EW S7E12 Transcript

SEASON 7 EPISODE 12

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:07] AH: Welcome to the final episode of Season Seven of Elixir Wizards, everybody; a podcast brought to you by SmartLogic, a custom web and mobile development shop based in Baltimore. My name is Alex Housand. Today is my birthday. I will be your host. I'm joined by my co-host, Sundi Myint. Hello, Sundi.

[00:00:27] SM: Happy birthday.

[00:00:28] AH: Thank you. Also, Eric Oestrich. Hello, Eric. How are you?

[00:00:32] EO: Hello, Hello.

[00:00:33] AH: Glad to have you on. This season's theme was Impact of Elixir, and we are joined today by a very special friend of the pod, Todd Resudek. Hello, Todd. How are you?

[00:00:44] TR: Hi. Happy birthday.

[00:00:46] AH: Thank you. Thank you so much. Feels like another year around the sun. Feels pretty much the same.

[00:00:53] TR: Well, tell us how old you are now.

[00:00:55] AH: I am the ripe old age of 29.

[00:00:57] TR: Forever.

[00:00:59] AH: Yup. Yup. We got one –

[00:01:00] TR: Me too. Me too.

[00:01:02] AH: I know. I heard that you were just turning 29, actually.

[00:01:05] TR: Yup. My birthday is coming up. I'm going to be 29 again.

[00:01:08] AH: Wow. Congratulations.

[00:01:11] TR: Thanks.

[00:01:11] AH: You’re welcome. When we were getting ready to record, you were telling us that you have a really funny story about your last name.

[00:01:20] TR: No, it's not funny. It’s tragic.

[00:01:23] SM: Oh, no.

[00:01:24] AH: Well, now I've introduced it horribly. What's the tragic story about your last name?

[00:01:29] TR: Well, okay. It's a very uncommon last name. I'm not unfamiliar with people mispronouncing it, which is fine. At my wedding reception, my father-in-law insisted that he announced us as a couple, and so he did. He had only known me for seven years at that point. He introduced us as Mr. and Mrs. Rezunick, which I feel like, is not even really that close. Okay, so more tragic than funny, right?

[00:01:59] AH: It is still funny.

[00:02:00] SM: We shouldn't be laughing, but it's happening.

[00:02:04] TR: It’s something. It says a lot.

[00:02:05] EO: Tossing in an N in between the D and E, I think.

[00:02:09] TR: Yeah, a lot of extra letters in there. Yeah. It was a less than average attempt.

[00:02:17] SM: I feel like, we all have some wild stories about name mispronunciations. Alex, I feel like, I remember one you had from college. Or was it a nickname?

[00:02:26] AH: I have so many. I don't understand why. I tell people my last name is Thousand, but without the T. That's exactly how you pronounce it. I get a lot of Husans. That's the most common, which I guess, I get. I've also gotten Howser, which I don't get, because there's no R. Also, no W. I've gotten Hussein before. I don't understand. It's just like, people glance and they don't intake.

[00:02:54] SM: The first time I encountered the H-O-U-S sound, that's the way that your name is pronounced, was when I was in New York. I was going to Houston Street. I was going to a restaurant around Houston Street, and I was asking my co-workers, “Are we going to Houston Street?” Because that's how it's spelled. They were like, “You mean, Houston Street?” I was like, “Why are you looking at me like this?” The rest of the country pronounces it one way. I just don't know what to tell you.

[00:03:24] AH: Very particular about how they pronounce it up there. I’m sure you've got a name one. Sorry, Sundi. Didn't mean to interrupt.

[00:03:35] EO: I mean, the obvious one is just Ostrich. I've gotten Destrich before.

[00:03:41] AH: Adding in a letter, too. Yeah.

[00:03:43] EO: Well, it's just the O to a D. Someone just hand wrote it weird, probably. I swear, someone stuck a G somewhere in the middle once. I can't even remember what they did, but it was like, “What? How did you come anywhere near that?” Yeah, it's mostly just Ostrich.

[00:04:04] SM: I feel like, most people just can't figure out my last name. Well, first of all, the first name, they typically either get it completely right, or they just are so atrociously wrong, I can't even correct them. It's like, a lot of Soondis. The last name is one syllable. People often just cut it into two. They usually say My-int. My mom, when she was teaching third graders, would explain to her third graders that her last name was like, you make a meow sound, mya, and then you say Myint. That's how you say my last name is Myint. One syllable.

I always thought the meow thing was funny, because she started doing that before I showed an appreciation for cats and then got a cat. It was just funny that that appeared in my life. Yeah. I'm sure there's lots of good stories, but nothing quite as special as Todd’s.

[00:04:56] AH: No.

[00:04:56] TR: Well, someday, someday. It’s something to shoot for.

[00:05:00] SM: Yeah. We'll let you know when it happens.

[00:05:02] TR: All right. If you’re Sundi’s boyfriend, it's not too late to get that wedding going.

[00:05:11] AH: Start thinking about ways you want to pronounce Myint. Ponder it. Well, besides our last names, and people continuously mispronouncing them, Todd, what's new with you?

[00:05:25] TR: Oh, gosh. So much and so little. It’s COVID times. I feel like, it's been 10 years and it's been two days.

[00:05:36] AH: Absolutely.

[00:05:38] TR: The thing fore on my mind is conference planning stuff. I was really excited to start seeing people down in Austin, which I saw Sundi down there at ElixirConf. That got my conference juices flowing again. I'm excited for the conference coming up this spring.

[00:05:57] SM: Yeah. We've talked about EMPEX a little bit. Todd, do you want to give a little spiel?

[00:06:03] TR: I'd love to. EMPEX Hopefully, some people have already been to an EMPEX, or at least heard of it before. EMPEX is started in New York, in 2017, I think, was the first one. Then one of the organizers, Desmond, moved out to LA, and so he brought a version of EMPEX to LA and that's been going on since 2018. Now Chris Bell, who's from Podcast Fame and I are doing a new version of it called Elixir Mountain, which is going to focus on the Mountain West region. Our first conference is going to be on May 6th in Salt Lake City. May 5th, we'll have some trainings. Then may 6th will be the conference. We're really excited. Hopefully, we see a lot of faces there.

