2020 Year in Review¶
+Thank you to Dawn Wages for inspiring me to do a Year in Review blog post!
+TL;DR¶
+This year could have been better for me, but it also could have been much worse.
+My highlights for the year have been:
+-
+
Attending PyCascades 2020 in February
+Taking part in Stanford Code in Place in April and subsequently participating in 100 Days of Code
+Completing an important Pinax release in July that was a personal and professional milestone
+Resuming public speaking in September
+Working on an amazing Wharton Business School project, Simpl game simulation framework, for the last couple of months.
+
Although it has been a difficult year, I’ve achieved some knowledge and skill “step changes” that I think have added some invaluable experience to my resume. This has helped me to cope. I can’t control everything, but I can control my attitude and actions. I will give a recap of these step changes at the end of my blog post. :)
+PyCascades 2020¶
+In early February, I attended PyCascades 2020 for the first time, in Portland, Oregon. At the time, there was just a handful of Covid cases in the region. For me, PyCascades will forever be a dream-like memory of normalcy and naïveté before Covid hit.
+The atmosphere at PyCascades 2020 was amazing. It was held at Revolution Hall, a former high school on the east side of Portland that was renovated into an event space.
+
+The entrance to Revolution Hall
The talks were as great as you’d expect and I enjoyed the “hallway track” too. I saw many “old” friends there and made plenty of new ones. Notably, I met a number of “famous” Python folks, too. :)
+A few memorable moments:
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+
Meeting Al Sweigart, one of my favorite Python authors
+Chatting with Joanne Hastie about using robots and AI to make fine art
+Getting some insight from Moshe Zadka into the success of Israeli startups
+Making a new GIS friend Ana Leticia
+Meeting Scott Shawcroft (CircuitPython project lead), David Lord (Flask maintainer), and Timothy Crosley (isort author)
+
One of the highlights of the conference was eating dinner with Guido van Rossum, the original author of Python, and friends at Grassa, a “handcrafted pasta” restaurant. Guido told us some stories from the early days of Python. It was quite an evening.
+
+Dinner with Guido (he’s the one waving!)… what fun; photo credit: Jonan Scheffler, used with permission
While I was in Portland, I also enjoyed Cuban food at Cubo, Lebanese and Mediterranean food at Nicholas Restaurant, and Mexican food at La Morenita food truck. All of the food was super delicious and I’d love to go back and eat it again! :)
+
+Ropita at Cubo: shredded beef brisket stewed with tomato, vegetables and traditional Cuban spices, served with white rice, black beans, mango, avocado, maduros and tostone
+Chicken Kabob Lunch Bowl at Nicholas Restaurant: chicken breast marinated in olive oil, garlic, yogurt, paprika, and lemon, served with tzatziki and toum, saffron jasmine rice, and cabbage garbanzo salad; not pictured: yummy hummus and warm pita bread
+Morenita Burrito at La Morenita Food Truck: steak, chile relleno, beans, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, and guacamole in a flour tortilla
I enjoyed a birdseye view of Portland while riding the Portland Aerial Tram and visited the picturesque Portland Japanese Garden.
+
+The view from the Portland Aerial Tram upper platform
+Me at the Portland Japanese Garden… a kind stranger saw me taking photos and offered to take mine
+The iconic Moon Bridge at the Portland Japanese Garden… breathtaking
+The iconic Heavenly Falls at the Portland Japanese Garden… wow!
From the moment I arrived in Portland, it came across as a relaxed city full of very nice people. For instance, I was pleasantly taken aback one morning, while walking down the sidewalk, when a stranger kindly said “good morning” to me. That’s something I might expect in small town Kansas, not in a city as big as Portland. I loved the food truck culture. And the city itself was quirky and beautiful. It’s a potentially triggering subject, but I feel it would be remiss to not acknowledge that a KKK rally took place in the downtown during one of the conference days. During the trip, as I learned more about Oregon’s history of racism, I found it to be very disturbing and a reminder of the complexities in our past and, unfortunately, present.
