Back in August, I attended the Agile 2007 Conference in Washington, D.C. I didn’t know anyone there so all of the social events were fairly painful. The conference however was fascinating. There’s something wonderful about meeting the authors of the books you read and finding more people who’s books you want to read. I learned something in every session I attended. The two main thoughts that I walked away with were that if something is painful, do it all the time so it isn’t so painful and that I think I’m going to have a really hard time working for any company that doesn’t use agile development. The first idea could be applied to nearly everything, but the specific things the conference mentioned were performing builds and testing and having really short iterations. The second thing is just me rebelling against CMMI and/or no programming methodology.
October 24, 2007
October 23, 2007
San Francisco
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco. I have been to San Francisco several times in the past, but I was always using only public transportation and so we mostly just went to all of the tourist attractions. This weekend however, a friend was kind enough to drive us around. We drove across the Golden Gate bridge and walked up to the lookout over the bay. It was perfectly clear, so we could see the whole bay! It was beautiful! We watched hawks flying around and got to see a helicopter fly under the bridge. Then we drove up the 1 on the coast to Bolinas and had lunch at the Coast Cafe. On the way back down, we stopped at Muir Woods and took a short walk there before going back into the city. Matt has been wanting to move to San Francisco for a long time, this weekend went a long way in convincing me to do just that! I had a wonderful time!
October 13, 2007
Avian Ambassadors
It’s been a month since my mom passed away. My sister received a card today from Avian Ambassadors listing all of the donations they’ve received in honor of my mom. With the donations, they were able to complete The Gail Krantz Weathering Yard. They have a post about it in their October newsletter here. It’s pretty neat to think that there is a new place to remember my mom. When I see places that are in memory of someone, I always wonder what what kind of a person they were. I wonder what people will imagine about my mom when they see her name.
