Atlanta

It is with great sadness that this is happening. While being involved with user groups I tried to accomplish the goal of making them a more open and inviting place for newcomers regardless of their .Net expertise. Yes the C# group is targeted towards developers/ architects with advanced knowledge, but again a core aim of mine was to prevent it being a clique of regular members.

From email feedback it appears that many people learned a great deal from my presentations. Delivering those presentations was a great help in recovering from a side effect to a Malaria vaccine called Lariam. If you are the 1 in 10,000 who gets hit by the side-effect then this is a very nasty drug and it has taken me many years to recover. No one knows how it works chemically, but the worst side effect was paralyzing fear in social situations. The technical term is fight-or-flight which translates to ‘wanting to leg it asap’ – this even happened in cubes of colleauges and at the dinner table with friends! It was quite embarrassing and at times debilitating. Anyone who saw my kick off to the mobility group was witnesses to such an episode

A post on Lariam is about to happen, hence I mentioned it above. Yes, posting about it publicly can only harm me – over the last few years a few individuals have used it against me in the work environment. Now I am 99% recovered I see no problems with work, but am aware some selfish individuals who read this post will use it as leverage against me. After overcoming a personal hell with the drug, I need to make a Google accessible post for new suffers to find – the first few months were utterly unbearable and if I can help any future sufferers that is worth far more than a few blows to my career.

So the reigns of the C# Group are officially handed over to the group’s ‘second in charge’ Keith Rome. Maybe later in the year I will be invited back to help the C# group out again? If not I am sure Keith will continue to take the group forward keeping the content very technical.

What I am doing with all the spare time? After a recent round of interviews with some of Atlanta’s best Architects my head will be down in books trying to catch up to their level. IMO it is easier to learn advanced material from books than user groups, but the groups can be great motivation to learn. Hopefully I will find time for cycling again and hang out with the great bunch of guys and gals I used to see before last year’s wreck.

Finally: a BIG thanks goes out to Doug and Kirk of Microsoft. They put up with a tremendous amount from us user group people and have the patience of saints dealing with some members. Please everyone try to appreciate
what they do for us, and do not hassle them too much. They both go far beyond what their job asks of them.

This is not really a tech-geek thing. The first meetup is on Wednesday, February 16
at 8:00 pm at Hand in Hand (Midtown yuppie place and yes, they have black napkins!).

http://metroblogging.meetup.com/16/

http://atlanta.metblogs.com/archives/2005/02/metblog_meetup.phtml

Probably I will be out of town, but know a couple of those people via email, so will be there next time.