+I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to attend a few online conferences and meetups, especially ones I wouldn’t normally be able to attend, but nothing takes the place of an in-person event full of interesting people in a city that you’d love to get to know better.
+Stanford Code in Place and 100 Days of Code¶
+In late March, while I was looking through my Twitter news feed, I came across a tweet about a one-time Python programming course called Stanford Code in Place.
+Mehran Sahami and Chris Piech teach Stanford’s introductory Python course CS106A. Because of shelter-in-place, they decided to open the course to the public. They would teach the traditional CS106A version and public Code in Place version simultaneously.
+I applied and was chosen to participate. Although I was much more familiar with Python than some of the other participants, I used it as an opportunity to reinforce concepts and kickstart making some new fun and practical apps from scratch. Although my “section” had a dedicated leader, I was also able to provide some informal mentoring to other members of the group.
+I won’t write much about my Stanford Code in Place experience here, because you can read about it in my Reflections on Stanford Code in Place blog post. It was a fun and unique experience and I think I got a lot out of it, including making Simba Friends Twitter Bot.
+After Stanford Code in Place ended, I decided to keep the momentum of making apps going by participating in 100 Days of Code. The highlight has been completing several small projects and writing about the process I went through and what I learned.
+A few of my favorite 100 Days of Code project blog posts from this year:
+ +Pinax Release¶
+In July, I oversaw the completion of an important Pinax release. It was a huge milestone for me, personally and professionally. Not only did I initiate the release, but I managed the end-to-end process. I created the release plan, oversaw the work of others, updated 10 apps myself, merged all of the PRs, and tagged and published the packages. I really took the bull by the horns and learned a lot in the process, I’m happy to say. :)
+It was no small task, though. Many of the original Pinax authors were Django core devs and it shows. Pinax is a large and complex library of open-source, professional quality, interdependent Django projects and apps, including sophisticated testing, packaging, and continuous integration configurations. The Pinax GitHub organization alone has around 80 repos.
+One of my goals for this release was to make it easier for people to get started contributing to Pinax. I began by creating a detailed Pinax 20.XX Release Plan that put into writing for the first time, the Pinax “way of doing things.” I was thrilled that contributors were able to use this documentation to complete a large portion of the work, with occasional support from me.
+Notably, in this release, support was dropped for Python 2.7, and support was added for Python 3.6+ and Django 3.0.
+A number of people contributed to the release in many different and important ways, but I couldn’t have finished the release without the generous contribution of Mfon Eti-mfon.
+As a first time contributor, Mfon provided expertise in dropping Python 2 support, dropped and added support for Python and Django versions in 14 apps, including Django User Accounts, and created a script to automate the addition of contributors to the AUTHORS files. He also reviewed all of the code changes with me, to ensure that the best choices were made. I’m so grateful for the contributions that he made to the Pinax release and I’m thrilled that he was recently elected to the Django Software Foundation Board.
+Release Highlights¶
+Contributors, issues, and PRs since the previous release:
+-
+
Dozens of contributors opened issues, submitted PRs, and provided support
+Over 160 issues were closed
+Over 100 PRs were merged
+Over 30 PRs were closed
+
Release overview:
+-
+
Around 28 Pinax apps were included
+Support was dropped for Django 1.11, 2.0, and 2.1, and Python 2,7, 3.4, and 3.5
+Support was added for Django 2.2 and 3.0, and Python 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8
+Version testing, continuous integration, and packaging configurations were updated
+
Documentation and discoverability:
+-
+
The Pinax release and maintainer processes were extensively documented for the first time
+The number of files in repos was reduced and configurations standardized across repos in order to make repos more approachable and more easily documented
+Community documents were created or revised if out-of-date, and moved to central locations
+
Community:
+-
+
A new Community Plan created a strategy to make it easier for users and contributors to get started
+A new “Important Links” section at the top of each README.md will help people find what they need
+
Public Speaking¶
+In 2017, I became an open source maintainer for the first time, then created a talk about what I’d learned about using Git and GitHub for collaboration and code review. I gave the talk at DjangoCon US 2017 (my first ever conference and talk!), PyLadies Remote, and at a DevICT Hacktoberfest meetup.
