PyCascades 2025
I spoke at PyCascades today giving a talk I gave at DjangoCon US 2024 in Durham last September. The title of the talk was Error Culture and I got some really good feedback from several people in attendance about it. During the talk I saw a lot of head nods, and even got a few laughs (which feels very good as a speaker!)
The one thing that was 'missing' from this talk was the 'nerves'. Before I gave the talk at DjangoCon US I was pretty nervous, but this time I was really calm and I'm not sure why ... or if I was glad that I wasn't nervous.
Maybe I wasn't nervous because I had given the talk before ... or maybe it was because of the amount of time I had practiced. Or maybe it was something else. I'm just not sure.
I'm also not sure if I prefer the lack of nerves before a talk or not. There is something about being nervous before getting on stage that makes you feel a bit more alive, so I did miss the nerves. But that being said, I was happy that I wasn't nervous all day. My talk was at 5pm so if I had been nervous I would have had that feeling ALL DAY!
All that being said, I'm really happy to have been able to give the talk at PyCascades this year. It's been a great conference so far, and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.
Social Events
I arrived in Portland for PyCascades 2025 earlier today. There was a pre conference social at Hawthorne Asylum Food Cart Pod where we could pick up our badges and register and just get to meet some of the other attendees. There was exactly one person I knew for sure that I would know at the conference (Hi Velda!) and I was hoping that I'd run into her so I would have someone I knew. I'm terrible at social events where I don't know anyone.
I got to the venue a few minutes before the start time (because if you're not early you're late!) and I didn't really see anything that appeared to be related to the conference. I checked the site a few more times to make sure I was in the right place, and then resigned myself to just sit on a bench and play on my phone for a while.
And then, after about 10 minutes, I heard Velda call my name out. I saw her smiling with her contagious smile and knew that my night was going to be alright.
It was a good time, and I got to meet a few people.
It's funny ... sometimes you just need 1 person that you know at a social event to immediately make you feel a little more at home.
Shoresy
Just a few days ago I finished up watching Shoresy for the second time. This is one of my all time favorite, gut busting shows. I love how honest, and earnest, the main character Shoresy is. The show is well acted, well written, and an all around good time.
Honestly, there are scenes that I've seen several times on YouTube clips, and in the show, that make me almost fall over laughing.
And I want to be clear. When I say watching Shoresy for the second time, I mean all three seasons of Shoresy for the second time.
Now, why would I do this?
Honestly, with all of the awful things going on right now, I need a respite. I need to be able to crawl into a place where hockey is a central character, where multilingualism is encouraged, and where there's a character that will just tell you how it is.
Shoresy isn't for everyone. Some will find it offensive for the same reasons I find it endearing. And I think that's OK.
But if you're finding yourself in a need to retreat from the world, for just a little while, Shoresy can give that to you. At least it did for me.
Can't wait for Season 4 to come out.
Swimming as a means of Meditating
Last July I started swimming as a way to help relieve some stress related to some work stuff. I've spent the last 7ish months swimming 3 times a week and something weird happened on the way to getting into better shape.
I discovered that, for me, swimming is one of the most medatative experiences I can have. I used to run, like a lot, but when I ran I spent most of my time listening to music, or podcasts, but never running silently. With just my thoughts.
I know that there are airpods, or airpod like things, that are water proof, but when I first started swimming I didn't want to invest in them as I wasn't sure if I would keep up with the swimming. So I just swam. Three days a week. All summer.
And it turned out that as I am swimming, either Breast Stroke, or Free Style, I'm just focusing on this stroke ... this breath ... this lap. For the first time in my life while being physically active, I was totally, 100% present with my situation.
This total presence allowed me to calm down, My thoughts would drift towards this, or that, but they always come back to her. Now. This stroke. This breath. This lap.
And as I've spent more time swimming I'm not really getting much faster, but I am getting into a better state of mental preparredness. A better state of mental health.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suddenly like the most Zen person you're ever going to meet1. But, I am just a little more present. A little more here. A little more ... me.
Prepping for PyCascades
I'm heading to Portland this weekend to give a talk at PyCascades. I've given the talk before (last September in Durham, North Carolina at Django Con US) and I'm still excited to give it.
Since I gave the talk I've been able to implement many of the things that I was promoting in my talk. Truth be told, I felt a bit like a fraud when I gave the talk at DCUS since I was still working on getting to where I wanted to be!
