A long overdue update

Well hello faithful blog readers (and boy do I mean faithful since I haven't posted in ages!)It has been so long since I posted - over a year.  Needless to say life and work has been keeping me busy.  So busy in fact I feel like I have time for little else, although I am starting to realize that I need to get back to blogging. Expect more updates soon.For now, let's talk about some of the exciting things going on:

•  I spoke at Velocity in June.  I gave a presentation on software failures.  And you can view the blog post with my content here, and the video is embedded below.
• I am speaking at OSCON next week - giving two talks one on big data and one on scaling rails.  I am really nervous about both talks!
• We went to Kauai, Hawaii in March for a wedding, and that was a load of fun.
• I have been working like crazy, and we are hiring like mad (and paying $12k for referrals)

As usual life has been a wild ride - lots of excitement, lots of fun and lots of progress.  I feel like every month that goes by I get better at my job, make more progress towards my goals and just become a better person.  And I am pretty excited for what lays ahead.One of my coworkers are I are working on a series of blog posts for the SEOmoz blog, and unlike our seo tools type posts - these are focused on management - the first one is on reviewing resumes, and the second will be on effective 1:1s - I am really excited about how these posts will turn out.And for those of you who have been following along, you may also be aware of my fear of public speaking, networking, or most things involving being social.  Well, you may also have noticed that I am actually doing these things!  I am super proud of the fact that I am now speaking at conferences, and making progress towards overcoming these obstacles.  Of course, it hasn't been easy and it takes me much longer than other people to prepare, but I really feel like I am making progress.  I am hoping to keep doing more of this in the future.Anyway, that is all for now - more updates to come!  Get ready because I am back!