It's been 19 days since my last Steemit post. That's the longest break since I started using the site in July. Where have I been? Well, it's been a really busy couple of weeks.
My family and I road tripped up to Washington D.C. area to sponsor the PHP World conference. Here's the @foxycart booth all set up:
We had a good show and the vendor area / developer lounge was well organized.
I got a really encouraging comment from one booth visitor on how they still remembered my keynote talk two years ago telling the FoxyCart story of turning your code into a company. That was pretty cool.
As is our family custom, we stopped at hotels with pools along the way so the kids could enjoy a good swim. @corinnestokes took the kids to visit various monuments and museums while @brettflorio and I manned the booth during the conference.
On the way back, things got interesting. We got a late start because I put in the wrong address for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum which led to an hour+ detour into Washington D.C. (we wanted the one in Virginia). Once we finally got there, we had an amazing time and got to see an SR71, Shuttle Discovery, the Enola Gay, and more (pictures here).
After stopping for dinner we got the dreaded "Check Hybrid System" error on our Toyota Highlander. It's the one which tells you to pull over immediately and have the car towed to your dealer. It also threw a "Check VSC" error. Especially annoying considering we just recently had it towed in because they didn't hook something up correctly on a recent repair. On top of that, it was so cold out it started to snow.
We unloaded the car into the Denny's (including three car seats and all our road trip bags). Called our insurance to get the car towed to the nearest dealership. Found a car rental place at the airport which was still open, and I got an uber to pick up a minivan (the last one available given the Thanksgiving holiday week) while Corinne stayed with the kids. Loaded up the car and drove another hour to our hotel. We then drove another 5 and half hours the next day to get home as Corinne's parents were coming in to town the next day to stay a week.
It wasn't until the day before Thanksgiving that we got word from the dealership that our car was fixed at which point I had to get another rental car (we already returned ours in Nashville, assuming the car wouldn't be ready until after the holiday). PSA: Don't ever rent a rental car the day before Thanksgiving. It cost us over $250 for a one day rental. Seriously.
Thus began my 13+ hour total drive time from Nashville, TN to Roanoke, VA and back again. I've never driven that much in one day before, and it was quite a challenge. I really enjoyed listening to Dan Carlin's Hard Core History podcast, specifically King of Kings and Blue Print for Armageddon. Hurray for double speed. :)
So that's what I've been up to. Lots of driving, entertaining in-laws, and basically recovering from a lot of busyness.
It's funny how much Steemit is like an addiction or a drug. Once you ween yourself off it, you can almost live without it.
Almost. :)
Have you ever had a car breakdown during a road trip? It's pretty much the worst case scenario, but now that it's behind me, I'm really thankful for modern communication tools. :)
So what's new in your world? What do you think are the most interesting posts on Steemit that I missed? What do you think about the next hard fork?
Previous #journal entries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
