TD Cafe #005 - Mike Miles and Aubrey Sambor

Aubrey: [00:00:00] I wanted to learn more about it.

And I knew that submitting a talk with this. I was gonna light that fire under me to learn and give the talk. And now I know a lot about color spaces and the color functions and all of that. So it's, yeah, that was a really, really fun one to give. I really liked giving that one.

Mike: How's it going, Aubrey?

Aubrey: I'm not doing too bad. How are you doing? How are you enjoying your summer so far?

Mike: All right. Except for what? It's been like 12 Saturdays in a row where it's rain. I

Aubrey: think it's like 13 and the 14th is coming up. This Saturday we're gonna get more rain. Of course the weather here is not great still.

At least up here north of Austin. It's pretty gloomy and rainy today. So looking forward to the sun again.

Mike: Yeah, though we had, I don't know, we had that one last week. That one really hot, like 90 degree day. Yep. Drop down to like the fifties. It's yeah, like yeah, it's what to wear. It's

Aubrey: 60, 60 degrees right [00:01:00] now and it went on a run this morning though before it started raining.

So that's been a pretty nice part of my summer.

Mike: Oh, that's good.

Aubrey: Yeah,

Mike: that's good. That's always a great idea to try to like start your day by getting out there. Like, I like doing that as well. Oh, I don't like running, but I like going for a walk to my coffee shop and getting coffee.

Aubrey: That's nice. I do, the other days I'm not running, I will do yoga inside and then take a walk outside and there is a, there's one coffee shop at the end of my street.

I live in an apartment complex and it's not super walkable where I am, so that part's kind of a bummer. But there's one place I can go that has coffee, so I go there sometimes when I don't feel like making my own.

Mike: There you go. When you need that excuse to get outside and

Aubrey: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because I'm at home all the time, so I need to get out and do something.

See the fresh, like smell the fresh air, feel the sunshine when there's actually sun, which is again, not been the case a lot and lots of rain and lots of cold and I'm ready for it to just be summer. [00:02:00]

Mike: That was one of the reasons why I actually back in as a Christmas gift for myself. I'm not using it at the moment.

I'm standing on it. I got myself under the desk treadmill, so like I try, I. When it's gross out to, then just instead of sitting at my desk, like walking at my desk and I've got, I've gained, like, I keep track of it in a spreadsheet 'cause I'm a big nerd, right? Mm-hmm. So I track everything in spreadsheets.

I've gone like 60 miles of distance since January that I wouldn't otherwise, you know, have walked. So

Aubrey: yeah, I, my gym, my apartment complex has a fitness center, so there are treadmills. Over the winter. I tried running on the treadmills and it's running on treadmills, not my favorite. I'd rather be running outside, but it's an option, especially in the winter when I really don't wanna be outside.

The sidewalks aren't really shoveled here in the winter, so it's really kind of dangerous to run. So I would run on the treadmill instead. And that's an option in case like, I want to, again, get outta my apartment, but it's not nice outside. I can just go to the fitness center and take a walk there and, you know, put on a podcast and look out the window [00:03:00] and see people with their dogs.

There's lots of people in this complex with dogs, so I see them all the time. It's pretty nice.

Mike: What when you, when you're listening to a podcast, like what podcast do you listen to these days?

Aubrey: So, for some reason this year, and it's funny that it took me 25 years to get into this. I started watching Survivor.

You know, it's been on forever. I had never seen it before this year, like even season one, which came out the summer between my first and my freshman and sophomore year of college. I started watching Survivor and then I've got really into it. And now I listen to three different survivor podcasts and I listen to a lot of those on my runs and my walks.

And I listen to, let's see, what else do I listen to for podcasts? Talking Drupal, obviously 4 0 4 Media, that's a, a favorite website I read. And I listen to their podcast as well. I'm a subscriber. So I really enjoy their articles and their podcasts. So I listen to wide variety. [00:04:00]

Mike: Nice.

Aubrey: Do you listen to anything when you're on your walks?

Mike: No. You know, I try like be before the pandemic. Right. I listened to a lot of podcasts and I think if you, I know you'd listened to my old podcasts. Mm-hmm. Like I'd mentioned things I listened to. But since then I kind of dropped off of really listening to a lot of podcasts because it would be my commute time and now I don't

Aubrey: Yep.

Mike: Really have that commute time. And I like the chance, like I still call it my buffer time, like that, that time. Mm-hmm. And now it's like my kids get on the bus for school Really? For this, you know, until summer vacation. Yep. And then I have enough time until my first meeting in the morning where I can walk to the coffee shop and then get back.

So I like to just like, have, like, listen to nothing, like, just listen to the world around me. Just kind of like clear my mind. 'cause the rest of the day, like you're busy thinking and problem solving. Yep. So it's hard for me to get back in that mi you know, mindset of listening to a podcast. 'cause if I don't listen to them regularly, then I drop off anyways.

Yeah. Haven't picked it up. If I might pick up mark Marin's podcast [00:05:00] again. WTF 'cause he just announced, I don't know if you've ever listened to it. It's been on for No,

Aubrey: I haven't before.

Mike: So he's been doing it a long time, 16 years. And they just announced, he's like, gonna retire from the show.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm. I think I heard about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. When I first started working remotely after working in an office for a while, I missed that kind of buffer time that I would get when I worked in downtown Boston. I would take the train, you know, I'd take the tee into downtown and back, and that was kind of my, my transition time between home and work.

Mike: And

Aubrey: I don't really have that working remotely, so I try to kind of fake it by again, walking or. Doing something like that either before or after the workday, just so I get that transition time to be like, all right, I'm done, I'm done with work. Walk away from my computer. You can see my living room or you can't see it.

'cause I'm blurred, but my living room is right behind me. So I just walk from here to my couch and it's two seconds. So I have to do something to make the transition so it's not so jarring. [00:06:00]

Mike: And yeah. You want that, like, that separation of space, right? Yep. Is like where you are now. Do you only really use it just for work mostly and then

Aubrey: try not

Mike: mostly your apartment.

Aubrey: I like write in my journal. I ha I am really into stationary and fountain pens, so, I, I'll write in my journal. I have a planner that I use my fountain pens with. So I'll do all that at this desk too. But for the most part it's work. Yeah. And right now I am unemployed, so my work is finding a job which has been an interesting experience to try to find a job right now in, work climate, so Oh, yeah. But I'm learning a lot about updating my resume and cover letter and what, what I'm interested in for how I want my career to go. So it's been an interesting experience so far.

Mike: Wow. Now I mean we recently were both at mid camp and I know you were, you were looking for stuff there as well.

So how's it been going to like a conference and speaking, like on your own behalf? I mean, I guess you always did that, but you know, you're not like Yeah. For this company, like, is there, did you [00:07:00] go in with like, in a different approach to how you might approach going to a conference?

Aubrey: A little bit. Like, it's interesting because I had to update my slides because my old, I spoke at Florida Drupal camp at the beginning of the year when I was still employed, and my slides there had my company name and all on it and all of that.

And my, you know, my intro slide where I'm talking about myself and introducing myself, I had to say, oh, I'm a X, X, X at x. And, you know, I had to change all that giving this talk at mid camp. And it was interesting to try to figure out what my title should be when I don't have a job. Like, yeah, yeah. What do I call myself?

