Fresh Feesh

First of all, this new fangled posting system for Tumblr is so fancy and awesome! Love the minimal UI. Bravo, Tumblr. 

I’m generally not a fan of my own birthday, but the last few years they’ve been a great excuse for a grand escape to the desert with fellow Aries climber buddy narindaism​. This year, I also happened to see a post from awesome local creative and conference organizer, Meghan Arnold. Her tradition includes setting up a list of goals for herself, birthday to birthday, called the (new current age) by the (future self age) list. What I liked about it, besides the catchy name and fact that I love lists, was that from her check-ins and previous year recaps, I got the sense these were all plausibly attainable goals but also nice-to-have-but-don’t-kill-yourself-over goals. Bucket lists often seem so Out There as to be highly unlikely. These seem like maybe a good step on the way to them, though. Measurable and concrete.

So without further rambling, I present my hopefully-kind-of-attainable list for the year. 31 things I’d like to accomplish before I hit 32. Aaand, go.

1. Learn to play Enter Sandman on drums.  Okay I lied. This one seems ridiculous given that I have no drum kit and really sucked at drums while I did. But, I’ll keep it here because this song reminds me of grade school and a friend shared this cover with me the day I started working on the list. 30/31 won’t be so bad, right?

2. Sport climb outside three times. I’m a boulderer. Ropes seem complex and unnecessary at times, but I’d like to give it more of a shot. Sport climbing is basically like bouldering but taller anyway, right??

3. Climb a 3+ pitch route. Similarly, I do greatly admire trad climbers in that you can reach inconceivable heights doing multipitches. Hoping to give it another shot this year.

4. 131 outdoor V-points. This one is more so to encourage me to climb outdoors more often, even if I can’t do a big weekend/weeklong trip somewhere. Maybe I can appreciate my local rocks a bit more. Bonus, I’m already nine points in for this: finished The Prow (v2), Bday Variation (v2), and Fly Boy Arete (v5) on my birthday weekend.

5. Pay off Hawaiian credit card. I’ve gotten so close to paying off this card so many times, but I’m addicted to earning miles despite my best Simple-card-goalsetting efforts. 

6. Travel to five cities I’ve never been to.  I’m addicted to travel, but it’s usually to regular haunts: HNL and NYC, Bishop, Red Rocks. Let’s try to mix it up this year. Easy points include a trip to Nicaragua coming up next month. 

7. Spend at least 31 days sleeping in nature. A bonus to this climbing addiction has been a new love for the outdoors. I’d like to spend more time backpacking and camping in general this year. One day down so far, in Bishop.

8. Learn to recognize a new constellation.  There’s nothing like making up constellations while lazing about under a desert night sky, like the Baby Giraffe fighting an Octopus. It’d be cool to learn some actual ones though, and to recognize where it is at different points of the year.

9. Design and print personal business cards.  Seriously? Never done this? I thought about putting “design and code my portfolio” but I knew that would never happen. This might be 1% more plausible...

10. Volunteer web-time or design-time to a non-profit or org. The obligations of "real life” are funny. Gone are the days when I could up and leave for a rally or protest on a whim. Seeing rallies online make me feel both nostalgic and also like I’m not contributing enough, so I’d like to take some time to donate a skill to an org that might need it.

11. Learn to cook something new and out of my comfort zone. ...my comfort zone being, melted cheese in various formats.

12. Kayak in five new spots. Bonus if they’re outside the Bay Area. Kayaking is a newer hobby of mine thanks to my partner Gabe, but it’s another sport that can take you to beautiful places. Let’s see where it leads this year.

13. Read 10 books.  Being in the Counsyl book club might help, but I should prob pick up the pace a bit. Also adding the “Choose Must” book by Elle Luna to this #todo list. Currently reading: A Man Called Ove

14. Complete the 100 day project. Related to the above is the do something for 100 days and document it proj. It began in early April and as of today, I think I’m four or five days behind. I chose to record video chats because: I can’t stand seeing myself on video, and, I don’t like hearing myself talk, and, I cringe when posting personal content anywhere (writing this whole post has been equally cringe-worthy). I may have started a Tumblr for this, but I may not post it anywhere...

15. Finish a problem under the arch at Dogpatch Boulders. Whoops another climbing goal. The arch at DP is freaky tall, but it’s something I know I’m capable of. I think I’ve maybe only topped one thing out there, but to strengthen my mental climbing game, I should try this again.

