Saturday, July 29, 2017

I'm Still Here

It's been a bit quiet around here. But there's still a lot going on.

Something Cool
A few weeks ago, I was in Detroit MI for Detroit.Code(). I showed my friend Cameron Presley (@pcameronpresley) some of the things I've been doing with mazes (code and articles). When I ran the sample, I got the longest path I've seen yet:


Pretty cool. It starts in the middle and loops around almost the entire maze before it gets to the end in the lower left corner.

The heat map isn't quite as interesting:


But you can see the lightest in the center and the darkest in the lower left.

#SpeakerConfessions
Something interesting happened this past week with the #SpeakerConfessions tag on Twitter. This was started by my friends Sarah Withee (@geekygirlsarah) and Nate Taylor (@taylonr), and it went around the world. It was really interesting to hear things from a lot of my speaker friends and a lot of speakers I don't know.

A couple of my articles from this past year seemed particularly relevant. I sent out this one: Help Those Behind You, which talks about the dangers of comparing yourself to other people. We should really focus on helping others. The only comparison that is valid is comparing yourself now to yourself in the past. Refocus on the things that are moving yourself forward.

I was also happy to see other folks replying with this article: Speakers, Let's Change Our Terminology: No More Rejections. This is something I've had to struggle with in the past (very recent past), and it's kind of nice to see that I'm not the only one. But we've still got a long way to go.

In addition, there's an article that I will (hopefully) write in the next day or so that to tell some of my struggles with submitting to events, striving for the wrong things, and focusing on where my strengths really are. We'll see if I can get that out before I go to Kansas City.

KCDC
And speaking of Kansas City, I've been frantically preparing for the Kansas City Developer Conference which is happening next week. I've got a full day workshop on Asynchronous Programming in C#, and I'm making sure the labs, samples, and materials are all in good shape. I've still got a ways to go with that, but things will be ready on time.

In addition to the workshop, I get to do two of my favorite talks: Clean Code: Homicidal Maniacs Read Code, Too! and DI Why? Getting a Grip on Dependency Injection.

A lot of my friends will be there, and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of new folks, too. It should be a really great week.

Other Distractions
I've had a lot of distractions that have kept me busy. About 6 weeks ago, I moved to Washington state. And it's really beautiful out here. It's strange how many things you have to do when you change states. The good news is that I do have a Washington driver's license, and I've also got Washington plates on my car. So I won't have anyone scowling at my California plates anymore.

In addition to my 2 cats, I'm now living with 2 dogs.


The move is part of something bigger that is coming up real soon. It's the answer to High Risk vs. Low Risk (and Update: High Risk vs. Low Risk) that I wrote about last year. I did make the decision, and I'll have an update to that in a few weeks.

I'll have more content soon. Once things get settled a bit more, I'll be able to concentrate on adding great things on a regular basis. Until then, make sure you stay focused on the important things in life.

Happy Coding!

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