Category Archives: community

igniteportland, legionoftech, oregon, portland, user groups 2 Comments

legion of tech

I recently joined the board of a tech non-profit called Legion of Tech. Our goals are:

  • Grow and nurture the local Portland technology community through educational, not-for-profit, community-run events.
  • Make it easier for community members to organize technology events.
  • Provide resources and assistance for technology community events.

Dawn also just wrote about it. We had a great first board meeting, full of interesting ideas and energetic people.

A few of us at the board meeting talked about event calendaring and keeping in touch with all the user groups in the greater Portland area. Members of the Perl community recently volunteered some time to write some code in support of a better calendaring system. We currently have at least two Google calendars, a PBwiki, dozens of mailing lists and many individual blogs.

Have ideas for how we could all work together and make a better system? Raven suggested the hCal microformat for announcing meetings, I thought it would be cool to have a Planet Portland and someone else mentioned Drupal. What do you think?

flood, oregon, vernonia, volunteering

vernonia

wide shot of city hall

I went to Vernonia today with my husband to volunteer. We went directly to city hall, got a red work ticket, and drove out to a house that needed the garage cleared out. They were incredibly efficient, handing out tickets as fast as people were able to sign in.

one of many down fences

The folks on our red ticket needed their garage cleaned out. We found out that the person living there had been staying since the flood at a shelter with her three children. They were trying to clear out the garage to have Christmas there, instead of in the shelter.

santa!

We talked while we worked, learning that a neighbor needed help with his fence, that some stuff in the garage going to the dump was old, emotional baggage that at least one person was happy to see gone, and that these folks had all been around for the 1996 flood.

We had a free lunch from good folks who BBQ’d all day downtown. And we visited the schools.

vernonia high

All three schools – elementary, middle and high – were stripped to where the flood waters had reached. The rooms were all empty and full of drying equipment. Many rooms still had student work hanging from the walls.

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The high school lost most or maybe all of their computer labs. At least one lab was in a portable classroom that was completely flooded.

former computer lab

It was chilly outside, but not raining most of the day. We walked for probably half an hour, all around the schools. Then we went back to the garage to finish up the cleaning.

There was only about an hour’s worth of work left. We helped move boxes into the attic, and open up the area around a tiny wood stove in the back of the garage. A local church is coming out on Monday to get the large appliances out, and then they’ll do a final wash before bringing a Christmas tree, and a few pieces of furniture in.

Another friendly neighbor is loaning the family a trailer to live in while their home is stripped and hopefully raised a few more feet off the ground. They didn’t know how long any of that would take, but were applying for FEMA assistance.

Link to vernoniafloodinfo.blogspot.com.

pdxpug, portland, user groups, women

december coder’s bash – thanks, sam

I made it out for the last hour or so of the December Coder’s Bash last night. The first thing I noticed was how many people were there! At least 50 were still hanging out at 9:15pm on a Tuesday night.

They were chatting and playing games — Settlers of Catan, some kind of card game, something involving bean bags. And, of course, there was programming shop-talk. I got to talk about embedded systems with Matt, tried to beg some help with a Drupal installation from part of the PostgreSQL crew, and started to decompress a little from the ERP migration I just completed on Monday.

And there were a ton of women! My unofficial assessment was that about 15% of the group were women.

Portland is so awesome.

I want to thank Sam Keen for putting this together. I know that a lot of other people were involved, but he was the guy sending out the email, contacting us user group leaders and getting sponsorships. Sam, you really did a great job.

flood, scappoose, vernonia, volunteering 1 Comment

scappoose school district to take on vernonia students

Last night, the Scappoose School District sent out a press release announcing that Scappoose High School be accepting the students from Vernonia. From the press release:

Just moments after students completed their final exams on Thursday, December 6th, Sue Hays, the Scappoose High School principal, asked the entire student body and staff if they were up for one more challenge. The response was a resounding “Yes!” Unofficially dubbed “The Vernonia Project” around the SHS halls, this grassroots effort between the Vernonia Schools and SHS was the idea of students and staff concerned with how to help their friends and neighbors. In less than 24 hours, the effort has been approved and is underway to host the 6th through 12th graders from Vernonia left without books, supplies and classrooms as a result of the recent flood damage.

Vernonia students will start coming to the Scappoose High School on December 11th. Staff expected the relocation would last 4-5 weeks, but an exact end-date has not been specified.

