Raible Designs

Life Update: New Job, Same House, and Same Awesome Family!

It's been over eight years since I wrote a life update blog post. At that time (2016), we'd just moved into the "Raible Ranch", the bus was finished, and the kids were in high school. I'd just started one of my few-and-far-between full-time jobs at Stormpath.

Fast-forward to today. Our kids are in college at the University of Colorado during the Coach Prime Era, we're empty nesters with an affection for live music, and our pet zoo is cuter than ever.

You probably know me. But in case you don't, my name is Matt Raible, and I'm married to a fabulous woman named Trish McGinity. She's been a hero in my life ever since I met her in 2010. She dazzled me so much, I asked her to marry me at Versailles in 2011. We married in my hometown (Condon, Montana) in 2013, on the most beautiful lake you've ever seen.

When I met Trish, I was an independent consultant, and she was in cybersecurity sales. On a fateful night in 2010, on a friend Jarvis's birthday, I asked her what she had done for a living. She said, "Have you ever heard of OWASP?"

My heart lifted and I felt a moment of joy. This woman was speaking my language! 14 years later and Oh My!, Trish has had an incredible influence on my life and career.

Happy Birthday, Abbie!

Abbie turns 22 today and is thriving through her senior at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Happy Birthday, kiddo! 🥳

She's enjoying the Coach Prime Era and has even secured a job after she graduates. This summer, Abbie had an internship at Spectrum in DTC. It went so well that she got an offer to be Product Analyst in August and accepted it a few days later. She's living the good life and we're extremely proud of her!

Abbie is also a Dog Mom as of Mother's Day. Her Mom and Grandpa helped make it happen and we got to re-experience the challenge of living with a puppy this summer. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Gracie playfully attack the older dogs on our walks. 😅

Gracie moved in with her cousin when Abbie moved back to school. It's been a bit quieter around here since then. We can't wait to reunite with them over the holidays.

Happy Birthday, Abbie! We love you and your zest for life!! ❤️

Happy Birthday, Jack!

Jack is growing up fast and today marks his 20th birthday. He's a sophomore at CU and loves to play basketball. In early July, we made a trip to Montana where he learned how to wakeboard and took a helicopter ride with Abbie and Baba (my dad).

He amazed us with his perseverance on the basketball court and at the gym this summer. He frequently exercised six hours a day! This could be one of the defining years of his life if he walks on to the CU basketball team. Either way, his dedication to the craft is awe-inspiring. He's in the best shape of his life. I'm impressed!

We believe in you, Jack. Happy Birthday, awesome one! 🖤💛

Farewell to the 2023-2024 Ski Season

This year's ski season was delightful! This was largely due to our acquisition of a new condo in the mountains, lots of free time to ski, and some epic powder days with friends. I achieved 30 days of skiing, with 19 being alpine and 11 being cross-country. The season started for me on October 30 when we got enough snow to go cross-country skiing in our backyard.

We didn't make it up to the mountains for downhill skiing until mid-December. That's when we closed on our condo, nicely coinciding with Trish's birthday weekend.

My Marvelous Road Trip to the Utah JUG

I have many fond memories from speaking at the Utah JUG over the years. I fell in love with Utah when I worked at Overstock in 2011 and experienced the greatest snow on earth. It's wild to reminisce about 2018 too. I spoke at the Denver JUG on Wednesday, then woke up early on Thursday and drove eight hours (through multiple snow storms) and made it 15 minutes before my talk. I lost a windshield wiper in the process and didn't have time to replace it, so it permanently etched a line in the vehicle's windshield. In February 2020, I did a Rocky Mountain JUG tour with Ray Tsang. That's when I learned that Ray is really good at pool.

Because of these experiences, I always jump at the opportunity when I'm invited back. This year, I decided to take my time and do a road trip in my trusty VW Vanagon (Stout) to Utah. I planned to mountain bike in Fruita and Moab along the way, then ski at a couple Utah resorts before returning home.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a storm coming the night before my departure on April 16th. I quickly altered my plans and fell into an 18" powder day at Copper Mountain on Tuesday morning.

A Delightful Trip to Devnexus

Devnexus is one of my favorite conferences in the world. I have many fond memories of attending over the years and some awkward ones, too. My first memory is when Micah Silverman and I worked at a Stormpath booth there in February 2017. Okta had just acquihired us and we weren't allowed to talk about it. We encouraged folks to sign up for our service even though we knew signups would shut down at the end of the week.