[00:06:51] AH: That's awesome. Sundi and I have a former co-worker who was insistent that mountain standard time just didn't exist. He was like, “It's trash. It's not real.” Completely refused to acknowledge this place.

[00:07:04] EO: There's someone in a different community I'm in, totally unrelated, that also claims that mountain standard time is a void zone and doesn't exist. This will just be a thing that's bigger than I would have guessed.

[00:07:18] SM: They're all in a secret club together. You never know.

[00:07:22] TR: Are they in Arizona time or something?

[00:07:24] SM: No, they lived here in DC area at the time.

[00:07:27] EO: They lived in St. Louis.

[00:07:31] TR: Not even in the time zone. Okay. Well, according to the bus here, it's Mountain Standard Time. You’re going to be an hour late if you don't get here.

[00:07:45] AH: I will say, that has been messing me up. I've been traveling across the country and the time zone changes have been really messing with my brain. 7 a.m., 10 a.m. What time is it there? What time is it here? I don’t think about it.

[00:08:01] TR: Where are you today?

[00:08:03] AH: Today, I am in Camp Rock Canyon State Park in Texas, where there are free roaming bison, which is pretty cool.

[00:08:14] SM: That's awesome.

[00:08:15] AH: Yeah, pretty cool. And prairie dogs, which is also very, very exciting.

[00:08:19] SM: They're cute.

[00:08:21] AH: They chirp a lot. You walk up, you start to walk around and they look at you like, “Are you going to still come this way, or are you going to leave us leave us alone?” Then they hide in their holes.

[00:08:32] SM: That's what cats look like, to be honest.

[00:08:34] EO: Do you have a prairie dogs everywhere as well, Todd? Another, around Denver?

[00:08:39] TR: Oh, yeah. We have a lot near around my house and stuff.

[00:08:42] AH: Are they pests?

[00:08:44] TR: I mean, not to me they're not. If you're a land developer, they're considered a pest. I like seeing them. I'm with you.

[00:08:52] AH: They’re fun.

[00:08:53] SM: Are you saying they're all over Colorado?

[00:08:56] TR: Yeah.

[00:08:57] SM: I’m going to see prairie dogs in Colorado?

[00:08:59] TR: There is in the Front Range. If you want to, you can see prairie dogs. That's for sure.

[00:09:04] SM: Okay. I'm going to have to make some time for that.

[00:09:07] TR: Okay. Well, there's a really nice zoo near where you're going to be in Colorado Springs. You can see many animals if you wanted to.

[00:09:14] SM: All right. Well, if my flight gets delayed, or canceled out of said tiny airport, I will make sure to go to the zoo.

[00:09:23] AH: Todd, you're in Colorado. EMPEX is going to be in Salt Lake City. You are currently wearing a Wisconsin hoodie. I've seen you tweet about Ohio State football. Where do your allegiances lie?

[00:09:39] TR: I grew up in Wisconsin and my allegiances align with Wisconsin football. I have only tweeted about Ohio State football because I don't like them at all. I like to watch them lose, which is really, I was thinking about it this year and I was like, “You know what? I actually get more satisfaction on Ohio State losing than on Wisconsin winning a football game.” That's how much I dislike them. Sorry, Ohio State Buckeye fans. I have a lot of friends in the Columbus area and I apologize, but that's just how it is. Yeah.

[00:10:13] AH: You can't change the way your heart feels.

[00:10:15] SM: These days, you got to take your joys where you can get them.

[00:10:19] TR: It’s the little things.

[00:10:23] AH: It really is the little things. I had a thought about Wisconsin. Oh, I remember what it was. I have a good friend who's from Milwaukee. I love his love for the Bucks. I think, fear the deer is an excellent slogan. That's so funny.

[00:10:40] SM: I wish everyone could see the face I'm making.

[00:10:42] TR: You pronounce Milwaukee with an L, which proves that you're not from Milwaukee.

[00:10:47] AH: How do you pronounce it? What do you pronounce it, with a P?

[00:10:50] TR: No, just Muh-waukee.

[00:10:52] AH: Muh-waukee. Oh.

[00:10:53] TR: Yeah. Muh-waukee. Milwaukee in, so we'll say Milwaukee. Milwaukee is somebody that's not from Milwaukee.

[00:11:01] AH: I am a foreigner. I mean, I'm from Clemson, South Carolina, which has no P in it, but I know you're not from there if you say Clemsen.

[00:11:08] TR: Oh, it's Clemson?

[00:11:10] AH: Oh, yeah. You have to add in the silent P. Otherwise, people are going to be like, “You're not from here. Who are you?”

[00:11:17] SM: I always think it's cute when people call this area Washington. I’m like, “No, no, no. That's the state.” We’re DC. It is very common. That is our only tell, I feel like.

[00:11:28] TR: Wait. What?

[00:11:29] SM: Yeah, a lot of people call this, like the capitol, they'll call it Washington, because that's how they say it in the shows and stuff like, “They're walking to Capitol Hill. They’re going to the White House.” Like, “Yeah, we're heading back to Washington.” I'm like, “No. DC.”

[00:11:41] TR: Really? Okay. Count me in. Like, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I always thought Washington was the city in Washington State. You have to say Washington State.

[00:11:50] SM: Yeah. I still say Washington State, but I'd more likely hear somebody say Washington and assume the West Coast.

[00:11:58] TR: Interesting.

 [00:12:00] AH: I’m pondering my own things now. What do I say? I don't even know.

[00:12:03] SM: Eric, do you have any indie gotchas?

[00:12:06] EO: Well, I guess there's a few – There's Brazil, Indiana, but you say it Bra-zel.

[00:12:13] AH: I love that.

[00:12:14] EO: The only thing I can think of outside of a few other towns like that is the mid-westerner need to stick an S on the end of store names. It's not –

[00:12:25] AH: Grover's. We go to Grover's.

[00:12:28] TR: I relate to that so much. My mom, Best Buys. Always Best Buys.

[00:12:32] EO: Yeah, you got to go to Myers, Joanne's. Yeah.

[00:12:38] AH: I love, Best Buys is pretty great. We’re going to go to Best Buys.

[00:12:44] SM: That's cute. I like it.

[00:12:47] TR: We have a city called Rio in Wisconsin. Spelled like Rio. Same thing as Brazil. In in Colorado, we have a town called Louisville that looks like Louisville.

