Life, The Universe, and Everything

More Changes...

MOSSLover — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:18:37 GMT

Stuff has changed drastically for me in the past two to three years. I moved over 1000 miles from Saint Louis. I go outside and I get up in front of crowds with less issues. Now I'm changing jobs again. I'm not really sure what to say here. I was obviously unhappy and I needed to do something different. So quit two days ago and I guess it worked out that I end with B&R this Friday, then head to TEC and SPS Huntsville and a week from this Monday I start my new job at Gig Werks. I'm not sure what to expect or where I'm heading, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I won't really know what kind of impact this will have on my life for at least another 6 months to a year.

For some reason I can't sleep tonight and I think it's really a reflection of my last day. Tomorrow is an ending and a beginning at the same time. So it's both kind of sad and exciting. I don't know why I'm really excited to go to Disney Land for the second time ever in my life time. I get to ride the Teacups. For the longest time when I was a kid I wanted to go to Disney Land. I wanted to ride the teacups. In 2007, at the age of 25, I rode the teacups for my first ever visit to LA. That was the start of finally syncing up with my childhood goals. I wanted to live near a major city. I wanted to visit all the major cities in the world. I wanted to see everything and meet everyone. This job change will probably turn into something great I just don't know it yet. I'm walking again outside my comfort zone and stepping into uncharted territory. In 2-3 years I'll probably write another blog post how this week lead to something great. It just stinks when you have to leave behind something you know and love. I will miss all my current colleagues, but I'm sure I'll gain some new ones and keep in touch with the old. To 2010 being a great year for change and hopefully by the end of the year I can say I went to Europe. To reaching my goals and my dreams. Don't let anyone stop you from getting what you want in life (unless you are axe murderer please don't kill anyone that's just wrong). Have a good weekend everyone!

Strange Happenings

MOSSLover — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:00:33 GMT

There are weeks we go about our life thinking nothing is going to change nothing will happen. Then there are other weeks a billion things happen at once. Friday started off very weird for me. I flew into Atlanta and I met some cool people for another SharePoint event. I had some good conversations. Saturday then hit me and my virtual machine bombed in my presentation after the auto updater ran. I was writing code on the board and describing everything in notepad. I would say as presentations go it was the best and the worst presentation all wrapped into one. The next day I was in Baltimore and I hung out with my aunt which was relatively uneventful and great. Then Monday hit and half my presentations failed or succeeded and my screen freezes so I start describing the code. I was on top of my game until Monday night. On top of the world. I'm exhausted I get into Raleigh and one of the craziest stories of my life happens. So my boss has been renting cars through Priceline this week I got a different company than the other weeks. The company gives me a Ford Focus and I plug in the coordinates on my IPhone where I want go. I head out and then I get to the destination hotel (or I thought I did). I go inside it's the wrong hotel the other one is a few miles away. I walk outside hop into the car and it sounds like a gunshot. Nothing is starting...Am I doing something wrong? No I'm not the car is completely dead in the water. I call the rental car facility and they tell me to call roadside they are closing for the night. Roadside says they can't give me a new car but they can get me a jump then I have to take it up with the facility. They send me a tow truck to give me a jump the guy can't jump the car. He tells me this vehicle was towed about an hour ago. He shows me a copy of a slip from when he towed it. We also notice the rental car company left one of there price scanning guns in the vehicle. I call up roadside and now they are interested in getting me a car because I need to be onsite tomorrow. They get the manager of the facility on the phone he apologizes profusely and he says he'll be there in 10 minutes. About 30 minutes pass and him plus another dude show up with a Ford Escape leather interior. At this point I hand him the gun tell him someone left it in the vehicle and that I'm not so happy with them. I ask them to comp my rental they can't due to Priceline, however if I call him again this week he can get me a voucher. It's about 2 am and I'm ready to get to the hotel I don't make it in the next morning until 10 am. I would say this was a crazy week all forms of technology are trying to tell me something. What I have no idea, but we'll see the outcome soon. I feel so weird tons of change is about to happen. I don't know if it's good or bad. I think this week is some form of omen.

