MidCamp is my home base Drupal camp and one that I've attended for years. This week the organizers apparently ran into a pretty major snag with some budgeting issues with the venue.
So #midcamp just received some bad news from our venue. If you want to see this camp continue, please strongly consider sponsorship. We need all the help we can get right now: https://t.co/xBG0xx8DKz
— Kevin Thull (@kevinjthull) February 8, 2018
Clarification regarding #midcamp news: Since we just found out we won't qualify for our venue discount for this year, we are looking to raise an additional $15,000 in sponsorship before 2/15 before making drastic cuts.
— Kevin Thull (@kevinjthull) February 8, 2018
For me, MidCamp is a really important part of staying connected with the Chicago-area Drupal community. It is also the first Drupal event I ever presented at, and I'm scheduled to speak again this year. I'd really hate to see MidCamp have to scale back and not be the MidCamp we all know it can be.
There are many ways you can help. If you have a company (or a rich uncle) that could sponsor, that could make a huge difference. If you have the means to become an individual sponsor, that would help too. Word is that they are also working on an option to accept smaller donations as well. And if none of that is possible, registering or volunteering helps.
Do what you can, and hopefully we can all make it happen. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Chicago in March.
Update: MidCamp is also accepting donations of any size
I really appreciate the #drupal community love and support for #MidCamp. We can now accept donations via eventbrite: https://t.co/ng94RjAmnS #stayforthecommunity
— Kevin Thull (@kevinjthull) February 9, 2018
Really enjoying Celeste so far. pic.twitter.com/YAHpq2XdhJ
— Brian Perry (@bricomedy) January 27, 2018
Can't recommend Celeste enough. Perfect for Switch.
The call for DrupalCon Nashville session proposals closed this past Wednesday and I was able to get my act together enough to submit two of them. The process of putting together a session submission is always an interesting one for me. For DrupalCon it is usually a wonderful mix of overanalyzing, combined with good old fashioned imposter syndrome. That said, I feel like I improve each time around, and I think these are my strongest proposals yet.
Submission one was 'Component Based Theming with UI Patterns.' I've given this talk before and was happy with how it turned out. I submitted this one very early, and also noticed that Mario Hernandez had submitted another talk on the topic as well. In hindsight, I should have reached out to him and seen if there was any way to collaborate as he ended up joining up with another speaker for his session. Lesson learned for next time.
Submission two was 'Hot JAMS(tack): Lessons from Building a Music Discovery App with Drupal and React.' Strong competition as well here with many Decoupled Drupal and React related topics, but Im hoping I have a slightly different angle that might garner some interest. True to my usual form, I also went with a goofy, high-concept approach with the submission. Almost got cold feet about going in that direction, but decided I'd rather have fun with it. Ironically, with a proposal that heavily references music, I didn't even make the Music City connection until writing this post. Would have been fun to play that angle up more.
This will be my third time submitting sessions to DrupalCon North America (which I guess is now just DrupalCon?) I've never been selected, but I have been asked to be on call as a back up speaker, which I had no idea was even a thing. Regardless of the outcome, I enjoyed the process putting these session proposals together and look forward to Nashville this year. I've never been!
Update: Was a little wrapped up in the DrupalCon deadline, but I also submitted both of these sessions to MidCamp in Chicago. In addition to being my home camp, MidCamp is always really, really great. You should go!
Today, the company revealed a new initiative dubbed Nintendo Labo, which involves DIY cardboard accessories that can transform the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers into everything from a fishing rod to a piano to a full-on robot suit. These accessories are then used to control a variety of mini-games, essentially turning the Switch tablet into a tiny arcade.
Paraphrasing, but when I told my wife about Labo she said, "Nintendo is going to get you to buy a cardboard box, aren't they?"
It wouldn't be a new year without the desire to relaunch my personal website. Happy 2018!
It could be another case of New Years delusion, but this year I think the timing might actually make sense. Over the past year I've been exploring React and the world of Decoupled Drupal. After working through Wes Bos' React For Beginners course and having some concepts finally click, I took another shot at creating a web app based on the Album of the Year Project. Having a project I could slowly chip away at over the year provided a great low pressure way to learn, and also prevented me from having to re-learn things as they vanished from my brain. I'd love to duplicate that situation in 2018.
Next up learning wise I'm planning on continuing my experimentation with the JAMstack by way of Gatsby.js. I like what I've seen of Gatsby thus far. It allows me to leverage all of the things I've enjoyed about React, while combining that with the features of a static site generator like Jekyll or Hexo. And it plays nice with Drupal 8 as well, which is a plus.
So welcome to my new Gatsby site. It will be nice to have an active personal website again, but perhaps even more exciting is the fact that this serves as another low pressure project I can chip away at throughout 2018 to learn more about React and decoupling Drupal. I'll start out with a site very close to nothing - little content, little styling - and slowly add new stuff as time and interest allows.
With any luck this site will look completely different by the time 2019 approaches. And hopefully I will have learned a thing or two along the way. If you're curious, the code is available on GitHub.