+
+Me on stage giving my talk at DjangoCon US 2017, my first ever conference and talk
In September, a PyLadies Southwest Florida organizer came across the talk and asked me to give the talk virtually to an audience that would consist of members of PyLadies Southwest Florida, PyLadies Miami, SWFL Coders, SWFL Data, and FGCU SEC Meetup.
+I was delighted to be asked to do it.
+I had the choice to give the talk a week and a half later, or a month or more in the future. After some thought, I decided to give the talk in a week and a half. I knew that the talk would not be “better” in a month or more. Putting the talk off would just give me the opportunity to prolong any fear I might have of giving my first virtual talk to an audience of this size. Doing this kind of thing isn’t easy, but it’s satisfying to face my fear head on.
+With Hacktoberfest beginning only a few days later, the timing of my talk could not have been better. I spent some time updating the talk to incorporate some things I had learned since 2017. You can see a copy of the slides and script in the talk repo.
+I was extremely happy with how the talk went. The audience was fairly large for a local meetup… around 50 people had signed up to attend.
+My presentation lasted for around 45 minutes, followed by questions. I was really at ease and it went very well. There were a lot of positive comments and they would like for me to return sometime.
+At that time, I also got some good news about a talk proposal I had submitted to the PyCon US 2020 Maintainers Summit, which was cancelled. My talk proposal, entitled “Bringing Pinax Back to Life”, had been accepted and was thought to be “excellent.” Perhaps I will have the opportunity to give that talk in the future, which I would absolutely love to do. :)
+The Wharton School and Simpl¶
+For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a project for The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
+I’m a Technical Writer and Advisor for an open-source game simulation framework known as Simpl.
+Built using Python, Django, and React, and hosted on GitHub, Simpl has the potential to democratize game simulation access everywhere.
+It’s a pretty amazing initiative and I’m thrilled to be taking part.
+I’m excited to watch the future of it unfold in classrooms and beyond.
+Step Changes Recap¶
+Like I said at the beginning of this post, during this difficult year, I’ve achieved some knowledge and skill “step changes” that I think have added some invaluable experience to my resume. This is a work in progress. :)
+My step changes have fallen under a few different categories:
+-
+
Doing things that seem scary (and they often turn out to be not that scary, actually)
+Combining skills that I’m already good at with skills that are more difficult for me, to reach new heights
+Completing projects, then writing about what I learned or achieved
+Learning from the experts around me and producing higher quality work as a result
+Doing a better job of recording information for my portfolio, resume, and doing career-related research
+
My major step changes this year:
+-
+
Gaining technical writing and product/market experience while working for Wharton School’s Simpl game simulation project
+Initiated and oversaw an important Pinax release, managing the end-to-end process for the first time
+Kickstarted by Stanford Code in Place, spent more time making fun and useful apps and teaching others how to do it
+Wrote a number of blog posts about my projects, conferences I attended, and other learning experiences
+Gave a virtual talk to a fairly sizeable meetup audience and had another talk accepted
+Had several experts review my resume and am revising it accordingly
+Did pay rate research and sought pay rate advice from experts
+Used my people skills more, including reaching out to my connections for help more often
+
+Advent of Code Presentation
+Secure Code swag
+My wonderful hackathon Team… so talented and passionate!
+Beautiful Take It Forward (TIF) Cup
+Harvest Moon
+Me on the Friends set during Warner Brothers Studio Tour
+Brasão Brazilian Steakhouse
+Brasão Brazilian Steakhouse… many tasty meats brought to your table and sliced for you
+Brasão Brazilian Steakhouse… authentic Brazilian side dishes
+Brasão Brazilian Steakhouse… forget about the meat, the grilled pineapple is to die for!
+Rodeo Goat… Burger Battle
+Rodeo Goat… yummy!
