I had a wonderful time at the first AdaCamp, held in Melbourne, Australia on January 14, 2012.

I didn’t take notes during most of the sessions, and spent a lot of time listening and thinking.

The two important things I took away from the first AdaCamp were about context – my context, and the camp itself.

My context

I’ve been part of free and open source community since 1994, when I started reading the linux kernel mailing list and compiling my own kernels to support experimental features and drivers. I was welcomed into my mostly male offline community of developers, sysadmins and hackers. I had a male psuedonym when I was online in technical forums. I used a female psuedonym on mailing lists and collaborative writing projects I was invited to back in the early days of alt.* threads that spilled over into specialty LISTSERV mailing lists.

I’d grown up in a very small town, where your reputation is everything. It was incredible, strange and liberating to be able to represent all the parts of me, separately and freely, online.

So, when I got to AdaCamp I felt apprehensive. I’ve had the option of separating out the parts of me online and in free and open source community for so long, and I was struggling with what part of me exactly should be at the forefront here. Being a woman is a pretty important aspect of myself. Addressing it in parts felt wrong, but integrating it all seemed like an oversimplification.

So, I tried to make myself useful by making coffee and sorting out our wireless situation. Then we all got together in a room. I made a few jokes with the people at my table and then fell silent.

Mary and Val opened the day with a short introduction and an explanation of why they thought it was important to have conversations about open tech and culture in a feminist context. And then we started going through the introductions.

I was so terrified to introduce myself that I ran out to work on the wireless network and missed out on most of the introductions. At least we had wireless working after that.

It seems so silly to me now that I chose to walk out of the intros. Val didn’t let me off the hook when I got back, and I had to briefly introduce myself to everyone. And the reason why I’m spilling so many words on this point is that I want to let you all know how difficult it is to change your context.

I have identified as a feminist for as long as I can remember. But I’ve nearly always been a feminist in the company of men. If I were to introduce myself again, I would say:

I am a feminist hacker. Right now, my hacking is mostly on people and systems. I believe women and men should be treated equally, but I know they are not. And I want to help solve problems of inequality faced by women, primarily through my work in free and open source software, but also in the workplaces where many of our fellow hackers end up.

Context of the camp

There were too many fantastic conversations to count. I met so many new friends, and came away with new respect for the work Mary and Val are tackling.

Two big sessions for me were a frank conversation about hiring, and an expansive brainstorm about the things women have in common between free and open source, open culture, open hardware, creative commons, remix culture and other “open stuff”. I’m looking forward to future conversations about both things!

During the closing session, many thoughts were shared about what made a day spent talking about so many difficult problems still feel inspiring.

One comment stuck with me – we all shared a context of feminism. With that point settled, it made getting into the depths of many other conversations much easier and interesting. We got to skip over many feminism 101 topics, and have spirited debates and exchanges of ideas in a feminist context.

I hope I can attend the next event!

And you can support the Ada Initiative by donating here.

I support the Ada Initiative because biology doesn’t explain: why there aren’t more women in computer science, why I don’t have more women colleagues who hack on databases, or why we don’t have more women contributing to open source projects.

You can support the Ada Initiative, too.

I wrote a few years ago about how I thought we might best get more women involved. Four years later, my tl;dr version is: make friends with women. Imagine if every male developer could name 10 women that they considered friends among their colleagues. People they trusted, hacked with and built new companies with.

But grassroots efforts alone can’t solve the lack of women’s involvement.

My story of involvement with open source and computing starts with friends who shared the fun with me in college. They invited me to Marathon parties, late night hacking sessions with new processors, pranking coworkers whose system images weren’t quite as secure as they’d advertised…

I love free and open source culture, IT security culture and all the people that I’ve met over the past 13 years. My life is so incredibly enriched and joyful as a result of the people who share what they learn with me.

Despite my love, there’s trouble in paradise. We could be better. And one thing I wish for is more women in my open source communities.

Over the years, I’ve been part of efforts to increase the number of women involved in the projects I’ve founded – Open Source Bridge (more than 50% managed by women, >30% speakers women), Legion of Tech (1/3 of the original board members were women), and Code-N-Splode (all women’s programming and speaker development group).

Now, I’m an advisor to the Ada Initiative. I’ve watched over the last year as Mary and Val have worked to focus their mission and identify exactly what they think will encourage women. They have to balance their experiences and the resistance to cultural change endemic to businesses, organizations and the loose organizations around open source.

It’s fucking hard work. And they’re doing a great job.

Ada Initiative is the organization I wish would have existed 13 years ago. It’s the voice of experience and a catalyst for change that we need inside our communities. It’s a place for women to go for advice and help when things go right — or when things go wrong.

