Twilio held their Signal conference this week at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Each attendee got a HackPack, a Cocoon Slim Backpack with an LED matrix and littleBits. I’ve seen littleBits before, and have been interested in how they make tinkering very easy and basic.

What better way to celebrate New Year’s Eve than to watch the firework show in San Francisco. The fifteen minute, approximately 5000 shells, firework show featured smiley faces, mushrooms, and other shapes. Happy New Year!

What a year it has been. It has been a year full of travelling and hackathons. It started with the AT&T Dev Summit and hackathon in Las Vegas.

Great things do happen to those who are patient. This morning, day 2 of launching the Orion spacecraft aboard a Delta IV-Heavy Rocket, we headed back out to the gantry at 4am. It felt kind of like de ja vu. In a way, it was. The bus ride, finding a spot on the grass, waiting a couple of hours for the sun to rise, and for all teams to be ‘Go’ for launch.

This morning I ended my visit of Mesa Verde at the Visitor Center. Inside the Visitor Center, exhibits talk about the Ancestral Pubeloans.

This morning, I started with a tour of Long House. The road up to Long House didn’t open until 9am. A long line of cars backed up waiting for the Rangers to open the gate and lead us up the road.

This morning I went on two tours of the cliff dwellings that Ancestral Puebloans lived in. Balcony House is best for the more active visitor. After climbing up a steep ladder…

The road to the park entrance (and exit) this morning kept grabbing my eye. It is such an amazing National Park. No wonder there are so many visitors to this park each year.

I didn’t have to go very far to see the sunrise this morning. Behind the campground are several rows of sandstone buttes.