16. Talk to 15 different friends for 31 minutes. There were a number of goals from Meghan’s lists that I really admired, and this is one of them. I know a lot of great people, and many of them I wish I were more deeply in touch with, even if it’s just for a quick (well, 31+ minute) chat. This can be phone, video, whatevs. If you wanna volunteer for this one, you know how to find me!

17. Write 31 pieces of snail mail. I love snail mail. Something about sloppy handwriting and doodles and postage stamps is incredible. I send postcards to my nieces whenever possible, but more recently @themelissard has really made my day with some great letters and cards. I’d love to pay it forward, let me know also if you want a letter! 

18. Catch up with 15 different friends in person. Whoops! Wait, how was this one different from the above? Oh I think for this I meant, there are a bunch of people I’m frequently in situations like, “Oh let’s catch up over dinner!” or “Oh I’m in Oakland a lot these days, let’s catch up!” I guess more so than a 31 minute chat would cover. I’ll have to think this one through a bit more.

19. Visit a Creative Mornings chapter abroad.  I’m not sure where I’ll be this year, yet, but hopefully I’ll cross the paths of another Creative Mornings city! I guess there’s always Vegas, too!

20. Build something with wood.  What I really have in mind is lawn furniture for our yard like these, but that may be too ambitious. I actually just want an excuse to use power tools.

21. Climb Jedi Mind Tricks. Another climbing goal. This has been a mental fuck situation for awhile, since last year where I fell one or two moves from the top, twice. Jedi Mind Tricks is a tall clean slab in the middle of nowhere. And by tall I mean, 20′? This one haunts me.

22. Design a custom Organic crash pad.  I’ve actually never bought a new crash pad, and given how much I boulder outdoors it’s probably time. I’ve made a few drafts for this but nothing I love yet. Working on a feesh of some sort...

23. Donate at least $500 to non-profits or orgs. Someone told me that donating often doesn’t do anything or that non-profits are shady and the money doesn’t actually go to the cause. I’m refusing to believe that’s true for everyone, and although I can’t afford to donate a ton I’d still like to do some small good.

24. Clean up and print 31 photos. Fact: photography and digital photography were the two design classes I did worst at (i.e. nearly failed) in college. I’ve been enamored with the process forever, though, especially seeing Lilly Rosenthal working on a few climbing photos at her home in Boulder. 

25. Publish five videos on Vimeo. Similarly, I have tons of video footage on my external hard drive that I’ve been meaning to process and post, including an engagement video for Terry and Julia. I need to get my act together on this one and just post. Perfect is the enemy of good.

26. Figure out a non-climbing exercise I can do. I hate exercise that feels like exercise, but I would like to be in better shape (mostly to climb harder, and not feel winded on approaches). Corepower was awesome but I’m not sure I can hang. Maybe yoga..? Dead lifts and squats?

27. Speak in public at a meetup or panel. I lucked out and was able to do this for Talent Loves Us last month and... it wasn’t so bad! I’ve spoken and facilitated at things before in Davis but largely around queer subject matter. It was a bit more intimidating speaking about professional topics, but I think it went pretty well and I’d love to give it another go.

28. Sketch 10 ideas for a tattoo. I don’t know how many times I’ve said I wanted a tattoo. Maybe I’ll never get another one, but it definitely won’t happen if I don’t start sketching ideas.

29. Make 12 mixtapes for friends.  Despite my generally not-great taste in music, I really used to enjoy making mixtapes for people. Last fall I was re-inspired by Bernice from CM/Sydney with her Mixtape to New York City! Let me know if you want of these, too, friends!

30. Do 31 pull-ups / push-ups in a sesh. “In a row” seems highly unlikely, especially for pull-ups. I’ll accept “within a short amount of time.” Current baseline is three or four solid pull-ups at a time, and maybe eight sloppy knee push-ups.

31. Make a list of 31 moments this year that I’m grateful for.  I think this was another from Meghan, but I think I should take more time to reflect on a lot of the amazing people I meet and places I go because they definitely affect me in a positive way. These will probably also live here.

What's the difference between designing for mobile versus designing for the web? 

Someone asked me this recently, and it left me pondering for quite a bit. Screen size? I guess that's an obvious point. Designs have already changed as monitor and laptop screens have grown, but this doesn't necessarily translate to a well designed mobile experience. 