[00:12:59] SM: It's pronounced Lewisville? Oh, no.

[00:13:01] AH: Man, people wonder why some people have a hard time learning English. It's like, “Well, we're doing this.” There's a Versailles, Kentucky. We're not making it easy.

[00:13:13] SM: Oh, no.

[00:13:17] EO: I knew a game store owner that was from Kentucky. He tried to convince all of us that you said Lowe's as Laurels. I was like, “I'm not buying this.” You're doing some weird tongue twisting to like, that come out.

[00:13:39] SM: Next time we were all together at a conference at, say, EMPEX, we've got to ask everyone about their little isms with their place, because this is just enlightening.

[00:13:52] AH: I've never been to Salt Lake City, so maybe it's the time.

[00:13:55] TR: It's a really pretty place. It's a good time of year to go there, too, in the spring.

[00:13:58] AH: It’s what I heard. Yeah. We had thought about on our journey back from California State, stopping in Colorado. Then we were like, “Hmm, snow.” Then there was, “Mm, fires.” Then there was, “Mm, more snow.” We didn't do that.

[00:14:13] SM: Song of Ice and Fire. You just living that Game of Thrones life out there in Colorado, Todd. Oh, no. But, yes, Todd, the sentiment of seeing people again is exciting. I do hope that folks who get out to EMPEX get to chat with you and see what's new and enjoy all the good talks. Do you have a lot of talks lined up?

[00:14:38] TR: The CFP is still open until March 6th. I would encourage the listeners to think about talk ideas and submit them. We do have some, but I think traditionally in the event world, everybody's going to send them in the last week. Expecting 90 percent of them to come in in the last two days.

[00:15:01] SM: As per tradition.

[00:15:03] EO: Same with ticket sales. All of them will come in two days beforehand.

[00:15:08] AH: It's funny how that just becomes a thing of life. It’s like, “When are you going to write your term paper?” “The night before.”

[00:15:15] TR: Yeah, you never know. I mean, you could die any day. You don't want to have wasted four hours of your short life writing a term paper that you never had to turn in.

[00:15:25] SM: This reminds me, well, not that part, Todd. The part about just how we know that there's these formulas. Whenever I was hosting meetups in person, I use that formula of take the number of people who signed up, divide it by whoever said yes, and then subtract. Basically, 60 percent of your RSVPs would actually come, and that's how much pizza you buy. Two slices per the 60 percent. There was a whole formula. I think, I actually know someone who turned it into an actual calculator, like a React app or something.

[00:15:55] AH: You could plan a wedding like that, too.

[00:15:58] SM: Oh, no. Oh, no.

[00:16:02] TR: Sorry. We're talking about weddings. Is anybody getting married here?

[00:16:07] AH: I don't think so.

[00:16:09] TR: Eminently? No?

[00:16:10] AH: Why, do you have something for us? 

[00:16:11] TR: I just want to make sure it wasn't a tough subject that we walked into. You're talking about planning a wedding, Alex. We talked earlier about Sundi's boyfriend.

[00:16:20] AH: I did see a great TikTok about the exact thing Sundi was talking about recently, about a hack to pay less for your wedding, where it was just like, don't send the headcount of the amount of RSVPs – the amount of the invitations, because not that many people will RSVP yes.

[00:16:39] SM: Or something. I mean, I really didn't think it applied to weddings, but definitely for meetups. Whenever we go back in person to things, although I don't know about meetups going back in person, but I don’t know. The Elixir meetup community space has been really cool in that we've all been joining each other's meetups all across the globe, basically. I think, consistently at the DC Elixir meetup, it's become a thing where I'm like, “All right, who's the farthest away? Who's winning today?” It's almost always somebody on the other side of the globe. I think last time, it was Japan. That was cool. Somebody really wanted to listen to the talk, and they got up at 8 in the morning to attend. Mind-blown.

[00:17:22] AH: This was 8 in the morning. That's not terrible.

[00:17:25] TR: Yeah. I feel like, there's people in Central Europe that are up at ungodly hours, sometimes for these North American meetups.

[00:17:34] AH: Jonathan definitely is, because he just doesn’t sleep.

[00:17:38] SM: We talked to Jonathan this season. I think, one of the things like, yes, live book, amazing. He blew us away with that, and then blew us away with the fact that he always goes to bed super late, like 4 a.m., 5 a.m. We attributed it to college student life, but I feel like, that's probably just a natural habitat situation.

[00:17:57] TR: Okay. Well, he's keeping American hours, I guess.

[00:18:03] SM: It’s probably a little later than American hours.

[00:18:08] TR: Yeah. Okay. I guess, I think about whenever I work on hex stuff, the other two contributors are in Central Europe. It is eight hours ahead of me. Usually, by the time of day when I'm ready to start looking at it, I look at my clock and see what time it is there and I'm like, “Okay. Yeah, I won't be hearing back from them till tomorrow.” Sometimes I do, but most times, yeah.

[00:18:33] AH: Yeah. Again, time zones.

[00:18:35] TR: Time zones. Yeah. Do you know the history of time zones?

[00:18:39] AH: I don't know the history of time zones.

[00:18:40] SM: I do.

[00:18:41] TR: Okay, Sundi does.

[00:18:44] SM: Unless it's not this. What I was told was like a normalization that came from trains going across country and needing to have the – if your delivery was coming at this time, to coordinate when things were coming on and off the tracks. Then, there was a time on the train, too.

[00:19:02] TR: Oh, train time. Yeah, that sounds familiar. It makes sense, right? Before mechanized travel, it really didn’t make any sense to have a time zone, because you were never talking to anybody that would have been in a different time zone.

[00:19:16] AH: It would have taken you so long that your body would have adjusted naturally, so it wouldn't have mattered.

[00:19:22] SM: I'll see if I can find the video on this. If I can, I'll link it in the show notes. I worked at a travel startup that unfortunately no longer exists. We did lunch and learns and this one was a pre-recorded lunch and learn/maybe just promo material. I'm not sure. They did the whole history of time zones and the train thing. I remember watching it, just not as onboarding, but kind of in my first few weeks. It was it was a while ago. I remember being fascinated and then not really understanding that I was about to really launch myself into time zone programming math, because I worked for a travel company.

