Conference Memories

In honor of tomorrow's virtual SEC, I figured I would reminisce over conferences of the past. So many great memories and so many pictures to choose from, I narrowed down to some of my favs in the past 4 years.




Meeting Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and being heckled by Gilbert Godfrey is somewhere near the top of the list. I really did like him in Aladdin!






There has always been an ongoing Star Wars theme for us geeks! I am surprised we haven't had a full cos-play event at one of these things yet!






Swing dancing was probably my favorite of the interactive, not that it ever stopped me from dancing at any of the parties. I generally had to warm up the dance floor for a good hour or two at any event before I could convince others to join me (or maybe they just needed that time to have some liquid courage)

I fear (and yet would probably still be very amused) should Jim ever decide to create a video montage of my dancing antics.








Go kart racing was a blast in Fort Wayne, even tho my car got buried in the snow... And who could forget snow doughnuts? Gotta love those vendors!








While most everyone loved their cardiac arrest in the bun in Philly - I really could have gone my whole life without a cheesesteak, but what a great photo op for the Symi-Mafia!







And who could forget the infamous recreation of Milli Vanilli's blame it on the rain in San Diego? That evening set an all new standard for male chest bumping in water!










Or what about JBF's inappropriate care bears in San Antonio?








Or the trip to Sun Studios in Memphis? That's where I officially became a published recording artist with "pretty hair" sang with Elvis's mic and got to play Johnny Cash's guitar!






And the countless karaoke songs sung - I think I covered all of the Madonna "Like A" songs over the years... Virgin, prayer, etc...






Or creepy drunk Santa who wasn't really all that creepy or drunk after all?







And dodgeball!!! Oh how I miss playing dodge ball this time of year!






While I am sad to not be on the tennis courts today, I am looking forward to the next two days and virtually networking with my people. I heart my Symi friends!!! I wonder if we'll crash the chat servers or if there will be a side FB conversation? I'll be playing virtual dodgeball tonight for old times sake and hoping to make new, yet I am thinking somewhat less photogenic memories this year!

non-distracting alpha

After spending a week dedicating my brain to the efforts of release testing, I had a realization of just how distracted office life is. Prior to my arrival at my current employer, I was telecommuting and enjoying the associated super-productivity. When I made the job switch, I continued the super productivity, but it took much more effort and longer hours.
I enjoy being in the office, I am a social creature at heart, but my work often suffers from the little distractions here and there. When I am in my "zone" I get amazing things done in minimal amounts of time. I can multi-task like there's no tomorrow. But when you add in the chatty noises of people on the phone all day within earshot, the movement of 200 people in a high rise building, and the general distractions of working in this environment, productivity goes down hill.

Last week I was able to work up 13 defects (in the office this work normally takes me 3-4 weeks to research and complete). I even managed to learn the missing pieces of my IDL knowledge base (not that anyone wants to be a know it all on indirect lending, but it helps when debugging) I didn't have much free time (no shopping or beach trips) but I feel super accomplished and refreshed. I didn't even manage to get in my traditional CA sushi fix! I am still a little shocked about that one. I did find a break for fish tacos, a late night dinner trip to Asti (super yum Italian seafood in gaslamp), and was able to meet up with a few friends for late night meals/drinks. Just not my normal CA travel agenda, which was fine.

I also managed worked in a 3:20 am showing of Watchmen on the last night, banking on the long flight home to recoup some sleep time. I figured it was a good reward for working 12-14 hour days between alpha and keeping up with projects back home. My favorite line of that movie being "I am used to going out at 3 a.m. and doing something stupid." I think the lack of sleep and the timing made that way more hilarious than originally intended. I loathe the color yellow, but the film was made well enough for me to ignore my normal annoyances with color palates and allowed me to focus on the great storyline. (I think I would have liked giant CGI squids better for the ending, but that's just me)



