*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

Wow, what a day at CodeMash.  It has been busy.  I did two presentations today and I am worn out.  I’ve got to see a lot of people that I haven’t seen in years and got to meet people that I knew of through the blogosphere that I finally got to meet.  Here are some of the people I’ve bumped into at CodeMash in no particular order.  I’ll probably update this post as I take pictures of more people so keep checking back.

CodeMash Organizers

Ok, I said these were going to be in no order, but I thought it really wouldn’t be fair without putting those who worked extremely hard to organize this community run conference on top.  Without these guys, we wouldn’t even had a conference and they totally deserve their props.

Jim Holmes – The FrazzledDad himself, author and CodeMash organizer.  Without Jim, CodeMash may have never happened, who knows!  I don’t think I saw him without a flowered shirt and shorts the entire conference.   January 19th was noted as “Windows Developer Tools Day” by O’Reily as well.  This is a rare and priceless photo of the author holding his book.  And for the record, no he didn’t give me a copy for this priceless promotion on my blog. 🙂

Jason Gilmore – Jason works in the open source space with the publisher Apress.  I met Jason in Seattle, WA during an Asp.Net Summit last September and he was sitting right behind me when our bus got hit by some woman.   Jason was responsible for organizing all the speakers, agendas, schedules, etc.  Lots of work so if you see him around, Jim told me he does accept hugs and kisses for payment for all of his work.

Brian Prince – I met Brian last year at Tech Ed Boston thanks to the connection with Drew Robbins.  Brian basically wrote all of the IT for the conference.  Everything from the http://www.codemash.org web site, to registration, printing badges, a Windows Form application to register members at the conference and so on.   By the way, this is also a rare photo because it shows Brian with hair before shaving it off at the end of CodeMash.  I have a video along with tons of other people that I will try to get uploaded soon of Brian and Josh Holmes shaving their head to get the attendees to blog about CodeMash and help spread the word.

Jason Follas – I also met at Tech Ed last year.  We had a good time and we’ve stayed in contact since.  We even met up after Tech Ed in Livonia when I was in town where Jason learned that a penny saved is just a penny.  An ISM that he will surely carry to his grave and live by for the rest of his life.  Although he’s not presenting at the conference, he’s on staff at CodeMash and spent a lot of time gathering swag, checking rooms and helping out with whatever was needed. 

Josh Holmes – Josh roasted me in a comment for not making the list (like I would forget him).  He was already on the list but was going to make a guest appearance in the video of his head getting shaved.  Due to upload issues, I’ve resorted to my backup plan of this picture with Josh presenting at the conference on SOA.  He was also the conference MC.  I’ve known this skin head for a couple of years now, mostly while he was at SRT Solutions.  Recently he officially swallowed the blue pill and joined Microsoft as an Architect Evangelist.

Attendees

Michael Kimsal – PHP programmer, ex-coworker, friend.  I haven’t seen Mike since the last time I saw him (kidding).  Actually it has been several years.  He now lives in North Carolina and even has a podcast show called http://www.webdevradio.com.
 

Dustin Campbell – I finally got to meet Dustin after reading his blog for awhile.  Dustin works for Developer Express along with Mark Miller which is responsible for CodeRush and Refactor.  If you are at CodeMash, DEFINITELY stop by the booth so Dustin can show you these tools.  Very cool.  Dustin also receives The Elder Award for the most cackles during the conference.

Bill Wagner – Mr. C# and Microsoft RD Bill Wagner is here along with the rest of the SRT consultants.   It took 5 pictures to get him to smile but he finally gave it up (the smile that is). 

And if you hang out at the SRT booth long enough he may give you a USB drive.  If you want to get one without asking then shower Bill with praises about his C# books and LINQ articles he’ll cave in.  Yes it turns out, flattery will get you everywhere with Bill.

Richard Perry (PHP and .Net developer), Jay Wren of ADP and .Net developer, Dustin Campbell from Developer Express and Jennifer Marsman, our Microsoft Developer Evangelist.

Chris Risner – Chris works at Quicken Loans where I work and is a top notch .Net developer  in both the Smart Client space as well as the Asp.Net space.  If you mention the word Ajax or beer, you have his undivided attention.  Oh, in a past life he also programmed in Java.

Dan Chrobak – Another Quicken Loans team member that made it to CodeMash.  Dan has been doing Java for several years but is working his way into the .Net space.  Dan said he wanted this pose to go out to all the ladies in the blogosphere.  I quickly pointed out that 99% of my readers are men and for the 1% left .5% goes to my lovely wife Ellen, and the other .5% goes to my beloved Mother.  He then of course retracted said statement and told me to tell my wife and my mother hello 🙂

Richard Perry – Richard came all the way from London to bless us with his precense.  Ok, that is a lie but Richard is British and since he is British his accent provides endless hours of amusement.  Combine that with my southern dialect and you have an interesting conversation no matter what is being discussed.  Richard is constantly torn between PHP and .Net and is currently seeking counseling to work this out.

Drew Robbins – Midwest Microsoft Developer Evangelist and good friend Drew shows us his tired eyes from the exhausting schedule of the conference.  He also gave a talk on building Vista gadgets.  I also got to meet his daughter and his wife late Friday evening.  He is still recovering from the Ohio State loss to South Eastern Conference team Florida.

Patrick Steele – I finally got to meet Patrick.  I’ve been reading his blog awhile and he recently peaked my interest with his new mobile blogging application he’s been working on to blog from his Windows Mobile 5 phone.  Most of the articles he posted while at CodeMash were from his phone which was cool.  I stopped him in the hall to grab a peek at the application and it is pretty nice.  Hopefully he’ll take it and post it to CodePlex as I suggested so the rest of us could chip in on it.