[00:19:58] AH: This makes me want to say, train travel is great. If you have the opportunity to travel by train, everybody, do it. Also, I would love to play Ticket to Ride right now. Now I've got that, I'm thinking about that. Great game. Overarching theme, trains are great.

[00:20:16] TR: Train life. Got it.

[00:20:18] EO: While looking up railway time, I discovered that time was normally determined in each town by a local sundial, which is so different.

[00:20:27] AH: We don’t know how to read a sundial. Sundials always make me think of Hercules, because there's a scene where they go to Thebes and the guy pops out with a jacket and he's like, “Hey, Mac. Anybody want to buy a sundial?”

[00:20:40] SM: In exactly that accent.

[00:20:43] AH: I think about it all the time.

[00:20:45] SM: Also, it's another way that people pronounce my name. Yeah, they just straight up look at me. Alex is looking at me incredulously right now.

[00:20:54] AH: They call you sundial?

[00:20:55] SM: Uh-huh. They just manifest ial at the end.

[00:20:58] AH: That is the definition of giving up.

[00:21:05] SM: I don't think I've ever seen Alex's – I wish we could. I wish this was video right now.

[00:21:09] AH: That's so atrocious.

[00:21:12] SM: I will say, that it's a rare thing in the Elixir community to have somebody say my name wrong. I do appreciate that this podcast has given me a space to say my name correctly. I will throw that out there. ElixirConf was very smooth sailing. No one said my name wrong.

[00:21:28] AH: I'm never going to get over sundial. That's wild to me. I'm sorry, Sundi. That's so cruel.

[00:21:34] SM: That’s all right. I'll toss you back to give you your bearings again. You want to talk about Dune memes?

[00:21:39] AH: Yeah, I want to talk about Dune memes. Because, again, Todd on the Twitter, seen you on the Twitter. You tweeted some stuff about Dune. I would love to know your overarching opinions of the movie. I've never read the book. Then also, what are your favorite Dune memes?

[00:21:57] TR: Oh, man.

[00:21:58] AH: We can link a few in our script that I'm sure we can post for everybody as well.

[00:22:03] TR: Yeah. Here's my history of Dune. Dune was made into a TV movie, that came out in ’84, or ’85, I believe. I distinctly remember it being on one night, Friday night, maybe. I think, was probably a Friday night or a Saturday night. I was waiting for my friend's mom to pick me up, so that we could go to the roller-skating rink. I remember thinking, “Man, when will she get here? This movie is so bad.” I'll never think of Dune and not think about going to the rollerdrome.

That was the first and last time I ever watched anything from Dune, until the South Park episode came out with Tom Brady, where they talked about the Spice Melange, and I realized that was a Dune reference. Yeah, Dune to me is roller-skating rink and Tom Brady episode of South Park. That's basically it for me. Sorry.

[00:23:00] AH: I love that. That's a better opinion than I was hoping for, honestly. It's just other references.

[00:23:08] TR: Is that a hot take?

[00:23:10] AH: I think so. Are you a good roller skater, Todd?

[00:23:12] TR: No. Not like Mickey or anything. I know how to roller skate. I can ice skate. I can roller skate, but not really well, or anything like that. It's just something I know how to do, I guess.

[00:23:24] SM: Yeah. Mickey was putting together a roller-skating ElixirConf after-party situation.

[00:23:30] AH: That's awesome.

[00:23:33] SM: That I was thinking – I was just really scared of hurting myself. Then, having to fly back with a sprained ankle or something. Then also, having to skate on team, people who would be mad at me for roller skating.

[00:23:48] TR: Roller skating is fun and all. I love Mickey, but I just go wherever [inaudible 00:23:53] is going at conferences. I know that there's going to be something fun. I just follow them.

[00:23:59] SM: Mickey, if you're listening, we told him to say that, because he's on the Elixir Wizards Podcast.

[00:24:05] AH: What if [inaudible 00:24:05] rented out a roller rink?

[00:24:09] TR: If he rented a roller rink and invited me to come, I would go.

[00:24:12] AH: Awesome.

[00:24:13] TR: I don't even care where it would be. Even if he rented it out somewhere far away, I would get a plane ticket. I would go there.

[00:24:21] AH: I've only ever learned how to rollerblade.

[00:24:24] TR: I would go to Washington, but then I would be in the wrong place.

[00:24:27] SM: Stay in DC.

[00:24:27] AH: There’s no roller rinks in DC.

[00:24:30] SM: No, but a lot of the ice rinks will remove the ice and turn it into a roller rink.

[00:24:36] AH: There's an outdoor public roller rink in Maryland, on the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. That’s just pretty cool.

[00:24:43] SM: Also, yeah, the rink that I skate will remove the ice and turn it into a roller rink, which is also in Maryland.

[00:24:51] AH: I used to go to Friday night skate in elementary school, which I guess, it's not really weird, because I never had hover parents. Thinking back then, it's like, yeah, most of my nine-year-olds go hang out with some middle and high schoolers at the roller rink. I don't know what they were doing. We used to play red light, green light on our roller skates. It was awesome. It was just kids just flying everywhere.

[00:25:18] SM: I did this all middle school, but sub roller skates for ice skates, because I was practicing five times a week, I just couldn't get enough of the ice rink. I was still there with my friends on Fridays.

[00:25:29] TR: When I was a kid, every 10th, 12th song was couple skate. It would be a ballad song, and then it would just be for couples. Is this universal? Or is this just where I was?

[00:25:41] AH: I think, they did that at the roller rink that I went to, but it was different, because it would have been 2000 to 2003. I don't know what the couple skate would have looked like, but I do remember them playing slow songs.

[00:25:57] SM: We had nothing slow. Absolutely nothing. It was like –

[00:26:00] AH: How do you couple skate. Do you just link arms?

[00:26:04] TR: See, that's the trick. This was a lot of stress when I was a kid. Because the couple skate – to really do it right, one of you has to skate backwards and one of you skate forward. It was like, as a guy, you have to learn how to skate backwards, because if you ask somebody to couple skate and you don't know how to skate backwards, it's embarrassing. It's like asking a woman to dance and then not being able to lead, and then she's leading. Which is fine. I mean, whatever. Traditionally, it's not cool. It was a big stressor. You have to learn how to skate backwards, so that you can ask your girl to couple skate. Then she would always be like, “Can you skate backwards?” A qualifier, whether she would say yes or no.

