The last few months have been intense.
A quick update on the past conference schedule:
Transparency Camp West at Google was fascinating. Mostly because of the interactions that happen around the idea of government transparency. It really is like the wild west, but lots of smart people are willing to get in and do battle. Lovely, and most excited to see what comes out of this.
I’m enjoying a few more days of summer before packing off to DrupalCon Paris, I’ll be in Paris from the 1st through the 5th, and then wandering aimlessly through the south of France into Northern Italy, returning by way of Rome.
I’m missing the Gov 2.0 gathering in DC, but a few days of vacation in Europe and catching up on Italy is more important.
(The Not To Do List.)
Wait for the pain of waking up to subside. (Is it painful to be awake? Yes. Roll over, try again later.) Shower. Go to Peet’s and get a cup of coffee. Walk to Lloyd Center and spend 15 minutes hunting for where my sister deposited her car. Move car back to house. Remark on how dirty it is. Remember that it’s not my car, I can’t care. Watch TV. Consider what TV it is I want to watch. Get excited about something. Consider doing more laundry. Decide that the kichen needs cleaning. Decide not to clean it. Go get a refill on the coffee. Notice that the Ignite gurus list hasn’t been read, and ooh, ‘Keeping Ignite Legal?’ File away under ‘things to let Reid know is going in our slides.’
Procrastinate by writing this out. Post on Twitter about how my to do lists and my not to do lists have switched places. Get sucked into twitter conversation. Notice that DrupalCon is coming up. Forget to respond to Aaron about WordCamp. Ask folks who will be at Lunch 2.0 in.. gulp.. Goddammit.
Be suggestible enough to post this on the blog.
To Do:
Move meetings around so I have more time to focus. Bash head against a whitepaper draft that’s mostly written and send back to collaborators. Preen on how awful a job it is. Take whiteboard scribbles and turn them into the ‘puppet show’ of project transition plans. (Laugh at how apt that term is for presentations.) Look like someone that’s more put together. Stop this nonsense.
——
With that, I’ll see some of you at Lunch 2.0.
My alter-ego Reid Beels and I decided it would be funny to put in for Ignite Portland 6. I’ve been here in the Portland tech community since October 2008 (I KNOW! It’s really a short time!), and that’s included involvement in 2 separate Ignites. Ignite 4 and 5 were as a volunteer helping to make the magic happen.
Ignite 6 will be different. Reid and I are usually the folks behind the code and the people, and haven’t yet taken the stage.
We have to put slides together soon, like before Sunday soon, so expect a post on the alleged decisionmaking process of what goes into an Ignite presentation.
In other news, Open Source Bridge went splendidly. More to come on that one.
Open Source Bridge 1.0 opens tomorrow, I’m watching the tweets come in from the airport about the people that are arriving, and I have to admit, I’m kindof in shock.
It’s finally here.
I’ll be chilling as the sponsor contact of the team around, so if you see me around the Oregon Convention Center in sessions, in the speaker lounge, in the expo hall, say hi. If you see me in the Hacker Lounge, say double hi. If you see me on the Max, pretend you don’t know me… Actually, random public transport conversations are some of the best things about Portland.
I say 1.0 because this is the first one, and it’s bound to get better from here.
10 hours, 28 minutes, and 17 seconds. Here we go!
On Theming:
Wordpress: 8 lines of code to tweak things, the hardest part of which is finding the Benjamin Moore site and using ColorPic because I am lazy and do not want to guess what ‘Yellow Rain Coat’ and ‘Autumn Purple’ are in RGB values. So sue me. Upload, refresh. Perfect.
Drupal: Install theme. Discover that it’s not really what I had in mind. Want to tweak things. Stare at css and php files and wondering where I left the roadmap for which things cancel out the others and which one is actually for real. Change one little thing. Thank God for Firebug so that I can find it again. Change other thing. Watch nice rounded corners go sideways, and wonder what I have offended to cause the computer to hate me so. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Wordpress, you’re cute and funny and easy to play with, but why did you have to slack off in school?
Drupal, I love you and I know we’re in a committed relationship and all that, but baby, why couldn’t you see it my way? I will write you angry love songs, how’s that?
I'm speaking at DrupalCon San Francisco! Come visit!
