The Amazing Weekend

How many of those have you had? The truly amazing weekends are rare or in name only. My weekend began on Friday, so there’ a +1 right there.

Off to college

On Friday we took my youngest daughter to college. My oldest daughter had not gone back to school yet, so it was a full on family affair. We all dropped her off, so I thought it was appropriate that we were all there to see off the youngest.

My baby girl is going to a small art school north of Boston, so it was a short drive. Much like Northeastern, the college is tightly integrated into the town, with housing in the neighborhoods around the college. The “Campus” is really the entire down town of this old New England town.

We unloaded all of her belongings and brought them up to her room and met her room-mate and her parents. My oldest is at an engineering school. Three years ago we saw all kinds of interesting kids when we dropped her off. At art school we saw the other end of the nerd spectrum.

I was really surprised at the poor sense of aesthetic that these art students had. I guess this isn’t a fashion school, but still.

We stayed for lunch and watched as the class photo was taken. Since we’ve done this all ready we didn’t stay for the family orientation. We are 30 minutes away and as I say, we’ve done this before. My wife stayed to take our little girl on one more shopping trip, my oldest and I headed for home.

Many of you with whom I’ve traded notes know that I have been thinking of this day for a while now. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I wasn’t sure if the youngest would be tougher or if it would be less traumatic as we’ve done this before.

We are now officially “empty nesters.” I’m certain it hasn’t hit me yet. But I’m certain it will. My oldest went back to college on Saturday.

Wordcamp Boston 2014

Saturday I went to school, MIT to be exact. I work next door to MIT, but other than the book store I’ve never been in an MIT building. Wordcamp Boston 2014 was held at the MIT Media Lab. WordPress supports something like 23 million web sites and blogs around the world, so being at the MIT Media Lab was very appropriate.

We had the entire 6th floor. For $20 I got to attend seven sessions, have lunch and got a cool t-shirt. This has to be the bargain of the decade.

The first session was on WordPress migrations. I’m planning a migration so I thought this session would be perfect. This was just what I needed and I could ask questions. I was excited.

I work at a software company but I’m in marketing. All of the magic that goes on behind the screen is unfathomable to me. When the guy started talking about FTP, directories and migrating data centers, I thought I was fucked. I thought I was going to spend the rest of the day lost in the technology forest, looking for a deer trail or the sun to get my bearings.

The next session was on APIs but the guy who was supposed to give the talk couldn’t make it. I know what an API is and was hoping to learn about APIs relevant to my needs. Unfortunately the guy who gave the presentation was way over my head, again. I was getting a little frustrated.

Fortunately many of the other sessions were on topics that I could grasp like plugins, security and e-commerce. I would say that more than half of the seminars were over my head but the others made the day worthwhile.

They say the more you know the more you know that you don’t know anything. Yeah, I’m there. I don’t know jack!

Sunday Long Run

A good run can cure many ills. This week we had 14.6 hilly miles on tap. My buddy Don and I made up our own route for the last few miles, again. We ended up running 13.71 miles. Not bad. I think we were both done by the end. My pace was 23 seconds faster than last week’s 16.81 run.

I ran some good hills and I definitely felt it. I was able to spend some time essentially running by myself and my thoughts. Having that clear channel with no signal can be so sweet sometimes. Just paying attention to traffic and how my body felt, nothing else.

I think busting up those hills was just what I needed. Saturday was intellectual gymnastics, Sunday was purely physical. Friday is still bouncing around in there somewhere. That will take some time to sort.

Run well my friends!

Andy

© 2014 anagelin