The Year That Was 2018

I’m grateful when I have these to refer to, and I find them intimidating to write, but hey, it’s still January!

Just the Stats

| Conference talks | 35 |
| Conferences attended w/o speaking | 8 |
| Meetups

| 6 |
| Podcasts (See the bottom of the page) | 3 |
| Webinars | 6 |
| Workshops | 5 |

DevOpsDays NYC

Also, I went to my first Broadway show (Come From Away).

LinuxConf Australia

I turned around in less than a day and left for the sunny beaches of Sydney, to attend LinuxConf Australia.

I also went to the Maritime Museum and the Botanical Gardens. It was a lot warmer than Minnesota in January. I visited our customers at Atlassian, and I threw a meetup.

I went to see some friends in Melbourne, and went bushwalking and to Fern Gully, and did the Fitzroy walking tour and bought fabric. Hosted another meetup.

Home for a week, and then off to PyCaribbean!

PyCaribbean

IndexConf

I went home, executed another quick turnaround, and headed to the Bay Area for IndexConf and a meetup at Sentry and a wave at the home office.

Sentry Scouts Meetup

A few days at home and then off to New York for Software Architecture!

O’Reilly Software Architecture

I gave my talk “Y2K and Other Disappointing Disasters”

The Lead Developer Austin

Zip to Austin for The Lead Developer. By this time I had completely lost my voice and delivered my whole talk in a creepy whisper!

Next-day turnaround to go to Seattle for a Microsoft MVP meetup and presentation. I lost my phone! It was very unnerving.

Midwest PHP

March really got started by me getting to speak at a hometown conference – Midwest PHP. I even got to go to my kid’s Quiz Bowl match! I also got to go to the Minneapolis DevOps meetup this month.

I gave the Y2K talk again, but there’s no recording.

DevOpsDays Baltimore

DevOpsDays Baltimore experienced tribulations, but managed to, on no notice, move their whole conference by a day. It was an impressive feat! And I got to debut a new talk!

When I got home, I got to do some speaker mentoring AND eat ice cream, so that was a good day.

I spoke at the NDC Minnesota pre-conference teaser, which was interesting, and it was cool to get to wander around the Xcel.

Cisco DevNet Create

I started off April by going out to Oakland for a team event (baseball) and the team after event (tiki drinks). Then I went to Cisco DevNetCreate at the Computer History Museum, which was super cool. I gave an interview, a talk, and two workshops, which is a lot.

DrupalCon

I zipped across the country to DrupalCon to give (and get recorded), my talk about kids and internet security. Then I eyed up the weather report and left Nashville early to beat the blizzard home.

RailsConf

I shoveled out in time to go to Pittsburgh for RailsConf, which was FABULOUS, and to give a workshop at Google. I got to have dinner with the >Code people!

I flew through Minneapolis, and waved, on my way to DevOpsDays Vancouver.

DevOpsDays Vancouver

Came home and went to Minnewebcon, and then left again for Seattle to do a Write the Docs meetup and DevOpsDays Seattle. I also went out to my parent’s place to clean out their rain monitor. This is my role in life.

Made a quick stop in Oakland to see the team, take high tea at Lovejoy’s, and bug npm for stickers.

Write the Docs! One of my first conferences, and I love it so much. Portland is lovely in May.

Write The Docs Portland

I didn’t linger, though, because I needed to get back home to NDC Minnesota.

NDC Minnesota

ChefConf

After a quiet week, it was off to Chicago for ChefConf.

Right after that, I took the Badger Bus to Madison for Wiscon, a feminist science fiction convention, which is exactly as nerdy and wonderful as it sounds.

The last stop of May was DevOpsDays Toronto.

DevOpsDays Toronto

The first stop of June was LaunchDarkly HQ to crush down on our Feature Flag book for a day.

I was actually around for my 20th college reunion!

June and July

I took these off, mostly. I stayed home, my wife went on vacation. I went on a lot of bike rides and organized some closets, and napped a lot. I went on local bike tours.

In mid-July I went to DevOpsDays Minneapolis.