Scappoose High, in conjunction with Scappoose Fire Station Share & Care Program, is also holding a fundraiser for the Scappoose & Vernonia Food Bank, collecting cash and non-perishable food donations to help restock the Bank’s pantry. All proceeds from the next three home basketball games will be donated to the Food Bank.

flood, handsonportland, oregon, portland, volunteering

Hands On Greater Portland posts disaster response volunteer opportunities

Hands On Greater Portland has posted disaster response volunteer opportunities on their site. The partner programs are Victim Volunteer Services (Vernonia and Columbia County) as well as the American Red Cross.

The Red Cross is looking for folks to show up tomorrow morning (12/7/2007) at 8am. See the Hands On site for details. Vernonia Victim Volunteer Services is also looking for folks to just show up at their space across the street from Vernonia City Hall.

Hands On will likely be coordinating a few projects in the weeks to come. If you have some time this weekend, however, just head out to either of the locations mentioned on the Hands On website.

conference, pgconference, postgres, postgresql

postgresql conference east 2008 – announcement

Joshua Drake sent out the announcement for the PostgreSQL Conference East ’08 just the other day. We’re both super excited about getting the community together in Maryland. I’m also really looking forward to meeting the many contributors living in that area for the first time.

I was originally drawn to the University of Maryland as a site for our conference because of UMLUG, a Linux student group. They had an intro to PostgreSQL and MySQL meeting in early November, and I’ve chatted a little with their enthusiastic President.

I’ve also been in touch with the Computer Science department. Professor Louiqa Raschid has been invaluable – getting me in touch with the department head, Professor Larry Davis. The UMD CS department is now sponsoring us! I’m looking forward to collaborating with the students and faculty to make this a fantastic conference.

Joshua has also posted the members list for our conference and speakers committees. If you have an idea for a talk or tutorial, please don’t hesitate to contact us! With the 8.3 beta available, and the release just around the corner, there are so many things out there to talk about. Keep the submissions coming!

handsongulfcoast, handsonportland, nola

gulf coast trip: halloween, new orleans, lazarus project

Street View, New Orleans

We drove to New Orleans on Halloween. That night, we walked down Bourbon Street, to the Frenchman. It was a Wednesday night, but the streets were packed. We talked with people on our way, bought some pastries at a coffee shop, and we lost half of our crew in the crowds.

Frenchman Street, New Orleans

Eventually, we found a street band and danced for a while. Much later, we got back to the Hands On building, and went to bed.

The inspirational music started blaring around 7:30am. I was up, drinking my coffee and forcing down some breakfast. Breakfast was a series of “what happened to you?” conversations. And all smiles.

We’d signed up for our projects the night before. I chose to visit the Lazarus Project, a transitional living home for people living with HIV/AIDS. Our team leader gave us a quick overview of what we’d do – she figured some games and talking.

We were introduced to the staff manager, Rosetta. I found out later that she was living in New Orleans before Katrina, and she had returned to work at the Lazarus Project. Most of her family did not return. She said her neighborhood was a ghost town.

Later in the day, she saw that the corner the volunteers and a few residents were sitting in seemed dingy, so she walked up with some brooms and bleach to clean it. Her focus was always on what would make the residents feel taken care of.

I spent most of my day talking with a shrimp fisher named D. He was tall, maybe 6’2″, and in a wheelchair from a series of strokes. I don’t know very much about the illnesses that strike people with AIDS, but strokes seemed common among the residents. Three of the people I spoke with seemed like they were under 50, and had experienced multiple, paralyzing strokes.

D took more than an hour to warm up to me. We sat with a group, chatted about the weather, Oregon and TV. When it got hotter outside, a few people left to go watch some TV in the air conditioning, or just to nap. D and I stayed outside, and ended up talking for a long time about his family, his house and in a round-about way, the last year of medical problems he’d experienced.

Somehow, we started telling jokes. He knew a ton of cajun jokes, and some generally dirty jokes. After I told him that I had chickens, he taught me a children’s rhyme:

I dropped a dollar in the dirt
I asked the dollar if it hurt
The dollar didn’t say nothing
But wah wah wah

He’d known a guy who had trained a chicken to peck out the tune to that rhyme on a piano.

I don’t have any pictures from that day. I brought my camera, and I could have taken some shots of the garden being built, or Ms. Parker grilling up chicken, or the sweet, southern patio we sat on most of the day. Mostly, I would have liked a picture of D, laughing after I told an incredibly bad joke.

pdxpug, postgres, postgresql, user groups, women 1 Comment

women’s sized t-shirts for postgresql

I have been looking into getting some woman-sized PostgreSQL shirts, in addition to the more typical men-sized tshirts. The particular style is American Apparel shirts, style # 2102. The shirt says ‘PostgreSQL’ in small print on the front, and has the big elephant logo on the back. We’ll most likely ask for a $20 donation to the PostgreSQL non-profit for each shirt.

