Category: Life Update

June 10, 2011

Summer Conference Schedule and Other Projects

It’s been quiet around here because I’ve been busy running BarCamp Portland and planning for Open Source Bridge, among other things. And it’s not going to slow down any time soon. Here’s my Summer conference schedule and an update on some of the projects that will be keeping me busy for the next several months.

21-24 June — Open Source Bridge

The conference for open source citizens, now in it’s third edition. I’m co-chairing the event this year, so while I won’t be giving any talks, I’ll be kicking off the conference and hanging around to make sure things run smoothly. Registration is still open, so come check it out if you’re able and be sure to find me and say hi.

23-34 July — Community Leadership Summit

The CLS is a free unconference for community organizers. I attended last year and found it worthwhile to connect with other community leaders who are in town from all over the US and beyond to attend OSCON.

25-29 July — OSCON

I’m giving two talks at OSCON this year: Tools for Spelunking a New-to-You Codebase and Event Planning for Geeks with Sherri Montgomery and Audrey Eschright.

Other Projects

WhereCampPDX (7-9 October)

WhereCampPDX is a free, volunteer-created unconference for anyone interested in geography and technology and this will be it’s 4th year. I’m helping to organize and if you want to help out, you can join our mailinglist.

Tech Workshops for Beginners

We want to run a series of recurring intro technology workshops. The workshops will be peer-driven, have a low instructor-to-student ratio and serve as the base for on-going mentor relationships. We’re not looking to teach a specific language, but rather offer a handful and let students choose what they connect with most. To make this a success, we’re going to need a lot of help from the community. Want to get involved? We have a mailinglist for that.

Stumptown Syndicate

The Syndicate is a non-profit that Audrey, Reid and I started late last year. Its purpose is to support technology education and professional development through fundraising, space and resource coordination, and other activities. It’s the organization we used to run Open Source Bridge, and we’ll be using it to run WhereCamp and possibly some other events this year. We want to earn 501(c)(3) status so that we can accept tax-deductible donations and we’ll be working on our application over the summer. Want to help? Email us at board@stumptownsyndicate.org. Want to keep track of our progress? We have a newsletter for that.

BarCamp Planning

Yes, yes, I know, we just had BarCamp Portland 5. But there’s a lot we want to accomplish for next year’s event and so we’re going to start early. We want to totally revamp our branding and our website and do a lot better at marketing the event. Want to help? Yup, you guessed it, we have a mailinglist for that too.

December 7, 2010

On legions, syndicates, bridges and other projects

Holy sleep deprivation, Batman, I have been busy! My last life-update-type blog entry was a month ago and it feels like three.

A few weeks ago I made weekend trip to the Bay Area to visit and catch up with some dear friends, including my brother Will. I got to see the house that my friends purchased last year (their first), was treated to some awesome homemade vegan chili, and also got to visit many fine felines. Oh, and the weather was fantastic, as in mid-70s. So nice to have a break from Portland’s grey chill, even if I did come back with half a dozen mosquito bites.

Armstrong the Royal Cat

Thanksgiving was really nice. Sherri and I spent it here in Portland and hosted for the first time as a married couple. About a dozen people participated, including ourselves. Sherri and I prepared an entire Thanksgiving spread ourselves, and then each of the guests brought something as well, so there was plenty of food and many leftovers. Having a long weekend to do not much of anything was really nice. As is our new tradition, Sherri and I went to the Red Cross on Black Friday to donate blood. My donation and recovery went much better this time. I delivered my pint a bit slower this time, which might have had something to do with it (5.5 minutes instead of 4.5). We also managed, somehow, to watch the first six Harry Potter movies. This was done in preparation of seeing the seventh, which we plan to catch in the theater soon.

I’ve been very focused at work developing a new feature set that we’re releasing next month. The office is getting more and more crowded as we continue to hire. I’ve been trying to go in earlier to get some work in before the din really gets going. Pretty soon I’m going to need to upgrade my headphones to some noise-cancelling ones. All in all, I’m finding life at this startup to be manageable, which I’m thankful for. Though I still can’t decide if introducing the office to nerf gun warfare was a good idea or not.

Our ShopIgniter business cards arrived from the printer last month

Another bit of news this week is that Legion of Tech announced a resolution to last year’s embezellment. I’ve put in a considerable amount of time over the last couple of months working toward closure on the situation, so it feels good to have it finally wrapped up.

The Stumptown Syndicate is now up and running. We’ve filed articles of incorporation, have a PO Box and a bank account. This allowed us to open registration for Open Source Bridge, months earlier than we ever have been able to before. We still have a lot of work to do on the Syndicate (bylaws, strategic planning, fundraising, etc.), but just getting the organization up and running in a bare-bones sense feels really good.