Upcoming Presentations

MOSSLover — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:07:33 GMT

Conferences:

SSWUG.org VConference, 4 sessions, April 7,8, and 9, Register at http://www.vconferenceonline.com/shows/spring10/uvc/
SharePoint .org Conference, 2 sessions, April 18-21, http://www.sharepointconference.org/Pages/default.aspx
The Expert's Conference, Silverlight, April 25-28, enter the code "Gambit" when you register at: http://www.theexpertsconference.com/general-information/sharepoint-training/
SharePoint Saturdays:
SharePoint Saturday Charlotte, Silverlight, April 10th, Regiser at http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/charlotte
Code Camps:
New York City Code Camp, March 6th, Register at http://ny.codecamp.us
User Groups:
TRISPUG, March 2nd, Register at http://www.trispug.com/default.aspx
Central NJ .Net User Group, March 11th, Register at http://www.njdotnet.net/

SharePoint Saturday Boston Slides and Code

MOSSLover — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:57:28 GMT

Here is a link to the slides and code samples on my Sky Drive: http://cid-8e2654c5f01e6069.skydrive.live.com/summary.aspx?sa=624379842
In the future I will be doing a bunch of Stickam test presentations. Check this blog for information and my twitter account. I need more practice and I think Stickam or some other sharing outlet would help a lot.

Happy Birthday SharePoint Saturday!

MOSSLover — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:32:34 GMT

It was one year ago that SharePoint Saturday kicked off in Virginia Beach. Michael Lotter, Susan Lennon, and Kevin Israel thanks for creating one of the most successful events around the world. What started out as one or two events has multiplied into over a dozen events and then some. Thank you so much (especially Michael and Susan) for all that you have given to the rest of us. I wouldn't know most of you guys out there without them. It's been an awesome year. Keep up the good work.

Three Weeks…

MOSSLover — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:54:33 GMT

So I did it. I moved, I ran a SharePoint Saturday, and I attended a wedding. I can’t say everything went smoothly in the process, but I will say it all worked out for the best. I started out my stressful adventure a couple months ago with packing and changing everything over to the new address. Here is my account as best as I can describe it to you guys…

I woke up on Friday, December 11th at about 6 am after sleeping on the floor with my boyfriend. The mover’s came at about 7 am to pack the pod. The night before I moved all the boxes to the living room, so that the mover’s could get everything packed up. I also packed all the extra items into our cars. When the movers came one box ended up dropping, but the contents as I found out were not destroyed. One box cracked from stress and we taped it together. In the end we had to shift some items in our vehicles and we lost the 4 chairs that Leah, Jason, and I sanded down and re-painted. It was really sad, but I at least got to keep the table. After this whole ordeal Johnny and I took a nap on the floor, which was horrible and then Brian Laird came to pick me up. It was time to see Jeff Julian and a few other guys for a going away lunch. We had lunch and Brian and I went to run a ton of errands, such as creating the welcome letter for the event and the online surveys. We ended up at the hotel around 6 or 7 and I saw Lee Brandt. We unpacked everything from Brian’s vehicle and the speaker dinner started for SharePoint Saturday. It was a really great dinner, but I really cannot remember half of it. I was exhausted. A little later we ended up hitting Kinko’s, Brian, Karthik, and I to print out a ton of material for the event. That night we stuffed all the folders as best we could (250 or so folders). They looked awesome, unfortunately we all got to bed around midnight. I left Johnny sleep late.

Saturday, December 12th started with Susan and Gary Lennon giving me a ride to the event. This day was a blur, but from what I can remember a couple crazy things happened. KnowledgeLake was police escorted to the wherehouse at the community college, so that they could find all there banners and such for there booth. A few sponsors showed up late, but everyone in the end got there stamps. From what I can understand everyone was happy with the venue. Next time the electronic stuff might work better if a kiosk was available. The wireless access guy was downstairs instead of upstairs so a few people got lost. All in all we ended the day at Talk of the Town having dinner together. At night we all played dreidel in Joy Earles room which was a ton of fun.

