Now, March 2019

Thinking about:I spoke at an out-of-town conference, Connectaha in Omaha NE. My talk was A Hero's Journey: Manual Tester to Automation QA. I got accepted to speak at KCDC in July, that talk will be Building a QA practice from scratch.

Stimuli and input:Several books have been a big influence lately: Radical Candor by Kim Scott The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett I go through periods where all I read is nonfiction, business-related books, and a friend loaned me Thief of Time, which brought back years of happy memories reading Discworld books as a teen. Sometimes I just need to pause reading to learn and read for pleasure.

Craft and creating:Still weaving, I have several scarves made, a kitchen towel, and my next project will be dishcloths. There's something satisfying about using an everyday object that you made, seeing it be useful, even just putting it through the laundry.

Knitted a toy duck, planning to make a second one to fix some things I didn't like about the first, and to make it less bulletproof and more squishy.

Exercise and health:Switched to a standing desk and a squishy mat in work to deal with neck pain. It was not an easy transition, but now I stand most of the day.

I want to start re-learning my karate kata, they're a good exercise I can do while travelling (except for the staff and cane ones). Going to start with my favourite, Long Two, which I did for a tournament in 2010 when I was a purple belt (the second belt of eight in my system). I won my division took home a three-foot-tall trophy.