Our new au pair is here! I’m beginning this post with that because welcoming a new person into our family is a big deal, and the help she’s already provided in just her first few weeks here has been an incredible relief. On May 5th I was chasing Adam at the playground and managed to […]
Archive for the ‘work’ Category
I 3D-printed an IBM z15 model!
May 17th, 2021 by pleia2
Back in April as I was catching up with work following my maternity leave, I discovered the existence of some internal IBM 3D printer files for IBM z15 pencil holders. I was immediately intrigued, and quickly found a 3D printer company that would print one for me. As a quick aside, I learned about 3D […]
The Big Iron Hippo
May 10th, 2021 by pleia2
It’s been about a year since I last wrote about an Ubuntu release on IBM Z (colloquially known as “mainframes” and nicknamed “Big Iron”). In my first year at IBM my focus really was Linux on Z, along with other open source software like KVM and how that provides support for common tools via libvirt […]
Passover and return to work
April 11th, 2021 by pleia2
Last year we celebrated Passover at home, and via Zoom. This was in the first month of the shelter in place orders due to the pandemic and we all thought we’d have to stay home for a few months until it was over. How naive we were! This week we celebrated our second Passover at […]
Four months of virtual events
July 22nd, 2020 by pleia2
It’s been over four months since I attended my last in-person conference, and last week marks the last conference I had on my schedule, but which was cancelled. In these four months I’ve seriously attended probably a dozen online meetups, seriously participated in four virtual conferences, and gave four talks. As a whole, I am […]
KubeCon NA 2019
December 26th, 2019 by pleia2
Back in November, just before Thanksgiving, I attended my second KubeCon. My first was in Copenhagen last year. A lot has changed in the past eighteen months, both for me an Kubernetes at large. When I attended then, I was working at a container startup and spent my time there making connections with old and […]
SV Code Camp, Datathon at UC Berkeley and GitHub Universe
December 2nd, 2019 by pleia2
“Conference season” in the autumn for me is roughly the end of October through early November. I didn’t want to travel quite so much this year, and there were plenty of events local to me, so I ended up with an unexpectedly busy October and November, either traveling or doing local events several weeks in […]
LISA19 in Portland
November 28th, 2019 by pleia2
At the end of October I traveled up to Portland, Oregon to participate in LISA19. LISA is a conference I’m very fond of because of the real focus on systems administration, rather than software development, and so there are typically more talks that are applicable to my trade. This year it was also particularly valuable […]
OSCON 2019
August 16th, 2019 by pleia2
Last month I had the opportunity to attend OSCON for the first time since 2015. It was nice to be back, the conference attracts a lot of great speakers, but it’s also a nice opportunity to see how the landscape has shifted when it comes to corporate sponsorship. Who has the big booths? Who has […]
Mainframes in Poughkeepsie
August 2nd, 2019 by pleia2
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting the mainframe mothership: the IBM offices in Poughkeepsie, New York. A number of folks I work with day to day are based there, there’s a test and assembly facility, and they have a client center where they show off technology, including mainframes! There’s also an Amtrak station […]