Work on the house continues. The contractors wrapped up just before Thanksgiving (yay!). We’ve picked out paint, in lots of colors, all no-VOC paint from Yolo Colorhouse that we purchased from Ecohaus. We have all the painting supplies (sand paper, brushes, rollers, tarps). Now all we need to do is paint! Oh, and we’ve managed to pull up the carpet from two rooms (my office and living room).

In between other projects, I’ve started scanning old photographs. This is one of my favorites:

Christie with Mom, circa 1983

I think I’m around 3 years old in that photo. My mom looks so, so young. I’m older now (by more than a few years) than she was in this photograph.

November 7, 2010

BarCamp, Home Insulating, and Rainbows

I keep thinking I should write here and then realized I don’t really have the energy to do so. The last month has been incredibly business, with lots of community activities, some pretty heavy deadlines at work and major home improvements.

Perhaps the most time consuming community activity was running BarCamp Portland 4, which took place at the end of October. Despite being exhausted, I had a really good time and the event went really well. I got to try out a few new facilitation techniques that I learned at the “Art of Presentations” class I took in early October at Portland Center Stage. Attendance wasn’t as great as at previous BarCamps, but I think most people had a good time. I only went to one session and it was one that I lead, a Q&A about Legion of Tech. The rest of the time I spent running around answering volunteer’s questions and just hanging out with good people.

BarCamp Organizers at the end of the day (photo courtesy @akfarrell)

Planning for Open Source Bridge is now in full swing. I’m co-chairing this year, along with Reid Beels. I’m really excited about this year’s core team, which I think has a great combination of skills and is going to work really well together.

There’s another project Reid, Audrey and I are working on that isn’t quite ready for prime-time, but which I hope to announce soon (hopefully this week).

I’ve also been spending a fair bit of time on Legion of Tech business, including wrapping up some unresolved business from last year and managing board elections.

All this is going on while I’m working at a startup, which has been intense, but manageable. Oh, and I got a small raise in the form of coffee subsidy: we got a fantastic espresso maker for the office. Seriously, it’s fantastic. I wish I had a photo of it to include in this post.

On the home-front, things have been a bit chaotic as well. During the summer, we applied for EcoTrust’s Clean Energy Works program. Our house qualified and work began last week. We have a storage pod in our driveway, and our living/dining rooms as well as my office are nearly empty. The insulation team has been drilling giant holes in our walls and filling the space with cellulose insulation. Once they finish up, the plaster team will remove the old wallpaper and paint and then repair the holes. Sherri has been amazing through this process and has really been doing the most of the work coordinating with the contractors and doing the majority of the packing. That’s really nice for me since these things really stress me out. I did manage to pack most of the office, however, which you can see below.

Prep for Home Insulation

November is VeganMoFo, the Vegan Month of Food. Sherri has been writing a vegan food blog for sometime now and we’d talked several times about moving it, along with her other blog, from blogger to a WordPress installation on my server. Vegan MoFo gave us the incentive to get it done for the start of November. We bought a copy of the Thesis WordPress theme framework and Sherri and I have been working together to skin the re-named food blog Vegan Nosh. I think it turned out really well. This weekend I updated my personal homepage from an outdated WordPress installation to a single, static page. Since I have no plans to start freelancing again any time soon, I took down the now defunct CK Web Development blog and put up a static page there directing people to my homepage.

Vegan Nosh

Phew! I’m getting exhausted just talking about it all.

But, it hasn’t been all work. Sherri and I have managed to spend some quality downtime together amid the madness and enjoy the beautiful Autumn we’re having.

Crisp Autumn Morning

And we’ve even managed to catch a few rainbows.

Amazingly Bright Rainbow

October 8, 2010

Three years ago today

Smiling in Surprise Snow

Three years ago today, I arrived in Portland, via my little red Toyota truck. It was loaded to the teeth with what was left of my possessions from my life in California. I was ready to make a new home. I knew I wanted to grow roots, and roots I have grown. I consider Portland my true home and feel as if I’ve lived here my whole life.

Thanks so much to Sherri for introducing me to many of Portland’s magical places, for making me untold numbers of delicious vegan meals, and for generally making me feel like I will always have a safe, comfy home. Portland just wouldn’t be the same without you.

And thanks to Portland’s tech community for making me feel welcome straight off the bat and for being a tremendous source of support and friendship as I grow in both my personal and professional life.

I can’t wait to see what the next three years and beyond will bring!