So I've been calling myself a lead front end developer because that's where I am in my career. So I'm trying to find jobs with that title. And it's been interesting. I've been applying to a lot of senior staff, principal positions. And yeah, so far it's just trying to, again, figuring out where I want my career to go.

But yeah, it didn't, it wasn't that different speaking on my behalf at a conference as opposed to being employed. So [00:08:00] it was, you know, it was, it was fun. Mid camp was fun and it was my first time going really. I don't know if you've been to MIDC Camp before?

Mike: I have. I've gone a number of years, but it had been like six years.

I think 2019 is the last time I'd gone. Mm-hmm. So I was glad to have a chance to go back. But yeah, it's a great camp. I always love going.

Aubrey: Is it always in that Lincoln Park area in Chicago, or has it been in other places before?

Mike: I, as it's pretty much always been there. I think one of the first times I went it was somewhere slightly different, but it was still on that campus.

I think it was just in a slightly different Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I lo

Aubrey: yeah. I love Chicago. I used to live in Indiana, so I would go to Chicago. The first job I ever had, we had clients in Chicago, so I'd go to Chicago. I lived an hour and a half outside of the city, so pretty easy for me to get into the city to like work with a client for the day and it was just in the loop.

So that was the only part of Chicago I'd ever been to. Mm-hmm. I'd never been anywhere else. I never spent the night in Chicago, 'cause I lived so close that I always drive home at the end of the day. So I'm like, oh, I'm spending the night out here. This is [00:09:00] interesting. And Lincoln Park was a cool area. I really liked all the restaurants and coffee and all that stuff out there.

I only went to that one coffee shop that I can't remember the re remember the name of. I'm trying to remember if you were there. I think you were there, right?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so, I don't know if I've ever told you, so I have a rule for myself when I go to conferences is that when I go out to eat or get coffee, I'm not allowed to go anywhere.

I could go at home. It's like, I'm not going to Starbucks, I'm not going to dunking, or something like that. So yeah, finding those smell like every day I, I map, I spend way too much time on Google Maps finding like Yep. Where the cool little coffee shops are what is the cool little local niche place to eat.

And it's, it's always a fun chance to, to do that. Yeah. I forget what places I went to. 'cause I went to like four different coffee shops. I mean, I

Aubrey: think I like just went to one because I was only there. I wasn't there for that long. I came in really the, the conference was on Tuesday and Wednesday, I think.

Is that right? Tuesday and Wednesday. I flew in Monday night and flew home Thursday morning. So I wasn't there for that many mornings that [00:10:00] I could get coffee. So I only went that on Wednesday morning with all with you all. I can't remember what the coffee shop was called. I should have written that down, but don't remember.

Mike: I have this, this weird quirk to my brain. Like if, if you show me a map, I can point out like, here's, I can't remember the names of 'em unless I'm looking at the map, but I can be like, here's where I went, here's where I went. And like, I have this map from when my wife and I years ago, this was like 2012, we went to London and like mm-hmm.

I can still point to the map every single place we went to. Nice. Here's where we went. Oh, I gotta tell you, from my trip for mid camp. So I, I flew out Friday morning. I was so afraid I wasn't gonna make my flight.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Wanna hear what happened? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I had a early morning flight like 8:00 AM Yep.

So boarding time was at like seven 40. So like, all right, I'm gonna get up early. I got up at like five. I was outta my hotel room by 5 25 and checked out. The person at the desk was like, oh, you want me to call you a [00:11:00] taxi? I was like, oh, no, I can get like a Lyft or Uber. So I go out front and I, and I go get a Lyft and it says, all right, your driver's two minutes away, 10 minutes later it says, your driver's two minutes away.

I was like, what's going on? And then the driver canceled on me. I was like, okay. So I tried to get another one, 10 minutes go by. It's still couldn't find me another driver. So I switched to people. Wow. Same thing, like people would pick me up or not pick me up. Like be like, yep, your driver's coming. Then they'd cancel it.

And so it's getting like,

Aubrey: that's weird. Yeah. At six

Mike: 15 at this point. Yeah. Like, I need to get up there.

Aubrey: Were, were you flying outta O'Hare or off outta midway o. Little farther, but it's still

Mike: like 40 minutes away. Right. And then I knew like, rush hour was coming and so what I had to do was switch to Uber black car and like pay twice as much.

And finally the guy showed up. I was like, Hey my flight starts boarding in like 40 minutes, or like, I gotta get to the airport. Gotta

Aubrey: hook it up to the airport. Yep. He's like, why'd

Mike: you wait so long? It's like, I didn't, he's like, oh, there's construction and people don't wanna get stuck. Rush hour.

Anyways, I made it there by seven 20.

Aubrey: Wow.

Mike: [00:12:00] Seven 20. And then ITSA pre-check. Yep. But because it was the day I, the weekend of Memorial Day, I think,

Aubrey: oh, that's right. Friday morning. So it's gonna be everybody there. I did. It was

Mike: all back, like, even TSE precheck was so backed up. Yep. The mine went all the way back to like the, the baggage counter, like where you, wow.

Mm-hmm. So I, I mean, it moved pretty quickly, but I made it with like 10 minutes before they started boarding the flight. Like I was so, wow. I've never been so freaked out. And then going through TSA. They flagged my bag. Oh man. Because one of the groups, I forget which sponsor they had bottles of hot sauce, they gave me me.

Oh,

Aubrey: that's right, that's right.

Mike: And it's 5.5 ounces and it got flagged and the guy's like, you can't bring this. It's too big. I was like, he's like, do you wanna check your bag? I'm like, no, I'm not gonna check my bag for a free small hot sauce because there's a mug away. I hear 'em go like, Hey Jenny, you want some hot sauce?

Like, can we do? I'm like, ah, well at least they'll use it in their breakthrough if

Aubrey: someone hopefully is enjoying that hot sauce. Yeah. I flew out of O'Hare the previous morning. I flew out at, I think I had a 7:00 AM flight on [00:13:00] Thursday. It, I was supposed to fly out really late on Thursday night, but out here we were having a Nor'easter, Oh yeah.

Out here in the Boston area. So I wanted to get home earlier. I wasn't sure if my flight was gonna even be able to get home because of the wind, but, and so the cheapest flight that was earlier was seven o'clock in the morning. So I left first thing in the morning. I think I was up at 4:00 AM and got up and I flew out of O'Hare too.

And there was no problem with TSA because it was Thursday.

Mike: Yeah. But

Aubrey: yeah, flying out on a, on a Friday before a long weekend is, yeah. Lots of people. I flew out Easter Sunday on in the morning of Easter Sunday one day. And that was a really busy, that was a hectic, I, it was I don't know if you've ever flown out of Bradley Airport in Hartford, Connecticut.

Oh, no, I hear it. It's a small airport and the line, the TSA line stretched across the entire airport. That's how small it was because there's so many people trying to fly. Wow. I'm like, this is, I've never seen this air, this little airport, this busy. [00:14:00] And it was, it was something else, but yeah. Did you enjoy your time at MIDC Camp this year after six years?

Mike: It was good to be back and see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while or in person in a while. And meet some new people and, yeah, I had a talk that I think went really well. And I also gave a lightning talk, which I'd come up with like the night before, which it was, you know, I, I, I think you saw it was kind of tongue in cheek about

Aubrey: mm-hmm.

Mike: Conference travelers dilemmas, like, yep. You get a hotel room with two beds, which one do you sleep in? Which one? Yeah.

