Traveling

  • Porto COVID Isolation: Day 6

    Look. The most important thing you need to know about today is this: Which means I can wrap up isolation and actually leave the apartment. Which I did, for a short while: It was everything I dreamed it could be.

  • Porto COVID Isolation, Days 3-5

    Once I settled in and had things like WiFi, food, and cutlery sorted, the last few days have passed pretty quietly. I’ve primarily been cooking my meals, partly to reduce exposure and partly because every attempt at ordering something becomes a fun puzzle to solve where the prize is “you don’t go hungry!” and that…

  • COVID Isolation Diary, Days 0-2

    After a successful first day in the Nexcess booth for WordCamp Europe, the team had gathered at Belos Aires for dinner and conversation. I was exhausted, which I chalked up to the full day of having my booth face on and the multiple days of pre-parties and networking that had been filling my schedule since…

  • Welcome to Happy Valley

    Welcome to Happy Valley

    I wrote the original version of this upon visiting State College, PA for the PSU MacAdmins conference in 2018. After the 2019 conference, my husband performed a dramatic reading of it actually at the Berkey Creamery, and I’ve started to expand it. The Creamery is indeed excellent, but having grown up in Pennsylvania, I’m already…

  • Hidden spaces, public oasis

    We returned today from a trip to Australia, where we spent 6 days in Sydney and a weekend in Melbourne. Something that struck me again and again during the course of the trip is how intentionally these cities make use of hard-to-use space. We visited a literal alley into which a street food market had…

  • A weekend in Monterey

    A weekend in Monterey

    While on the West Coast visiting family, we took a vacation-within-vacation and went to Monterey, one of our very favorite places.