Sunday, December 13th was my last day in Kansas City for a while. We started our adventure at Jerusalem Cafe with Johnny, Eric Harlan, Joy Earles, and Cathy Dew. We got the Flaming Cheese and I got to eat the Vegetarian Platter for the last time. Then we went over to the Boulevard Brewery for a tour. I brought Cathy to the airport afterwards and headed to St. Louis. I saw my friend Jaimie that night.

Monday, December 14th was great, because I got to eat a Simon Kohn’s and Meskeram. It was the perfect send off for St. Louis. I bought a ton of beer at Schlafly for the guys in Jersey and some for Leah and Jason. We had our last night of drinking before I headed to the east coast.

Tuesday, December 15th was a day of driving. We got into Columbus around 6 or 7. I vaguely remember this day. It was pretty uneventful.

Wednesday, December 16th was pretty stressful. I got into Columbus, MD around 2 pm or so. I stopped at a McDonald’s by my aunt’s house. I decided it would be a good idea to call the apartment complex. They had no idea we were coming. This is when the pain started to set in. After hours of talking to these guys Johnny worked it out so we got a 2 bedroom. We did not get the 2 bedroom that we wanted, so we had to change a few things the next day was going to be hectic. We had to get up at 4 am.

Thursday, December 17th was a quick drive and we were at the apartment complex. I had to wait with Gambit in the car for a few hours. It was cold outside so I tried to keep the car heated as much as I could. When the lady showed up she said I needed a money order. My bank was not located in this area. The closest branch was somewhere in the midwest. I had to frantically drive around trying to get money. Finally after moving some money from one place to another and getting money out of this and that account I had the money order. We were able to pick up the keys and tour the apartment. After a few hours of waiting for the Pod to show up and the clock hitting almost noon I called up the company. There was a problem with the machinery, so they could not come until 1:30. Luckily I was able to catch the guys I work with who helped me out. When they arrived around 1:20 the ABF pod guy arrived after I chased the truck (literally ran after it). Everything was unpacked and then we went out to buy all the things we needed.

In the coming days insurance was changed, licenses were bought, and furniture was purchased. In a few weeks we might actually get settled in.

Friday, December 18th was hectic, because we were balancing the drive to Philly and getting stuff done. Luckily, we got to Philly, but it took us 3 hours because of pending snow and traffic. I saw some of my cousins and ate some awesome food. We got home and decided to stay in Saturday due to snow.

Saturday, December 19th was a ton of unpacking and staying inside. Unfortunately, we had no food and it was pretty bad outside. We got a lot unpacked and assembled. It was the first day it was beginning to feel like a real place to live.

Sunday, December 19th was the day of my cousin’s wedding. We made it to the hotel in record time. Pictures were taken and the festivities were had. I was confused with half of what went on because this was my very first Jewish wedding I can remember. It was cool to see all the little rituals. I don’t really know the guy all that well but I think my cousin will be happy. That night I brought my dad back with me to my apartment so that he could help us lift the tv. The tv was a little crooked but things ended up ok overall. I went back to Philly and got to hang out with my grandmother for a little bit.

Of all the days in that 2 week period I think it felt rushed and I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I should have enjoyed it. I loved all the stuff, but I would have loved to space it out a little more. I think next time (if I ever do it again) when I run a SharePoint Saturday I need to space it out away from any major events. I’m glad everything turned out ok, but I was insane to do all that stuff in the same 2 week period. I think I’m still recovering from all the events. I probably won’t fully recover for another 2 months.

