This
post was to be titled Alabama Code Camp, but after yesterday’s success there are plans
in the pipeline for at least one more Code Camp in

Alabama

. Who would have guessed the Code Camp idea would have become so successful? If you
have not attended one you work with .Net then you really should keep an eye on the
Code Camp master list.

Props to Virgina
College who permitted us to take over their classrooms for the day. Unfortunately
the building lacked any large rooms so when en-mass we were outside, still I hope
they allow us back next year:

























Virginia


College


 permitted
about 140 unknown geeks into their building – Thanks guys!



Everyone I
met was friendly and I very much enjoyed talking to these chaps at the pub club. From
the sounds of it I am pretty darn sure they will be attending next year

 



Even Mark
Dunn gave a presentation – can you believe these days are free too? I attended
one of Mark’s sessions both to hear his content, and to pick up steal tips
from a very experienced presenter. My own presentation was terrible (see the
next post) due to a projector issue flustering me beyond belief. You can see here
that Mark had a similar problem as me; the left of his screen is cropped –
evidently he knew exactly what to do and carried on presenting commenting on it only
once.



Is this a UN Food
Drop or Free Books?



Turns out is was
free books and games. Joe is
seen here enforcing the 30 seconds to choose rule

 

The End – A Microsoft employee doing some physical labor. Would you ever see a Sun/
Oracle or Apple employee do this? Microsoft hires some great people and appears
to filter out the elite snobs – I believe this is why we now hear much
less of the ‘M$ is evil’ talk from the Linux/ Java guys.

So personally?
Well my presentation really sucked. Aside from the Mobility Group kick-off presentation
last year when Lariam kicked in this was
my worst 60 minutes by a long way. It
was good experience to fail though as it is a lesson learned. I was flustered by the
projector cutting off large sections of my screen and kept blanking on details + mixed
up a few acronyms while trying to code in a tiny screen area making sure it could
also be seen on the overhead. On a very bright side it finally looks like Lariam has
worn off – a year ago a panic attack would have rapidly built up and I would
have wanted to escape the room asap (if you go to ever Africa think
very hard before taking Lariam to prevent Malaria – side effects of
drugs do hit some people and Lariam defines the term ‘living hell’).

The speakers were
the best I have seen at a Code Camp since

Florida

‘s in Ft Lauderdale. Being a speaker it is always a toss up between hanging out
in the speakers lounge (good networking) or attending presentations (learning opp
+ I pick up presentation techniques). This time I saw as many presentation as possible
but still met lots of stars including Wally and David.
Talking of stars many of the developers I met really know their .Net - I wish
I had the memory to list all their names here. I look forward to meeting them again
next year.

There is so much
more I would love to write about the day, but very few people read long posts
so I will end now with a final thanks to Bruce
Thomas who put a lot of effort in to organizing and planning this day – our
conversion was cut short at the pub club, but I was hoping he would tell
me all about working in Japan which must be fascinating.