+Mexican Sugar
+Mexican Sugar… brunch! Yummy pork chop breakfast, including chips and their distinctive tasting salsa and pour over coffee
+Dock Local fish and chips… highly rated seafood counter in Legacy Town Hall
+Main Street Bakery in Legacy Shops… lots of beautiful and tasty treats!
+Bamboo House
+Bamboo House Peking Duck… not my favorite food, but an interesting experience
+Fowling (football bowling… more difficult than it looks!)
+Kinesis Advantage360
+Snapshots I took in downtown Durham
+A shoutout from our amazing designer Joni Trythall of YupGup!
+My aunt and uncle in better times
+Beautiful sympathy flowers from DEFNA… in a strange coincidence, my cousin pointed out that the roses were one of my uncle’s favorite colors
+A “friendly” lemur with a smile on its face
+Mom, me, and the lemurs!
+Me feeding a lemur a craisin out of my palm! It’s holding my hand.
+Nick, Dan, Jason, Josh, me, Carol
+One day too many
+Gym rat :)
+#2 on Hacker News… so close to #1. Beaten out by Tim Bray’s sofa parable, lol
+#2 for nearly an hour
+On the “front page” for about 12 hours
+Thank you to the incredible Lacey for this sweet kudo! Can’t wait to see you. :)
+Here I am with my Plano-based hackathon teammates.
+Me at PyCon US
+Parade
+Cultural attire
+Mom turning the tables on me at Tanganyka
+Clouds in Legacy
+A “lower-end” Artura
+Me with the Artura
+A 750S, the equivalent of an F1 car
+Japanese hotpot with tonkotsu, pork belly, ramen, and goma sesame peanut, citrus ponzu, and roasted garlic teriyaki sauces
+Mango sake
+Strawberry banana crepe: sliced strawberries, sliced bananas, custard cream, whipped yogurt, chocolate pearls, crushed pistachios
+Venezuelan chicken empanada, rice, black beans, fried plantains
+Me and my wonderful co-worker Julie
+Saffron chicken kebab and mocktail mojito with strawberry flavor
+Me with Dallas Mavs and Frisco RoughRiders mascots at the Employeer Appreciation Week street party
+Me lounging in a floating Chase logo… 3D street art by Jan Riggins
+Me overtaking a longhorn
+Me sitting next to a life-size thank you memo
+
+
+
+
+Me and Carlton Gibson, former Django Fellow, at the first day of sprints
+After the conference had ended, I joined a group of Wagtail developers and conference speaker Eva Nanyonga for dinner at nearby Queeny’s.
+Sitting next to Simon Willison, co-creator of Django, at the speaker/organizer dinner, I couldn’t resist getting a photo! I wrote about Simon’s PyCon US 2024 talk about Imitation Intelligence in my 
+After years of following each other on social media, Lorenzo Peña and I had the chance to meet in person! I was thrilled that he had the chance to present a talk and attend the speaker/organizer dinner too. It was a dream come true for him. Stories like that make my day!
+Wonderful people… the DEFNA Board dinner at 21c Museum Hotel Counting House. An unforgettable meal.
+Me, Abigail Afi Gbadago, and Velda Kiara after Black Python Devs Leadership Summit! I am so proud of them for the role they played in organizing an outstanding event. It had a lot of heart.
+I’ve always wanted one of these! A nice visual metaphor taken along the side of the conference hotel during Centerfest Fine Art Festival.
+After the conference ended on Sunday night, I found myself chatting with a group of old friends and new friends. They invited me to dinner, and I decided to join. It was a wonderful time, as you can tell from the photo. :) Pictured: Tammy Do, Velda Kiara, Jim Anderson, Ngazetungue Muheue, Kudzayi Bamhare, Benedict Kofi Amofah, me, Afi Gbagado, and Catherine Devlin
+Me and Jackie Kazil :)
+Not only does Ned Batchelder maintain a powerful Python package and give popular conference talks, he is also a juggling enthusiast. When I saw his juggling open space in progress, I couldn’t resist stopping. I juggled for the first time in probably decades!