Aubrey: Yep. Yep.

Mike: That would be a little, that

Aubrey: was pretty great. I had a good time too. Again, my first time at MIDC Camp, I was supposed to make it either last year or two years ago, but then I had to cancel.

So I was really bummed about that. But I was really happy I could make it work this year. And I gave a talk too. I gave my what the front of the front end developer brings to your team. Gave that talk. I think that went pretty well. It was first thing in the morning on the second day of the conference, so I'm thinking in those [00:15:00] days it's usually not as well attended as the first day because some people like having the late nights.

Yeah. So, which is fine. You know, you're at the conference, have fun. So, but still, I had a good amount of people in there and it was fun to give it, so I was pretty happy about it.

Mike: Let me ask you, 'cause I, I, you speak a lot of conferences. What's your preferred like slot for, for speaking? Like is it morning the first day, afternoon of the first day?

I. Last, like do you have a, a ones that you cross your fingers and hope for?

Aubrey: Yep, sure do. Yeah. First thing in the morning, on the first day is Oh yeah, I love first thing in the morning at, at any time because I prefer the first day 'cause there's more people, but first thing in the morning, just so I can get it, just so it gets done and I don't have to think about it the rest of the day.

It's my favorite, so.

Mike: All right. Do you have

Aubrey: a favorite spot?

Mike: I think, you know, I think lunch after lunch on the first day because I get worried at the very first slot that like, not everyone showed up yet, and then it can be a little hard after lunch, but I like it that [00:16:00] then you don't have to worry about people like coming in late, like people usually get there.

Aubrey: Yeah. Relatively

Mike: on time. But yeah, getting it out of the way on the first day, the worst I, and I've done, I've got stuck with this so many times, is the very last session slot in the last day that's happened to me so many times. I'm just happy to be there speaking, but I feel like that's when you get like the least amount of people to kind of show up.

Yeah. '

Aubrey: cause people are pretty much like kind, they like, we've learned so many things this week. Yeah. I am, my brain is fried. I don't know if I can sit through another session. Yeah. I don't think I've had the last slot yet. I know it's coming. I have an afternoon session. I got accepted to Ash Drupal, camp Asheville.

Awesome. So I'm gonna speaking there next month and my session is at like three o'clock in the afternoon or something like that. So that one's a little bit later in the afternoon. I don't think it's the last lot of the day, but it's getting there and I'm giving the same front end developer talk that I gave at Florida and at Mid Camp.

So excited to do that one again.

Mike: That's a camp. I've never had a chance to make it out to that and like Colorado camp just 'cause mm-hmm. The timing and, and [00:17:00] also GovCon. 'cause the timing of those conferences. I always have like a personal conflict that I just can't make it out to as much as I'd love to.

Aubrey: I've never been to Colorado, but I love Asheville. I went to Asheville last year too and spoke there and that was a really fun camp. I really like Asheville a lot. I've been before the camp and yeah, it's got lots of good beer, lots of good food, lots of good barbecue. So I really like that. I love North Carolina barbecue, so I love barbecue in general.

You can't, I can't get enough of that, but yeah, it's a fun, it's a really, really fun camp. Really low key, really relaxed. It's in July, so it's not super hot. I think because it's so close to the mountains. Asheville doesn't get super, super hot, so it was a pretty nice time last year when I went. So I'm looking forward to this year too.

Mike: Do you try to, one of the things I tried to do, I've tried to do the last couple years for conferences I go to is like either get there if I can, like a day early or stay a day after if it's a place I've never been to before mm-hmm. To like get a chance to explore. Do you ever get a chance to do that?

Have you ever.

Aubrey: I did, I mean, I [00:18:00] had gone to Asheville before, but last year I think I got there a day before I got there on Wednesday and the conference started on Thursday. So I did have a day to kinda go and see some stuff. I went to, it was kind of this food hall, I can't remember what it's called. I should have looked it up.

But it had like good food. It had some beer. And I hung out there for a bit. And then I went to a place called Tupelo Honey for dinner which has really good southern food. And I think I probably had fried chicken because I love fried chicken too. And it was really nice to kind of just like spend some time in downtown Asheville just kind of hanging out before the conference stuff started on Thursday.

So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Mike: That's awesome. That's like my, so my team and I for DrupalCon Atlanta, this last DrupalCon we were all there for the day after, like basically the conference was over. So we actually rented a car and like drove out to, I'm gonna say like the countryside, right? Mm-hmm. And we went for a hike and then we found this random barbecue spot.

It was like we were driving down a logging road and then all of a sudden, oh, that's cool. There was this set of condominiums with [00:19:00] a barbe barbecue out front with like a whole like 16 foot like pit smoker. Wow. It was so good. And then we went to this classic car museum that we had found.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Because it, it is always interesting to be able to have that chance to be like, I'm never really probably gonna be here that often. Yep. Like, so let's take the chance to go out and like, make some memories. And I think that's one of the things, and I wanted to ask you about this, since one you go to conferences a lot, and two, you speak a lot also.

Mm-hmm. Like since the pandemic all, I mean, talks have always been recorded for Drupal events. Mm-hmm. Which has been great 'cause, you know, Kevin's work. But I feel like when you people give the same talks over and over, like it's easier to find them now online. Mm-hmm. I think also with the emergence of AI and like video generation, like I.

It's gonna be less and less insensitive to like, to watch the talk recordings. Mm-hmm. So like, the value of conferences is definitely, I, I'm, I see a resurgence of like, meeting in person and like meeting with people and getting those [00:20:00] experiences. I don't know. Do you feel, do you have any thoughts on how the conference world is going in terms of, let's say, you know, just Drupal conferences?

Mm-hmm. Like the benefit of listening to talks versus like, meeting with people?

Aubrey: Yeah. I mean, I have to say I almost never listen to talks after the conference. I go to conferences mainly for the face-to-face time with people. I like going to see the conferences in person, but I also like chatting with people before and after chatting with people at lunch, chatting with people at the after events, you know, just talking about what's going on.

I mean, it depends, like, I, like, I like the idea of, of watching talks after the fact, but I never do it like I wish I did. I wish I had more time to do it. Sometimes I'll do it for DrupalCon yeah, for DrupalCon talks. I didn't really do it this year. And there are other conferences where I will watch the talks later on.

A good example of that is one called Axon. It is a web accessibility conference, and I will watch those talks after.

Mike: Yeah, [00:21:00] because

Aubrey: they always talk about really, really interesting accessibility topics, and I really like listening to those. And that's usually in March and I have list, I think it's, I think it was March, maybe it was February.

It was February I know it was the beginning of the year. I have not listened to the talks yet. I always sign up. It's free. I, so you can go and listen to those whenever you want afterward. And yeah, they're always really good. I just need to sit down and watch some, I'll like, I'll like cast it onto my TV and just sit on my couch and watch them on my tv.

So yeah, they're pretty fun.

Mike: I I always find the ones I do end up watching after the fact is, you know, like when you look at the conference schedule and it's like mm-hmm. There's like six at the same time that I wanna go to. And like this next block, there's nothing that I, I really am passionate to see.

So it's always like picking one of those ones that where I have to pick and choose which one to go to. And then if I find this is relevant to what my team's doing, like I'm gonna check it out later on. But it's easier, like if you're like, oh, I know this person will be at this upcoming conference as well, and so I'll just wait and see it there.