So, what can you do?

The Ada Initiative needs money. They need corporate support. They need individual contributions.

If you, or your company, can contribute and keep the Ada Initiative going for another year, contribute today. Mary and Val have done the hard work of getting started. Now they need your help to keep going.

I heard today that Dennis Richie passed away.

I have two copies of K&R, or “The C Programming Language.” One I bought my sophomore year of college, and the other was given to me by a good friend who tutored me on UNIX programming for a couple years.

Thanks, Dennis. And goodbye.

Thank you everyone who responded to my post over the last couple of days. It was overwhelming and awesome. I am grateful to have so many people that care about me, and who are working on so many fascinating, world-changing and difficult problems.

I’ve tried to reply to everyone that sent me a personal note.

While doing that, I realized that I’ve reached the end of what I can manage in my personal email, and have just completely cleaned out my inbox. Apologies to anyone that was expecting a response. Honestly, the likelihood that I would get to it without doing something drastic was approaching zero.

If I missed replying to you for some reason in the last few weeks, please resend your message. Or better, catch me on Google+ or Twitter.

So. I’m a free agent.

I’ve got some consulting work lined up, a few projects to keep me busy (Postgres Open, a new online class, and some writing). I’m speaking a couple times at OSCON at the end of the month and MC’ing Puppet Conf. And, I’m advising a good friend on her first business, and another on opening up data at a big company.

Looking forward — I’d love to hear what you all are working on, and a chance to catch up over a beer or coffee in the next month. I am looking for a new thing to do, but taking my time.

Plus — it’s summer. Scott and I have done some major work on the yard, and have parties and movie viewings planned until the pond freezes over.

You’re totally invited.

We buried grandpa today.

This was my first funeral. And the first time I’d been present for an honor guard, the three rounds of weapons fire, the folding and presenting of the flag, and the three symbolic rounds given to my grandmother. Scott took that picture.

I spoke at the funeral. I broke down. I met Grandpa’s niece Sheila for the first time. I missed meeting Grandpa’s brother, Forrest.

I made meatballs for the wake, and drank Dead Guy Ale. We talked with Grandma about what was coming next, and I’m worried.

Before we went to Austin Funeral Home, I talked with Grandma about her outfit, whether it was appropriate to wear yellow. She said this was her best outfit, and she didn’t want to upset anyone with it. I told her that she could wear whatever she damn well pleased.

I wish my grandfather was still here. I’m afraid for my grandma. She wants to learn everything she needs to learn to be independent. But it’s all very difficult for her.

I tried to find a pillbox for her today, and the one I found was just too hard to use. I set up speed dialing on the cel phone and put the phone on a special table for her so that she’d always know where it was. They’re going to set up a land-line, but everything just takes too long.

I talked with my sister about what to do next. She lives the closest, and talked about bringing Grandma to her church, trying to get some help for the next few weeks. I keep thinking words like “transition” and “opportunity”, and I feel like such an asshole. My grandma is afraid, and I live really far away.

I got a sheaf of paper, and wrote a note to Grandma asking her to write for me. I promised to type everything up and send it back to her.

A few people from the church came to the wake, drank punch and paid their respects. Our cousins drove back to Spokane.

We stayed, and my sister’s boyfriend sang songs on the porch. I talked with my brother about his life now, and how he’s commuting to Butte for work on gas lines with the pipefitter’s union, and how his daughter is back in Kalispell. I reminisced about our father’s welding, and how he’d always been offended when clerks at trailer rental places questioned the structural integrity of his strange, custom-welded bumper.

Scott played with his nephew, I sat with Grandma.

The weather was perfect and the sky was clear.

I’m still up, writing lists. Wondering if I found all the important things, and wishing that I had more time.

My grandfather died on Saturday evening. It was unexpected. My uncle today said that he figured Grandpa would be around for another 10 years.

I spent a lot of my time with my grandparents until I was about 3 years old, and then frequently visited them until about 6th or 7th grade. Then, mostly holidays.

For most of my life, they lived in Libby, MT. I have fond memories of splashing around in a kid’s pool in their front yard, ducking through fencing and piles of electronics to pick raspberries in the summer, and watching my grandmother smoke in the kitchen while the dishwasher ran after she baked chocolate chip cookies.

My uncle taught me morse code in my grandparents’ attic. I spent way too many hours watching my grandfather solder strange machines back to life, and fix all of our neighbor’s TVs and many seemingly throw-away devices. He spent an afternoon explaining to me some conspiracy amongst hairdryer manufacturers, and how simple it usually was to revive a dead one.

