Chico day 2

It's much cooler today in Chico. The seminar is still quite interesting and I am truly enjoying the folks I am meeting here, feeling even more interested in localization.

I visited the little memorial to Oma and took a video (see below.) Sadly, there was some graffiti on it. I think I will email the Burke ladies and see if people want to pitch in, each about $25 or $50, to donate to Chico State and tell them we'd like that gift designated to clean up the memorial. Not only will that achieve the immediate goal of getting it cleaned up, it will also communicate to the university that Oma's family still cares very much and is engaged.



I met a nice lady named Deb, who is just finishing chemo for breast cancer and came all the way out here from Boston. Pretty brave to show up to this thing not knowing anyone here with most of her hair gone wearing a bandana. She was so lovely to chat with. She showed me photos of her dog online and I showed her the paintings on my web site and she definitely is now going to commission me to do a portrait for her. Funny that the first business opportunity from this localization seminar has nothing to do with software at all!

chico, language, hot hot hot

I'm in Chico, which brings back so many (sort of fuzzy) memories, taking a class that culminates in certification as a Localization Project Manager, which is a nice specialization to add to my pretty solid generalist software / infrastructure experience. The folks in this course have flown in from Singapore, Germany, and Argentina... and I thought my drive up from Berkeley was a drag. The teachers so far have been really great - so nice to be actually interested in class here in a place where I wasn't very interested before.

There are a couple of things that I am attracted to about this specialization: the international aspect (interesting input about different cultures, potential for fun travel) and the language aspect. Like my sister (and father and mother and so on...) I am a big language nut. Porter calls it being a "word geek."

This area near my hotel was all just rocks and dirt when I last lived here, but is now full of condos and shops and businesses. Wild.

And could it be hotter? Well, I suppose it could be humid, like, say Austin! I do not love the heat, so maybe that's another data point about moving.

local girl does good

The Marin paper published this full-page spread on an up-and-coming recording artist from Marin named Amber Dante.

She's Pastor Veronica's daughter! Very cool.

(Veronica Goines is the Pastor of my church, St. Andrew in Marin City.)

Good news!

Welcome to the Merrifamilia my new furry kiddo, Lulu! She's a rescue black lab, still very much in puppy mode at 11 months, but highly sweet and responsive and loves to learn. I've entered the new world where chew toys are like oxygen. She loves people, other dogs, the water, and BIRDS. Any kind of bird is worth pursuing in Lulu's world.

One of the best perks is all the walking I'm getting with her.

Here she is (in video below) at our wonderful local dog park, Point Isabel (her ears look a bit funny due to the wind in her face, but she normally looks very labby):

Good article on the front page of the NY Times today

On Ethiopian adoptions.

Check it out here.