Aubrey: [00:22:00] Yeah. Yeah. I see that a lot too. Like, I think I've actually seen that, I think I've actually done that a couple times where I'm like, oh, I didn't get to see this person's talk at this conference, but I see that they're coming to this one and I'll just watch it there. And that's happened a couple times.

Like again, I've given the same talk at, at a few different camps every year for the last couple years. And it really helps out. 'cause not, not all the same people come to every conference. Yeah. So like the Asheville Camp, there's a lot more people I don't usually see that don't go to like, Ned new England Drupal camp or mid camp.

But I see a lot of the same people at Florida in Asheville because they're a lot closer together. Yeah. Geographically, so it's interesting seeing like different people at the, all the different camps. I don't ever make it to the ones all the way on the west coast. It's been a while since I've made it to those.

But yeah, I usually stick to the ones that are either East Coast or Midwest.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I've gone to bad camp a few times 'cause I've always liked going to as well, but it's also one of those timing things and

Aubrey: [00:23:00] Yep.

Mike: Like the last few times it's been around Halloween and I'm like, well I have young kids. I'm not leaving for Halloween.

So. Yep.

Aubrey: Treating takes precedence or giving out candy takes precedence, so That's right. Yeah.

Mike: I gotta loot, you know, loot through their Halloween hall first.

Aubrey: Yep. Before it's gone. Yeah. Yep. We. This is a Halloween question. When your kids go trick or treating, do you, do they go to one of those neighborhoods where there's like a ton of candy?

Is there like one place in your area where people go and trick or treat and there's a ton of candy? Or how do you usually do that?

Mike: Yeah, so actually my mother-in-law, she lives in Brookline. Mm-hmm. And her street, they get, they shut down the street. Mm. Thousands of kids, like has go start collecting candy from like Costco, like months in advance.

Oh wow. They go through it in like two hours. Oh yeah. So before I had children, we'd go and help out there and just see mm-hmm. Just, just masses of children collecting candy. You give each one a bite sized piece of candy and you go through it all. But now my kids are in elementary school, so we've [00:24:00] made friends with people in the neighborhood.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm. We

Mike: have a good crew where we, we'll walk down, I mean, I live on busy street, kind of the end. Mm-hmm. Like the residential section, but we'll walk up to like where the bus stop is and there's some cul-de-sacs. So we'll find a group of parents and, and friends and. We'll just walk around the neighborhood with them and usually one of the da other dads is like pulling a wagon with beer in it.

So we'll kinda, we'll drink and the kids will trick or treat and have fun and go crazy and then we'll come home. Nice. So I usually like a bowl of candy out. I always buy too much candy. 'cause like I said, we're at the end of the residential section right before like Yep. Commercial section. So I'll leave a bowl of candy out.

But no kids really make it our way to my house. So I, I've been setting out full size candy bars, so Oh yeah. Reputation gets built. Like, gotta go to that house. They give like, leave a bowl of full size candy bars. So.

Aubrey: And has that worked? Have they actually on Oh, that's good. Whether it's

Mike: one kid stealing all the candy.

Oh, that's, or I don't know, but I buy like the one big box of like 30 candy bars from Costco. Mm-hmm. And I just put down in a [00:25:00] big bowl holding a few back for myself. Like Reese's? 'cause Reese's. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're the best in my opinion.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm. Definitely. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Too bad. The bad, bad camps at same time is cool to do both, but.

Glad you're having fun with Halloween.

Mike: Yeah, right. You, you gotta pick, pick what's important and, and wants to go do certain things. So, but that's where it's good where people give the same talks over and over. Mm-hmm. Because then like if I, if I'm gonna miss it at bad camp, I can pick it up at another place or watch the recording if I get a chance to and

Aubrey: Yep.

Mike: That's one of the things where it is been interesting. So, you know, I'm on the event organizers working group in Drupal and we're, we're starting working on a speaker bureau where we're like building a list of like, past camp speakers, like from trying to get it from all across the camp so that when camps are like, oh, I don't know who to have comes, like, who to reach out to, to speak at by camp, we can like, have this ready made document, be like, well look at all the people, what they're talking about, where they've like spoken before.

So if you wanna reach out to like an experienced speaker, we'll have [00:26:00] that, that list. But compiling all that, I get to see the different talks people are, are giving over and over or, or slight variations. So it's been, it's fun to start gathering up. That's

Aubrey: cool. That's a cool initiative. I hadn't heard of that one yet, so that's really nice to know that that exists.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Mike: Yeah, we wanted to, to, you know, there's a lot of cool initiatives like the events platform and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. But just something to, to help the camps especially, or even meetup groups right. As they're looking mm-hmm. For people to, to have come and speak on topics, to like, to know who to pick and choose from.

So

Aubrey: Yeah. No, that's, that's really, really cool. Yeah, that's a really, really cool thing to keep Yeah. Keep I keep on track of. Yeah. And yeah, I only do the same talk once a year. Like, I will only like the talk I'm giving this year, I won't give it next year. I'll think of a whole new talk to give next year.

I don't know if that is, I'm trying to think if I should try giving mul multiple talks in a year, writing multiple talks. I mean, that takes a lot of work writing a talk. Yeah. So that's why I like giving one and kind of it, [00:27:00] and kind of editing it throughout the year to make it better, because I know I'm speaking four or five times a year.

And yeah, I think, I think for either Asheville or I'm speaking at GovCon as well in August. Awesome. So for one of those two, I wanna switch up how I do my slides. I've been using Google Slides for a long time. I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to use something like reveal js so that it's a whole web-based slide platform.

And that way if I have any examples, I wanna show, I don't have to tab outta my slides, go into code pen, show my code pens with the stuff, and then go back into my slides because it's kind of an awkward experience. If I do something like reveal js, I can just put the code right into the slides, and that way I can show it dynamically right there and not have to do the awkward dance, especially when the podium is all the way on one side and the projector is all the way on the other.

I have to do this like weird, like looking around the corner, trying to like see like point where my things are and I'm like, oh, this is a [00:28:00] weird experience. I'd rather just have it all in one thing so it's easier or all, all on the same slide, so that's easier for people to follow. So that's something I might end up doing.

That's something I'm gonna do. GS

Mike: is a, it's a, it's a really cool framework for doing presentations. Yeah. So that's actually when I started speaking, I first built all my presentations in Reveal. Mm-hmm.

Because at the time I was like, oh, I'm not gonna use like a, I'm not gonna use Google,

Aubrey: Google Slides or Keynote

Mike: Yeah.

Or any of those. Like, I'm gonna build it all myself. And I, like, I built a few plugins to go with reveal, like mm-hmm. Like to put line numbers in your code examples and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. But after a while I was spending, 'cause you know, we're a develop, I'm a developer, right? Yeah. I spent more time working on the code for the field jam than like working on the, the deck and the slide, the slide itself.

Yep. So I ended, eventually I switched the other way and I, I went to Google Slides like this way I, I'll get rid of that where I'm paying attention to the wrong thing. Yep. Of course not to, you know, not to say that you wouldn't, you would do that or anything. Mm-hmm. It's fun to use it and I agree. Yeah. You have a [00:29:00] lot of code examples to have 'em right in there, in, in your, your slide deck that you can point to is and watch 'em run.

It's, it's very beneficial. Yeah.

