Hello!

I migrated this blog to Hugo. It is so much faster than Jekyll as you might expect. Additionally, I’m using the really cool Front Matter plugin for VS Code, and it makes modifying the site super easy!

According to research released by the World Health Organization, 54 palestinians died last year due to delays or rejections of medical permits from Israel. 25,000 permit requests were submitted in 2017, and of those 54% were approved. This is down from 62% in 2016, and 92% in 2012. Israel has slowly been increasing security measures and decreasing permits since 2007 when Hamas took control of the territory. Access to healthcare was further reduced in 2013 when the border between Egypt and Gaza was closed. Before then, around 4000 Palestinians traveled to Egypt for medical care. Israel has also simply made access to permits and thus healthcare more difficult. For example, a child must have an adult over the age of 50 to accompany them through the border. If you or your child don’t happen to have access to a 50+ year old, your child will simply be unable to access life-saving appointments, such as chemo or radiation. The 50 year old limit is completely arbitrary, designed only to limit access to healthcare and cause hardship and possible death for Palestinians. ...

This month, I went to the GitLab Summit in Crete. This was an absolutely fantastic experience. It was lovely to be able to meet so many amazing people whom I work with every day. I think it is really interesting to finally meet outside of a work experience and in real life. You learn so much and really get to know people who have many similarities with you, yet are still very different from you. It is an amazing way to learn more about other cultures and truly expand your knowledge and culture. ...

Last week I went to Vegas with my dad, aunt, and uncle. It was incredibly fun. This has been the first vacation my dad and I have taken in a very long time. He hadn’t taken a vacation in many years due to the health problems my mom had. We went to Brad Garret’s Comedy Club, saw Donnie and Marie, and Blue Man Group. We ate freaking amazing food, including an interestingly named restaurant, Eggslut. Eggslut was alright, but I had higher expectations. ...

Every year for the past 5 years I’ve participated in the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Walk to help fund services to help those with kidney disease and those who are at risk for kidney disease. This year’s walk is very special. My mother, Barbara Hanselka, lost her battle with kidney disease last year. I will be walking in her memory. Kidney Walk is the nation’s largest walk to fight kidney disease. Held in nearly 100 communities, the event raises awareness and funds lifesaving programs that educate and support patients, their families and those at risk. ...

Today is the 2nd month since my mom passed away. It has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’m not entirely sure what I expected, to be honest. It seemed like everything today upset me. Music, videos, thoughts. Even work was stressful. Ultimately, I took off the rest of the day from work because it was simply impossible to focus. All I could do was think of everything I missed about her. Everything I would tell her and enthuse about with her. ...

My tears are a strange mix of happy and sad. She is free of all this fighting she had to do for the past 20 years, and she is finished with all the pain and struggle of being in sick. We had a great last conversation, which you can see in this screenshot.  I wish in a lot of ways I’d gone to see her more, especially after I started working for GitLab and could work from wherever. I know it isn’t my fault and I know there is no way I could have known. I know she held no ill will and neither does my dad. I know she was extremely proud of me and I am so lucky that I was able to share so much life events with her, such as beginning a career, buying a house, etc. ...

As many people know, my mother passed away last week, 2016-08-17. It was somewhat unexpected. She had been in the hospital for quite some time, but she certainly seemed to be getting better. Her heart ended up stopping in the morning and it took them ~30 minutes to revive her. Once she was revived, they believed her to have severe brain damage. We decided to issue a DNR should her heart stop again. This is absolutely what she wanted and I am 1000% sure of this. Ultimately that night, her heart stopped once more and she passed on. After, they confirmed that she did indeed have brain damage and would never have recovered. ...

As of Friday, 2016-08-05, I will have worked for GitLab for a month. That is absolutely crazy to me how much time flies! Because GitLab is a completely remote company, it really takes some getting used to on workflow, communication, and really just overall lifestyle changes. I absolutely love it. It is an incredibly amazing benefit that I hope to see become more common. One of the issues I feel that I’ve faced is Imposter Syndrome. This is something that many people in the tech industry experience. In my personal experience, I’ve had these feelings for what feels like forever, so it isn’t unique to being a remote employee. However, I think being a remoteemployee adds a new element to the whole thing. This is what I want to discuss today. ...

On July 5th I started at GitLab. They are an entirely remote company with an amazing product and really fascinating culture. One of the many things I am very excited about is that as much as possible is public info. For instance, you can see their entire company handbook online. Most of the consumers of such a document are team members, but it was able to give me a great idea on what exactly I should expect and how things work around GitLab. I really appreciated this as it gave me a very detailed look at the company, their values, and more! That lets candidates decide for themselves if the company and culture are up to their expectations. Isn’t that awesome? Hell, they even let anyone make a merge request to suggest updates, even people who do not work for GitLab! ...