+My friend Melanie Arbor takes great profile pics. At DjangoCon US 2017, she took my pic, and I loved it. I’ve used it as my social media profile pic since then, but it’s getting a bit dated. I saw her at PyCon US and asked her if she would be willing to take a new profile pic of me. It turned out that she had already created a “Profile Pic Palooza” open space for Saturday at 3 pm. As a bonus, I got to catch up with Chalmer Lowe for the first time since PyCon 2019.
+When I create this page of favorite conference snapshots, Benedict Kofi Amofah tweeted to me that he’d be in the gallery soon. I took him up on it. :)
+Although not a typical snapshot, this screenshot from K. Jay Miller’s keynote about Black Python Devs is special to me. They are snapshots from DjangoCon US 2023 in Durham, North Carolina. Jay highlighted DjangoCon US as a place where Black Python Devs were empowered.
+Me and Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe
+I met Jason Koo at DjangoCon US 2022 in San Diego where he generously helped as an organizer. It was great to see him again, and I look forward to learning more about Neo4j Graph Database! On the bright, sunny, second day of PyTexas, he invited me to be in this photo. It was a pleasure to get a snapshot next to my incredible friend Carol Willing. She had given an amazing keynote that morning. It is a must watch! I was also standing next to Josh Cannon who read the very clever Oh the (Methods) You Can (Make) book by Dunder Seuss.
+As a DEFNA Board Member, I help oversee DjangoCon US, including the website design. Because our host city Durham, North Carolina has the largest population of lemurs outside of Madagascar, we featured a “friendly” lemur on our website last year. After years of hearing about Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas, mom and I decided to go on April 6. I had no idea until I got there that you can feed lemurs. They were so soft and gentle. I loved spending time with these real-life, friendly lemurs!
+A lemur holding hold my hand while it eats a Craisin out of my palm!
+Wonderful people… DjangoCon US Organizers; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Standing ovation for organizers during the final remarks… one of many standing ovations over the years. Always a nice feeling. Photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Me and Deb Nicholson, new PSF Executive Director… I met Deb unexpectedly at the pre-conference Django Social. It was a pleasure to get the chance to hang out with her throughout the week! I hope to do it again soon.
+Me and Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe. She is bringing open source to Ghana in a big way.
+Me with Jon Gould of Foxley Talent. I was lucky to be gifted this Django Social t-shirt by Jon.
+Hanging out with some amazing attendees late into the evening, including fellow DjangoCon US Organizer Drew Winstel and favorite Python/Django authors Eric Matthes and William Vincent. Photo credit: Paolo Melchiorre
+DEFNA Board Dinner at the incredible Parizade with Peter Grandstaff and Nichole Dominguez… a perfect evening.
+One night while I was having dinner with favorite author Eric Matthes and now DEFNA Board Member Tim Schilling, former DEFNA Board Member Craig Bruce showed up unexpectedly. What a wonderful surprise! During all of the time that we’d been fellow board members, we’d never actually met in person. As usual, I’d been to the beach earlier in the week and gotten a bit too much sun. :)
+Me captured through the window enjoying the “hallway track” standing next to Eric Holscher of Read the Docs and Write the Docs; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Me with wonderful fellow organizer Noah Alorwu; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Following in the footsteps of PyCon US and with multiple Spanish-speakers on our DEFNA Board, we decided to have a Charlas track. Giving a talk in Spanish had been on my bucket list for quite some time. I decided to submit a proposal and it was accepted. I ended up recording the talk in both Spanish and English, and they were both played simultaneously. My pre-recorded talk Get a Jumpstart on Collaboration and Code Review in GitHub playing in English.
+My pre-recorded talk Get a Jumpstart on Collaboration and Code Review in GitHub playing in Spanish
+At the end of a conference day, I was hanging out in the lobby among other stragglers and was invited to dinner by my friends Vicky Tuite and Jonan Scheffler. Python creator and BDFL Guido van Rossum happened to be in attendance. What a magical evening!