Misc thoughts on the upcoming release:
*account number change - great idea, but can't use it with remote poster/failover D :(
*loan queue enhancement - bug free and looking forward to the screen and field additions
*masked hb param changes - again long time coming security feature that will be put to good use
*syc off/onhost - possibly my favorite list item
*ezwriter datafiles - I don't use ezw, but I know alot of people who will appreciate this addition
*created by fields - looking forward to this one and modifying the fmhist searches out of existing specfiles to speed up processing
* lots of good stuff in this release and nothing too crazy to warrant months of pre-load testing

It was a great week. I learned alot and was able to share my brain with a few other industry people in the process. I will have to get make-up sushi another time :)

Utah

It was wonderful seeing my BFF in Utah. I just wish I could have stayed longer, or that it didn’t require airlines to see each other. Maybe one of these days we’ll get around to residing within driving distance of one another.

Short summary – CATS was a lot of fun… all-day-spa-day was super excellent… baby Greta is such a cutie and such a good baby!!!... I miss having cats… ART!!! - George Bush made out of army men!!!... crafty witch places are super fun… pumpkin gnocchi and mojitos – yum… I miss my BFF already!!!

And I am all too aware that I don’t have enough time to blog or do anything else lately in a timely manner!

Client Conference Summary

So here's my not so brief summary of last week...

Left for San Diego on Monday morning. Flight was okay, nothing special. Arrived in San Diego around 11am, grabbed a cab and learned cell phones while driving are now illegal in San Diego. Watching the cabbie try to conceal it was amusing.


Arrived and checked in and realized I was super hungry. Lucky for me my people knew people and those people knew where to find good sushi. Not quite Zenbu mind you, but a great place in Hillcrest with a little front people watching area. Followed that up with drinks at a local dive bar and shopping/pedicure at Horton, then back to the hotel to go over my presentation. By the time I made it back to my room it was 5pm or so and there were flowers and a huge bottle of grey goose waiting for me. I called the front desk and was informed that they were two separate gifts, both from anonymous people. So whomever sent the wonderful treats - a BIG Thank You!!! I just wish the gift givers would start identifying themselves so I can thank them in person!

So Monday night, a group of us met up in the hotel lobby bar, the undocumented meeting place for SEC. A group headed out for dinner with CUTEK at Flemmings - Yum! Great dinner, super wine (Spellbound), and an over all fun group of people. Back to the hotel bar for more catch up with friends and then to bed for probably the earliest night of the week.

Tuesday morning - set up the Users' Group Booth. Learned knot tying from JBF. Taught myself that ironing a vinyl sign is a bad idea - but using a pillowcase makes it all better. Ran errands, did misc conference stuff. When I finally got around to registering I was reading Dan Rather's biography and suddenly looked at the attached page and had one of those surreal life moments. Thanks to the wonders of the alphabet, I was the first featured bio after Dan. - and yes I signed autographs all week.


Dodgeball was a blast Tuesday - great turnout! the rest of the pics are located at SSCUG.COM under SEC/Dodgeball. We even had a post dodgeball volleyball game this year. Fun Fun Fun. I even avoided taking a hit to the face this year! Woot!




Tuesday night was the poolside reception - I made it halfway around the pool and then it was time to run off again - so many people to see, so little time! The annual Trace party was fun. I can't wait to see the video! I spent most of the night on the dance floor (surprise, surprise) and Hung and Lapuz were amusing. The real surprise of the night was the SMUG awards. I took home the most likely to share free code (ok...not so much a surprise), and also the most participation in user groups(big surprise) - I thought JBF or Greg had that one for sure.

Wednesday started the conference - I tried to twitter along with the sessions. Twitter account - SYMIGODDESS so I'll leave those details there :) Dan Rather was great. I loved his anecdote of "go to hell, go to hell, go to hell" and I think he got choked up at the end. It was a little strange. He was speaking about what America needs to do to keep up with the rest of the world. It was amazing to see such an icon in person. What a great key note.

