It's a Small World

We hosted the Plone Strategic Planning Summit at Google last weekend. If you want full details on the summit, check out limi's summit write up. Limi is the world's foremost expert on embarassment driven development. And blogging. Seriously, ask him about this concept if you get a chance to meet up with him; I'm sure you'll find his commentary insightful.

Much to my amazement I discovered last Saturday that one of our GHOP Grand Prize winners happenned to live close to Google HQ, so I asked him if he wanted to swing by Google to meet with the Plone team. Jonathan came by with his Mom, Constance, and great conversations ensued. It was great meeting Jonathan and even cooler getting to see him interact with a bunch of folks he'd only met online previously, if at all. I think the best part of the day was hearing Constance talk about the flame wars she'd heard about from her sons as part of their participation in open source. Not that flame wars are a good thing, mind you, but it was surprising and awesome to see how engaged she was with community dynamnics.

I would never have anticipated meeting such a hip Mom, nor would I have expected one of our GHOP Grand Prize winners to live so close to Google. Talk about fortuitous timing. It also turns out Jonathan lives about two streets over from me. A very small world indeed.

It's a Small World was closed when we visited Disneyland. Somehow I no longer feel like I greatly missed out having been deprived of cathartic experience of riding through and listening to the ride's message.

This being Valentine's Day and all, I'd like to make a shout out to someone who helped make the Plone Strategic Planning Summit possible even though he didn't attend - Allen "Gunner" Gunn of Aspiration. Gunner always brings the love to any event he facilitates and I feel privledged to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from him at numerous events.

When I walked into the summit and looked at all the easel pad sheets taped to the walls, covered in sticker dots, I knew Gunner had 'been there.' Jon Stahl confirmed he'd been inspired by Gunner's facilitation techniques, all of which are chronicled on the Aspiration wiki. If you ever get a chance to visit a Penguin Day or any other event hosted or facilitated by Gunner or another member of the Aspiration team, I highly recommend them. It's amazing how much can be accomplished and what real synergies can be created in just a short time using their facilitation techniques.

Happy Valentine's Day to all those who are celebrating. And to all, let there be love!

I am Iron Woman

This has been an insane seven days, but also seven of the most incredible.

Last Sunday, I boarded a plane in Melbourne. I think my flight was supposed to leave at 13:00. I am also pretty confident it didn't. I know there was a four hourish delay in Sydney, but I also spent those four hours engrossed in a, shall we say, less than Western canon status novel. I also don't really remember those four hours. I'd been traveling for 3 weeks and three days at that point, returning home after linux.conf.au, but I do remember Grant telling me more about PA-RISC, making balloon animals and giving me mini-chocolate squares. Grant, you're awesome. :)

Ben picks me up at SFO.

We drive home.

I decompress.

Eventually, I sleep.

Life is good.

The next day around 10:00 I boarded a plane for LAX. A flight and a shuttle ride later, Ben and I settled into our hotel. I caught up on mail. We had steak dinner with Cat. Pleasant fare, pleasant company. It was a good night.

Walked - that's right, walked in LA - to Disneyland from our hotel room. We were in the park from 11:00 until 01:30 the next day. There weren't very many people there in general, but after 20:00 the park was almost literally deserted. I think most of our co-workers were at California Adventure. We went for many rides, no waiting.

We rode the Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain Rail Road twice in a row. We went through the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean seven or eight times each. Indiana Jones is overrated. If Finding Nemo is any indication, I would do very poorly in a submarine. I love Ben because he enjoys the Enchanted Tiki Room right along with me.

Up at 5:45 on Wednesday. On shuttle to the airport in 20 minutes, finally home a little over four hours later. Ran into the office for a quick meeting. Went back home. Crashed. Bliss....

Thursday rolls around. We announce the Grand Prize Winners for Highly Open Participation tomorrow, so I spend the rest of the week getting everything together we need to make that happen. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all about feeling the motivate love. On Friday morning, I pop in to make sure the Plone Strategic Planning Summit kicks off, then go back to making other things happen.

On Saturday, I succumbed to Steve. Yes, I bought an iPhone. The worst part is, I love the darn thing. I mean really love it. I don't particularly think the techie obsession with gadgets is necessarily a good thing^TM and refuse to become emotionally involved with my accessories and tools. I still can't change my own battery. This device is still unbelievably awesome. The UI is unbelievably intuitive. Ship of Fools melodiously steals thoughts of time away from me as I pound away at the keyboard, moving messages, making things happen. Sweet bliss.

I still feel dirty, though. Curse you, Steve, for making beautiful products that function so well. Please open source everything Apple as quickly as possible so that I can use your devastatingly sexy toys sans guilt. I will forever thank you and recommend you to all my friends.

As a random aside, there are days I think the only one on the internet that you can believe in is Fake Steve. You have been warned, people.

I'd talk about today, but that'd be eight days and that's too long for a recap. Besides which, the truly awesome things that happened today I can't blog about just yet. Tomorrow though....

So, to come full circle, I mentioned that I started last week returning from LCA, and I'll write more about my experiences later. I do want to give a shout out to two women who were kind enough to share their thoughts with me, Stormy Peters and Sarah Stokely. Conversing with both of them gave me some valuable insights on self-perception, the pull between the professional and personal when blogging about open source and a whole host of other topics. Thanks to both of you ladies for your time. I'll actually be blogging regularly now.

Oh yeah, and I finally got Slashdotted.

Busy couple of weeks ahead. Life is good.