[00:26:49] SM: That's so fun. I mean, probably stressful for you. I'm sorry. That's just a fun concept to me. Mostly, because at my Friday, figure skating, hang out things with my friends, they always spent at least 30 minutes asking me to teach them how to skate backwards. Not for pair skating purposes. Just, they wanted to know how to go backwards and how to stop. Usually, everyone just ran into the wall. That's how they stopped. Or another person, usually.

[00:27:17] AH: Yeah. I was going to say, the running into the wall, I like, vivid. It's just a cinder block barrier. You're like, “I'm going full speed. Can’t stop. Crap.” Whack into it. I don't know how to stop on rollerblades. Or, which is the only one I don't know how to skate. I only know how to blade. I don't know how to stop.

[00:27:37] SM: Which one is the four and which one is the full row of wheels?

[00:27:41] AH: Row is a blade. The two and two is a skate.

[00:27:47] EO: All the rollerblades I had as a kid had, I think, one or both of the feet, you just tilted back and it had a little rubber stopper that left a big skid mark.

[00:27:58] SM: They make now, I've actually been looking at them. I just don't have anywhere to use them. They now make figure skates with rollerblade wheels, but the boot is actually a figure skate. You could remove the blades and put a figure skate blade on and get on the ice. They're really cool-looking. I think, they're called off-ice skates. It looks to me like office skates, which whatever works. They look so cool.

I've always said that falling on the ice is way less painful than falling on gravel, or a tennis court, or anything. Because you can't rip your knee open on ice. Not really. Yeah, so it looks way more dangerous on the ground. It looks really cool for somebody who can't get to an ice rink, because it feels the same. You can spin, you can jump, you can do all the edges correctly. Yeah, it's wild. It's a whole thing. I went in hard on Instagram, Alex. I’ll have to send it to you. They're all there.

[00:28:52] AH: The idea of Office skates, which I love that – that would be what my brain does, too. I just picture a heelie. If you could heelie around an office like, “I got to go to the kitchen,” and then you zoom over.

[00:29:05] SM: I may or may not have worked somewhere that was like that. Everyone's skateboarded to meetings. That was the thing. No one got injured somehow. Todd, I wanted to ask you, because you did have some amazing notes here in our little script. What was your favorite episode from the season? Just rapid shift.

[00:29:27] TR: Okay. Well, my favorite was the first Brooklyn, until I heard the second Brooklyn.

[00:29:33] SM: We did have two Brooklyns this season.

[00:29:35] TR: Yeah. Well, they're both Canadian, I guess.

[00:29:39] SM: Myers. Brooklin Myers and Brooklyn Zelenka.

[00:29:41] TR: Yeah. Brooklyn Zelenka is like, one of my favorite humans. I would watch her talk about just about anything. She's just so smart. She has, I don’t know, I feel like, a perspective. She looks at things from such a different angle. If anybody's ever seen her talks, you Look at how well designed her slides are. You're like, “Oh, my God. These are the most amazingly designed slides.” She designs all of that stuff. She has that brain that can be really artistic.

Then, I feel like, she looks at math, these mathy things through that same lens that most people just can't work both sides of their brains so well. I just really admire her for that. I also like Brooklyn, the other Brooklyn from teaching Elixir. I think what he's doing is really, really cool. I like the candidness of how he’s learning in public.

[00:30:39] AH: How did you learn Elixir, Todd? how did you find it?

[00:30:42] TR: I don't know how I originally found it. That's a good question. When I started working at Weedmaps, we had a couple people that were interested in moving things over to Elixir. It just happened to fall into my path at work there. We also had a really good meetup, where I was living at the time, that taught Elixir. Had some experienced people that were able to really – the way they organized the meetup is like, the first meetup was bare bones. We assume you know nothing and taught beginners on up for a whole year. That worked out pretty well. Yeah, I don't remember how I first heard about it. That's a good question.

[00:31:24] AH: Yeah, because me and Sundi's was just by accident.

[00:31:27] SM: Yeah. You do what the job asks of you. Every once in a while, you get a gem, like Elixir.

[00:31:34] TR: Indeed.

[00:31:35] SM: We heard a lot of different people talking about what their hopes for Elixir were. I think, a common thing that we heard. I think, we heard it in Brooklyn Myers episode, a lot was – and Sigu also, possibly. I'm trying to remember. They're all blending together in my head. The whole concept of, we really hope at some point, Elixir can be someone who's learning to be an engineer, for them to have that as their first language. Did you agree, disagree, vibe with that sentiment, Todd?

[00:32:04] TR: I mean, I think that would be cool. I mean, there definitely are people who Elixir is their first language for out there. I think that is nice. I think, there's benefits of coming from other languages as well, though. I think, it's important to have a good perspective on things to know how other languages do things in order to appreciate the differences as well. I'm not so concerned about how people get to where they're going, as much as anything about just that they get there. Yeah. I think, it's nice to have resources for that. I would say realistically, there's probably a lot more TypeScript jobs than there are Elixir jobs.

If you're somebody who's looking to get into the programming space, professionally at least, studying Elixir might be fun, but I probably study another language along with it just as a backup plan. There's a lot more Elixir jobs this year than there were last year and a lot more than the year before that. I feel like, if you know TypeScript, you probably have a lot more opportunities there.

[00:33:11] SM: If that's the case, what would your biggest hope for the future of Elixir be?

[00:33:16] TR: Yeah. I mean, I would like to bring people in from different communities and new people in general that are interested in programming. I think, what Bruce Tate is doing with Grok CO, and what Brooklyn's doing. Then, there's a bunch of content on YouTube and stuff. I think, that's really great to bring new people in. I think, one thing that's been really cool about the Elixir community is that diversity and how welcoming everybody is. Maybe it's because it's a small community still, but I feel there's other small communities. I won't mention specific names, but they're seen as maybe not as beginner-friendly, and the maintainers aren't necessarily as polite, and their goals aren't made as obvious as Elixir is.

If we keep that up, then we'll keep getting more diverse people, people from other backgrounds, people that have maybe thought that they were going to quit programming, because the community they were in was so toxic, that find a home in Elixir. I think, there's other languages that are really welcoming, too. I think, Rust is probably a good example of that as well, of a small a niche community.