What else varies? The type of interaction, for one. Swiping and tapping have replaced the mouse clicks of old, requiring a deeper level of detail and texture to provide the kind of intuitive interactions a mobile app really benefits from.

The fundamental difference I find myself thinking of most, though, is context. This matters especially while designing the screens for SuperBeta: 

What's the most important thing to display while you're out on the trail looking for a rock, and what's the easiest way to access it? 

Which pieces of information help you make a quick choice on deciding what to climb next, when you're at the crag and ready to go? 

And alternately, what in-depth content is both useful and engaging, for when you're at home planning a weekend trip? 

I think the route screen alone has gone through at least five revisions thus far. Maybe I'm just being a perfectionist, but I can't wait to get this right. 

Quick post, to help my indecision. I stumbled across a job post at a local design/dev shop recently. The posting had all the makings for a great position: focus on UI/UX, direct interaction with and feedback from actual users, medical and dental, etc. Intrigued, I continued to research their website to see recent projects, many of which were beautiful.

Next point of research: what's their team like? Here's where my heart sank. I clicked, began scrolling through the listing of people. One female employee. Normally, not such a huge deal, especially on a small team. In this case, it was one out of thirty plus employees. And, she wasn't even in a dev or design function. One out of thirty..?! Come ON!

What was I to do? How was I to respond? There're two thoughts in my head: why would I bother applying when I don't want to work in another environment that is all guys. Not that I don't love the guys I work with now, but there's no diversity of thought, sometimes, and it is very apparent in our meetings and work styles. 

I've long associated Tumblr with only entertaining gifs and photo blogs of qpoc folks. Oh how wrong I've been! 

This dangerous new addition to my world came about while I was following up on who liked our new Team Zombiru blog, and specifically who was interested in SuperBeta, the interactive climbing app I've been obsessing over every waking (and non-waking) moment. 

Shortly thereafter, my list of followed blogs increased twofold and now my dashboard overfloweth with climbing porn and training tips. I love it! 

Took my first official user experience class last week! I almost forgot about it in the hubbub of SF Pride, but I'm glad I went and would love to get more practice and learn more. It was taught by Carl Nelson through Skillshare at the Hub in Soma, San Francisco. I definitely recommend this for any other UX design beginners!

User experience design intrigues me because it's so broadly defined, encompassing anything from in person sales techniques to fine-grained iOS app screens. Creating efficient and intuitive flows, however, is essential to gaining the trust and buy-in from your users. It's easy to understand how important it is to get UX right, since we encounter good and bad examples of it everyday as users ourselves. Carl's example in class was the posting process for selling something on Craigslist — horrendously tedious and painful. 

Someone great passed this morning. 

My Ampa was nearly 101 years old. He's been a fighter throughout his life: in courting our grandma, Ama, for years despite her rejection, in the war battling for the Philippines and for the United States, and in the past few years of his life, seemingly living purely to stay alive for Ama, his "ling" (short for "darling").

In part, I'm so happy for him. The Ampa I'll always remember was strong, but not in a cold way, not in the least. He had such a hearty laugh, and warm smile/grin. The past few years that he's been bedridden and unwell, he hadn't seemed sad or angry, just tired but patient. As a man who loved tending his garden, watching football, and cooking amazing things for the whole family, I can't imagine what a hardship it was. 

In high school I did a report on him. I remember sitting down with him in San Jose, listening to stories about the war that sounded like something out of a book or a video game — he was amazing! A war prisoner who survived the Bataan death march in World War II, and the leader of a sniper unit who climbed huge trees to take out rival snipers. I would later learn that he forced himself to stay alive through the war, in order to come back and marry our grandma who he loved more than anything.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this here; I have all these thoughts and no way to voice them otherwise... It's been a few months since I even saw him. I feel selfish in thinking that this must be the greatest thing for him. I can't help but picture him now in heaven, a youthful mischievous looking man, running the town, eating lechon, schooling folks at mahjong. Seeing him lying in bed, just enduring, was always heartbreaking. I should have seen him before I left for my trip, but, I didn't. 

This song randomly came to mind when I first heard. Nearly 5am, since I'm in Hawaii and it's 8am back home. Three missed calls from my sister and one from my mom, I think I knew just from seeing the call log. I'm not sure what will happen now, but am a little worried about the fallout. I don't think that our family is in the strongest place right now. I don't know what's going to happen when they tell our Ama. 