DevOpsDays Indianapolis

In late July, I spoke at DevOpsDays Indianapolis.

No video, sorry. But I did the Choose Your Own Deployment talk and the Devil’s DevOps Ignite.

We went up to the family cabin. There were cousins, and mosquitos, and wine coolers, and hammocks.

I got back on the road in mid-August. First I went to touch base with everyone in Oakland, then I went to Irving, Texas, to speak at an internal Verizon event.

From there I went back to San Francisco to attend ReDeploy! (It was amazing.)

Write the Docs Cincinnati

Next up was Write the Docs Cincinnati! It was a fabulous time and I got to take the Underground Cincinnati tour! I don’t have video, but I do have slides+speaker notes for you, since it’s a one-off.

The Man Behind The Curtain: White-labeling, automated generation, and the new variable

Straight back to MSP, and from the airport to the DevOps meetup.

I went to the Minnesota State Fair, which I love, unironically.

SRECon EMEA

Over the sea to Amsterdam, and from there by train to Dusseldorf, for SRECon EMEA. Do not ask me about the reverse process. Suburban Germany is full of people willing to help the hapless, which is good.

I did get most of a day in Amsterdam, though, which was glorious, and I want to go back!

Back home for September, and the start of school.

Mid-September, back to Oakland, then Portland for DevOpsDays Portland.

DevOpsDays Portland

Made time to see my parents, a really great production of Richard III, and then my bag and ipad and TO-DO LIST got stolen, so that was a bummer.

Home again, and to the MSP DevOps meetup.

Went out to Boston for DevOpsDays Boston a day early for my sister’s birthday. She was surprised!

DevOpsDays Boston

Home for a few days and then Velocity New York! I also had a great Equalit-tea, a client lunch, and a great adventure in the garment district.

O’Reilly Velocity

I gave the Waffle House talk!

Home again, for a bit, and I got to go on one of the prettiest rides of the year, the Mankato River Ramble.

DevOpsDays Hartford

For my birthday mid-month, I went to DevOpsDays Hartford and did a new story!

A couple days at home, and I went to DevOps Enterprise Summit in Vegas. Truly a standout event. Even though I hate Vegas in general.

In late October, I packed my bags for the longest (I think) trip of my year. First to London, for O’Reilly’s Velocity and Software Architecture.

O’Reilly Velocity and Software Architecture

No videos, but I did All The World’s A Staging Server (new), and The Death of Data.

All The World’s A Staging Server – Slides

I took a couple days to appreciate historic Bath, and then DevRelCon and then API the Docs.

I spent Bonfire Night in a warm open-air pool with a view of the fireworks in all directions.

I took Eurostar from London to Paris, and promptly got pickpocketed in the Paris Metro on my way to the TGV. Very authentic! I made it to Bordeaux, but it was a bit stressful. In Bordeaux, I got to do an onsite visit and training with a customer!

DevOps D-Day

After that, it was off to Marseille, for DevOps D-Day and one of the most invigorating cab rides I’ve ever been on. The conference was great! It was super interesting to get that experience of not being the dominant language.

I flew back from Marseille to Paris, but there was weather, and I missed my connection home, so I stayed in Paris a night. Did I do anything exciting? The heck I did. I stayed in and went to bed early.

NoFluffJustStuff Tech Leader Summit

Megan (my wife) and I went to the Tech Leader Summit in Clearwater Beach. I have never had such a hard time paying attention to a talk I was giving as when there are beautiful white sands right outside the window. It was a fabulous location. I gave 3 talks.

We came back, and I put on some less Florida clothes and went to Seattle for KubeCon. I didn’t make it to any programming, but the experience of talking to everyone was amazingly great.

I popped down for one last meeting in Oakland, which meant I got to actually see the end of a Moonshots week. That was cool. I taught another workshop, this time at Google HQ.

Home for the rest of the year on December 18.

Podcasts

Greater Than Code: Episode 95: Cleaning House with Heidi Waterhouse

Screaming in the Cloud: Episode 1: Feature Flags with Heidi Waterhouse of LaunchDarkly

Parent-Driven Development: Internet Privacy and Kids