Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

12 Nov 2011, 21:41 p.m.

Boarding Passeth Understanding

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2011 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Now that I'm most of the way through 2011, how did my travel wishlist go?

I did go to Arisia. Ended up in Berlin for a MediaWiki conference, but not for the GNOME Desktop Summit, and I didn't go to the fall GNOME summit either. WisCon yes, Open Source Bridge yes, but QuahogCon no since the conference organizers cancelled it. And I didn't get invited to Foo Camp.

Unanticipated travel: just across the state line to PICC, somewhat more time in Washington, DC than I'd anticipated, and then so much work travel. I went back and forth to San Francisco a lot. I went to OSCON and Community Leadership Summit, which I hadn't anticipated this time last year. And I went to Haifa for Wikimania and New Orleans for a hackathon, and I'm going to Mumbai in a bit for another, none of which were on my radar last year at all. Also I went to Staten Island for the first time.

I have learned that it's hard to do the same thing for pleasure that I do for work, like travel and going to conferences (even science fiction conventions). I have learned more about napping and caffeine titration than I knew before. I have learned a little teensy bit of Hebrew and of German. I have met a lot of people, some of whom are now close friends. I have learned a little about how to pack for a trip, but not as much as my boss's boss's boss.

Today Leonard and I went shopping for a new bedframe (the old one doesn't fit our new mattresses; long story). It's good to make an investment in the place where I theoretically live.