Last week I had the pleasure of attending SCaLE 23x in Pasadena, California. I love SCaLE, it’s probably my favorite conference. It’s big, but it still feels so local, and I always walk away having met new, exceptional people, and with the warmth of connection I feel from seeing some of my closest friends in […]
Archive for the ‘work’ Category
Flora and family in February
March 10th, 2026 by pleia2
We kicked off February began by observing Tu B’shevat with the synagogue we recently joined, along with getting the boys started in Religious Sunday School. For Tu B’shevat everyone got together to plant a grape vine, which is added to a row of others they’ve planted in previous years. In the weeks since there’s been […]
On COBOL
January 7th, 2026 by pleia2
I like COBOL. Screenshot from The Open Mainframe Project COBOL Programming Course (source) My exposure to it prior to entering the mainframe world almost seven years ago was quiet limited. My friend Walt Mankowski has worked with COBOL over the years, and I’d been to a few talks of his talks that would recount stories […]
Immersed in GitHub Universe 2025
November 18th, 2025 by pleia2
Back in May we announced the availability of a hosted GitHub Actions runner for IBM Z and LinuxONE. Saying this is a big deal for me is a bit of an understatement. I’d been working on this project for nearly two years, and others involved had been working on things like .NET enablement on the […]
Some of the gems at IBM TechXchange 2025
November 10th, 2025 by pleia2
IBM does cool stuff, and looking back, this is no surprise given the portfolio the company has had since inception. There are a few conferences where this is showcased, but IBM TechXchange is the one that they’ve had a lot of fun with that’s targeted at developers and other folks who are deep in the […]
Mainframe Open Source at IBM TechXchange 2025
November 7th, 2025 by pleia2
One of the highlights of my year at work these past couple years is helping organize The Open Mainframe Project presence at the IBM TechXchange conference. Our event main is held on Monday, during the community or user group day, and every year we’ve been able to make the process more streamlined, make more connections […]
Philly summer 2025 begins!
July 21st, 2025 by pleia2
Our flight to the east coast on June 19th didn’t quite go as planned. A massive storm on the east coast caused an hour delay leaving San Francisco, and then we were circling in the midwest for another hour as they waited for it to calm down further. The plane then went south and we […]
Our IBM LinuxONE AI Arcade & more at the Red Hat Summit 2025
May 29th, 2025 by pleia2
Back in 2019 I participated in my first Red Hat Summit. It was my second week working at IBM, and the whole thing was quite a whirlwind tour of exploring a vendor-specific event and getting to meet a whole bunch of people at IBM who I’d come to know a lot better in these past […]
IBM z17 and LinuxONE 5 launches
May 13th, 2025 by pleia2
One of the several things that has kept me very busy at work lately is the launch of the new IBM z17 and it’s sister system, the IBM LinuxONE Emperor 5. I have a lot of fun with these launches, but they’re also a lot of rather high-stress work based around tight deadlines, regardless of […]
SeaGL 2024
December 23rd, 2024 by pleia2
Back in 2018 I attended my last conference before we welcomed our first child, the Seattle GNU/Linux conference (SeaGL). I was about 5 months pregnant and gave one of the keynotes! It was a great final adventure before parenthood, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity. I wrote about it more here: SeaGL 2018. […]