For now, it's comforting to know he must be in a better place, that he's no longer in pain. 

Rest in peace, Ampa. 

I've decided to write, in a public fashion. Why? Because, well, I hate it. But I read Mike Monteiro's Design Is a Job and a few other online bits recently that have motivated me to push through the hate and do it anyway. Maybe this will teach me to ramble less and articulate more! Or maybe I'll give up after this post! Exciting!

The other motivating factor is that I read @matthewwilkes' TwitLonger and felt it deserved a more thoroughly explained response 'cause he's an awesome guy, but I didn't want to use TwitLonger because I don't like the extra wide drop shadow on their logo. So here it is! (And I know this is a generic Tumblr theme, but I wanted to get this out while it was fresh in my mind, don't hate! And oh my god is it really that difficult to let me add a margin to my images, Tumblr??)

I get your frustrations. I get them, because I have them, too — not just with gender issues or queer issues in open source tech communities, but with every other "issue" in every other underserved community battling oppression in every community where they find themselves marginalized. 

It's always an uphill battle, and your tweet of frustration brought up thoughts and confusions and inner struggles I've had for awhile. So what if I say "that's what she said!!" It's funny and empowering because I'm a woman and it's a way of expressing my queer identity, right??

I don't know. The "activisty/conscious" part of me says... I should know better, it doesn't make it right or less-objectifying of other women, etc etc. But, I weigh the gravity of the particular statement given my current audience, mood, alignment of the stars, and well, maybe I'll say it anyway. 

I could go on, but I'll speak just to what I took to be your grievances: more and more you're hearing all these issues of people feeling victimized in the tech community, largely due to their gender, and you're tired of it, because you're already aware and already do your part in fighting it. Yes/no? 

Personally, I love that we're hearing more about it in the tech community! Sexism is a not a new thing. To me, this just means more and more people are recognizing that sexism exists who may not have known or really cared before, and that more people are feeling empowered to speak up about it. I think it's great, @michaelasmith, that you don't find it possible to ignore the issues either, because to me that means, damn maybe all the conversations that have come up around this topic are working! (And/or it means, damn @michaelasmith is cooler than I thought!)

You mentioned that you don't hear this in other communities, why should it be in tech: I contend that these concerns should be acknowledged in all communities, and perhaps have started in tech because such a great imbalance between the ratio of women/advocates to "brogrammers" exists in the first place. In the ideal world, sure, these concerns wouldn't need to be addressed at all, because everyone would understand and respect each others' identities, everyone would have equal opportunities, feel equally able to speak out, and be judged only by the quality of the code they commit (or what have you). 

But I get the sense that is a rarity, and that across the board there are plenty of women who feel the opposite and thusly choose not to participate in a community, or not to speak up about the countless tech events they went to and then left because they were tired of drunken fools trying to make out with them because they were one of five women in attendance. (You know who you are, drunken fool. It's not cute.) In this reality though, that is apparently not the case. I'm not saying I personally feel that way all the time; on the contrary, by and large in the Plone community I've felt encouraged to participate because I'm female/queer and also happen to know a bit of CSS and design (hat tip, @eleddy et al).

And, for every person who does speak out, I wonder how many there are that take the uncomfortable feelings and shove 'em aside because they want to be accepted anyway, or because they aren't able to stand up for themselves. How many times does the drunken fool win out because the other is so tired of fighting back? Don't tell me this doesn't happen. The odds are never in our favor.

So I think, if you're feeling frustrated that having to "police" others in your own community is getting in the way of you sharing code and otherwise contributing, then don't. Take a break. Let it slide when you hear that TWSS joke and keep on discussing that bit of python that's so hot right now (thanks mr. @bdbaddog)

You can't fight all the battles yourself, and you can still do your part by being an example to others, or maybe by not laughing at the joke. In time maybe you'll feel compelled again to stand up in other ways, or you'll hear something so outrageously offensive you'll once again be spurred to take them aside and break their face give them a stern talking-to.

It's exhausting fighting oppression, but there's plenty to go around, so don't feel compelled to take it all on yourself. Especially if you need time to "just code with people." What sense is there in fighting to fix a community you don't enjoy anymore? :)

Anyway, that's my long-winded response, as an equally-tired and not-always-willing-to-speak-up queer lady. Thanks for voicing your grievances, and hope to fight zombies in a British mall with you sometime soon! (Which reminds me, did you see mapofthedead.com???)