Technorati Tags: SPS KC,Crazy Times

Perspective…

MOSSLover — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:28:27 GMT

Every time around this year we have about 800 blog posts on how great or how horrible or what happened in the year or the decade. The decade is closing and I will say this that it was one of my favorites. I graduated from high school, college, and I started my first real job. I was active in LGBT rights clubs, Interfaith Clubs, .Net User Groups, SharePoint User Groups. I lead the planning of 2 successful SharePoint Saturday events.

I attended these events:

MOSS Camp St. Louis (2008 and 2009)
Tulsa School of Dev (2008)
Tulsa Techfest
SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach, KC (2x), NY, Boston, Charlotte, Ozarks, Tulsa, Chicago, DC (2x)
SP Tech Con San Francisco
Hartford Code Camp
Raleigh Code Camp
SharePoint Conference

I visited these user groups:

Jacksonville Office Geeks
KC Office Geeks
KC .Net User Group
Omaha .Net User Group
Omaha SharePoint User Group
St. Louis .Net User Group
San Antonio SharePoint User Group
Heartland Developer’s User Group SharePoint SIG

I guess what really sticks out for me over some of the other people out there is that I became an adult in this decade. I was 17 years old when the last decade ended with a pipe dream that I would one day get a college degree and leave St. Louis. The icing on the cake is that I left St. Louis. I live at least 900 miles away from home and about 1 hour and 20 minutes away from New York City. If there are actually college students or high school students reading this blog the best I can tell you is keep persisting. Keep going. You can do it. I did it. It doesn’t matter if you live in the tiniest town in the world. Just go out there take a risk take a chance and you’ll end up with what you want eventually. All I can say is be patient and don’t give up. Keep this in mind when you pass onto the next the decade. It might take you a whole 10 years maybe less maybe more, but you’ll get there. Happy new year everyone!

Technorati Tags: New Year's,Decade,Perspective

Major Conference Cherry Popped…

MOSSLover — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:20:15 GMT

So you are going to an event with 7,000 people that have similar interests to learn about a product that you have a vague idea about…I was excited prior to the event and nervous. I had a very bad week before the event. Every piece of technology that I brought with me to St. Louis broke. I had little sleep trying to get my code done and my technology to the point I started out with that Monday. Finally by Friday I was beat and hung out with my friends…On Saturday I went to Coders and everything after that was a huge blur…I think I boarded a plane to Vegas. I’m pretty sure I saw Susan Lennon and a bunch of other people, but honestly I feel like every social gene in my body has been used up for a while. I talked to sponsors, old friends, new friends, random people came up to me and said “So you are MOSSLover”…I got a lot of shwag and then it was over. I realized it’s awesome to attend the major conferences, but I love Code Camps and SharePoint Saturdays or smaller conferences better. I get to meet people and spend time with them. I did have a good time, but it felt like I barely had a minute to spend to myself. I didn’t drink, because if I had started drinking alcohol for one second I would have missed something cool. I attended all but 3 sessions. I woke up every single day and attended the first session of each day. I’m still trying to process what I think about 2010, because it’s just insanely amazing and too much. How cool is it that I no longer need a hojillion sticks of ram in my computer? Isn’t it nice to load up the interface and have a nice Ajaxified prettiness? Isn’t it nice to finally hear about WCF being the standard for webservices?

Here is for round 2…I remember 2007 I was reading people’s blog entries…I remember thinking I wish I was as happy about my job like so and so. I know I’ve said this before, but I love what I do. Ever since I got involved with the community, despite partial times of insanity. It felt really nice to fit in somewhere when I have never in my life felt like I fit in anywhere. Thanks for that everyone. I really appreciate it. And so the insanity continues time for more SharePoint Saturday Kansas City planning and move planning. Maybe sometime next year I can breath a little more. See you all later…

Yes I'm Still Alive and Attending SPC 09

MOSSLover — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:30:31 GMT

So I scraped together the money and paid in full to go to the conference as I've said before. Here is a complete list of all the sessions I will be attending:
Monday
1:15 - Overview and Whats New for SharePoint 2010 IT Pro's
2:45 - What's New in Office 2010 for Developers
4:30 - Web Content Management in SharePoint 2010