+Hanging out with Guido at the sprints
+After Nat Friedman, then GitHub CEO, tweeted to me that he’d love meet, I had the chance to talk to him briefly. It was super fun to hear from him in person. Love open source!
+At PyGotham 2019, within just a few hours of time, attendee Jigyasa Grover invited me to tour Twitter, Froi Irizarry Rivera invited me to tour GitHub, and Casey Faist invited me to Salesforce Tower. During GitHub Universe 2019, I toured Twitter and GitHub. Unfortunately, Casey was ill, so I didn’t tour the tower. Here I am at GitHub in front of the iconic Octocat statue.
+Me and Jigyasa Grover, machine learning engineer, having tea after lunch at Twitter
+Me at Twitter
+Me at Twitter
+Happy times!; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Selfie with our wonderful Ken Whitesell. For years, he has been the face that welcomes attendee to DjangoCon US and is a recipient of the Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial Prize.
+My longtime Twitter friend Marcia Dorsey was volunteering at an event outside the Strange Loop venue. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to take a break from the conference and meet her in person. I told her how fun it had been to meet her son Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey at a tweet up the year before! I tried to get her to set me up on a date with him, but it didn’t happen, lol.
+Me with one of my Python besties Mariatta (PyCon US 2023/2024 Chair and CPython Core Dev) :)
+Proud to have represented DEFNA Board at PyCon Charlas (Spanish talks). Here I am with Joel Rivera and the PyLatam logo!
+Taking part in the State of Django Panel; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Happy times! Me front row, left. Photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+After the conference, I flew to San Francisco. I visited my friend Betty Junod at Docker Headquarters. Fun!
+Before I went to Docker, Jack Dorsey tweeted that there would be a tweet up in San Francisco later in the day. When I left Docker, I went to the tweet up at Tacolicious. I met Jack, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and a bunch of other Twitter, Inc principals, including then CFO Ned Segal, Head of Product Kayvon Beykpour, early investor Bijan Sabet, and Recode journalist Kurt Wagner. Amazing night! When I walked up to the gaggle around Jack, he was shockingly nice. Later, I took a pic with him.
+Incredibly, the day before the conference started, I was walking around mid-town Manhattan alone and saw my friend Tim! What are the odds? He invited me to dinner at one of his favorite restaurants. Here I am with Trey Hunner, Tim Allen, Kenneth Love (DjangoCon US 2018 Co-Chair), and Lindsey Dragun. A treasured memory.
+Me with the incredible Lacey Williams Henschel (DjangoCon US 2017 Chair). She was giving a talk What if Jane Austen had been an engineer? :)
+Me with Lindsey Dragun, Trey Hunner, and Nicholle James (DjangoCon US 2018 Co-Chair) during the conference
+My second ever conference, treated to dinner by local attendees who wanted to make new friends and thank out-of-towners for coming.
+Me giving my talk Get a Jumpstart on Collaboration and Code Review in GitHub. I gave my first conference talk at the first conference that I ever attended. I practiced using the AV system at a local church. I realized later that I had a lot of room for improvement (the speaker ahead of me was a veteran public speaker and technologist and watching her made me see how well it could be done), but it was a start. DjangoCon US loves to be the place where people get their start giving talks. :) Photo credit: Adam Gregory (https://atomimages509.wixsite.com/atom)
+Speaker photo… representing Lawrence, Kansas, the birthplace of Django with a KU Basketball t-shirt; photo credit: Adam Gregory (https://atomimages509.wixsite.com/atom)
+A treasured head shot taken by my friend Melanie Arbor during the sprints
+Santa Monica Pier at night
+Pacific Park Amusement Park
+Pacific Park ferris wheel overlooking the ocean waves…
+North Italia Crushed Meatball Ragu: beef meatball, porchetta, blistered onion, wild oregano, bucatini, pecorino
+Breakfast…
+Turkish latte… beautiful and yummy!
+Venice Beach Boardwalk
+Venice Beach Skateboard Park, near the Muscle Gym
+Venice Beach Pier… love the sight of a sailboat!
