Two weeks ago today our daughter Arwen was born, and I started 3 weeks of leave to focus on family and help us all get into the rhythms as a new family. It’s been going pretty great so far.

The whole family: Susan, Arwen, Peppy (our cat), and myself. All doing great two weeks in.

Fully disconnecting from work has been really important for family focus. It’s also been a great mental reset. During the down times I’ve managed to make some steady progress on a number of things around the house that will make life simpler once my days are committed again. Hence things like the LED lighting round ups.

Friends, family, and colleagues have all been great. My parents met us when we came home from the hospital and helped a ton around the house getting us set up for winter with outside tasks and leaving us with a clean house and a fridge full of food. We’ve had a number of friends stop by bringing food and conversation. And my HP and OpenStack at large colleagues have been super supportive that they’ve got everything covered. Definitely feel very luck to have so many great supportive people in our lives.

We’re in medium sleep deprivation state. Honestly, I’m probably running on about the same sleep debt level as the OpenStack Hong Kong summit. I do get a craving for that amazing tea we had there from time to time. There is lots of napping by all parties.

I’m still off work for one more week, so if OpenStack folks are looking for me, realize I won’t start reading any stack related email for another 8 days. And then I expect I’m largely digging out for the week before summit. I will be there with all of you in Paris, and am looking forward to seeing you all again. And maybe we’ll even see some OpenStack onesies there as well.