Well folks the technology conference and computer events are coming upon us. Many events are in planning and several have been officially announced.
Here is just a short list of officially announced events and links to their websites. Save this link if you want. As I hear of new events I’ll make sure to update this blog post to add them. Most of these events are in the “Heartland District” as defined by Microsoft which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Being that I live close to Indiana I have added events in that area as well.
UPDATE: 02/27/2009 - Added prices for events, Kalamazoo X Conference and Atlanta Code Camp.
UPDATE: 04/05/2009 - Added Lansing, Ann Arbor and Cleveland Day of .Net.
UPDATE: 05/05/2009 - Added Chicago Code Camp
March 2009
Atlanta Code Camp 2009 - Lawrenceville, GA - March 14th, 2009 (Free)
April 2009
West Michigan .NET University - Grand Rapids, MI - April 4th, 2009 (Free)
Central Ohio Day of .Net - Wilmington, OH - April 18th, 2009 (Free)
Kalamazoo X Conference - Kalamazoo, MI - April 25th, 2009 (Free)
May 2009
IndyCodeCamp - Indianapolis, IN - May 16th, 2009 (Free)
Chicago Code Camp - Grayslake, IL - May 30th, 2009 (Free)
June 2009
CodeStock - Knoxville, TN - June 26th - 27th, 2009 ($25.00)
July 2009
NO EVENTS
August 2009
Lansing Day of .Net - Lansing, MI - August 1st, 2009 (Free)
DevLink - Nashville, TN - August 13th - 15th, 2009 ($75.00)
September 2009
NO EVENTS
October 2009
IndyTechFest - Indianapolis, IN - October ??, 2009 (Free)
Ann Arbor Day of .Net - Ann Arbor, MI - October ??, 2009 (Free)
November 2009
NO EVENTS
Unannounced Events - Expected to be held this year but date unknown
Cleveland Day of .Net - Cleveland, OH (Free)
This year was a great conference and it was cool to see it expand to a two day event. This I noticed seems to be a trend. Last year the conference / event schedule was saturated with what seemed like events almost every weekend the last year. This year there are far less but the ones that are there have expanded to be much larger. My personal view is that this is a better deal. It’s tiring and hard on developers with families to haul off every other weekend for events.
Thursday I jumped in the car and hit the road from Ohio to Tennessee. Out of all the long drives I have ever done the I75 drive to Knoxville has to be my favorite. The scenery, once you get out of Ohio, is very interesting and I love mountain diving. It can be a bit scary at times whipping around the curves and racing down the road at unsafe driving speeds, yet so thrilling and fun!
I rolled into Knoxville around 5:30pm and right to the lovely and lushes La Quinta. All jokes aside the La Quinta is actually a very nice hotel. They do a very good job keeping the place clean and it’s dirt cheap. With my AAA discount I snagged a double room for 53/night + tax. Extra special thanks to Dean Weber (@deanweber) for splitting the room with me. Made the whole trip even more affordable and fun having a roomie!
The unofficial pre-conf party was at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza place. We managed to take over the entire patio area and then some. It was an awesome time and it great to finally meet many of the #TwitterTribe in person for once.
Friday morning came around very quickly and we headed over to the conference. I figured we were getting there early but the line was already a mile long. My personal opinion would be to get it broken into multiple lines sorted by name to help keep the flow moving a bit better.
Alan Stevens ran the opening keynote, if you could call it that, since it was really what had to be the largest open spaces opening circle I had every seen!
I attended mostly open spaces but also did a few eyes front presentations. Honestly I’m not really here to comment on them. A recap for those that weren’t there is pointless and for those that were know what happened.
Closing the day out we were all privileged to get to be part of a live taping of DeepFriedBytes Podcast by Chris Woodruff (@cwoodruff) and Keith Elder (@keithelder). Special guests include three microsofties; Josh Holmes (@joshholmes), Brian H. Prince (@brianhprince) and Jeff Blankenburg (@jblankenburg).
After that a group of us hit a local Mexican join for some solid food and then we rolled over to the Official Codestock Social. Ok time to get on my soapbox here. Once again I was very disappointed in many of the core community and speakers. I know it’s a free country and people can do what they want but for all the talk about community I found it very disappointing to see that a group of people decided to have what account to a private pool party at the hotel instead of attending the Social.
The social was a great time and I wish more had attended. I had many great conversations and enjoyed playing video games and board games with many people.