Aubrey: I use Reveal for the fir some of the first talks I gave in 2019. But I moved away from it in 2023 after COVID and going back into talks. I'm just like, I need to do something easy. Let me just do Google Slides. They're right here and there's templates. And my, my company at the time had their own kind slide template, so I just used that.

It was pretty easy. Now I'm like, I wanna do something different. And I wanna present in a different way too. I've seen a lot of presentations. Like I have a, I have a lot more words on my slides than I like. I'd rather do more of a one impactful statement and talk over that while I'm giving my talk as opposed to read off the slides.

I'm not really doing that as much, but I don't want it to feel like that kind of talk. I kind of wanna give a more Yeah, just a more impactful talk. That's awesome. Especially

Mike: that, that's great to challenge yourself that way.

Aubrey: [00:30:00] Yeah. It's, it's a lot of fun to kinda of see myself evolve as a speaker too, as after doing it for a few years.

Trying to do something new and trying to speak about new things. This talk I'm giving this year is a lot less technical than my other talks. I've given talks on, do you still need SaaS? Do you, and I did one about color and CSS.

Mike: I really like that one by the way. I, I sent that one to my team to watch.

Aubrey: Oh, nice. Oh, that's awesome. It was a really fun one because color spaces and all of that and CSS, it's a lot. It's, I learned a lot writing the talk. And again, I like having more technical talks to show a lot of code, but I also want to talk more about ideas too, about, oh, what does a front of the front end developer, front of the front end developer bring to your team?

How is that different from what a back of the front end developer is or what a full stack developer is? And talking about that. So having that kind of talk has been really interesting to me and trying to develop that into the way I want has been interesting this year too. So, yeah. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

Mike: That's great. And [00:31:00] I think that's where I. Having those sort of talks, you're giving the audience a different type of takeaway versus, you know, one from the code, like say with your color in cs. Mm-hmm. It's like, oh cool, I know how to use like these new properties or mm-hmm. Approach my color differently.

But when you have those bigger idea ones, like people come away with like, oh, here's a way I can rethink how I'm working, or my team's working. I just had that come up just today. I got some, a message from somebody where I gave a talk at I think they saw on my version at last Nedc Camp, and I just gave a version of it at Evolve Drupal Boston recently.

Mm-hmm. About managing bugs. But this was like high level of like building trust in your systems. It wasn't about technically solving bugs. Yeah. And they're like, Hey, that the things you covered like really helped me change how I'm like sending out communication. So thank you for that. And I was like, oh, that's cool.

What a big compliment. Like the, the biggest compliment to get, so

Aubrey: that's awesome. Yeah. I'll check that talk out. 'cause I do like those, those big ideas talks like that. I like the technical ones too, where I can, like you said, come away like, oh, I can implement this thing in this [00:32:00] way. Now I know about new colors.

I can do these on my next client project. But I like the idea of, oh, I can talk to this person about this, and this is a good way to talk about it. Learning that in a, in a con conference talk too.

Mike: So yeah. Inspiring the people who come and see you. Exactly. Not to say exactly technical class, don't do that, but definitely having those bigger, bigger topic ones and, and grandi.

Mm-hmm. More grandiose messages. So you definitely need less words in your, your slides when you do that. Yeah. Because they're listen to you or they're gonna read your slides, so you want 'em to listen to you.

Aubrey: Yep. And I'd rather, yeah, that's what I'd rather, I'd rather people listen to me than, oh, I've got all these words on the, on the page.

They're just gonna read it. Why am I, why am I reading it too? So, yeah, just redeveloping what I have into that kind of big picture talk is what I'm hoping for next and what I'm hoping for in those two talk, those two conferences and if, and in any other conferences I speak at this year. So I'm excited about that.

Mike: Agile drop. That's what I know you, so you say you work on one talk. We don't call, our developers can't present that year. It's done. [00:33:00] I try to go with like two to three and I think it's mainly 'cause I submit multiple ideas to like, say like DrupalCon other mm-hmm. Digital Collegium is another one I presented.

Aubrey: Yep.

Mike: And like when one conference picks one talk and the other conference picks the other like, well I guess I'm doing, I write this year two, I gotta work on them. Yeah.

Aubrey: Gotta write 'em down. I'm doing no

Mike: more than like, for me at least three different ideas for the year because then mm-hmm You have, I have like ones to rotate through.

'cause I feel like if I give the same one too many times, then it's kind of just like repeating the same words over that it loses its meaning for me as a speaker. Mm-hmm. And I'm kind just like on autopilot and. Like, oh yeah, I guess this is like, I, I start to the, the importance of what I think the topic is like lessens every time.

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey: Yeah. I up

Mike: giving two different ones every year.

Aubrey: So do you, so if you're only, if you're giving two, if you are coming up with two talks a year, do you give those talks for longer then? Like, do you do the same talk two years in a row because you're not giving it as often? Or do you still stick, do you stick to a new talk every year?

Two new talks every [00:34:00] year? Strategy, yeah. I try to

Mike: stick the same like a year rotation for a talk. You know, within like a, a slight variation of range. But yeah. 'cause then every year, like, I, I like the, the one of the reasons I like talking and presenting is 'cause usually when I submit a talk idea. I am, I barely know much about the topic.

Yep. Or I know a little bit and I haven't built the talk. And it's like, that's the fire for me to learn Yep. Really about it. So I can like, talk about it and, and gain my own understanding better. So every year I wanna learn something new, so I try to just come up with brand new talks every year. But every now and then I'll reach back and like, you know, in my list of previous talks, be like, oh, this one's still relevant.

Like, I have my AI one that I've talked about mm-hmm. For developers. And that one's fun. 'cause every month it's like if I give it a different month, I have to re research everything that's relevant for that month. So.

Aubrey: Yeah, that's what it was like for my color in CSS last year. Oh yeah. I had to rewrite that one all year long because browsers were starting to support all the things I was talking about.[00:35:00]

Like my first, I think the first version was this is only supported in Firefox and then it was, oh, now this is supported in Firefox and Safari. Oh, Chrome is finally supporting it. So now all browser, all major browsers support it. And I had to update all of my code pens as well to make sure they all still worked.

I would show the code pens, different browsers. That was the other thing that was really hard with the colored CS talk. And like you, I knew barely anything about the things I talked about in the color ECSS talk until I started developing it. 'cause I did the same thing. I wanted to learn more about it.

And I knew that submitting a talk with this. I was gonna light that fire under me to learn and give the talk. And now I know a lot about color spaces and the color functions and all of that. So it's, yeah, that was a really, really fun one to give. I really liked giving that one.

Mike: Switching topics a little bit with, with things developing in the world of the web.

I know, I think you commented on it. [00:36:00] And what are your thoughts on like Figma and their new, like what, I don't know if they call it site builder, whatever they call it, but it's a, they call

Aubrey: it Figma sites is what it's called. Figma sites. Yeah. It is essentially a site builder. I haven't caught, I haven't, I don't know what the most up-to-date version of Figma sites is and what kind of work they've done on it recently.

But when it was first announced about a month ago. Accessibility of it was lacking to say the least. Did you see

Mike: Kevin Powell's review of it? Sure

Aubrey: did. Yep. I watched that video. It's like, what is this random s in this span? Like what is this doing? It was all dibs and spans when it could have been using HTML elements.

It's surprising in 2025 to see such a big company like Figma put out a product like that. And now I'm hoping that they've made some improvements to it since then. I haven't checked to see, but I know it was not good when it was released and didn't seem like there was a lot of accessibility thought in when it was put out.