It's funny how life comes full circle. My employment with Okta officially ended the week before this year's Devnexus. I tried to cancel my talk when I first got the news, but Vincent and Pratik convinced me to go, and I knew it would be good for networking. I'm glad I did because I had a blast! It all started on Monday, April 8th.

Funemployment 2024

On February 1, I woke up to an unexpected email from my employer.

I laughed out loud at first, then smiled and felt an overwhelming sense of freedom. I went through a wide range of emotions that morning, but despair was never one of them. As a high performer on my team, I did not expect to be laid off. However, looking back over the last several months, there were a few indicators that it might happen.

I quickly realized the bright side of my situation:

1. It was the middle of ski season, and
2. I had nothing to do.

I was laid off on a Thursday morning and was scheduled to leave for Jfokus that Saturday. I was supposed to do a workshop, a talk, and help at the Okta booth. Since my talks used Okta products and it'd be weird to represent a company that just laid you off, I had to back out of the conference. It just didn't feel right.

The reason I had nothing to do is all of the activities I did on my computer were Okta-related. I didn't even have a personal computer. I did all my work on the company laptop and all of my open source contributions had a relationship to my work.

I received many inquiries from my tweet above and my LinkedIn post with the same message. I told everyone I was going to take a couple weeks to process things and skiing was my top priority. I've been unemployed in the past, but I never received any sort of severance, let alone one that lasted for months. I knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Funemployment is the condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. This is my funemployment story.

20 years ago today, I bought a VW Bus

On this day, 20 years ago, I bought a 1996 21-Window VW Bus. That morning, I found the listing on eBay and decided to buy it if the University of Denver (my alma mater) won the national college hockey championship.

Hmmm, if I could buy my dream car today and DU wins the National Championship tonight...

Update: Woooo HOOOOO - DU WON!!! I told myself earlier today that if they won, I'd buy the bus. So w/in 2 minutes of the win, I bought it! What a day. ;-)

10 years ago, it was still being restored.

The project is still progressing and it still feels like it'll be done soon. When I bought the bus 10 years ago, I thought I'd drive it a lot sooner. Then again, my expectation was that I'd incrementally improve it through the years and eventually get to something spectacular. Now we're on the cusp of spectacularity.

On March 7, 2018, Hefe was finally finished! I call him Hefe because it's a short version of Hefeweizen. He's from Germany, and his pain scheme looks like a nicely poured beer.

How it started:	How it's going:

I've driven him around 7000 miles since he was completed. It’s been a wonderful adventure! 🥳

2023 - A Year in Review

2023 started with a celebration of love in the Philippines. Trish and I traveled with friends to El Nido and Manila to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. It was a two-week trip that filled our souls with lasting memories.

2023 was a milestone year for our family. It's the year Jack graduated from high school!

Then, the Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship, Jack started college at CU, and we became empty nesters. It was quite the year!

Goodbye, DU House. Thanks for all the memories!

On the weekend before I joined Stormpath as a full-time employee in 2016, we bought a house in the countryside and moved out of the city. We'd been looking for a while and finally found a place we loved. Trish liked that it was rigged for horses, with two pastures, a barn, and an outdoor riding arena nearby. I was happy because it had six garages, and I wanted a place to store Hefe the Bus now that he was finished. It's a beautiful place, and we're delighted to be here. The sunset dog walks in the backyard are spectacular.

The only downside of moving to the Raible Ranch was we had to sell our mountain views in Fraser to afford it. We tried to sell our house near the University of Denver (DU) for a few months, but it didn't work. We decided to keep it as a rental instead. There was part of me that hoped one of the kids would go to DU (my alma mater) and they could stay there. When Jack started at CU Boulder this fall, we decided it was time to try and sell it again. My favorite feature of the DU house was the sauna my parents and I built in the basement.

We recruited our friend, Michelle Addison, to help us sell it in early September. Not only was she instrumental in making the house look warm and wonderful, she created a bidding war, and we were under contract within days of listing it. We were thrilled! Thanks, Michelle!!

We closed on the DU house last week and are already under contract for a new place in Fraser. We're doing a 1031 exchange, which requires the new home to operate as a rental most of the time. We're excited to have a place in the mountains again! It has mountain and river views and is a short walk to the Fraser River Trail. We're due to close on it in mid-December. I'll make sure and write another post after we move in. 🥳