It’s with some amount of sorrow and trepidation that I begin this blog entry. One of the things that I often need to be reminded of is my own limitations. I think we all can forget that we’ve got human limits and sometimes we take on more than we can deal with. I am a…
I’m on my way to my second LOPSA Board of Directors Face to Face meeting. The last time I was here, it was when I became a member of the board, and I really felt like a lot of my time at the meeting was spent trying to understand why LOPSA is the way that…
Last night, I was lucky enough to be able to speak at LOPSA Rhode Island, a proto-LOPSA chapter that Adam Codega has been starting. It was a really good time. Adam's employer, Swipely has a headquarters that instantly makes you feel like you're a couple thousand miles to the west, in Silicon Valley. Not only…
I sent this to the LOPSA-Discuss mailing list, and I thought that it might be nice to put up on my blog here at lopsa.org, too Your guide to throwing a great SysAdmin Appreciation Day party Hello! My name is Matt Simmons, and I like to throw parties. Any occasion, really, but SysAdmin Appreciation…
Having now been a Board member for officially six months, I've got to say, it's definitely a strange creature. It's not that the organization is big so much as it's diverse, and spread out, and right now, largely undocumented. That should not be meant to imply that there is no documentation, though. The early founders…
edit: Fixed the link to the article There's an interesting article on the LogicWorks Blog titled, "Can (or should) DevOps Do It All?". It's a good read. You should check it out. I have some thoughts on that topic, so I went to comment, but unfortunately, I think their comment system is down, so I've taken…
This is the third of my blog posts about issues within LOPSA that I would like to change. The text is taken, in a large part, from my candidate statement. At this moment, anyone who is not on the Board of Directors has a hard time knowing what is going on with the organization, and…
This is the second in a continuing series of discussions on where I think LOPSA can stand to improve what it does, and how it does it. Most of the text is taken from my candidate statement. Right now, most of the regular communication with the members is the monthly LOPSAgram. I really like it,…
This is the first entry in a series of topical discussions on LOPSA’s shortcomings, as I perceive them, and how I think that we should be addressing them. Most of the text is taken from my candidate statement (PDF warning). Throughout its existence, LOPSA has seen a steady increase in its membership count. The last…
I'm very happy to announce that I am a candidate for election to the LOPSA Board of Directors for the ensuing term. I have worked very hard for LOPSA as a volunteer, but there are certain things that you can only do from inside "the machinery", as it were, so I'm throwing my hat in…