Checking In

A catch-all, catch-up post

There are 1,126 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 12 of 113).

Shaming Sanders supporters

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders


Some supporters of Hillary Clinton for President are getting annoyed by supporters of Bernie Sanders, accusing Sanders supporters of “splitting the party” and trying to shame them into supporting Clinton. As a Sanders supporter, I’m tiring of this approach and tired of the insinuation that I’m not a true liberal if I don’t support a female candidate for President.

As a liberal who supports gender equality (though I maintain equal pay is fiction), I would be thrilled to vote for a female Presidential candidate but unfortunately Senator Elizabeth Warren opted not to run this year. Instead, I’m going with a candidate who had the courage and foresight to vote against the disasterous Iraq War, voted against the privacy-gutting PATRIOT Act, wants to decriminalize marijuana use, supports reinstanting the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in Wall Street abuses, opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposed the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty, among other differences.

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Meeting the Google Fiber team

This afternoon I got a sneak peek at the new Google Fiber building in downtown Durham, thanks to a friend who works there. I got to meet the Google Fiber team as well and they’re good people.

They’re still putting the finishing touches on their Fiber Space on the first floor so I wasn’t able to see that but news reports say Google expects it to open sometime this month. Indeed, when I visited there were two construction workers outside, busily working over a noisy table saw.

The word is their new Fiber Space in Raleigh will be amazing. Google loves the building! Large skylights have been added. Also, contrary to what you may have heard, Google did not kick out 518 West from the space. The building was put up for sale and Google bought it.

Beyond that, I know little more than you do about when fiber’s going where. I do know that whatever time it arrives on my doorstep it won’t be soon enough. I can’t wait to get my Google Fiber!

Hallie sues NC to hear her climate change petition

N&O photo by Harry Lynch

N&O photo by Harry Lynch

Update 26 Nov: Judge Morgan has ruled against Hallie. Details in a few weeks.

It’s been an interesting few days here. For the past two years, Hallie has been involved with an effort to bring about some state regulations on climate-change pollution. With the help of an Oregon-based nonprofit called Our Childrens’ Trust, Hallie filed a petition with the state Environmental Management Commission, urging it to regulate greenhouse gases. In spite of the petition meeting all the requirements to be heard by the full commission, Hallie’s petition was rejected outright by the chair without due consideration, thus the lawsuit.

Yesterday was her day in court, appearing before Superior Court judge Michael Morgan. Hallie has a great team of attorneys (Gayle Tuch, Ryke Longest, and Shannon Arata) working pro-bono to move this case forward and they vigorously pressed her case before Judge Morgan. Our whole family was in attendance as well as Hallie’s maternal grandparents, who drove down from Virginia to surprise her.
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Digital Connectors 2015

Me with the Raleigh Digital Connectors, Nov 2015.

Me with the Raleigh Digital Connectors, Nov 2015.


I was invited to give another talk to the Raleigh Digital Connectors yesterday on the topic of blogging. Once again I was inspired by these young men and women who are making a difference in the community. I am always honored to speak to them on the topic of blogging as it’s so important that they know they have this amazing resource known as the Internet with which to express themselves.

Blogging certainly has been a worthwhile endeavor for me. I don’t always get time to write as much as I’d like to but I enjoy the time that I can find.

Take a look at these young people in this photograph. These folks are changing the world.

Curiouser and curiouser

You know the saying, “be careful what you wish for?” Well, it’s really true. I had been pondering lately some of the bigger questions in life and lo and behold I was presented with an opportunity to explore these questions. I won’t go into details but I can say that the world doesn’t look quite the same to me as it did just a few weeks ago. Mind blown.

Bouldered over

As I mentioned earlier, I took a new job recently. Last week I visited the company headquarters in Boulder for the company’s new employee orientation. Though I dreaded the thought of days of mind-numbing meetings it turned out to be a lot of fun. I was particularly impressed that my new colleagues and I took an afternoon out to volunteer for a local charity. That, and everyone was incredibly enthusiastic and helpful during the event. Obviously the company hires the right people – these are people anyone would want to work with.

I stuck around a few extra days to get in some work with my department, too, which was spent in a few team-building exercises and overviews of the product I’ll be supporting. It was a big jump-start to my daily responsibilities.
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The Penguin Tamer moves on

On Monday, I put in my notice at my current job in preparation of starting a new adventure next month. It was a decision I made with much regret as I loved the work, the team, and the company. What I didn’t like was being awakened by my pager on countless nights as some production system or another at work melted down. That, and the several weekends of marathon maintenance work, some keeping me awake all night. I have been hit hard enough lately with the Gulf War Illness fatigue that I couldn’t pile on weeks of guaranteed disrupted sleep. It was affecting my health, it was disturbing my wife’s sleep, too, and taking family time away from me on those work-filled weekends. Unfortunately, no other relief was in sight other than to change jobs.

It wasn’t log into my job search that I realized just how in-demand my skills were. My resume on CareerBuilder attracted 2-3 job opportunities each day. Unfortunately, many of those were generated by lazy recruiters doing keyword searches and consisted of far-flung jobs that often didn’t match my skills or interests. On the bright side, several actual, clueful recruiters did reach out to me with decent opportunities. One of them wrote that this was the hottest IT job market his firm has seen in years, and I believe it. Actual quote:

We are in the strongest market for IT careers that we’ve ever seen and will be sending out lots of emails today.

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Sixteen years and counting

Kelly_and_me_hugging-profile
It was sixteen years ago that Kelly and I got married. It’s been a blast! I’m lucky to have met such a smart, confident, funny, and all around amazing woman. Oh, and good looking, too! I’m still hopelessly, goofily in love with her.

Back from Anchorage

Well, over 12 hours and 3,500 miles later we are back home from Anchorage, having walked out of RDU around 11 AM. It was an amazing, unforgettable trip filled with many stories I have yet to tell. The red eye on Delta was exhausting, however, and my head does not know what day, time, or place it’s in. I thought I would blog more tonight of our trip but catching up on lost sleep seems more prudent.

Tomorrow I may awaken to wonder if it was all just a dream.

Rafting the Matanuska

Rafting the Matanuska

Rafting the Matanuska


Yesterday we rose early to make the drive to the mouth of the Matanuska River in Alaska for some whitewater rafting! The Matanuska is a glacier-fed river and our rafting outfit, Nova, was about a 2.5 hour drive from Anchorage. We rode up some beautiful, twisty mountain roads to get there, passing a pair of moose standing in the ditch on the way. It was our first moose sighting in Alaska!

We arrived around 10:30 to the rafting office, a nice but remote cabin by the river. After using the pit toilets and checking in, we were given rain gear to wear and spent some time adjusting our GoPro camera before taking the short bus ride to the edge of the Matanuska glacier.

The put-in point near the glacier is private property and the rafting staff (Colin, our guide; Riley, our other guide; and Marsha, our bus driver) paid a hefty fee at the entrance for us to visit. On the way to the launch site, we stopped momentarily at a picnic spot overlooking the glacier: a massive, brilliantly-glowing sheet of blue ice. It was stunning to see! We took lots of pictures and witnessed the trickles of meltwater from this ice combine to form the ice-cold, silt-loaded Matanuska River. We would be rafting on water that was only hours earlier part of a glacier. That was incredible to think about.
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