Roadtrip with Stuff, but not Fluff

Elastic Path Professional Services Manager Frank Chin (featured on Get Elastic Podcast #4) led a rag-tag team of developers down to the “No Fluff, Just Stuff” symposium in Redmond Washington. Here is his blow-by-blow, “stream of consciousness” account of their learning adventure and roadtrip hi-jinks.

Dateline: Sept. 15th, Interstate 5

Note: THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THEIR IDENTITY, FOR EXAMPLE RALPH IS IN FACT SEAN, ELVIS IS IN FACT MARKY MARK AND SO ON:

Friday Sept 15
6:45 AM - Time to wake up pickup the professional services people and head to the No Fluff just Stuff Software Symposium in Redmond.

9:50 AM - Crossed the border and are awaiting Ted and Elvis who had to stop at the border

10:25 AM - Where are they? Are they getting interrogated or worse?

10:30 AM - Nope, it’s all good, they are here. What happened?

Border guard: “Where are you going?”
Elvis replied: “To Redmond for a software conference.’
Border Guard: “Oh, with Microsoft?”
Elvis replied: “No, Java” {Elvis then proceeded to explain the difference between Java and C# etc.}

No wonder they got detained. The question is, “Is the border guard now a .Net fan or a Java fan?”

11 AM - Who would have known one of calm developers is a big rap/hip hop fan and that Einstein guy, is he speeding ;)

12:30 - We arrive at the hotel, register and jump into the first track. Some are off to Javascript exposed, me to Practices of an Agile developer. Venkat has some great advice and horror stories to share.

3:15 PM - JavaScript Exposed Part 2 offered insight into the bowels of JS. Kinda felt like a university computing course.

5 PM - Open Source Agile Dev tools - Some great stuff. Dev, testing, performance, automation, modeling and PM tools. We need to try some of these. I hope someone went to the code auditing tools, the ACEGI security or the Ajaxian faces.

6:45 PM - Dinner and keynote speak on DSL - Domain Specific Languages - the next best thing. Looks really cool, but by the time we finish (8PM) I’m tired from driving and learning; my level of learning and retention is shot.

9 PM - Good thing we stopped at the Duty free because there is nothing to do in Redmond. The bars close at 10 pm. I guess all the nightlife is over at Microsoft :)

11 PM - Marky Mark is the king of Texas Holdem. We’ve played 2 rounds of poker for fun and he’s got Horseshoes in his deck. Elvis, Sean, Joanne, Maveric, Einstein and finally myself. Einstein loses to Marky Mark, but he’s determined that tomorrow he’ll have revenge. Sean was 2nd to leave and must wear the Burger King crown to tomorrow sessions.

12 midnight - We are still sitting around talking about cool things we’ve learned today and any topic under the sun.

Saturday Sept 15

8:05 AM - 5:40 PM - Wake up and off to breakfast and after the King Sean makes his appearance then everyone is off to one of Ajax Architecture, Rules Engines, Java Performance Myths, Real-world Agile Development, User Stories, Google web toolkit, Java Collections, FitNesse, Java Memory, Groovy, Agile planning and Selenium are some of the sessions attended.

7 PM - Off to Mexican food and celebrate Joanne’s Birthday! These Burritos, Enchiladas, Chiles Relenos, Tostadas, Moles, it’s all so confusing.

9 PM - Everyone anxiously joins the poker table. This time Bill and Estelle (the newbies) join in. Estelle is a card shark, taking great pleasure in spoiling Elvis’s plans. Marky Mark joins the spectators as only Maverick and Einstein are left. After a titanic struggle only Einstein remains!

12 Midnight - Everyone is still buzzed from the technical talks, or maybe that’s the buzz from the Level Vodka? ;)

Sunday Sept 15

8:45 AM to 2 PM - Good morning and off we go again. AOP, Agile, Productive Programming, advanced debugging techniques, Adopting Agile, Tapestry, and an open debate are all on the menu

2:45 PM - We leave Redmond for the highway.

3:30 PM - We arrive at Tulalip to do some outlet shopping.

6:30 PM - Drop by Target to get a few odds n ends. Wow some wines are $6.95 a bottle!

8 PM - Cross the border

10:30 PM - I arrive home after dropping everyone off, what a weekend.