So far 2017 has proven to be quite the challenge, but let’s hold off on all that until the end.

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of recent posts, I start new job in January, joining Mesosphere to move up the stack to work on containers and focus on application deployments. It’s the first time I’ve worked for a San Francisco startup and so far I’ve been having a lot of fun working with really smart people who are doing interesting work that’s on the cutting edge of what companies are doing today. Aside from travel for work, I’ve spent most of my time these first couple months in the office getting to know everyone. Now, we all know that offices aren’t my thing, but I have enjoyed the catered breakfasts and lunches, dog-friendly environment and ability to meet with colleagues in person as I get started.

I’ve now started going in mostly just for meetings, with productivity much higher when I can work from home like I have for the past decade. My team is working on outreach and defining open source strategies, helping with slide decks, guides and software demos. All stuff I’m finding great value in. As I start digging deeper into the tech I’m finding myself once again excited about work I’m doing and building things that people are using.

Switching gears into the open source work I still do for fun, I’ve started to increase my participation with Xubuntu again, just recently wrapping up the #LoveXubuntu Competition. At SCaLE15x last week I gave a Xubuntu presentation, which I’ll write about in a later post. Though I’ve stepped away from the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter just recently, I did follow through with ordering and shipping stickers off to winners of our issue 500 competition.

I’ve also put a nice chunk of my free time into promoting Open Source Infrastructure work. In addition to a website that now has a huge list of infras thanks to various contributors submitting merge proposals via GitLab, I worked with a colleague from IBM to run a whole open source infra event at SCaLE15x. Though we went into it with a lot of uncertainty, we came out the other end having had a really successful event and excitement from a pile of new people.

It hasn’t been all work though. In spite of a mounting to do list, sometimes you just need to slow down.

At the beginning of February MJ and I spent a Saturday over at the California Historical Society to see their Vintage: Wine, Beer, and Spirits Labels from the Kemble Collections on Western Printing and Publishing exhibit. It’s just around the corner from us, so allowed for a lovely hour of taking a break after a Saturday brunch to peruse various labels spanning wine, beer and spirits from a designer and printer in California during the first half of the 20th century. The collection was of mass-production labels, there nothing artisanal about them and no artists signing their names, but it did capture a place in time and I’m a sucker for early 20th century design. It was a fascinating collection, beautifully curated like their exhibits always are, and I’m glad we made time to see it.

More photos from the exhibit are up here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157676346542394

At the end of February we noted our need to pick up our quarterly wine club subscription at Rutherford Hill. In what was probably our shortest trip up to Napa, we enjoyed a noontime brunch at Harvest Table in St. Helena. We picked up some Charbay hop-flavored whiskey, stopped by the Heitz Cellar tasting room where we picked up a bottle of my favorite Zinfandel and then made our way to Rutherford Hill to satisfy the real goal of our trip. Upon arrival we were pleased to learn that a members’ wine-tasting event was being held in the caves, where they had a whole array of wines to sample along with snacks and cheeses. Our wine adventures ended with this stop and we made a relatively early trek south, in the direction of home.

A few more photos from our winery jaunt are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157677743529104

Challenge-wise, here we go. Starting a new job means a lot of time spent learning, while I also have had to to hit the ground running. We worked our way through a death in the family last month. I’ve been away from home a lot, and generally we’ve been doing a lot of running around to complete all the adult things related to life. Our refrigerator was replaced in December and in January I broke one of the shelves, resulting in a spectacular display of tomato sauce all over the floor. Weeks later our washing machine started acting up and overflowed (thankfully no damage done in our condo), we have our third repair visit booked and hopefully it’ll be properly fixed on Monday.

I spent the better part of January recovering from a severe bout of bronchitis that had lasted three months, surviving antibiotics, steroids and two types of inhalers. MJ is continuing to nurse a broken bone in his foot, transitioning from air cast to shoe-based aids, but there’s still pain and uncertainty around whether it’ll heal properly without surgery. Simcoe is not doing well, she is well into the final stages of renal failure. We’re doing the best we can to keep her weight up and make sure she’s happy, but I fear the end is rapidly approaching and I’m not sure how I’ll cope with it. I also lurked in the valley of depression for a while in February.

We’re also living in a very uncertain political climate here in the United States. I’ve been seeing people I care about being placed in vulnerable situations. I’m finding myself deeply worried every time browse the news or social media for too long. I never thought that in 2017 I’d be reading from a cousin who was evacuated from a Jewish center due to a bomb threat, or have to check to make sure the cemetery in Philadelphia that was desecrated wasn’t one that my relatives were in. A country I’ve loved and been proud of for my whole life, through so many progressive changes in recent years, has been transformed into something I don’t recognize. I have friends and colleagues overseas cancelling trips and moves here because they’re afraid of being turned away or otherwise made to feel unwelcome. I’m thankful for my fellow citizens who are standing up against it and organizations like the ACLU who have vowed to keep fighting, I just can’t muster the strength for it right now.

Right now we have a lot going on, and though we’re both stressed out and tired, we aren’t actively handling any crisis at the moment. I feel like I finally have a tiny bit of breathing room. These next two weekends will be spent catching up on tasks and paperwork. I’m planning on going back to Philadelphia for a week at the end of the month to start sorting through my mother-in-law’s belongings and hopefully wrap up sorting of things that belonged to MJ’s grandparents. I know a fair amount of heartache awaits me in these tasks, but we’ll be in a much better place to move forward once I’ve finished. Plus, though I’ll be working each day, I will be making time to visit with friends while I’m there and that always lifts my spirits.