So, I’m conducting a small poll:

If you are interested in a woman-sized shirt, please email or comment on this thread with a quantity, and size (XS, S, M, L, XL). If you would not wear a PostgreSQL woman-sized shirt yourself, please consider whether you would maybe get one as a gift for someone else this holiday season 🙂

I would be overjoyed to have my mailbox clogged with requests, so please don’t be shy!

I’m just trying to get a feel for the numbers, so your comment won’t be considered an order. Also, please forward this to anyone you think might be interested.

volunteering , , 1 Comment

gulf coast trip: biloxi, hands on gulf coast, de-molding

Welcome to the Lake

My first volunteer project was de-molding a house in Biloxi. Over three days, nearly all of the Hands On Portland team and I worked with Emily, a team leader from Hands On Gulf Coast. The house was built about 20 years ago, and it sat unoccupied after Katrina. Despite being 13 feet off the ground, water still reached three feet high inside.

Lawrence, the owner, was living in a second-hand FEMA trailer. He spent as much time as he could away from that trailer. Our goal was to finish mold remediation by the end of the week. After that, Lawrence was going to manage the drywall and final rebuilding of his home himself.

A week or two before, Emily and her crew had stripped the house down to the studs. They cleaned out the debris and furniture, drywall, a ton of mold and cockroaches. Everything was so bare by the time we got there, I had a hard time imagining what it must have been like when they started. There are still 30 houses on the HOGC mold remediation program waiting list, and I heard there are still 4500 houses in the Biloxi area that have yet to be rehabilitated. Emily’s team ran out of money a month or so ago. She’s not sure where funding will come from next year for her particular program. Hands On Gulf Coast takes donations online.

Soon we were scrubbing the walls with wire brushes to get rid of the last bits of visible mold, and release whatever dormant spores might still be hanging out in the surface of the wood.

Inside

We wore sweet Tyvek suits with filtering masks all day, and most of the next day. The weather was gorgeous. Probably 70-75F, sunny, with a cool breeze. Inside the house and our suits, it was incredibly hot. The tin roof and some pretty windows in the front helped create a nice greenhouse effect. During our lunchbreak, we hung our suits out to dry.
Suits drying

For lunch, we went to Irma D’s.

Irma D’s 2

I had a shrimp po boy, and a plate-full of fried pickles. We all ate together at a huge table and lots of us had the sweet tea, which just about made my head spin off from all the caffeine.

Then, we went back to scrubbing. In the afternoon, we were treated to the radio and lots of political commercials. One silly thing I noticed in Biloxi was a hot race for the Coroner’s office, and some really huge signs for one of the candidates.

Gary Hargrove

Eventually, we found who he was running against – but only saw one tiny sign, on the side of a large freeway on our way out of town the next day.

The next step in the de-mold process was to vacuum up the dust and debris we had scrubbed off the wood. That left time for us to hang out, talk with Lawrence’s friends and play horse shoes. I talked a lot of smack, but lost.

The third step in de-molding was to wipe down all the wooden surfaces with an anti-viral disinfectant, that happens to also kill several types of mold. I got to work more on my Daniel LaRusso moves, and try to sing karaoke-style through the air-filtering masks. By lunch the next day, we’d finished!

Applying the Raydon

Finally, we were ready for the Kilz. This is a general-purpose primer, supposed to both seal in the mold-killer and protect the surface from future mold-infestation. We got most of the way through the painting before we had to leave – about half the rafters were left to be sealed. Emily said that we’d probably saved them a week’s worth of labor.

Lawrence was so happy to see his house coming back together. He and his friends kept walking in and taking photos, smiling and giving us all hugs. After two years of watching the house he built mold away, his home was being transformed back into a real place to live.

I’ve read a few things for and against remediation projects like this one. In this case, Hands On Gulf Coast did exactly the right thing. The house was in great shape – the owner just needed some help to get started in rebuilding.

The Houston Chronicle has a 6-part series from 2006 on the Gulf Coast region. In the first article about Biloxi, they said that 90% of the 20,000+ structures were flooded to some extent. The city’s damage assessment map says that 5,000 were completely destroyed. People at HOGC said that the city estimated that half of the 50,000 or so residents from before the storm were gone and not returning.

On our way to New Orleans, we drove down the coast. It was incredible and very sad.

Church without steeple
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NPR has a special section for coverage of post-Hurricane Katrina issues.