Wednesday night was the Wescom jam session. So for those that don't know - they were scheduled to go on earlier and it got changed at the last minute. This meant I wouldn't be able to sing and play guitar as originally planned. I heard they were great. I am so sad I missed the whole thing... Who has the video? :(

My dinner plans however, worked out just fine. Dinner at Peohe's was fabulous as always. I simply adore the Frangelico mahi mahi. It's to die for. And again - great company, wine, etc... it doesn't get much better. Once again my foodie roots win out over most everything else. After dinner we got a group together for karaoke and headed out to the Lamplighter. Yay! we closed the place down.

Thursday morning I presented my session - I think it went over well. I had a lot of great feedback after wards. I can't wait to get the playback. I had slight butterflies going in, but as soon as I made it to the stage they dissappeared and I had fun with it. I hope the attendees did as well.

Creative Solutions was a lot of fun this year as well. I was happy to see work from people other than myself. Last year got a little silly and I am happy to see all the great work people are creating - it gives me new ideas for my own "next big thing".


Thursday night we took a bike cab to the House of Blues and arrived to find a live rock band (video game) set up on stage. I have to say playing rock band on stage was one of the highlights of my trip. Silly as it seems - I have never had so much fun playing the game with live jeers and cheers. The crowd was great and I played until they shut it down for Belushi. I also got my other highlight of the conference from Ted and Kathy during rock band playing - a backstage pass to meet Jim Belushi!!! I was on cloud nine. Belushi was fabulous and played to the crowd all night long. Dancing on stage was a blast, but meeting him after the show was absolutely amazing. He was so down to earth and just an overall cool guy. He even teared up when talking about his movie with Tupac. Who would have thought?

We headed back out to karaoke again that night and once again closed down the bar. I even got in my 3am baja fish tacos. How I wish I could get those outside of San Diego and have them be half as wonderful!

Friday morning sessions were not as well attended. There were a few people probably hurting from the fun of the night before. I was up bright and early and finished up the morning with lunch at the Harbour House and a little souvenir shopping before heading back to the airport.

I get to the airport to find out I have been bumped up to first class. A perfect way to end the week. I had an absolute wonderful time in San Diego. It was great to see everyone again and live like a rock star.

short list of my favorite things from last week:
poolside mojitos
dodgeball ballet
albacore sashimi
smug awards
the hope of fat spiderman
dancing with Jim Belushi
hanging out with Belushi backstage
live stage rock band and scoring 100% on expert Maps and Wave of Mutilation vocals - and a 98% on guitar when singing and playing at the same time
almost bringing home a new guitar
repgen roulette
signing conference book autographs
endless karaoke with friends
pop out eye nemo pens - my favorite swag this year

Ocean City, MD and pet peeve #211

There is a difference between a variant spelling and a misspelling -- a dictionary will only record a spelling as variant if it appears in edited prose often enough that it's clear the editors are accepting it and not just overlooking it.
That being said the word "diricted" is not a variant of the word directed and should not be use in the sign shown here. Nor should it have been used on the other 47 signs in the go kart park I visited in Ocean City, MD. The not so bright managers of the Jolly Rodger SpeedWorld were also not amused at my concern over the misspelling.

Now don't get me wrong. I am by no means a grammar nazi, nor the holder of a Scripps Speeling Bee trophy. But the obvoius ones drive me nuts. Especially when standing in line facing one for 20 minutes waiting patiently to go 80 MPH around the track in a shell of a vehicle, loosely named the Gran Prix.




Note the required helmet. Seriously? At 80 MPH will it really make much difference in your survival rate? It might keep your decapitated head from receiving a good scalping at best.





But what else is there to do on a warm summer night on the beach thank go karts, boardwalk Ferris wheels and......




Thrasher's Salt and Vinegar Fries.
My all time favorite Ocean City treat!











Overall it was a great week... horseback riding, sailing and enjoying the surf and sand. I spent many childhood summers on the boardwalk and it's always amazing to me to come back and enjoy the same sights and sounds unchanged by time.
Same ferris wheel, same Slavic exchange students running the town's service industry with a thick accent and heavy smile. Granted the prices go up and up, but it's nice to know that I can still play skeeball for 10 cents at Playland on the same lanes I played on back when my father was alive. I have so many wonderful memories from that place.