[00:34:29] SM: The crab is so cute. I'm trying to do a crab. Oh, I guess I am making it at your talking too much sound, or face with my hands. I'm trying to imitate a crab.

[00:34:38] TR: That's how I interpret it, Sundi.

[00:34:41] SM: Sorry.

[00:34:42] TR: Micro-aggressions. Yeah, I hope we can keep having fun events. Our online meetups have been great, because there have been people from every country known to man so far that have joined us. That feels good about it. Hopefully, more people will make it their second, or third programming language, and make it the one that feels like home to them.

[00:35:07] AH: I love that. All of it first off, but I do love that and talking about one of the special things about the language is the community and how welcoming it is. Sundi trying to do the crab and you thought she was essentially telling you to be quiet. What a great ironic moment happening.

[00:35:29] SM: I feel like, I do this a lot, where I'm trying to do one thing and people just totally take it in another direction and I'm just being silly. Or they’re like, “Why are you being rude?” I’m sorry. Oh, no. I'm a little red right now.

[00:35:47] AH: Same. But it's because I'm in the car. Yeah.

[00:35:51] TR: You're definitely not red, Alex. You're one of the most pale outdoor people I've ever seen.

[00:35:59] AH: Thank you. It's because it's not the summer time. I've been getting better about wearing sunscreen.

[00:36:04] SM: Amazing. I've actually been picturing Alex in red, in the sense that I've been calling her, where in the world is Alex Housand in the same way? It's like, where in the world is Carmen San Diego, who wears red coat and red hat? Yeah. We have a nice collection of Alex emojis. If an Alex, Carmen San Diego one appears, you know where it came from?

[00:36:25] AH: It would be cool to own a giant –

[00:36:28] SM: Floppy red hat.

[00:36:29] AH: Red coat. I don't think I would get much use out of it. Like at Halloween would be –

[00:36:39] SM: Yeah. Except for sometimes in DC, not Washington. We have very hot Halloweens. You never know. I actually tried to be Carmen San Diego a few years ago, and it was too hot. That's the red coat. It’s too hot.

[00:36:53] AH: That is very true.

[00:36:54] SM: Todd, there was another thing that we heard a few times this season that I think it was something like, learning Elixir changed the way that people looked at programming in general and maybe in other languages as well. Do you similarly have a thought about that vibe?

[00:37:11] TR: I think that functional programming definitely has an effect on that. I was a Ruby programmer for, I think seven years, maybe, full-time. I haven't done it for four years now at all. One of my projects that Jackpocket is making – pulling out Elixir services from a Ruby monolith. I'm finding myself in the Ruby codebase. Man, I don't know how people live like that anymore. I know, it used to make a lot of sense to me, but now just be being used to the functional paradigm, it just seems so much simpler than this object-oriented paradigm, where side effects everywhere and you don't know where this thing is being said, if it's some magical Rails thing, or if it's some monkey patch thing that's in this app, or what?

No, but I think definitely learning a functional language, whether it's Elixir or something else, it definitely changes the way you think about things. Then, Elixir and Erlang specifically on the virtual machine definitely has a set of primitives that are built for certain tasks, and no pun intended. I think that the way you would solve a problem in the BEAM is definitely different than the way you would look at a problem in Ruby, or some other language, I think, because of that.

[00:38:28] AH: Yeah. I think that's fair. It has an impact. What I'm thinking about is when you learn a new language, not a programming language, learning how to speak in that language’s patterns can affect the way you speak in English sometimes, where you try and put verbs and nouns in different orders, because your brain is starting to think in different ways.

[00:38:51] TR: Yeah. I've definitely seen some examples of people programming what I call Elixir on Rails, which is like, I'm a Rails programmer and I'm going to start using Elixir. Then, you see all these patterns that are like, you're reaching for things that exists in MRI that don't exist in Elixir, and you're not reaching for the things that exists in the BEAM because of that. What I think is natural. That's the natural progression of things. Hopefully, you move beyond that at some point.

[00:39:18] AH: Yeah. I think, that switching can be hard, too. When you start to get used to these other ways, and then you try to go backwards and you're like, “I don't remember. What do I do now?” I know, I personally deal with it often. There was something recently that I was trying to debug. I think, I had to ask you, Eric. I was so frustrated. I couldn't figure it out. I was doing something in Flutter, not Elixir. I was trying to console log something. I had print, or maybe it was in Elixir. I don't remember. The printer pop-up kept opening on my laptop and I was like, “What am I doing wrong here?”

[00:39:57] EO: Yeah. You were doing Flutter for a while, and then you switched to some JavaScript and just started doing print. You're like, “This keeps popping up. I have no idea why.”

[00:40:07] AH: I was like, “What's going on? What have I done?”

[00:40:12] TR: Wow. That could be pretty frustrating, but it's a good way to debug, as long as you have a printer.

[00:40:19] AH: Exactly. As long as I have a connected printer, which I do have now because of the pandemic.

[00:40:26] EO: Can we get everyone a teletype machine, so it just prints out one line at a time for your actual console? Yeah, for your actual console log. Dot matrix. [Inaudible 00:40:39].

[00:40:39] AH: Absolutely. Absolutely can do that.

[00:40:43] EO: Tear off the side.

[00:40:46] AH: I know that overarching theme of the season was impact of Elixir. Todd, what's the – Do you have a personal impact that Elixir has had on you? Besides working and having a job and things like that.

[00:40:58] TR: Yeah. I mean, I hate to come back to the community thing. The community's made a big difference to me. I've been able to meet a lot of cool people, like Yair and you people. Do things, like organize this conference and everything. I think, that's pretty cool. Get involved in the open-source side of the community as well with hex stuff and Elixir stuff. I mean, it's made my programming life a lot happier. Made me feel like, yeah, part of a community instead of just somebody that does this.

[00:41:33] SM: We talked about this, I think, in our – even our season premiere, about you can have a job and do the things that you do for your job. Then, you can have a career and do things that work towards your greater career goals and how at the side of that, or tangentially, there's potentially a community involved with what you are doing. It doesn't necessarily mean just because you have a job, you're in a community. Or just because you have a job, you have a career path. We talked about the dynamics of that.