Saturday came way to early once again and I crawled out of bed and drug my butt to the conference. Josh Holmes gave an inspiring talk about “The Lost Art of Simplicity.” This is a must see if you get a chance to see him give it.
I attend a bunch of open spaces and eyes front sessions. The only really exciting one was the introduction to Ruby and Koans by Leon Gersing (@fallenrogue). I had an amazing time learning ruby and getting to hang with a few of the Tribe. Best session bar none!!
Finally the day wrapped with the closing and prize giveaway. The big prize this year was the uber-mega Visual Studio Team System Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription given by Wallace B. McClure (@wbm). This is every developers dream prize and at a retail price of roughly $10,000.00 it’s also way out of the league of most developers. Unfortunately I did not win. Next year I’m going to have to bribe or blackmail someone to get it!
Then a large group of us headed out for dinner and the unofficial after party at Alan Stevens place. The food was fair, I was pretty disappointed in the quality of the prime rib I had but the time spent with my friends more than made up for it.
The after party was helluva good time! I won’t go into great details but there was a bonfire and lots of people having awesome conversations. I drank a few beers and smoked 3 cigars that night. A Rocky Patel Vintage 92, Gran Habano 3 Siglos and a Drew Estate Tabak Especial Cafe Con Leche.
The party winded down around 2:00am and I headed back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep until I would have to drive back to Ohio.
The drive home was bittersweet. It was nice to get back home to my love and to sleep in my own bed, yet I was saddened to once again leave my developer family.
I cannot stress how important it is to be able to spend time with all of the wonderful people I have come to meet and befriend. Working in a job day to day can be great but many times the coworkers you have to deal with are very much what have been termed the 5:01 developer that has no passion or care to attend events of just hang out and talk tech. They turn off at 5:01 and go home for the night. There is very little passion or enthusiasm for their trade and they see it as nothing more than a job to earn a paycheck.
Being able to spend time with the Tribe as we call ourselves is needed to help me recharge and re-energize my passion for the craft.
I look forward to seeing you all at the next event. Thanks for reading!
]]>Evi and the bird from AlanBarber on Vimeo.
My cat Evi gets a bit goofy when she sees birds out the window and makes a strange noise!
]]>Evi going crazy from AlanBarber on Vimeo.
This video was taken the other night. Evi was going nuts running around the room and jumping on furniture. I don’t know what got into her but she was acting crazy.
]]>CodeStock is about Community. For Developers, by Developers (with love for SysAdmins and DBAs too!). Last year an idea started at CodeStock to mix Open Spaces within a traditional conference. This year we’re going to crank things up to 11 and rip off the knob - and you’re being drafted to help!
Space is limited so register today at CodeStock.org
]]>The 2009 IndyCodeCamp was a rousing success once again. David Leininger and the whole crew (sorry I don’t know all your names folks) once again managed to organize and operate a very efficent and informative conference. The The Gene B. Glick Junior Achievement Center is a great location and works very well for the event.
There were many, many great presentations but being only human I was only able to watch five. I’ve found myself being less interested in individual technology presentations. No offence to all the presenter but you can only see so many silverlight and azure presentations before you feel like you’ve seen it all. So, for this event I spent most of my time in track five “Beyond Lines of Code” aka soft skills.
The list of presentations I went to was:
And finally below you can check out all the photos I took at the code camp.
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Evi jumping over my girlfriend from AlanBarber on Vimeo.
My cat Evi jumping over my girlfriend!
I know slightly pointless but i found it very cute watching my cat Evi jump back and forth over my girlfriend Adrianne. Oh and no she was not hurt on that last jump even though it looks like she was 
This is a great video that explains what The United States of America is… a republic! Contrary to popular belief we are a republic and not a democracy. A Republic is representative government ruled by law (the Constitution). A democracy is direct government ruled by the majority (mob rule). A Republic recognizes the inalienable rights of individuals while democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs (the public good).
It’s a sad, sad day but I think it’s clear that we are in transition from the country that the founding fathers had created to one that the majority of the public wants. Politicians no longer think for themselves anymore, they only run polls and surveys of the public to determine what to do.
But it’s not to late. If we educate ourselves and our children we may be able to turn back the tide but we must act now!
]]>This video was created before the election and the warnings and predictions of what would happen if Obama was elected to date have been very close! Watch the video and learn a few things America!
]]>I man not be a brit but this is one smart cookie and he has this Americans support. He knows exactly what is going on and isn’t afraid to cover it up. If half the folks in the US Senate and House would have the balls to say what this guy is saying I might just have some faith in the system.
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