My blog is moved

From now on I'll be blogging from http://pydanny.com.

See you there!

Two years ago today

The PyCon tutorial on Django in Depth was ending. I had been sitting next to my friend Barbara and we got up to go when I heard a feminine voice ask: "Are you bshaurette?" I turned and it was like I got punched in the gut.

It was the first time I met Audrey. I remember every detail of how she looked at that moment. The clothes she was wearing, the part in her hair, that her eyes met mine, and that they didn't turn away. I was immediately captivating, but fortunately remembered to act like a gentleman. I tossed in a casual invitation to her to join us for lunch, which I pulled off even though my heart was pounding. Thankfully she accepted.

Life has been pretty much awesome ever since.

That was the day I met the love of my life.

Reposted from Two years ago today.

Silicon Beach Hackercast

Near the end of January of 2012 I was at the 10th Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE 10X). I gave an Intro to Python talk, helped man the awesome Python booth, and hung out with a lot of awesome people. One of those awesome people I got to spend time with was Andrew Cholakian, a Ruby and Clojure developer, and the organizer of LA Hacker News. We've been meaning to do something together, and at the conference we decided to do a broadcast together.

Jump forward a few weeks and Andrew came over to our place in the San Fernando Valley for a day of brainstorming, web site building, and broadcasting. We outlined a show and started to record.

Download Now!

Topics of Discussion

• Python at Scale 10X
• New clients asking you to complete the ‘last 10%’
• A rant about job titles
• Why is clojure blowing up?

Links

• Silicon Beach Hackercast
• Silicon Beach Hackercast Episode #1
• Hacker News Thread
  

Art

Audrey was kind enough to illustrate the event for posterity:

The Future

The show was a lot of fun to do. We plan to do more of them, perhaps every few weeks. A better microphone is definitely in the works.

Working on the Aú sem Mão

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to perform an Aú sem Mão/aerial/no handed cartwheel. Ideally, I would be able to do it before PyCon US, and would perform it during the Capoeira Open Space.

Speaking of the Capoeira Open Space, have you signed up yet to participate? Your skill level or athletic ability doesn't matter, just come and have fun!

How I'm training

• Losing enough weight to make jumping easier without losing strength/endurance.
• Practicing a lot of Capoeira. Especially on my non-workout days

Before you say, "do plyometrics!", keep in mind that Capoeira already has a lot of similar movements and I've got a tricky ankle. I've done plyometrics before and found that they caused my ankle grief. Capoeira's tight focus on smooth transitions isn't just distinctive, I think it's been good for healing what has been a problem joint for me for the past 9 years.

How I'm doing

I'm getting there.

I can do a butterfly kick badly, mostly because I don't arch my back enough. My hope is to get my head down further and my legs up higher. The end result is Aú sem Mão, right?

Why am I trying to do this?

Because I haven't done it before. And there is no time like the present. :)

Capoeira at PyCon!

For several years I've wanted to have a Capoeira event at PyCon US. Think of it: a lively blend of martial arts, music, dance, and nifty moves all done with and for a large crowd. Well, this year it looks like it may happen! PyCon is giving us a room and my own teacher, Contra Mestre Xingu will be in town. We would love for you to join!

The only hindrance is before I can make this happen, I need just twenty (20) people to express interest in participating; either learn some beginner friendly moves, play in the Roda, or just play instruments.

We aren't going to make you do crazy tricks, in fact, anyone can do Capoeira. It doesn't matter if you've never done anything athletic, or you won the gold medal in Olympic gymnastics. Just fill out the form and we'll see you there.

Sign up for Capoeira at PyCon!

Updates to this event will be tracked at the PyCon Capoeira Open Space

Looking to move off blogger again

Every once in a while I think about moving off of blogger. My favorite part about it has been the reliability of hosting from a large provider like Google. However, I'm not a fan of the changes that have been occurring in terms of UI and delivery. While I don't have to use those changes now, I worry about being forced to accomodate them in the future.

Audrey launched her new site using Jekyll on Github and has been mostly happy. I've been trying out Jekyll, as I like the idea of blogging in a markup format rather than write the HTML I do here (RST-to-HTML-to-blogger is not a fun process).

I may go for Hyde instead, because it's a Python based solution and I can get finicky that way. On the other hand, Jekyll, at least in terms of documentation, is much more polished at this time. This may sound childish, but figuring out the kinks is not something I want to do with a blog - I just want to write and be sure my site doesn't go down.

All I know is that after doing so much note taking with restructured text, git, and Read the Docs, doing it in almost bare HTML in Blogger is really, really tiresome. It's time for a change!

Python Web Summit Questions needed!

I've been fortunate enough to land a moderating spot at the invitation only March 8th Python Web Summit that takes place at PyCon US 2012. The panel I'll be moderating is the somewhat contentious issue of code reuse across different Python frameworks. I'm working on some questions, but I would love input from the entire Python Web Community.

If you've got questions to ask, or ideas to suggest, please post them on this google moderator link.