I was happy to add a few more :)

I am a published recording artist with pretty hair

Memphis is on my list of favorite things.


Here' a quick recap of my week:

Went to sun studios, and cut my first album in the very same studio Elvis and johnny cash once recorded in. I even used the mic Elvis sang "that's alright" into ( had to sign a disclaimer that stated I would not "lick, kiss, or touch my mouth to it" I thought that was amusing.
I am in the airport right now, but when I get back I'll post some pics of my recording debut and the trip in general. When we went down to sun, it was early and they hadn't opened yet so we walked across the street to a coffee bar for breakfast. Halfway through breakfast a guy walks up, places a business card on the table, says "this is for you" and runs away (literally). It was so very odd. I picked up the card and read the name -keith something and it was a business card for the tire alignment business next door. I flipped the card over and it read "if you want to talk to someone new... I like to text mess I like your hair it's pretty"
It was creepy. We hung out in the coffee bar trying to figure out the back way in case he was lurking outside. He was, but he just stood at the doorway of the tire place staing me down and I ran back to sun studios. After we finished the tour and recording he was gone, but the whole situation was so weird!
Next we walked back down beale st. Had mint juleps at a side bar, grabbed lunch at a local grill then headed into gibson and took the factory tour. Oh the beautiful toys... My es-335 was made there :) my les pauls were made in nashville I found out and overall it was a ton of fun. I used my willpower and did not buy the light blue dave grohl custom piece I was drooling over. After gibson we visited the memphis rock and soul museum. They had a bunch of great exhibits. We headed back to the hotel for the vendor expo/welcome party. It was nice. A bunch of us headed back down to beale for drinks afterwards and more karoke. I wound up getting to sleep at 4am with a mystery bruise on my shoulder. The next day I gave a session on change control and documentation that went over really well. I got lots of great feedback. That night we went to graceland for dinner, music, drinks and dancing. Graceland was way way smaller than I thought it would be, but still lots of fun. After graceland we headed back to the hotel for a rooftop party and then back to beale for more fun. Yesterday I got picked to play jeopardy and wound up winning an ipod which I traded with some guy for a tom tom gps. I already have more ipods than I know what to do with.
I gave another session on rep dev, and then we went walking around and shopping. We wound up having dinner back at the hotel at chez phillipe. Super yummy 7 course tasting menu with wine pairings (3.5 hour meal)
It was a great end to a great week. Oh... And the waiter at dinner last night wrote his phone number down on a sheet of paper and passed it to me. Wtf? All week I have been getting cards, numbers, and weird looks. I need to find a new perfume or something. The running conference joke was about my "pretty hair". Everywhere I turned someone was handing me a business card with pick up line comments on the back. It was funny for about the first 5 times... I am so over it
Time to get on yet another airplane...

walking in memphis

how is it that I have never made it to this wonderful place before now???

sun studios

gibson custom showcase

bb king's blues club


I am thinking a Gibson guitar factory tour is in order. I will be in need of a miracle of willpower not to come home with a new toy.

Tonight was fun. dinner at BB King's, jazz/blues music, yummy ribs, fun drinks, followed by karaoke further down on Beale St. We had 20 or so people in our group and I was the only one who sang, so I said fuck it and sang twice. I heart karaoke!

tomorrow will be sun studios and gibson heaven. Then I will be speaking Thurs and Fri, and at some point we're doing a tour/dinner at Graceland too.

flew first class into memphis. I am getting spoiled and I may never travel coach again. Seriously, first class is the only place I can fly in comfort being this damn tall. A vendor was in first class with me and started asking the stewardess to take my picture with him for his blog. He was just being silly. She asked me later who I was and could she get my autograph. I was in hysterics. My new line... "No, I am not famous, that's just how I roll."

american airlines

So I checked this morning and so far both my md80's are flying today. The prop from alaskan airlines however is having mechanical issues so now I am waiting standby to try and get to portland before my miracle american flight takes off. Seriously, I am not having good luck with the airlines lately.

