gimme shelter

I don't even know if I should tell this story. I'm still, at heart, trying to shoot the perfect assignment for Life in 1952. It was a couple of days ago, no longer news, just a thing that happened. It's definitely one of my stories, one without a moral or a cause... a thing happened, and in the middle, there was a golden beautiful moment. Just for a moment, despite the world going to hell around us, there was a little perfection. So, I was at sauced when the storms came through on tuesday. At first, everybody was on the patio, but the sky opened up and drove is all inside; even the covered areas were getting wet. Then, a few minutes later, while I was standing in line for another beer, the owner came in and told us all we had to go to the basement, there was a tornado warning. Then the sirens went off, and we all had a harrowing moment running through the rain. In the basement, they gave us all beers and told us not to worry, even as water ran down the walls. But this is oklahoma, we're used to bad weather, so everyone took it in stride, and we even toasted the proprietor. Then, after maybe 20 minutes, we all left; the worst part of the storm had blown over. I'm drunk and things are weird right now. But what else is new? A state of profound weirdness has become normal.

fireman training

Let's see... this was two weeks ago? I was out in SF again to get trained in what we call the 'fireman' role. Basically, a fire is a problem caused by the platform, requiring both access to the backend and knowledge of our code base to solve. So I got a week long crash course in all that. It's a big app that does a lot between a lot of services, so it was more figuring out how to find out what I'd need to know than rote memorization. Also, of course, there was the non-work times. A week in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? Yes. Any time. On my last two days, I flirted with the idea of staying for another week, but I knew that that would just turn into me extending the stay as long as possible (two weeks, then a month, then finding an apartment...). Not a problem for anyone out there, but a bitch for some people back here. Plus, I would have missed mothers' day brunch, and I couldn't have done that. photos somewhat tangential:

norman music fest

What's this? Two posts in two days? It's as if I'm really blogging again. All I can say is, don't get used to it. I've got a bit of a backlog, but it won't last. I'm doing stuff again though, so that might bring up the post volume somewhat. These photos are from norman music fest. It was a good day; pretty much exactly what I needed at the time. Met up with Anne, hung out with some of her friends, ran into a bunch of mine, drank, got made fun of at the stand up set (all in good fun). For once, NMF wasn't an unqualified disaster. When I wasn't worried about rushing around to see any band in particular, and focused on the people I was hanging out with, it turned out to be a good time.

Railsconf 2012

This was several weeks ago now, but I was in austin for a few days for Railsconf 2012. It was pretty fun, even though I didn't go to any talks really. My job, while I was there, was to answer questions people had about our product in our booth. Pretty cool to meet everyone, actually. Note that these photos are a bit out of sequence; my little camera had the wrong year. Next: NMF!