n-judah love song

security detail

Miss Ginevra's security detail
Originally uploaded by Erika Hall

99% of my favorite people are all in San Francisco, even when they don't live here. Love it.

the last one here, please turn off the lights.

I'm blogging over at Vox instead. Won't you come over and check out what all the fuss is about?

launched!

Movable Type 3.2 launched today! It's got new templates and styles, super-duper spam control, and a ton of new features. The thing I like best is that the junk comments folder highlights items in poo brown.

Keeping the focus on how "quality is a feature" has been really important to us in this process. It's one of the things I like best about working here, that product isn't just kicked out the door. What a breath of fresh air. Congrats to everyone on the team who put in so much effort making this the best release of MT ever. 

Bright Wings, Redux.

(I've been trying to write this entry for months. Thanks, Mom, for reminding me to finish.)

I’ve written about this once before, but I wanted to remind yall to revisit Bright Wings if you haven’t in some time. Not to make with the serious, (I'll get back to being pithy and sarcastic soon), but because it's a good reminder to keep the little things in perspective as just those - the little annoyances of everyday life that take the shine off the fact that we are truly blessed and lucky.

Donel is a preacher in a church in Bellingham, Washington. From what I read of the sermons given there, he seems to be a completely tolerant, loving man in the ways that all the religious texts say our enlightened leaders ought to be. He says: "I do not see Christians as special in any way in God’s eyes. Every person is precious and loved..." It rings true and familiar all at once.

Donel was diagnosed with cancer around the time I started working for Six Apart. His son, Martin, wanted to get his dad a blog to document his journey through the disease. It’s been an instructive look into how to live well in the face of danger, and prepare for the inevitable end we all face.

The blog acts a strong thread to bond the whole family and the extended community around them. Each of the family members gets a chance to write in their own unique voice. Donel has introduced a whole new set of users to the online world. In the comments, you’ll find sweet notes of thanks and prayers for him and the family from people who've probably never heard the word "blog" before this. Martin says the of the greatest advantages to the blog is that the family can give everyone updates at the same time, decreasing the tension of phone calls and drop-by visitors. Instead, Donel can do what he does best – reach out to his family and community and give them their sermons and parables, and grace them with his good humor. 

I don’t know if Donel’s church does what’s called the “passing of the peace”. Since I was a little girl, that’s always been my favorite part of the church service. The officiant says loudly “The peace of the Lord be always with you!” and we all answer back “And also with you!” and everyone shakes hands or hugs and smiles and says “Peace be with you.” That's kinda how the blog is.

I'll try to avoid falling into the cliche wrap-up I just set myself up for there, and instead repeat one of the poems Donel quotes, a writer we both admire, Anne Sexton:

"Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed."

MT 3.16

Hey yall, the big old bug fix version of Movable Type, 3.16 is out today. (here's Mena's post - as usual she puts it all so eloquently.)

As for the work behind MT, I just want to say how proud I am of everyone from engineering and support (and everyone between!) They've been working so hard to get this version to exactly where it needs to be. It's kind of like a gift of hard work from the MT team back to the community: they've fixed all the weird little bugs hat have been busting up the groove on the core product. Think of it like architechure, where the foundation has been shored up now for the new fancy bits of the house to be added on to. Now the real fun begins.

what day is it?

Best. April Fool's. EVER.

Six Flags buys Wall Street Journal

Actually, Six Apart has purchased Live Journal, making us a turbo-charged blogging machine. There's been tons of interest in this story from the innernet, with wild rumors and speculation. Hello? The world is not ending, yall. Not THIS way anyhow.

Nothing really changes around here except for more brains in a room, and with the quality of the smarts I see around here every day, I am very, very excited.  The community of users at LJ gets knocked from time to time, but I think they set a great example for what open source can achieve and what community means in our brave new century.

So...welcome to SF, LiveJournal! We'll take good care of you, I promise. Finally, I'll have someone in the office to talk about Portland with, and I know where they pull a decent espresso shot round here. If any LJ peeps are reading this, I'd love to hear your take on what this means to you.