Category Archives: Travel

WWWP5K

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This morning, Morgan and I went for a walk as part of the Automattic wwwp5k. We walked down to the beach, down the side of the island, up the other to the marsh, and then back home. All told, Runkeeper said it was 4.43 miles (see route). It was insanely hot, but we kept going, each wearing a WordCamp shirt to represent (Savannah for me, NYC for her). Took some pictures along the way. (There are also a couple more at the runkeeper route link, tied to place taken.) Thumbnails link to full-size images.

SxSW Road Trip

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I waited too long to buy my flights, and the prices are astronomical. I did some math (math!) figuring out the hards and soft costs of flying at those prices vs doing a bigass road trip and taking two extra days for travel, and I think I’m going to hit the pavement in the Prius. Matt’s been after me to take a vacation day or two here and there to break things up, and though ten-hours days of driving aren’t the equivalent of snorkeling in Mexico, the enforced offline-ness, solitude (coming immediately before and after social overload for a week), and independence (no worrying about missed flights, liquids in bags, lost luggage, etc) has led me to choose the open road. It’s been a while since I had a decent road trip. Just need to work out music for the drive and which route to take (down to Jacksonville and over through Mobile and Houston, or up to Atlanta and over to Birmingham and Shreveport). Any suggestions on route welcome.

Upcoming Trips

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I have booked a buttload of travel today. If you’re going to be at any of these events/in any of these places and think we should meet up, let me know.

April 7-8: Norwood, MA for WordPress University, a NERCOMP-produced mini-conference for academics using WordPress, organized by Randall Rode from Yale University.

April 9-12: Rome, NY to visit my mom, clean out a room for her, and get all papers necessary to do my taxes. Yes, cutting it close. Shut up.

April 16-20: Tybee Island, GA to hit the Tybee Island Wine Festival (April 17) and generally relax with the twins over the weekend, then possibly some coworking with Sheri.

April 23-25: UC Irvine for WordCamp Orange County, where I’m giving the keynote.

April 25-May 14: San Francisco, CA for WordCamp SF followed by working at Pier 38 with my visiting coworkers. *Maybe* I’ll do sangria one evening at the pier. Oh, and a .org code sprint May 3-4.

May 31-June 4: Portland, OR for Open Source Bridge conference. Not speaking, just attending.

June 4-7: Chicago, IL for WordCamp Chicago. Will be doing a presentation on creating custom menus with 3.0.

Still to book: Denver, UK, Doe Bay?, Burning Man, Mid-Atlantic, Automattic meetup.

ATL II

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There are two things I like about the Atlanta airport. 1. Their trash cans have built in compactors, so there is less emptying of the cans and a lower volume is sent to the landfill. 2. They have the highspeed hand driers in the bathrooms that I first saw at SFO. These are more energy efficient, and dry your hands crazy fast, nothing like the old style hot air driers. I wish all airports had these things.

ATL

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I don’t really use our iPhone app… I don’t enjoy typing on the touchscreen for more than a short text message, and I don’t love how long it takes to complete actions (due more to AT&T than to WordPress, I believe). We have a new version going into beta soon, though, and I’ve downloaded the simulator so I can review the UI, so I thought I should use my airport wait time today to refresh my memory of the current app. So far it’s pretty much the same as I remember. I’m hoping to get the simulator going tonight, so I can maybe mention what’s coming in my talk this weekend at WordCamp Montreal (“The Future of WordPress”). Time to go through security!

Back to Work

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Mexico was lovely, exactly the system reset I needed. Am thinking I should maybe just go live somewhere that I can go snorkeling on a regular basis. Anyway, now that I’m back on the clock, here’s what I’m working on/planning to work on (not in any particular order):

WordPress 2.8. PollDaddy redesign. Intense Debate design stuff. WordCamp stuff. Community volunteer stuff. Google Summer of Code stuff. WordPress.tv stuff. WordPress.com store/domains process. Ideas forum. Start thinking ahead to 2.9. Will be posting the volunteer stuff on the dev blog over the coming week (based on WordCamp Denver presentation).

I’m in Austin already, and will be here for SxSW through the 18th or maybe a little later. I was going to say come and say hi at the WordPress BBQ Meetup on Sunday the 15th, but I see from the signup page that it’s sold out. If you’re already signed up, say hi to me there. If you didn’t sign up soon enough, but will be in Austin, I’ll be wandering around. Feel free to introduce yourself.

I’ll be going back and forth between interactive and film stuff, so anyone who wants to see a movie but doesn’t want to wait in line alone should email me. My usual line-waiting companion is out of commission this year with a new baby, so I need some new film-pass friends to pass the time in long film festival lines at Alamo and the Paramount. It’s a perfect opportunity to have my undivided attention as you tell me all your brilliant ideas/requests for the upcoming WordPress media management overhaul.  🙂

Briefly…

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Missed Miami due to flight mixup. Denver WordCamp was great, got lots of good ideas. Am leaving for Mexico for a week, and will be staying in a place with no electricity, so if you email me, I probably won’t get it until I’m back the week of March 9th.

Upcoming WordCamps: Miami and Denver

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I’ll be at the Miami WordCamp (part of BarCamp) this Sunday, 2/22, along with fellow Automattician Doug Hanna. Are you going? If so, find me and say hi! Even better, find me and give me a 30-second tour of how you use WordPress on your site and let me videotape it. And as always, find me and tell me the things you love and hate about WordPress, feature-wise, so we can bear it in mind for future planning.

Right after I get back from Miami, I’ll be heading to Denver for the WordCamp there. It’s almost sold out, and it’s being held at the Denver Art Museum (of which I was a member in 2000), which should be a great venue. It’s right across the way from the Denver Public Library, which is also an old favorite. They were one of the first public libraries I used that had self-checkout machines. I may still owe them some overdue fines. I should look into that when I’m there.

The Denver event is on 2/28, and will have speakers like Matt Mullenweg, Alex King and a bunch of other impressive people. If you’re in the area, you should go! And the stuff about finding me and saying hello in Miami applies to Denver as well. I’ll be in Denver from the 26th until the 2nd to do some work with the guys at Intense Debate, after which I’m heading to Mexico for a week’s vacation.

Rest of Trip Recap

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Internet access was spotty for the rest of my trip, but basically….

  • Dorrigo was amazing, though the windy mountain road was kind of scary.
  • Next I went to Byron Bay, very pretty. Stayed at a hippie hostel called Arts Factory, made me realize I am too old to relive my youth.
  • Didn’t get around to snorkeling, because I smacked my head and wound up recovering for a week in a regular hotel room in Ballina, 20 miles away (hotels were full in Byron). Slept through the official launch of 2.7.
  • Stopped in Port Macquarie on the way back to Sydney.
  • Flew out, got in to SF, stayed for two nights, did some work, flew back to upstate NY.

Summary: Wallabies are cute, beaches are relaxing, summer is warm, NY is cold.

To make up for the lack of snorkeling, I’m going to Mexico with a friend in March.