There's an itchy tickle in the back of my throat.

I saw a doctor. She confirmed that yes, I probably have an upper respiratory viral infection, and no, I probably don't have COVID19. As I've not been overseas, or been in contact with anyone confirmed to have the novel coronavirus strain causing this global pandemic, I don't need to be tested.

For now. 

Doc says rest, fluids, and stay at home.  The usual prescription for colds and flu. But if it gets worse, or doesn't improve in a few days, come back and get another check up.

Speaker notes from my keynote at linux.conf.au 2020

Video - Slides

Who is watching? 
Why are they watching? 
Why does it matter? 
Why does it matter to you? 
Why does it matter to us ? 
And why might it matter to me? 

This week, I'm in Brisbane participating in the solemn Red Hat ritual known as NHO: New Hire Orientation. I will receive my Red Fedora. I'm excited.

It's also NAIDOC week. For those that don't know, NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islander Day Observance committee. It's grown to become a week long celebration of first people's stories, achievements and ongoing resistance in the face of a colonial, genocidal denial of their existence, and their rights.

Not quite 2 months ago, I joined Red Hat as an Engagement Lead in the Open Innovation Labs.

It's the beginning of a new journey.  I feel a bit like I'm stepping carefully in to a rowing boat. I'm being mindful, and cautious, so as not to overbalance. I don't want to tip arse over tit into the river.  So far, it's been fun, interesting, perplexing, and exciting. At times I've felt utterly joyful, at others, overwhelmed by doubt I could do what I said I'd do.

It was easy!

Ok - I did have help from cafuego, so there's some bits of the process that were just magic to me.  But once I had access to the environments, I enabled the migrate modules, and followed instructions on drupal.org and hey presto it was done!

I did need to do manual clean up - re position blocks into differently named regions, and recreate some menu items for taxonomy.

I also got stumped for a bit about why I could no longer free tag, but that turned out to be a simple setting change.

How do we take the war out of our words? Sharon Strand Ellison's Powerful Non-Defensive Communication approach highlights our natural defensive reaction to feeling unsure, anxious or attacked when communicating with others.

She outlines these six different defensive reactions:

Six years and 9 months... is a relatively long time. Not as long as some things, longer than others. Relative. As is everything.

But Six years and 9 months is the length of time I've been on the board of the Drupal Association.

Imagine you work in a hardware store. You notice a customer puzzling over the vast array of electric drills.

She turns to you and says, I need a drill, but I don’t know which one to pick.

You ask “So, why do you want a drill?

“To make a hole.” she replies, somewhat exasperated. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Sure,” you might say, “But why do you want to drill a hole? It might help us decide which drill you need!”

"Oh, okay," and she goes on to describe the need to thread cable from one room, to another.