For Christmas this year my wife and I took off and went to Belize. I took some 2,500 pictures and I’m working my way through them. First sighting of Belize on the flight in. GJ’s Restaurant picked by our driver on the way from Belize City to San Ignacio. His guy came running when he spotted customers. We stayed at Midas Resort in San Ignacio, which we’d recommend. "Husky" the Midas office husky was an important part of our visit. Midas has two large male green iguanas roaming the property. Our room at Midas Midas was also home to several Agouti. This hand powered ferry coveys everyone going to Xunantunich The main temple at Xunantunich from the main plaza This Iguana spends the day watching tourists explore his home on the temple at Xuanatunich The frieze on the side of the temple (larger version below). People looking out from the top of the temple A view from the furthest building at Xunantunich back toward the temple. A view from Belize from the top of the temple. The Howler monkeys were yelling from tree tops when we arrived, but quietly feeding later in the morning. One of the buildings at Cahal Pach in San Ignasio. The central, but smaller, plaza at Cahal Pach. My wife walking through one of the passages at Cahal Pach. Belikin the beer of Belize served in standard style. The tonic was pink which threw me off at first. San Ignasio is home of a large and busy open air market. All the way to Belize to watch my first Sixers game of the year. The east temple from Complex Q at Tikal. My wife walking down from the top of the east temple. The two of us on the steps to the east temple. First view we got of Temple I The back of Temple I The buildings from the main plaza in Tikal. Temple I from the plaza. The view from the top of Temple IV in Tikal. All ships leaving Yavin base pass through this scene. There were lots of people at the top, and that fence in the background was the only safety rail The spider monkeys were one of the coolest things we saw. This guy stopped to watch us for a bit. He scooped water out of a hole in the and drank upside down. We got really lucky to see this mother and baby passing by. This Coati was snuffling in the grass near the visitor center A green iguana from the rescue program in town. Another green iguana from the rescue program in town. The males turn orange to show off. My wife and I with one of the rescued iguana. This guy kept his distance and his eyes on us. The entrance to Barton cave. The view back out from the Barton creek cave. The Big Rock Waterfalls in the Pine Mountain reserve. Butterfly from the San Jose Succotz TrekStop Butterfly caretaker from the San Jose Succotz TrekStop Butterfly from the San Jose Succotz TrekStop We spent Christmas itself in San Pedro The view from our hotel room in San Pedro There are some nice views on San Pedro beaches. They were just enjoying people watching. This guy sells nice carvings like the ray he’s holding to visitors. Cause what else would Santa ride on a beach. There was a party in the town square Christmas morning starting at Midnight. I didn’t stay for much. Rode bikes out to Secret Beach which is anything but secret. There are at least two bars at Secret beach Machete, Coconut, and drinks. What could go wrong (nothing for her). Took bikes down to Marco Gonzalez Mayan site. The path looked like something from Myst. Marco Gonzalez is mostly still covered in jungle. Mayans here used Conch shells to build walls. They are kinda creepy 500 years later. Beatrice is one of three Black Iguanas with names at Marco Gonzalez Sun rise from our hotel room. Sun rise over the ocean ...

In software just about all project management methodologies get labeled one of two things: Agile or Waterfall. There are formal definitions of both labels, but in practice few companies stick to those definitions particularly in the world of consulting. For people who really care about such things, there are actually many more methodologies out there but largely for marketing reasons we call any process that’s linear in nature Waterfall, and any that is iterative we call Agile. ...

This year I took part in Hacktoberfest. Partially to see what all the fuss is about, partially to get myself involved in projects I didn’t know about, and partially for the free t-shirt (which do come in men’s and women’s cuts). If you haven’t run into this project before it’s an effort by Digital Ocean to get people to participate in open source projects. Once you sign up they count all public pull requests you make on Github toward a goal of 5. I participated both as a developer, and by tagging a few issues on my own projects so people would find them. ...

When I was first starting out in IT I had a senior colleague who commented to me about all the throw away knowledge she’d collected and tossed over the years. She talked about learning early versions of VB, an obscure OS for an old HP minicomputer, the aging phone system we had, and all kinds of other things she’d learned in her career that was, or was about to become, useless knowledge. ...

Developers need to be able to in write their primary spoken languages as well as they can writing in their primary programming languages. It takes effort and practice, just like programming does. And you get rusty if you stop for awhile, just like in programming. I started blogging in part to make sure I was writing on a regular basis. When I worked at AFSC I was writing and editing everyday for my work, but the next two jobs I had didn’t expect much writing from me. I’ve written before about the value of my liberal arts education, and the last few weeks have been a testament to effort Hamilton put into making sure I learned the fundamentals of writing. ...

This afternoon my wife and I went to the Families Belong Together protest at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta, and organized by a few of their members, Progressives for Democratic Reform, along with a few other like minded groups that think tearing families apart is repugnant (at best). Sign Making

Every time I go through a job search either as a candidate or reviewing applications I try to learn a few things to make sure I am better prepared in the future and to help friends looking for work and talent. I recently completed a job search, so I want to share what I learned this time around. I found a great question for a candidate to ask: “What else should I have asked you?” ...

This is a guest post from my wife, and co-Guardian ad Litem, Elizabeth Georgian. You can read more about our Guardian ad Litem work in this previous post. In a world that at times seems to grow increasingly uncaring, chaotic, and impossible to change, two sets of teenagers, a century apart, living remarkably different lives, may offer us a path forward. On March 25, 1911, 145 textile workers perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. They died of smoke inhalation, flames, or from injuries sustained as they leapt down the elevator shaft or out of the ninth story windows. The factory owners had locked these young, largely immigrant women in their building so they could inspect their bags as they left and on that day no one remembered to free them. ...

Like last year I’m keeping an extremely rough setup of notes from DrupalCon as a repository of things I’m picking up and tracking of sessions that looked like they would be interested but that I couldn’t attend because I was in another session. I’ll clean then up a bit and add to them over time. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make the event a success. I’ve assembled a playlist of the various sessions I though were good when I attended, or looked good but couldn’t attend. ...

Yesterday my wife and I realized that there was a March for Our Lives being held here in Aiken. When we saw a friend of ours describe her 3-year-old’s first pre-school experience with an active shooter drill we realized that if the local teens could get up early on a Saturday to speak up for themselves, we could not justify staying home. So I charged the camera battery, cleared the memory cards, and made sure I’d have pictures to share. Aiken is a small city in a state that’s hostile to gun control, so even a small crowd is an impressive turn out. The turn out was good, the people were energized, and the kids were clear in their ask: they want to be safe at school and they don’t think that should mean they have to be surrounded by armed guards (police or teachers). ...