Tuesday
9:00 - Building Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight 3 and SharePoint 2010
10:30 - FAST Search for SharePoint: Capabilities and Deep Dive
1:15 - Developing SharePoint 2010 Applications with the Client Object Model
2:45 - Deep Dive in SharePoint 2010 My Sites and Social Networking
4:30 - Building Applications with InfoPath and SharePoint Designer

Wednesday
9:00 - Workflow Development in SharePoint 2010 with Visual Studio 2010
10:30 - Business Connectivity Services Runtime and Object Model Deep Dive
1:15 - Developing with REST and LINQ in SharePoint 2010
2:45 - Extension Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools with New Designers
4:30 - Advanced Development for Silverlight 3 in SharePoint 2010

Thursday
9:00 - SharePoint UserGroups, tips and tricks for running a successful SPUG!
10:30 - Deep Dive into SharePoint 2010 Profile Store and Profile Data
12:00 - Building Service Applications for SharePoint Server 2010

I have no idea what to expect, but this entire conference is going to be information overload. When I started my blog two years ago you guys remember I was unhappy. I was sick of reading about all the places that people were going and the cool conferences they were attending. Well I'm finally going to one of the cool conferences. It may be the last one or it could be the beginning of a slew of conferences or I may go into hiding for a long period of time who knows. If you guys are attending any unofficial events I will be at ShareIndian, ShareLove, ShareSushi, ShareLumpia, and ShareHofbrau. I'm really excited to meet everyone who I've spoken with on twitter and other means of communication. It will be really nice to see some of my friends who I only get to see 3 or 4 times a year. I'm kind of at the point ready to explode half of me and half holding my breath so it lasts longer. If you will be there I will see you. If not hopefully I'll catch you at a code camp or a SharePoint Saturday. Catch you all another time...

devLink Slides and Recap

MOSSLover — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:49:13 GMT

For those of you looking for the slides for my presentation at devLink here is the link: http://cid-8e2654c5f01e6069.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Presentations/Webpart%20Development.pptx. Here is the code samples: http://cid-8e2654c5f01e6069.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/CodeSamples.

So most of you guys know I’m more of an alternative/rock type person. I don’t enjoy country music much. It’s just not my thing that I will go and seek out. I don’t fully hate most of it. In fact Johnny Cash is a huge exception to the matter. We went to a bar called Tootsie’s, but it really wasn’t my thing per se. Mainly due to the huge amount of people and the loud country music. I did enjoy the experience, because it was really different than what I normally end up doing. I actually got to hang out with live human beings rather than my computer and a hotel room or electronic avatars. I got to get to know Cathy Dew and see Dan Usher once more. I met a really cool guy from Indiana named Kevin who works with SharePoint (did you ever get your SSP issue resolved?). I saw Rob Foster for maybe the second time ever. I spent some time with him when he came to New Jersey last year when I first started with B&R he’s a really neat guy. Pretty laid back. Eric Shupps, the SharePoint Cowboy, is another person I got to spend some more time with. He actually took his hat off, which was kind of cool. No we did not exchange hats. Over my dead body will anyone other than myself wear my Cardinal’s hat…Anyway, despite looking like I was stressed and having a bad time I really had a good time. The best I can have for this particular time of the year. Next time though I am buying ear plugs or at least some type of country music to alternative rock convertor. If anyone is thinking about attending the conference next year go to devLink if you can swing it. It’s a cheaper conference that feels almost like a major conference. There was some good content definitely. That concludes my last speaking engagement for this year other than the Virtual UG this week…I am done with events and SPS, except for planning. I will most definitely attend some events next year, but SPS KC and moving is going to consume every waking month for the next few months. Anyway I hope that you guys have a good weekend and I will catch you another time.

Technorati Tags: devLink,Silverlight,SharePoint