So that was really too [00:37:00] bad to see because a lot of people are gonna use it. Like there's gonna be a lot of people who we wanna build sites like we know Figma. We can just have develop designers, build our site, and now we can just save it off. It's again, Dreamweaver 2025. It's essentially that's, it

Mike: is exactly, exactly what I thought.

It remind me of the dream weaver days, just like, yep.

Aubrey: I remember those days, it was probably

Mike: under the hood, but no one, the people who are using those tools don't pay attention to that.

Aubrey: Like Mm. Rollovers or whatever you remember those from. From that it was Macromedia before it was Adobe.

Mike: I remember those days.

Yeah, I

Aubrey: remember all those way back in the day. That was 25, like 20 years ago. It was so long ago. But, so yeah, it was surprising 'cause there, I mean, accessibility was still a big thing back in the early two thousands, but I feel like it definitely is more conscious and more on people's minds now in 2025.

So it was really surprising to see Figma sites getting getting released without a lot of accessibility. And like thought about how the code is generated. So I really do hope that's, that's gotten better there. A lot

Mike: of generated like [00:38:00] nested divs and the divs had like the roll property to like make them like Yeah,

Aubrey: there's a lot of aria labels and stuff on on the divs and I'm like, you don't need to use Aria label here.

You can use the actual element that's supposed to be, so it was just. I was really surprised to see that. I was really surprised and sad because it was getting a lot of good press. Like, oh, look at all this, look at this cool thing Figma is doing, and it would be cool if it was also accessible. But since I really like accessibility and really champion it I, it's hard for me to see that, like something like that.

And it makes me sad. So hopefully they are doing something to improve it.

Mike: My thoughts are that, I mean it's obviously, it's using AI to generate all that code. Mm-hmm. So it's probably just like, you know, the, the, one of the problems with AI generate code. I mean, I, I like using AI my work now, but it's like, it's the mediocre code that it mm-hmm.

Generates. It's because that's how the most examples out there are the mediocre code. So yeah, definitely it, it is not really trained to like, make things accessible. It's just trained to make it, especially a Figma to look like the Figma [00:39:00] designs and, yeah. That's

Aubrey: foremost. Yep. But hopefully, like I said, hopefully people are working on it to make it better.

I mean, it's been a month. I should actually check and see like what the improve, if there's been any improvements. See if anyone's written about like, I guess I could, I can just test Figma. I know if Figma sites you probably have to pay for. So I don't know if I can do that, but I can see if anyone's blogged about it or posted on Blue Sky within the last month about things getting better.

So fingers crossed that they're getting better. And yeah. Speaking of accessibility, and this is a new to, this is like a hot topic because it just came out yesterday, but talking about the liquid glass on iOS 26 and MAC OS 26, that was all released yesterday. Wow. There's been some accessibility talk about that as well.

I dunno if you've heard much about I have. Haven't the announcement yesterday. Tell

Mike: No, tell me more. I haven't paid attention to it.

Aubrey: Yeah, so WW DC started yesterday and the keynote was yesterday and this is where they announced the new version [00:40:00] of, you know, Mac os, iOS, iPad os, all the oss. They're naming it now based on the year and not the number, like I think it was iOS 18 was the last one.

The next one's gonna be iOS 26 because it must be coming out in 2026. Gotcha. So I guess it's not coming out till next year. I thought it'd be coming out this year. It's 2025, so I would think it would be called iOS 2020 or iOS 25

Mike: one-off error, you know?

Aubrey: Yep. Pretty much. But they're doing a new design language called Liquid Glass.

So it's kind of what it sounds like. It's kind of this like more translucent glassy button style and the icon, like icon style the name of it, icon style on your devices. And a lot of people are talking about how the transparency is a little too much. It's hard to see. There's a screenshot of like teal text on top of the liquid glass, [00:41:00] like treatment that makes it hard to read and things like that.

And I mean, it's only the dev, the developer betas are the only ones that are out now. So hopefully they're gonna do some tweaking with the transparency so that it's easier for people to see. Like I would probably have a hard time seeing it because my eyesight isn't the best. Turns out that happens when you get older.

Your eyesight isn't as great as it was when you're younger. And so I probably would've a hard time with the contrast between the transparent buttons and bright text and things like that, so.

Mike: Oh, interesting. There's been

Aubrey: a lot of people talking about that in the accessibility world since yesterday, around this time, yesterday that it was announced.

Mike: So you would think that of all companies like Apple would, would've like flagged that. Yeah. Demoing it. I mean, it's not like new technology, it's just a new design style that mm-hmm. Someone at Apple will be like, Hey, by the way, this is not the most accessible way. I

Aubrey: thought so too. Yeah. I was really surprised to see that too.

But maybe their thought was, oh, well this is a beta, we'll tweak it [00:42:00] kind of like, when iOS seven was first released back in what, 2012? 2011? The initial font weight was really, really thin. And there's a similar accessibility issue with that, where it was the, it was too hard to see for some people, so they actually thickened, thickened the text in later versions of it.

And the beta, it was really, really thin. And then they made it big, it made it better. So they iterated on it during the beta phase. I mean, ideally it would be nice for this to be in a good state at the beta phase, but Yeah. Right. At least they were doing something and they fixed it thin. So I'm assuming the similar thing is gonna happen with the liquid glass, but they'll make it a little more translucent.

So it's not as Or a little more opaque. Sorry. A little more opaque. So you're not, so you're able to see things on top. So, because that's the way, that's another,

Mike: I was gonna say where like, I mean, this is the beta, but they're releasing it and if they don't make these important fixes and then it comes out with iOS 26.

Mm-hmm. That then people are gonna [00:43:00] adopt that. Right? And so like mm-hmm. Then it perforates and it spreads out. 'cause it's like, oh, this is what Apple's doing, so let's make our website look like appley. And then,

Aubrey: yeah, because they did that again with iOS seven. Before iOS seven, they were doing all the skew morphic, you know, like the note notes app.

It looked like a notebook, you know, it had the spiral bound thing and the like, yellow with the lines and things like that to make it look like an actual notebook. And they moved away from that with iOS seven and made everything more flat. No gradients, and that was the style back in, you know, 20 11, 20 12.

And now this is the next iteration that Apple wants to do. And I do feel like style trends kind of follow what Apple does with this kind of thing. So yeah, I'm hoping that people don't follow this. You know, 'cause at least if they do, they think about accessibility and make it a little less like glassy, I guess.

Yeah.

Mike: So,

Aubrey: but yeah, that's, that's what's been going on in the accessibility world. Figma sites and liquid glass are the two things that I've seen a lot [00:44:00] of talk about in the last, it's only Tuesday. Today is Tuesday, June 10th. And so the last two days, that's what people have been talking about, at least in my circles.

Both, both of those things.

Mike: Yeah. So like public betas that need to go through some accessibility checking. Yep. Which I, I guess that's a good thing about having the betas out in the public then it's so people can see it, so then you can have. The developers, the people who know these things, like, Hey, this isn't, you shouldn't be doing this this way.

Mm-hmm. Yep. You give you that feedback.

Aubrey: Yeah. The hub, the develop, I'm trying to remember if this is how it works. They'll have the developer beta out for a bit and then they put out the public beta, and that's the time where all, sometimes certain sawing it to play 'em with it as the public beta stage. I don't really wanna like, mess around with the developer betas on my phone because I don't wanna like, you know, brick, brick my phone or brick my computer.

