The Big 3 Jira Mistakes
Software engineers spend hundreds of hours a year in Atlassian Jira and these are the 3 big mistakes organizations often make with it.
Performance Issue Conversations with Software Engineers
How to talk to your teams when something isn't working.
Biking the Ohio to Erie Trail
4 days and 335 miles biking from Cincinnati to Cleveland
Sharkbike and Roller Skibiscuit
Building something extra silly for the Takoma Park 4th of July Parade
Chicken Coop
Building an A frame chicken coop for my neighbors.
Massanutten and Gap Trail Backpacking
A short 1 nighter winter backpacking trip just west of Luray, VA
Biking the Empire State Erie Canal Trail
5 days of riding from Buffalo to Albany NY
Strickler Knob Camping
Two days and a cold night for the best views I've ever seen in Virginia.
Old Radio Rebuild
Gutting an old radio and building it out with a raspberry pi zero for web streaming.
Potomac River Kayak Camping
Two days of kayaking down the Potomac from DC to Mallows Bay.
Dolly Sods Winter Backpacking
Two long days of hiking and camping through Dolly Sods in the winter.
Animal Garage Windows
A cheap fun way to replace the rotting out windows on my garage.
Arcade Cabinet Rebuild
I saved this arcade cabinet from the dumpster and then went all out building it exactly how I wanted.
Craftstation 5000
A workbench/school/craft/art area I made for my kids and probably one of my favorite things I've ever built.
Felt F85X Flatbar Bike
After putting about 5,000 miles on my cheapo commuter I decided it was time to build what I really wanted in a commuter/kid hauler/camping bike.
Toilet Racing
Soapbox Derby... but with Toilets!
Dummy Downhill at Blue Knob
We booked a ski weekend up at Blue Knob and it just so happened to be their inaugural Dummy Downhill so we built Skibiscuit, gussied her up, and sent her down the hill.
Thoughts on CMS Design Strategies
A friend interviewed me for a podcast regarding my thoughts on the various strategies that CMS vendors use to design content management systems and how well they work for different types of clients.
Smart Office Meetup Presentation - HelloLights
Jenny Madorsky and myself presenting on our smart office work at Huge DC and our newest project HelloLights.
Smart Lighting: The Interface That's All Around Us.
A writeup on a project I implemented in the Huge DC office to have lamps change color depending on the status of our meeting rooms.
Avid Shorty Ultimate Brake O Ring Replacement
If you're running Avid Shorty Ultimate cantilever brakes on your bike and need to replace the small rubber pieces on them, here's where to get them.
3 Days of Bicycle Camping on the C&O Canal
Riding from Cumberland, MD back to DC over 3 days with 4 friends.
Building Smarter Offices: Safely Stealing Conference Rooms
A piece that I wrote on a project I've been working on at Huge for the last year that powers tablet displays outside of conference rooms with schedules and the ability to create meetings on the fly.
Brooklyn Bikepark Pumptrack
I was up in NYC for work and my dad's birthday the other week and hit up the awesome new pumptrack in Brooklyn.
PHP Koans
PHP programming exercises for anyone new to programming or PHP. You start with a suite of failing tests and begin to add code so the tests pass and gradually learn the basics of programming in the process. This is in progress and I'm actively working on finishing it.
PHPWorld 2015 Talk
A talk I gave at PHPWorld 2015 on common problems facing agile software teams and how to overcome them.
Mountain Biking at Meadowood
Some GoPro footage from tearing around Meadow Wood in Lorton, VA.
Mountain Biking at Fountainhead
Some footage from the green and blue loops at Fountainhead on the hardtail 29"er.
3D Printed Bocce Ball Stand
A quick writeup on a small 3D printing project.
Tech for Product Managers - Speaking at General Assembly
A talk I gave to my co worker Catherine Colwell's Product Management class at General Assembly. The purpose was to give Product Managers a brief overview of software engineering terminology and give them advice on working with technical teams.
What Goes Wrong With Agile and How to Fix It
A piece I wrote for Huge based on my experiences leading agile software development teams and identifying solutions to common problems they face.