On cnn right now they're showing the you tube girl beat down. I can't help but laugh that it was a group of florida kids who did this. What the hell is wrong with that state? They're showing video of the girls in court, smiling and laughing. I wonder how funny they'll find jail?
They keep saying that th "worst" of the video isn't being shown. But what they are showing is pretty bad.

And then there is the polygamy sect out of texas. Hello? These places are everywhere! Why not shut them all down?
I think I just reminded myself of why I don't watch the news anymore. Its miserable and depressing. And I really could care less about rob lowe's nanny or tony parker's fake french mistress.

I am hoping to get to portland in time for a quick trip to powell's. I am out of books to read. Need non tv stimulation!

from zer0 to sixty blog posts

I am horrible about blogging, except for when travelling. And now with myspace mobile I am amusing myself via pda. Myspace, twitter, g-chat, and all the other randomness bookmarked on my phone to keep the insanity to a minimum.
I am in portland now, went out for a quick bite to gusteaus... I love their spicy mustard. But now I still have almost 4 hours to kill. in good news, american upgarded me to first class for the rest of the night. That will help with the 4 hour flight between here and dallas. Really doent do much on the midnight flight to sa.
Anyone else out there on twitter? I made fun of it for months, then I realized it's like having an emo type pad for random thoughts. Seeing as how my memory worsens over the years, the mini thought collection of twitter is a fun reminder and has less chances of poisoning me (ink on skin) I think I want a photo twitter. The restaurant restroom had a amusing sign on the toilet handle. It read up for number one, down for number two. Then it had a drop icon for 1 and a poo icon for 2. Very random, cute, yet disturbing potty. I guess it uses less water for pee than other waste?

In other randomness... I got my trader joes fix this trip and picked up a case of dried pineapple stix. I also managed to find mcminamins pear brandy. It's like taking a shot of everclear and then biting into a bosc pear.
I picked up truffles for coworkers and a random assortment of gifts for ppl. Some of which actually read this so I will warn that I suck at the whole surprise aspect.
Short list of fun finds;
Cthulu munchkin
Handmade cufflinks using parts from an old typewriter
Talking pigeon and book
Handmade marcasite swirly necklace
Garbage pail kids (circa 1986 still in original packaging) I wonder how nasty that gum is in there?
Small plastic dolphin
2 pairs of shoes
Baby onesie - dirty dancing themed "nobody puts baby in the corner"
And I am sure I forgot something.. But I don't feel like checking twitter to remember what it was :)

table for one

There is really nothing more depressing than eating alone. I travel a lot and over the years I have gotten creative about finding ways to amuse myself away from home. Sushi bars are alwyas good if you can find a chatty chef, benihana is another fun place since you wind up sitting with a group of strangers and it's fun to play along as part of the group. But there is no benihana here and I am burnt out on sushi, so I opted for a riverside grill with a nice view of the snow and mounatins. They wouldn't let me order food at the bar (which is another lone diner tactic) so here I am sitting at a table for 4. Alone. I keep getting weird stares and I know people are pissed about their hour wait since I am taking up a table. I am half tempted to go back up to the bar and invite some people to join me and avoid the wait.
After dinner I have nothing to do, nowhere to go. My flight (if american doesn't cancel it) doesn't leave until noon tomorrow. This trip has been fun, I got a really great response from the group on my presentation. Met lots of nice people and even had a few job offers which is always good for the ego. What I really want more than anything is to be home right now. But thanks to the wonderful FAA or whomever is responsible for the airline mess I am stuck in oregon, alone and bored. The slopes close at sunset so no more snowboarding, the shops close at 6 so no more shopping. All that's left is the bars and clubs and I am just not in the mood to do that either.
Blah

On a lighter note, I ordered a baked sweet potato and I actually got a sweet potato and not a yam! There is a difference! Yum yum. I guess I'll go back to my sweet potato solitude now :)