That being said, the talk has helped me, and hopefully, others, as they make their way through the journey of trying to get more meaningful information related to alerts and how to deal with them.
Even though I've already gaving the talk at another conference, I've been practicing every few days to make sure my timing is down, and that I feel prepared. This has been a much different experience than last time when I would record myself giving the talk, watch the talk and make notes, update the talk. Repeat that process 7 or 8 times and I got a talk that I was proud of.
It was exhausting but worth it!
Since I've already given the talk I'm mostly just making sure that my timing is down and I'm good with the slides. I've made a few adjustments, mostly related to my introduction and not much else.
I'm still nervous about giving the talk, but I'm pretty sure that's just the public speaking nerves!
Looking forward to being in Portland in just a few days!
AHL All Star Challenge
The AHL All Star Challenge was tonight and it was some of the most fun I've had at Acrisure since it opened in late 2022. Most All Star style competitions are pretty unserious, and can be, in my opinion, kind of boring as well. I mean, I LOVE baseball, but watching the All Star game is not for me. And don't get me started on the Home Run Derby. Snooze fest for me.
The AHL All Star completion though was something else! A Skills day yesterday, but then the actual challenge today. Representatives from each division play in a 3-on-3 style, in 2 5-minute periods. If tied at the end, the tie is broken with a shootout. The top two teams with the most wins face each other in the Championship game.
The Championship game is a little different in that it's a 6 minute single period game. Again, if there is a tie at the end you have a shootout.
This means that you get to watch 7 'mini' games in about 2 1/2 hours. It's pretty intense.
The Firebirds were the host team this year, but we only had one All Star, Cale Fleury. He was called up to the Kraken, so a replacement, Jani Nyman was made. Even though the Firebirds have a really good record (24-15-1-5), they only had 1 player on the All Star Game because the Pacific Division has 10 teams (read my thoughts on that here).
Anyway, the competition was pretty amazing tonight, and I'm really glad I got to go. I'm kind of hoping to be able to go next year when it's in Rockford.
Moving Away from Big Tech
I'm trying to get off of Google and other large Tech company platforms this year. It's going to be a year(s) long journey i'm pretty sure, but today I was able to at least get the list of my accounts that use gmail as the email address. It was relatively straight forward, with a little help from Claude, to get me what I wanted.
I use 1Password as my password manager, and while it's search feature is robust, I just really wanted a table of accounts. That is, I wanted to have the name, URL, Vault, and any Tags associated with the account
I used this to get what I was after
op item list --categories Login --format=json | jq -r '(["Title", "Email", "Vault", "URL", "Tags"] | @csv), (.[] | select(.additional_information == "myemail@gmail.com") | [.title, .additional_information, .vault.name, .urls[0].href, .tags] | @csv)' > accounts.csv
Now I have a list of the accounts that use my gmail account and I can start working my way through them. My plan is to start with the non-essential accounts. That is, the ones that I haven't used, am not sure what they are, aren't important anymore kinds of things. Once i have that done I'll start getting into the scary ones ... like my financial accounts.
There are many things in life I'm glad to have done, but was not glad to be doing them at the time. This is going to be one of those things i'm pretty sure
As a quick aside, yesterday I de-Meta-fied my life by deleting my Facebook, Instagram, and What's App accounts.
California Winter League
One of the great things about living in the desert of Southern california is that during the winter time the day time temps are typically in the high 60s or low 70s. This makes outdoor activities amazing experiences. What's even better is that every January / February the California Winter League gears up and my wife and will spend Saturday mornings (and sometimes afternoons) watching baseball under the gloriously beautiful sky.
The best part is that the teams are filled with high school, and college hopefuls, so it's baseball in kind of its rawest form. better than little league, but not quite as good as Pro ball. And since it's a winter league with essentially made up teams, my wife and I will pick a team to root for and then spend the ensuing 7 innings trash talking each other as 'our' team is winning.
Another great part is that it's a relatively inexpensive outing. Each Saturday two games are played, and for $10 for each adult you get access to both games. The games are only 7 innings long but they use wooden bats instead of aluminum bats so it feels more like pro ball than college or high school ball.
And just because it's an instructional league doesn't mean there aren't some great plays made. Just today I saw a hit stealing diving catch made by a shortstop, and a diving catch into foul territory made by a right fielder that ran faster than I really thought was possible.
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