74 Schwinn Twinn Deluxe Rebuild
Rebuilding an old Schwinn Tandem bicycle for a summer of fun.
Wednesday Night Spins Video
Onboard footage from the awesome Wednesday Night Spins race series that Crosshairs Cycling put on in a parking garage in Crystal City. This footage is from the C Group Race on March 26th.
Pulling Google Calendar Events with Node.js
A quick tutorial on pulling down Google Calendar data with Node.js
Vietnam and Cambodia
Two weeks of traveling in Southeast Asia with my dad, little sister, and Katie.
2014 Cycling
I've gone through the arch of being really into running when I was younger, then dabbling with triathlons, and lately I've been getting really into cycling. Here's some photos and rides from this year.
Mount Washington
A trip up north to hike Mt Washington and climb some ice.
FYBO Scooter Rally Interview
A local paper in Raleigh, NC interviewed me about a vintage scooter rally I was down there for.
5 Pointz
Photos of some of the best aerosol art around. These were taken about a week before everything was painted over.
Biking from Pittsburgh to DC
The story of that time when I rode my bicycle 335 miles through the woods from Pittsburgh to DC.
Vespa P200 Full Rebuild
Photos and details on going through my old Vespa.
Vespa Engine Rebuild
A little bit about what it took to get the P200 back on the road after the cannonball.
Scooter Cannonball
I rode a 1979 Vespa P200 2500 miles across the US as part of the 2012 Scooter Cannonball Run.
Tetris
A version of the classic puzzle game Tetris written purely in Javascript and Canvas. It seems like everything is heading towards Javascript lately so I mostly wrote this just for fun and to improve my JS skills. It is playable in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and does not work on mobile. The source is available here.
Ice Climbing in the Adirondacks
A great day of Ice Climbing up in Northern NY.
ORM with Validation in Kohana 3
It took me a while to get this working correctly and I'm betting I'm not the only one. This example will give you everything you need to setup user creation with ORM and model level validation.
Charm City Mods vs Rockers
So what did you do with your weekend Matt? Pretended I was in a gang from 1960s Britain.... trust me it's cooler than it sounds.'
9/25 - Summit Point Track Day
A great first track day with Motorcycle Xcitement and a Ninja 250.
Colonial Beach Scooter Camping Trip
Just a short weekend camping trip with the P200.
Motorcycle Trip to Nashville
1400 mile trip to Nashville and back on an 81 CB750
North of San Francisco
Riding a Triumph Bonneville north of San Francisco for the day.
June Northern Virginia Ride
Monthly ride on some of the best roads around DC.
Pittsburgh Vintage Scooter Club: Band Camp XII
Vintage scooters take over a band camp in Ohio.
East Coast Classic Scooter Rally
What kind of maniac rides a tiny little 37 year old scooter over a 200 miles? Pretty awesome weekend at the largest scooter rally I've ever gone to.
Seneca Rocks
A really great weekend of hiking, climbing, camping, swimming, live music, and via ferrata out in West Virginia.
Hiking and Camping in Cental Shenandoah
A weekend of camping nearly ruined by storms turned out pretty awesome.
Linking to YouTube on Mobile Websites
Launching a native video player via the HTML5 video element if possible is the slickest way to handle video on mobile websites. An alternative that requires less development and QA time is simply uploading the video to YouTube and then linking to it. This approach has the advantage of letting YouTube deal with optimization, CDN (content delivery network) caching, and also having the video play on BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 which can be problematic (also not likely worth the effort) to implement yourself.
Rocky Top Shenandoah Hike
20 mile hike in central Shenandoah near Skyline Drive. Got in at 11PM on Friday night and hiked 3 hours with headlamps before setting up camp. Hiked the remaining 17 the next day through some of the thickest fog I've ever seen.
74 Vespa Super
I've owned a 74 Vespa Super for about a year now and racked up over 2,000 miles on it. Luckily I've yet to run into any issues with it that I haven't been able to fix. It is extremely satisfying learning how to work on old scooters like this and I would highly encourage anyone who owns one to spend the time learning how to fix it (you pretty much have to though). Below are resources and notes that have helped me through any repairs I've encountered.