After a very busy summer and autumn preparing the show, everything went live the night after Thanksgiving. As mentioned in the lead-up to this season, the new elements have been added to the display, new songs are being included, and a website has been launched.
I just returned back from #WCUS 2019 in St. Louis, and this, by far, is my favorite city. Many seem to agree, since it's already been decided to return for 2020!
Being one of the co-leads for WordPress 5.3, my agenda was quite different than in WordCamps past. I wanted to attend some talks, gather some swag, and, most importantly, meet my other "squad" members in person. I've spent the past few months Slacking with them on the daily, and I had yet to meet most face-to-face.
Per usual, I'm well underway in getting ready for the holidays. October through mid-January is a big deal for me. All of my bulk-buy pre-orders of components have been received and dozens of Amazon orders have been placed. My weekends between now and early 2020 will be consumed by prop building, sequencing, cabling, and testing. It's not easy, but it's so much fun.
Twice a year, gamers from all over the world come together to "speedrun" both new and old games alike. Games from every platform and every era. Even better, it's a week-long marathon to raise money for charity, and it's streamed live on Twitch for millions to follow along. Although I'm not a big gamer, I've been watching both Awesome Games Done Quick(AGDQ) and Summer Games Done Quick(SGDQ) for about five years now.
Each marathon gets better. More games, larger sponsors, more money raised, and, finally, better production quality. The SGDQ that just finished raised over $3 Million for Doctors Without Borders, and the production and organization is top-notch.If you can't watch the whole SGDQ 2019, at least watch the last few hours. The grand finale run of Chrono Trigger ended up smashing the total-money-raised record for any GDQ and was just insane. Specifically, I was impressed with the donation tracker.
Given that WordPress is still growing, there's no shortage of work for proper WordPress developers. In my case, work comes from several sources, all of it freelance. The vast majority of work I do is retainer. Agencies/companies need me to come into a sprint, usually for the stuff that's a bit too much for juniors.
Since every project is different, the workflow is usually unique as well. Unless I'm involved with the engineering at project kick-off, I usually have to adapt to what's been put in place by other developers. Typically that means writing custom shell scripts and aliases to help sync both code and content.
Alas. It's the beginning of a new year, and it's time to awake from my usual, year-end shutdown. It was a great holiday season filled with a lot of new memories. It's always a bit saddening after New Year's Day passes, forced to accept that Christmas is in the rear-view. Like many others, I'm just now finished stowing away decorations, but guess I have to start working my way back to the normal routines of work and responsibility.