I at least feel like our community involvement recently, or just in general has given me at least a sense of purpose for all three of those things, which is nice, which I hope a lot of people in the Elixir community get for themselves as well, community-wise. I know that I see this note here, Todd, you had for one of your biggest hopes for Elixir being more ad hoc Toucan parties. I'm all for it. Hit me up anytime. Instant Toucan party.

[00:42:33] TR: Yeah, that was a great example, I think, of I don't know who started that. Was that Quinn, or Dave that started the idea?

[00:42:40] SM: It was Quinn and Dave, who wanted to just hang out. They just wanted to have a chat. We all butted in and said, “All right. How about you chat with everyone in the Elixir community everywhere?”

[00:42:50] TR: Yeah. You turned it into a whole thing. Then, I don't know how many people showed up. Like 50?

[00:42:56] SM: 40 something. Yeah.

[00:42:58] TR: Yeah. I mean, and that was on one day – pretty much one day's notice.

[00:43:02] SM: 24 hours of planning.

[00:43:04] TR: Yeah. I think, that was awesome. It was really cool to see – It's always cool to have an excuse to talk to those people, because especially nowadays, we're all spread out. Even people that work together necessarily in the same office, or same city anymore.

[00:43:20] SM: Same country.

[00:43:21] TR: Or country. Yeah, it's nice to have a good excuse to get together and bounce around. I've met a few cool people this year on Toucan, that who knows if I would have ever met otherwise.

[00:43:35] AH: I know that for the Wizards Conference last summer, we met Florian Craft. I'm mispronouncing his name, and not pronouncing it in the German way. Would not have met him otherwise. Got to hang out with him on Toucan, and then got to have him on the podcast. It was great.

[00:43:50] TR: Yeah. I'll shout out the Elixir Wizards Conference as well. I met a guy by the name of Bill, Bill Tian, who's in Switzerland.

[00:43:59] SM: Who has the most amazing photos of Swiss countryside all the time. I usually think it's a painting, and then I realized, Bill posted it. I'm like, “No, it's his front yard.”

[00:44:10] TR: Yeah, this is his actual life. It’s like, the sound of music every day. It's like, “Oh, no. I’m just walking my dog.” Yeah, I think Bruce follows him. You follow him now. I think, we all probably first met him at the Elixir Wizards Conference. Yeah, I mean, just seeing those pictures brings joy to me whenever I get to see him. That's been a real blessing. Hopefully, he's listening. Shout out. Keep the pictures going.

[00:44:37] AH: Yeah. Invite us all to Switzerland.

[00:44:39] SM: Yes, please. Yeah. I think, obviously for me, at least the impact of Elixir is 100 percent in the community. I have never been so happy in a tech job, because I don't even – it rules so seamlessly between my life and the career and the community that I was talking about earlier. The balance is probably the best I've ever had. I really appreciate it. I mean, I'm sure you can find that in other languages, but I found it to be really good for here. Especially, I've proven it against two jobs now. Yeah.

[00:45:09] TR: Your last job was at Kappa, right?

[00:45:11] SM: Mm-hmm. Mine and Alex.

[00:45:14] TR: And Alex. We just finally got one in my town.

[00:45:18] SM: Oh, yeah. The Colorado expansion is happening now. So excited for you.

[00:45:24] AH: Yeah. I’m excited for you.

[00:45:25] TR: All right. I’m going to have to go over there some time. What do you recommend?

[00:45:29] AH: I personally love the roasted vegetables.

[00:45:33] SM: Harissa honey chicken for me. Or is it honey harissa chicken? I always mix those up.

[00:45:40] AH: It's the same.

[00:45:41] SM: I mean, you order it, they'll get it right, but I always word the wrong order.

[00:45:45] AH: The garlic dressing, if they have it, it’s just like [inaudible 00:45:48].

[00:45:49] SM: We used to eat it in bowls, when they were doing test kitchen stuff. We would just be sitting there eating it with chips, like dip.

[00:45:59] TR: You had a test kitchen at the office.

[00:46:00] SM: I mean, we had a chef's kitchen and the chefs would come in and test food. However you describe that. A kitchen. Who also really loved that test kitchen. Alex's dog, Bean.

[00:46:14] AH: That sneaky, sneaky little dog. She’d come to work with me on Fridays, every once in a while, I would look down and she wouldn’t be there. I’m going to be like, “I bet she's in the kitchen.” She would just be circling the kitchen island, waiting for somebody to drop something. Every once in a while, there would be days when they would be testing out a new meatball recipe and Bean was just like, “Yeah, I’m going to get to eat meatballs.”

[00:46:40] SM: Yeah. I always appreciated that. She followed Alex around a lot, but she also followed her chefs around a lot, too. Yeah, she knew the chefs. She'd be the keeper of the food.

[00:46:51] AH: Which I would like to say, not unique to Kappa.

[00:46:55] TR: Wasn't there a trope, The Muppet Show back in the day, where the Swedish Chef would always get chased around by the dog, Rolf or something?

[00:47:04] AH: Yeah. There was. Fringa-dinga. I love the Swedish Chef. Yeah, a continuing theme in my life is chatting with Eric on Monday mornings. He's like, “What did Bean get into over the weekend?” There's usually an answer. The most recent thing that she got into was a – she got into an entire – almost an entire bag of calming treats with hemp extract. She had to have eaten 20 of them, because she finished the bag. I had to call the vet, and was like, “What do I do?” They said, “She'll be fine. She weighs 70 pounds.” She was just calmer, a little bit. A little bit.

[00:47:42] EO: Your vet also said that, if she doesn't calm down from this, then you know not to buy it again. I guess, you don't eat it.

[00:47:52] SM: Oh, my gosh. I was just about to ask Eric like, what's the best answer you've heard on a Monday morning? I think, that probably takes the cake.

[00:47:58] AH: I don't know, man.

[00:48:00] EO: Yeah, I think that and then it's usually just bags of potato chips that she's knocked down, or pies, or yeah. Was there a pizza?

[00:48:13] AH: Oh, there was a pizza. She ate five-eighths of a Detroit style pizza, which was incredible, because the box was on the kitchen counter and the pizza was on parchment paper in the box. The box was undisturbed. She had managed to pull the pizza and the parchment paper out of the box and ate the pizza on the floor, box against on the counter. Did it silently.

[00:48:37] SM: A ninja, that one.

[00:48:39] AH: She's horrible, but I do love her very much.