That would be bad. So, but I like playing with them to see what's new, see if I like what's going on with Apple. And I've had an [00:45:00] iPhone for 17 years now, so I got one in 2008. That was my first iPhone. Wow. The iPhone 3G. Yeah, 3G. So way back in the day. And so

Mike: I, I just saw this video yesterday. I think it was yesterday I was watching it.

It was,

Stephen: forget

Mike: what channel, what YouTube channel it was. But they were going through like there was the, the early days of cell phones, which just like

Aubrey: mm-hmm.

Mike: They're trying to figure out like the best keyboard layout. So it showed some very strange ones. Mm-hmm. Like, I think it was Motorola had one where it was like a clamshell, it flipped up and it had like a round, like rotary style.

Like it didn't move like rotary, but the buttons were in a circle. It's like, oh no. Like they were trying things, they didn't know what like the optimal like number pad, text pad was gonna be. And I remember having my, at the time in like college having my like flip sidekick, like the screen Oh yeah. That sideways.

And I was like, oh. So mm-hmm. Now like keyboards are completely gone. Yeah.

Aubrey: Like the T nine on my, my [00:46:00] cell phones back in the day where you hit every single number to get the letter you want. Oh yeah. Yeah. Remember that I had a Razer, the Motorola Razer, not the razor, the like fancy second version of it that was, it was like electric blue.

It was like slim and it was a cool phone until I got my iPhone. And it was the first time I used my iPhone when I was out and about. I picked it up at the mall, opened it up, got it all set up, and I was sitting there in like a food court on this iPhone and just using an actual keyboard, being able to go on the internet on this phone.

I'm like, this is amazing. I can go the internet everywhere now. It's like so common now, but in 2008 it was just like mind blowing to me. It was just something that was completely new and I mean it was, it is a completely new thing because their phones are everywhere now. It's, I think people are, people use their phone phones more than computers.

Right. I think more people are on mobile devices than on desktops.

Mike: I mean, we only call them, I, in my opinion, we only call 'em phones for historical re [00:47:00] like, yeah. I never, like, the one thing I hate to do on my phone is have phone calls. Just

Aubrey: call people. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: I don't wanna talk to people like I use it for everything else.

Like I. Yeah. To like browse recipe, like to mm-hmm. Watch videos, do all of my stuff on my phone. Like last thing I want to do is actually call somebody on my phone and talk to you.

Aubrey: Yep. Yeah, exactly. You can, there's so many other ways to communicate with people that you don't need to actually do the phone call apart of your phone.

But

Mike: I don't know, I mean, we're stuck with that term, like it's a phone. Yep,

Aubrey: yep. It's my phone. What, I mean, it's

Mike: like the least most important feature nowadays.

Aubrey: Yeah. And it's nice having one device. I remember again before my iPhone, I would have my iPod and my PDAI don't dunno if you ever had a PA Oh yeah.

I had a Handspring Visor pro that dates me. It's not a POM pilot, but it was similar. And I would have to carry both of those around and my little like flip phone. Yeah. Like this is three devices, I don't want all three. So then when I heard the iPhone was coming out, I didn't get the first one like I was saying.

But like, this solves all my problems. It's everything in one device. And I mean that's the same with any phone, regardless of [00:48:00] it's, if it's Apple or Android, it just does everything that multiple devices did. I like having it all there. It's nice to have just one thing to carry. 'cause again, women's pockets are small, so why we want one thing to carry.

Mike: Yeah. Even when it was the days where with those flip phones, I remember like, yeah, have the phone, I have my CD player, I have like my notebook, like carry all these things around. And luckily I always, you know, I have clothes that have lots of pockets. Mm-hmm. I'm, I don't have that societal impact, but

Aubrey: Yep.

Mike: Yeah. It's not having to remember to carry all that stuff and have that one thing. Even when like, when you had like iPad, not iPads iPods and you still had like iPhones like having that phased out eventually.

Aubrey: Yeah, that's interesting too. 'cause I remember the iPod being the big thing. Like I couldn't imagine a world without the iPod and then it like what died out like 10 years after it came out because iPhones became the more dominant tech at that point.

It was just amazing. 'cause the iPod was also another one of those big. [00:49:00] Again, I had, I had my CD player, my Disman, I had a Walkman and a Disman when I was a kid. And you know, I'm like, oh, the CD player is great. I don't need anything else. And then when I got my first iPod, I'm like, oh, I can carry much more music around.

Yeah. All the time is a lot better collect. And I don't have to carry my little CD case, like my CD like folder around with all my CDs in it. I just put everything on my phone or on my iPod and that was really, really cool.

Mike: I still have, in my basement, I have like two huge binders, like all my CDs.

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey: I've done all mine too. At one

Mike: point I had ripped in like, you know, burned onto my iPod, like back in the college days, spending hours sitting in my tower computer, putting it in, reading the data off of it. I, I think I still have like all those MP threes somewhere. Oh, really? Buried in some, on some hard drive somewhere, I'm sure.

Yep.

Aubrey: I don't even know if any of my CDs still work. I mean, I bought my first, it's funny, I know this. I bought my first CDs almost 30 years ago. O over 30 years ago. My, I bought, [00:50:00] no, it was this year. 1995 is the year I first bought CDs. So I have 30-year-old c What was your first

Mike: cd? Do you know what duke

Aubrey: by Green Day was my first one.

I loved Green Day when I was 14, so, yep. And then I bought a Cranberries album after that. Those were my first two. Yeah. How, what were first one? What were yours?

Mike: Yeah. 'cause I remember my dad got me a portable CD player for my birthday for I think it was Christmas. But the first album I got was the Metallica Black album, and I listened to it on repeat so many times.

I forget, I don't know what the second one was. But I also remember my first DVD ever buying was gladiator from Best Buy. Like I got it at Best Buy. I remember that. I think

Aubrey: I, mine was the Beatles anthology on dvd. Oh, nice. I think that was the first DVDI do not have a DVD player. I have not had a DVD player in like 10 years now at this point.

I just stream it. I don't have a CD player either. I have nothing to play my CDs or I don't even think I have any DVDs anymore. I don't to go on

Mike: like eBay to buy that stuff. Yeah, I

Aubrey: know. I [00:51:00] buy a tape. I can buy VHSI think I, I have some like old tapes that old v hs s tapes and old cassettes. I can, I can't play those either.

I can't play any of my old tech and that's kind of sad.

Mike: I still have a Blu-Ray, DVD player flown around here and I, I don't know if I have a CD player. I must have a CD player. I definitely have old laptops. That's the, one of the things I mm-hmm. Is a little old laptop, so in the basement that has a CD ROM drive.

So if I needed to, I'd plug that in the, listen to my CDs.

Aubrey: Nice. I, I don't even think I have that. I think the only other computer I have is one that's still the, that doesn't have a CD player. So I have nothing here. Wow. To play CDs. So I'm outta luck if I ever wanna play those CDs or spend a million dollars on whatever, something that can play.

'cause they got rid of the super drives too, right? Yeah. They don't play, they don't make the super drives for Mac anymore. The thing that you can plug into your computer and use the cd, CD burner or CD drive with, but it's too bad, [00:52:00]

Mike: bad. It's like you, but you hold onto those. Like, I'm, I'm not getting rid of my CDs or my Ds No same.

