Just spent about eight days in Germany and Belgium. First time I’ve ever been to Europe, and it was very interesting — unfortunately it was also for work, so the actual amount of time I spent “visiting” Germany and Belgium was minimal. (Though AJ was nice enough to play tour guide Thursday night before I left Nuremberg, and that was excellent. Nuremberg is a really interesting city, and I can’t wait to visit again.)
I coud easily get addicted to German and Belgian food, once I figure out what things are. 
At one cafe in Brussels I ordered filet américain — which I incorrectly assumed would be cooked. Not so much. I can now say I’ve had tartare, and I can also say once is enough. Obviously, I’ll be sure to pack a phrasebook next time.
If you plan to go to Germany or Belgium, plan at least a day for travel each way — it basically takes a day to get from door to door.
I probably won’t make a good travel writer — I spend time when I’m in a new environment just looking at everything and watching people, trying to imagine what it must be like to live elsewhere and how that shapes one’s viewpoint.
We all know that language shapes thought, but environment must do as well, and I wonder what subtle differences there are in the ways that other people see the world — i.e., if you wake up in Nuremberg every day, and you can see the castle outside your window every time you go into the kitchen, how that must affect your point of view vs. waking up in Denver every day and seeing mountains every day, or waking up in Florida and seeing palm trees outside your window, or little lizards scurrying across the front steps every time you step out to get the mail.
Anyway, without blathering on too much, I had a great time meeting new people, seeing new places, eating different kinds of food, and generally having the opportunity to step outside the world I see every day and that was well worth the jet lag and the other assorted hassles of travel. I feel quite lucky that my work has given me the opportunity to see a lot of places (and people) that I’d not have had the opportunity to see otherwise.
OK, quick note to all developers who work with Web browsers (I’m looking at you, Firefox folks!) and window managers — The window I am typing in is the Window I want to see — nothing, absolutely NOTHING that happens in another window, tab, or program is important enough to steal window manager focus from the one I am currently typing in. It is absolutely wrong for a program to shove itself in front of another window or program to say “Hey, this event happened, pay attention to MEEEEE!” while I’m busy doing something else, not to mention the fact that it’s usually ineffective as all getout to take focus from the other window while I’m typing, because the odds are I’ll accidentally dismiss the warning/message/whatever without having the chance to read it…
One of the things about being a journalist — you get used to keeping things under your hat until embargo dates are lifted, or keeping your mouth shut altogether when someone gives you info “off the record” — and I’ve usually found it easy to keep things close to the vest when it’s part of the job.
This time around, though, the news is mine, and I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while. As of Friday, I joined Novell as the openSUSE community manager. Keeping that under wraps was much more difficult than not spilling the beans about other people’s news.
I’m really excited to be joining the openSUSE team. I’ve been using and advocating Linux for almost 12 years now, and I’ve had a great time covering Linux and open source as a tech journalist. Writing about a community that I care about has been really rewarding — but, I’ve long wanted to be a direct contributor rather than just reporting on what other folks are doing. Now, I’m going to have the opportunity, and I can’t wait to get started.
You can see my first post on my new blog (openSUSE Spotlight) over on opensuse.org. I’ll be blogging a lot over there about all things related to openSUSE, so please be sure to keep an eye on that page as well. I’ll still be posting here, about things not-so-related to openSUSE. Like the fact that the GIANTS WON last night. 
As I said in my other post, I really want to thank AJ, Justin, Michael, and Martin and other openSUSE and Novell folks for their support so far, and my friends and family for their support too.
Now, there’s a lot of work to be done, so I’m going to start getting to it.