[00:48:43] SM: For anyone who was at ElixirConf and got to stop by the SmartLogic table, this would be the dog sticker that we were handing out along with our rooster and our cat sticker, but the dog is Bean. The invincible Bean, who eats everything.

[00:48:57] TR: Okay, my kids like that one.

[00:49:00] AH: She's a cutie. She also just recently celebrated her birthday. She turned four-years-old. She's also a very big fan of the prairie dogs.

[00:49:11] SM: Oh, no.

[00:49:15] AH: Yeah. Would love to chase them.

[00:49:18] SM: Please get a video. If you can, I’ll put it in the show notes somehow.

[00:49:23] AH: She’s just like, “Huh, hoo, hoo. Do you guys see that? Do you guys see that? Look at that thing.” All the time.

[00:49:28] SM: Eric. Alex, you both had talked about the impact Elixir has had on you earlier, at the beginning of the season. Has it changed at all since we've gone through the season? Or is it more or less the same?

[00:49:44] AH: It's an excellent question, Sundi. I think, more or less, mine is the same. I think, something that I think, it's Elixir and also just SmartLogic, is I feel like, over the past month, I've had the opportunity to do a lot of personal growth and development, learning about deployment and things like that. Both. I feel like, when I've run into problems, the resources that I have found, and online in the Elixir community have been very helpful. I think similarly, the community is still just the top for me. 

[00:50:19] EO: Yeah. Probably similar. I haven't done too terribly much Elixir since we started. Been getting more into the weeds of learning management and whatnot. Yeah, Elixir specific things has been put on hold, but I'm still in small, different Elixir communities and whatnot. Yeah.

[00:50:43] SM: Cool. Todd, any other final thoughts on the impact that Elixir has had on you, or the community, or anything along those lines?

[00:50:53] TR: I don't think I have anything else to add.

[00:50:55] AH: Except to submit your talks for your conference.

[00:51:00] TR: Yes. That's a future impact. That's going to impact future Todd, if you don't submit your talks. Submit your talks.

[00:51:08] EO: And buy our tickets.

[00:51:09] TR: Get the tickets to EMPEX. Empex.co.

[00:51:13] AH: Empex.co to impact future Todd.

[00:51:16] TR: I mean, it's going to impact me either way. It's just a matter of positive or negative.

[00:51:24] SM: Yeah, that's true. We don't talk too much about the fact that impact can be negative or positive. On the positive note, I wanted to say that Todd, just overall, we've heard through the community that you're a wonderful presence. Everyone loves your talks, your tweets, your jokes. You're a positive impact on the community. We thank you for being here. Not just on the podcast, but in general.

[00:51:45] TR: Oh, for being alive. I'll let my parents know.

[00:51:49] SM: All right. Thank you for relaying that for me.

[00:51:52] TR: Thank you. It's my pleasure. I enjoy meeting everyone. I hope that I add joy to people's lives.

[00:51:59] AH: You're adding joy to my life right now. 

[00:52:00] TR: That's good.

[00:52:02] AH: We've really gone all over the place here, you guys. Talking about trains. I had another thought about trains, but I can't remember it now. I guess, that's it.

[00:52:10] TR: We've almost not talked about programming at all.

[00:52:16] AH: I hope everybody has enjoyed this final episode, where we don't talk about Elixir.

[00:52:22] TR: This is Elixir Outlaws if you don't talk about programming.

[00:52:24] SM: I will say, we follow the Outlaw outline to a tee. Or we talk about nothing for the first 30 minutes, and then talk about Elixir.

[00:52:31] EO: Wait. What did everyone's kids have for breakfast?

[00:52:34] AH: Bean, who is my child, had dog food.

[00:52:38] SM: This one that I'm holding right now, cat named Marvel, had cat food, and maybe some bone marrow.

[00:52:45] EO: Mine had milk and Belvita, which is his current thing. He likes to leave all four stacked on a table and then he dips his head down and eats it without using his hands.

[00:53:01] SM: Like a bird.

[00:53:01] EO: Yeah.

[00:53:02] SM: I like it. This tracks.

[00:53:05] TR: This is a human baby that you're talking about?

[00:53:07] EO: Correct. Yes. He sits in his chair, he drinks his milk, and then he eats his little crackers. Sometimes he'll pick up all four and eat them at once. Or he'll put them down and eat off the table like a little puppy. You know, what else does a less than two-year-old supposed to do?

[00:53:29] TR: Makes sense. I mean, you guys have a lot of animals around the house. Probably mirroring what he sees.

[00:53:37] AH: Before you know it, he's going to start nibbling on lettuce, like the guinea pigs.

[00:53:42] EO: No. He's not quite into that yet.

[00:53:44] SM: Into vegetables yet?

[00:53:45] EO: Oh, he'll eat vegetables, but not leafy things. Probably shouldn't actually say this, but we have [inaudible 00:53:52] out on a fireplace mantel thing. He's stuck his head before. They were empty, but he sure didn’t mind eating cat food.

[00:54:04] SM: Amazing.

[00:54:07] AH: Gross. I don't know. Kids are gross, but they’re great.

[00:54:11] EO: Kids are gross. Yeah.

[00:54:14] SM: It has been an absolute joy speaking to you, Todd, and also, to everyone on this season. It's just been so rewarding to talk to people about why Elixir has been important to them, how it's changed their life a little bit, or impacted their work at all. Thank you, Todd, for being here.

[00:54:33] AH: Yeah. Thank you, Todd.

[00:54:34] TR: It's my pleasure.

[00:54:35] AH: It is our pleasure to have you on. That's it, everybody, for this final episode of Season 7 of Elixir Wizards. Thank you again, Todd Resudek for joining us today.

Elixir Wizards is a SmartLogic production. Today's hosts include myself, Alex Housand, and my co-host Sundi Myint and Eric Oestrich. Our producer is Bonnie Lander and our executive producer is Rose Burt. Here at SmartLogic, we build custom web and mobile software, and we are always looking to take on new projects. We work in Elixir, Rails and React, Kubernetes and more.

If you need a piece of custom software built, hit us up. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a review. Follow @smartlogic on Twitter for news and episode announcements and you can also join us on the Elixir Wizards Discord. Just head on over to the podcast page to find the link. Thank you for joining us this season on the impact of Elixir.

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