I'm probably never gonna listen or watch them again, but mm-hmm. There's some things like I got really excited this year because I don't know if you're a fan, but Kevin Smith got back the rights to the movie Dogma finally.

Aubrey: Oh, nice. I did hear about dogma coming out again. Yeah. And so like,

Mike: I have it on DVD, but that's the one Kevin Smith movie, like me and my wife both like it.

It's like, oh, we can't watch it anywhere. It's not streaming anywhere. 'cause like, no one had the, like the people who had the rights to it weren't doing anything with it now. Like he's bringing it back. It's going like it's touring the country in theaters. Yeah. I was like, oh, finally, like, I'm gonna be able to watch Dogma again.

Aubrey: Oh. I haven't seen dogma in so long because I, I really liked Kevin Smith when I was in college. Yeah. I actually went to see him at I went to Indiana University and he spoke there in 2002, 2001. It was in part of one of those evening with Kevin Smith. He actually, they actually filmed it at the show that I saw him at and yeah, it was cool.

I really had a good time and I really [00:53:00] liked him. It reminds me of Kevin Smith reminds me of the early two thousands because I watched all the movies. I think I saw Jalen Jay in Silent Bob Strike back in the theater when it came out in like 2003 or whenever. So that's cool. It's cool that they're finally, he's finally getting the rights back to dogma and that it's coming back out because I never got to see that one in the theater.

That would be a cool one to see.

Mike: Yeah. That's one where I'm wa I'm watching for like, when it comes to this area to like grab a pair of tickets mm-hmm. So that my wife can go. It's a good idea, fun experience. Like we like go to, we haven't done in a long time, but there was a theater in the Coolidge Corner Theater.

Mm-hmm. In in Brookline. Yep. Where they do like midnight, like sci-fi movies. Like we'd go, we watch like the Fifth Element.

Aubrey: Oh, nice

Mike: stuff. Or Back to the Future. Just like,

Aubrey: yeah.

Mike: Like getting a chance to see those sort of movies in theaters is just an experience.

Aubrey: Yeah. That's awesome. I remember seeing some of the Star Wars movies and the theater, like the original ones in the theater in the nineties before the, the prequels came out.

Mm-hmm. So that was cool to see the old ones out there. And I [00:54:00] saw all the new Star Wars movies in the theaters when those all came out, so that was a lot of fun too. But nothing like seeing the old ones, like the night, the ones, the original trilogy. It was really cool to see those in the theater. Yeah, that sounds like cool summer plans that you have then if you're gonna do that, do you have any other summer plans that you're excited about?

Mike: Yeah. Let's see. We have a couple of weeks down in Cape Cod that we're doing which is always fun. Like I have a timeshare down there, so we'll go there. Where on the cape do

Aubrey: you go?

Mike: I go to West Yarmouth. Okay. Like mid-cap. And then we'll go for another week in like the upper Cape like Wellfleet area.

Aubrey: Yep. I used to stay in Wellfleet when I was a kid, so I'm very familiar. Yep.

Mike: And then I am getting a chance to take my kids camping one weekend which my wife isn't big on camping. But I love camping, so, we're taking the kids, it's more like a glamping spot, but it's a campground, like family campground I went to as a kid.

Oh, that's cool. That's cool. They had like, which I won one year. I always remember this campground 'cause I won the Jackpot and Candy bar [00:55:00] Bingo. And I had like 50 candy bars, but I was Oh, that's amazing. I was forced to share 'em with my sister and the, and the people we went with, but. Yeah. And then I have, there's a beer festival up in Portland, Maine that I'm going to in Oh, that's nice.

Actually later in June. It's called Wavy Days and it's outdoors at like this nice outdoor area. And then I'll be going back up to Portland towards the end of July. There's actually a conference called Edgy Web, the Ed Web. Oh, yeah,

Aubrey: yeah, I heard of that. I knew I was gonna be in Portland. That's fun.

Mike: Yeah. It's gonna be in Portland this year when I found that out. And one of my coworkers in outta my office is our SEO analytics person is speaking at it. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's cool. I had some, I had some budget left. Our budget is about to close at the end of June. Yep. I had some professional development budget.

I was like, can I just buy a ticket to this? And like, I'll in Portland, I'll just drive up to Portland for a few days. Yeah. So I got approved to do that. So I'm actually gonna take the train up to Portland, 'cause you know, driving to Portland, Maine in July.

Aubrey: Yep.

Mike: I'll take the, the $70 ticket round trip on the train on Amtrak to go up there.

So

Aubrey: that's better. Not having [00:56:00] a car when you're in Portland is nice too. 'cause in the summer it's just, I've been up there in the summer. It's not fun to drive around in there. So it's good to have the train and yeah, go up that way. That'll be, that'll be fun.

Mike: Usually every summer, me and like college buddies, we go all the way up to Acadia.

Aubrey: Oh wow.

Mike: And we go camping and usually I'm the one who drives, but I have an electric truck and so like now in the last two years I've really had to plan out where to stop to charge. Because you can't make it all that way on one charge. No, usually I stop right. South Carland and Scarborough, there's a and a Walmart, Supercenter.

There's a, some fast chargers, so I,

Aubrey: oh, sweet.

Mike: So how about you? What do you got going on for the summer? Anything fun?

Aubrey: So I am mainly going to just be speaking at conferences. That's pretty much gonna be my summer plans. Like I said earlier, I'm gonna be going to Asheville in July to speak at Triple Camp Asheville.

Gonna enjoy, you know, nice beer, some barbecue, seeing some Drupal people, and then GovCon in August. It's [00:57:00] in the University of Maryland, so it's outside of dc.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Aubrey: So I haven't been to that one. I've been to, I went to GovCon in 2023, but I didn't go last year, so I'll be doing that as well. And then probably just hanging out, like going over to Western Mass to see my family.

My family all lives out in Western Massachusetts. It's about an hour and a half away from where, where I live north of Boston and hang out with them. My niece and my sister have their dance recital next weekend. Oh boy. It's Friday and Saturday. So I will be volunteering both days and helping them out, watching their, watching their dances.

My niece is in like eight or nine different classes and my sister's in four, so I'm gonna be watching them and I'm gonna be selling merch at the merch table, which is what I do at the recital. Oh, all right. So that'll be a lot of fun. Fun. Yeah. It's a ton of fun. So it'll be, it'll be a good summer. It'll be a good summer, just kind of relax.

I'm gonna be searching for jobs. That's the other thing I'll be doing this summer. So Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. Well, I hope you

Mike: don't have to end up [00:58:00] doing that all summer, I hope. Yeah,

Aubrey: I don't wanna do it all summer. Hopefully it'd be nice to like land something by the end of June and then the rest of the summer is relaxing.

Maybe I'll take a trip up to Portland or the, or go to the Cape or something like that too. I mean, Portland is not far from here or go to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is another place I really like. I used to live there, so it's always fun to go back there too. And they have good beer in Portsmouth as well, so Yeah, they do.

Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So.

Mike: Well, it's been fun talking with you, Aubrey.

Aubrey: Yeah, same. It was great catching up.

Mike: Yeah. And hopefully I'll see you over the summer, if not after the summer at like Ned Camper or sometime before that.

Aubrey: Yeah, definitely. I'll probably definitely see you at Nedc Camp, so if I don't see you this summer, I'll see you then.