+Venice Beach waves crashing
+Venice Beach waves crashing
+Santa Monica Beach looked toward the pier
+Santa Monica Pier… the sun is going down.
+Me on the real Friends set… I don’t usually buy these, but couldn’t resist this time!
+Me sitting in front of the real Friends fountain… the sofa looks soft, but was actually hard as a rock. The fountain was also used in Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter leapt over it) and the Bewitched pilot.
+Town backlot with gazebo
+Harry Potter spells
+Mr. Freeze, Joker, Oz, and Riddler costumes in front of the Arkham Asylum gates
+Warner Brothers Studio awards
+Hollywood Boulevard
+
+Michael Jackson’s handprints, glove prints, and footprints
+Hollywood Sign as seen from the upper floor of 
+On Oscar night, Hollywood Boulevard becomes a red carpet walkway for the stars. What is normally the entrance to the Ovation Shopping Center will become a grand, elaborately decorated hall that the Academy Awards Ceremony attendees will walk down.
+The steps leading up to the 
+Me standing where the presenters stand with a view of the audience behind me… the photos on chairs represent the A-list guests who sat there recently.
+Having exited stage left just like the Academy Award winners do, we are walking in their footsteps down the “Winner’s Walk.”
+This red carpet leads the winners to their press interview.
+The view from Ocean Avenue
+Walking from the pier down to Santa Monica Beach
+Santa Monica Beach sunset
+Tourist be touristing… I gave in and ate an overpriced hamburger, fries, and strawberry milkshake at 
+Brownie, pumpkin spice danish, pain au chocolat, ham croissant
+Regular breakfast: bacon steak, fingerling potatoes, baguette, french butter, jam, eggs over hard
+République courtyard… a good view of the front of the original Charlie Chaplin building
+République front
+The Godfather office
+The Godfather rehearsal horse head… not something you see everyday!
+Alien xenomorph
+The Dark Crystal’s Skeksis
+Terminator 2: Judgement Day animatronic… the team that created this won an Academy Award for Visual Effects
+Academy Award statues room
+Thelma and Louise Car
+Thelma and Louise Car
+Thelma and Louise Car
+Back to the Future DeLorean
+Back to the Future flux capacitor!
+The entrance hall
+One of the highlights of the collection: 
+
+Example of the beautiful architecture
+Walking to the pier
+Tacos on the beach
+Sunset across the ocean
+The pier
+Granola: straus organic yogurt, farmer’s market fruit, wildflower honey
+A portion of the Michael Jackson collection, including autographed Thriller jacket
+Thriller Album of the Year nomination
+Grammy outfits worn by Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Shania Twain, Lizzo, Olivia Rodrigo, and Samara Joy
+The hotel is shuttered with a “private property” sign on one door. There were a few people nearby. Not sure if they were workers or loitering.
+The infamous water tanks where Elisa Lam drowned… it was speculated that she might have taken the stairs on the front of the hotel to the roof.
+The homelessness in Los Angeles was a sad reality. A local told me it increased greatly due to the pandemic.
+Fancy schmancy
+Riding in style
+This banquet room has doors that lead out to the observation deck.
+A view from one of the four sides
+A view from one of the four sides
+Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken… so good!
+
+Finally spotted a celebrity and even got a pic. Here I am with “Max” from The Grinch.
+Bates Motel from Psycho
+Mother’s house from Psycho
+Entrance hall which includes a 
+What a view…
+Beautiful architecture…
+The comedian before him was scream-y… this one was quiet and thoughtful. I thought he’d bomb, but he didn’t!
+Alfred Hitchcock’s star
+Hollywood Boulevard was closed to cars due to the 
+Our tour guide Mark
+Pretty Woman balcony. Las Palmas Hotel, 1738 N Las Palmas Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028
+Jack Nicholson’s house… that’s a tennis court on stilts!