I spent most of today sorting through his papers, and trying to make lists for my mom and uncle. I don’t really know how to say what it feels like to look through all of the paperwork, bills and stupidity he had to manage these last few years for medical treatment. Horrifying, painful and enraging come to mind.

I found pictures of my grandpa with his dog Tuffy. And pictures of me with Tuffy licking my face.

I saw my grandma in petal-pushers, with my mom at 2 or 3 years old. There were letters from old friends, some from people I’d never heard of. My grandfather was a private person.

He served in the Army from 1950-1953. He was stationed in Alaska before it became a state. After the Army he got a degree in electronics and eventually started his own business in Libby. He fixed things incessantly and couldn’t stand the thought of throwing something useful away.

He really liked coffee and cookies at 2am.

I miss him.

Heads up that I’ll be travelling to Nashville and NYC over the next two weeks (March 15-28). I probably won’t be online as frequently as normal, and I’m in the middle of teaching a class.

If you need to get in touch, please email, or if it is urgent, call.

I’m barely back from a 2-week vacation, and still easing my way back into Portland living.

Looking back on 2010, the highlights were:

• Listed as a major contributor to PostgreSQL. In typical community-style, I found out by chance by looking at the contributors website one day, weeks after the change was made. Sneaky devils.
• Gave talks at LinuxConf.AU in New Zealand, LibrePlanet in Boston, PgCon in Ottawa, CouchCamp in the Bay area, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Atlanta, LinuxFest Northwest in Bellingham, WA, OSCON PG Day in Portland, Google Summer of Code Mentor’s Summit in Mountain View, and keynoted DevNation in Portland.
• Helped run the first ever IgniteGov at GOSCON in Portland!
• Spoke at and participated in KiwiFoo and FooCamp. KiwiFoo changed my life. At some point, I’d love to live in New Zealand.
• Made stickers with Reid and distributed OSFY, FSFY and OALFY stickers across the world.
• Led the second successful Open Source Bridge conference. The second edition brought in Danny O’Brien, as he started his work with the Committee to Protect Journalists, Leigh Honeywell, who chronicled the rise of hackerspaces around the world, and Mayor Sam Adams. Danny’s talk was an inspiration to me, and I’m looking for opportunities to create better and more secure software for people who fight political oppression.
• Started work at Emma, a lovely group of people and tons of interesting problems to work on.
• Learned Python. Well, still learning python.
• Took a couple vacations – Fourth of July weekend in Nashville, TN and two weeks in St Croix in December.
• Spent a week in Montana with my mom for the first time in many years and had Thanksgiving with family at her mountain-man hideout near Tally Lake.
• Drove to and from from Montana. I love road trips.
• Started the PDX11 site to help publicize what the city and citizens are working together to create an even better and more inviting software community in Portland.
• Worked on trolluniversity.com with Duke and Bart. Lots of scotch, ontologies and awkward jokes expected in the future.
• Saw one of the world’s largest tesla coils turned on and run in a giant warehouse. Twice. And learned a tiny bit more about lightning, Tesla and high voltage.
• Connected with a ton of new friends in open source communities, and hope to make many more in the new year.

I’m sure I left a few things out. I wish I would have written this post last year for 2009, as it was also an amazing year, full of travel, new experiences and wonderful people. Maybe I’ll do that and just backdate it for myself. I forgot that I’d done a picture inspiration last year for 2010. I substituted scuba diving for flying – cheaper and quite a bit safer. Otherwise.. mostly all came to pass.

Another thing about this year: I’m still not sure what it is that I want to become. I’ve had many conversations over the last six months with women who are at a similar stage of life – stable work/career, considering having children, loving travel, obsessed with software and communication.

What comforted me is that they were sitting with the ambiguity of it all as well, and finding ways of sifting through probabilities to home in on what’s truly important. I think happiness is an important factor in decision making about life’s goals, but there’s a big part of me that’s more apt to go for interestingness instead. So, while sometimes things have gone off the rails or been incredibly difficult in the last year, all the experiences I listed above have made the sacrifices and contemplative time worth it.

I’m taking an extended vacation. While it’s possible that I may check my email while I’m out, it is not likely.

Sorry for the short notice! I just realized today that I need a bit of a break from email. In fact, I may just delete everything out of my inbox rather than spend hours trying to sort through it when I get back.

So, while I’m out, if there’s something you need my help with, here’s what I suggest you do:

* If it’s PostgreSQL related, contact pdxpug@postgresql.org for local stuff, or pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org for other advocacy related things.
* If it has to do with some other form of volunteer activity, I don’t have a good backup for me and it will probably just have to wait.
* If I’m really the only person that can help, queue up an email draft and send me a message when I return (After Jan 3, 2011).

Have a lovely holiday season! And we’ll see you in the new year.