+Leonardo DiCaprio’s house
+Dior
+Valentino
+Harry Winston
+Fettuccini Boscaiola: homemade fettuccini pasta with meat sauce, cream, green peas, mushrooms for $26.50
+Spaghetti with meat sauce
+Santa Monica’s Ice skating rink
+Mel’s Drive-in counter
+The best chocolate milkshake that I’ve ever had.
+Ocean Avenue
+Love the strange vintage look of this beach landscape. It was facing the sunset.
+The sun setting beyond the end of the pier
+Venturing to the end of the pier for sunset…
+The rippling waves were like abstract art…
+The end of the pier… wow!
+Pink cityscape
+People watching
+Santa Monica Pier Carousel… Paul Newman worked there in the Sting. I rode it!
+Christmas decorations
+Christmas decorations
+Santa Monica, Venice, and Playa Del Rey Beaches, I believe
+David L. Lawrence Convention Center Rooftop Terrace
+10th Street Water Feature
+Standing on a bridge on the Allegheny River with a view of the downtown and one of the many other bridges
+Spaghetti with Maine lobster cream, crab, nantucket bay scallops, arugula
+A piping hot cast iron Kahlua fudge brownie with coffee ice cream and sea salt for dessert
+Me and Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe
+Andy wearing an Andy Warhol-inspired shirt
+A favorite from the Andy Warhol Museum
+Mr. Rogers Neighborhood set
+View from the station at the bottom
+View from the Duquesne Incline Observation Deck
+Expo Hall in full swing
+EdgeDB, Oracle, Dask, Streamlit socks, MongoDB socks?
+Black Python Devs at DjangoCon US 2023
+3x attendance at PyCon US 2022
+Me and Benedict
+Chartreuse Tea!
+Moleskin from Moshe
+Safe shared state… no pickle
+Linking a second level node by reference
+Create tree nodes in the worker subintrepreter and re-use the rest
+Other projects that have aimed to make faster Pythons over the years
+I really enjoyed the presentation.
+New profile pic :)
+
+A miniature cutout of Guido for selfies and rubber duck debugging :)
+Me and Jackie Kazil :)
+Lynn Root, PyLadies Global Council, addressing the crowd
+PyLadies Booth in the Expo Hall
+Beautiful PyLadies t-shirt :)
+Updates that provided the foundation for a copy and patch JIT Compiler.
+Fibonacci code
+Implementing specialized bytecode
+“micro-op traces”
+Just-in-time compilation
+externs
+Parallel execution options in Python; In concurrency, multiple tasks share the same resource, while in parallelism, multiple resources execute multiple tasks.
+Speed differences
+Steps to remove GIL
+Terms and conditions
+Tool Safety mini-zine cover and page 3
+The plan
+Experimental phase
+Supported, but not default
+Making it default
+Community
+Tammy Do (Code Fellows), Velda Kiara (DEFNA Board Member, Python Steering Council Secretary), Jim Anderson (Motorola Solutions, Real Python), Ngazetungue Muheue (LaLoka Labs, DjangoCon Africa), Kudzayi Bamhare, Benedict Kofi Amofah, me, Afi Gbagado, and Catherine Devlin (Corning, formerly Disney)
+Chocolate bar made by a Ghanian company and given to me by Afi :)
+Best Chocolate :)
+My pre-recorded talk Get a Jumpstart on Collaboration and Code Review in GitHub playing simultaneously in English and Spanish
+My pre-recorded talk Get a Jumpstart on Collaboration and Code Review in GitHub playing simultaneously in English and Spanish
+On stage; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Speaking; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Panel and crowd; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Panel and crowd; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+On stage; photo credit: Adam Gregory (https://atomimages509.wixsite.com/atom)
+On stage
+Speaker photo; photo credit: Adam Gregory (https://atomimages509.wixsite.com/atom)
+Speaker photo
+DEFNA Board group photo; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers group photo; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks (I am hidden behind Dawn lol); photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers group photo; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers group photo; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers group photo; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks; photo credit: Bartek Pawlik (https://bartpawlik.format.com/)
+Organizers during closing remarks; photo credit: Adam Gregory (https://atomimages509.wixsite.com/atom)
